I don't really know what to say at this point.
As far as the legality of what we did, I don't see a problem with it (at least I don't think so). The United States should be able to steamroll some random guy in Grenada or Venezuela if we feel like he's a bad actor. International law and the ICC is a bad joke and shouldn't constrain our behavior. Domestically, the War Powers resolution should allow the executive to do something like this.
The problem is, why are we doing this? And who is "we"? I have never seen convincing evidence that removing Maduro will reduce the flow of drugs into the US, or that it will remove communism from the country. As far as the oil, if Exxon Mobil or whoever is able to drill in Venezuelan oilfields now, that's great for them, but how does it benefit the rest of us? For some reason, I don't think Americans will get anything out of this.
The drug angle is especially stupid because Trump just pardoned another South American head of state (Juan Hernandez) who is on tape wanting to "shove cocaine up the noses of gringos."
The only country that tangibly benefits, at this point, is Israel, given that Venezuela has been a known and acknowledged thorn in their side for years. It's no surprise that the next presidential hopeful Maria Machado will not shut up about how many things she's ready to do for them.
Some people are alleging that China and Russia were establishing a foothold in our backyard with Venezuela. They do indeed supply some oil to China (2-5% of China's supply) but I haven't heard of any other involvement, certainly nothing substantial enough to warrant regime change.
I also have a problem with the example this is setting globally. We are going to charge a foreign head of state with possession of machine guns? So when Germany brings an American citizen up on charges for violating their hate speech laws are we going to pretend we're better than that? Are we still going to pretend that Russia invading Ukraine was unjustified?
If Maduro was repeatedly aggressing on the US and uniting himself with China/Russia, I don't think I have a problem with this. But I just don't see it.
The Chinese had fully bought and paid for the Maduro regime, and were building up their military with Venezuelan oil. Regardless of what other benefits this action may or may not have, securing that resource as a US asset and denying the Chinese access to it is more than enough justification.
Every leader in the American sphere of influence just woke up with a knife next to their pillow. Trump has just sent a message that he doesn't need to bog down his military in a decades-long "intervention" in order to get rid of people who fuck around. Maduro dared the US to go get him, so Trump did. In the middle of the night, they killed his bodyguards, yoinked him and his wide out of the country and just for good measure, cremated Hugo Chavez to send a message.
Where can you read about this?
Why are we just hearing this now? The three explanations offered were 1) drugs, 2) oil, 3) communism.
Chinese and Xi specifically "invested" in Venezuela
China "investing" in Venezuelan infrastructure---that is, buying government officials---in exchange for oil
80% of Venezuela's oil exports were going to China
Couple that with the Chinese government and all of their mouthpieces whining about Maduro's capture. Venezuela was the biggest recipient of belt-and-road initiative funding in Latin America: that program has always been about Chinese influence peddling in the second and third world.
Yes, Maduro was also a major narcotrafficker, and a Communist who impoverished a country that should be one of the richest in the world, but all three of these things are of secondary importance to the message this sends to the leader of every country in the US's backyard: I can yank out out of your bed in the middle of the night and there is nothing you can do about it.
This is embarrassing. That baboon literally just pardoned an actual narcotrafficker.
Have some dignity.
If you mean the former president of Honduras, who cooperated with cartels to move drugs through his territory, that guy was a facilitator, not a major player, and it's pretty fucking obvious to anyone who isn't suffering from terminal TDS that that pardon was in return for information that could lead to the arrest of much more important cartel leaders.
Imagine believing that Maduro is a major player and that guy is merely a facilitator.
Ah, totally forgot that this is 913-dimensional chess. Trust the plan, guys, and you have TDS if you question it.
You only have to play one dimension of Chess to offer clemency and protection to one criminal in order to get him to inform on other criminals. It's literally Criminal Investigation 101.
1D or 913D, it's obvious nonsense that you made up to try to excuse the inexcusable.
He pardoned the corrupt jackass because he was of the same party as the guy he was trying to prop up. No other reason.
Hell, Trump was directly threatening Honduras on election day what would happen if his guy didn't win.
I know nothing about the candidate he endorsed but it wouldn't shock me if he was another birth rate cultist.
[sane, reasonable comment.]
[sane, reasonable comment.]
[total craziness]
Still, have an upvote.
Come on lol, that's laughable. The only thing that's happened with the Honduran cartel since then is one of the case's major witnesses getting executed in prison with like 100 gunshots.
Takes time to build cases. I don't know if any of the information this guy clearly provided in exchange for that pardon will ever pay dividends. It might have been a bad call: it's just obvious that that was the deal they made.
There's no reason to believe that Hernandez' pardon will reduce drug trafficking and plenty of good reasons to believe it'll increase trafficking, at least in Honduras.
It's not even safe to nominally assume that the feds want to stop trafficking.
Where did the Trump admin say that?
Ah yes the JIDF poster lists Reuters as a source.
I'm glad you could climb off your handler's cock long enough to join us in this thread.
All of your links are dead for me.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you re: Venezuela & China re: oil.
But I've seen it suggested that while 80% of Venezuela's oil was being exported to China, this only represented 4% of China's oil imports.
With other's suggesting that Maduro's Venezuela needed Chinese buyers more than China needed access to Venezuelan reserves.
4% of China's imports according to China's official figures, which are always bullshit.
I don't know if regime change was the best way to solve that problem or if it will even solve the problem. Interesting, though.
I think the message this sends is Trump's way of forcing the problem to solve itself, and not just in Venezuela.
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/brics-on-the-brink-trumps-venezuela/
Speaking of Taiwanese chips.
Yup, and they'll be looking to protect themselves. Look to more countries developing nuclear weapons or getting closer ties to China. Rightly so.
Dude, it's literally three days ago. I assume that you would have been saying the same when Americans took Baghdad. "SEE, this isn't going to be a decades-long Vietnam, because decades have not passed yet".
What?
The military intervention in Venezuela is already finished. There are still US Naval assets in the ocean outside Venezuelan waters, but no US boots on the ground in the country. All the morons making the argument that this is another Iraq or Vietnam have rotten brains leaking out of their ears.
If other Latin American leaders take this as a queue to get closer to China, Trump can and will do the same thing to them. That was the whole point of this operation: it was a warning shot. He may not be able or even need to engage in full-scale military intervention to effect "regime change," but he can absolutely make sure that the individual leaders know there will be personal consequences for them. Maduro knew he was being targeted. He beefed up his security. He dared Trump to go get him. He let with Chinese envoys hours before he was taken. It didn't save him.
This action was governed by the only international law that has ever applied: might makes right. The liberal rules-based order was only ever in place for as long as the US chose to enforce it, and all the while American leaders let China, Russia and every other rival routinely break those laws without retaliating. And now everyone knows they won't anymore.
You don't know that. And Trump says the exact opposite. He's talking about boots on the ground, about running Venezuela, and about future strikes.
This is normally said by the kind of person who supported Iraq, Vietnam, Venezuela and every single war in between. It only takes them 20 years to admit that they were wrong, if they ever do.
This is stupid and delusional.
I guess the US should invade Canada, expel all of you to Somalia and annex your territory then.
I know Canadians are generally bootlickers, but this is just embarrassing.
If Trump wants to come into Ottawa in the middle of the night and yoink Carney, I'd be okay with that.
Stop comparing this to Iraq and Afghanistan and Vietnam. It is nothing like any of those, and to say it is is delusional. You had exactly this same meltdown when Trump attacked Syria, and exactly the same meltdown when he did it to Iran, and both of those were over and done before you stopped frothing at the mouth about them. You're the one who's having trouble admitting you were wrong. You were wrong then, and you're still wrong.
No, you said might makes right. Do the Americans have the power to come in and throw you into the ocean and settle your country, or not?
Don't you EVER bring up the wars that I previously supported. That's unfair! We should only ever talk about the wars that I'm presently supporting that haven't turned out to be complete catastrophes... yet.
And what great results those had, to bring to power in Syria an ISIS head-chopper. In Iran, your Israeli buddies want to get the war started up yet again. It's no wonder neocons never want to get into the specifics of the results of their previous maladventures.
I was right then, and I'm right now. Not an achievement, as anyone with two brain cells would figure out not to support neocon wars (unfortunately, I didn't have two braincells to spare, so I supported the Libya intervention). And you were wrong about every single war that you supported, which is all of them.
I never supported Iraq, Vietnam or Afghanistan you hysterical lunatic. Nor am I presently supporting any wars because there aren't any. The interventions you're hand-wringing about are already over.
Great if true. But the "never bring this up" is often used by people who supported those, and who want to talk about everything except what a fiasco the wars that they supported turned out to be.
What's the matter with you? Calm down.
The consequences of bad decisions don't end because you demand that they do. And like I said, your Israeli buddies want to restart the Iran war again. I bet that you will now say that this will never happen, and when it does you'll support it.
Trump tampered with Canadian elections last spring with all his 51st state BS to make sure Mark Carney, Trudeau 2.0, would get installed when our long faggotry nightmare decade was about to end.
So for whatever reason, Carney is Trump’s man instead of Zionist Millhouse doppelganger Liberal-in-a-blue-tie Pierre Poilievre (colors are reversed in Leafland, Red = Liberal, Blue = Conservative).
Exactly. Mutually assured destruction is the only way a country can reliably ensure their own continued existence these days.
Got any info on Hugo Chavez getting fried?
https://archive.is/mCxFN
"We" are doing it because Trump is dogwalked by Israel. No other reason.
This is why America is powerful abroad and helpless at home.
If you like and follow what Lindsay Graham says and wants, it all makes sense. You voted for Trump and got McCain and Graham. Congrats
What about the morality? Or is that simply not a right-wing thing? I see a lot of "new right" morons saying that "we should throw everyone to the wall and take their stuff". Mostly people who say that blacks lack the impulse control and are apes because they don't realize that they shouldn't take other people's stuff.
There's no "we" here. You don't get a voice. It's when the deep state, neocons and Miriam Adelson think that someone is a "bad actor".
(I see you addressed this later on.)
You weren't supposed to.
This isn't hyperbole. This is what they think. They think they're some new form of evolved "socialist man" that needs to replace everybody else.
So when you say "communists aren't people," you're agreeing with them.
Looks like you have a broken asylum system then.
Lack of impulse control...
Again, you just say stupid shit and think it’s erudite because your only litmus test for reality is your ego.
Never said it was erudite. I just pointed out that you suddenly advocate for taking other people's stuff.
Venezuelan Communists took Americans stuff first cupcake. Is taking it back bad now?
Are you talking about the nationalization not done by communists?
The US itself has regarded nationalization as a sovereign right.
Hugo Chavez wasn’t a commie you mouth breathing retard? He seized it in 2007.
I get into the morality later, at least from a peer standpoint. The New Right pretends not to care about morality, but also regularly condemns other countries based on morality (and sometimes Christianity). It's incoherent.
Didn't quite catch that. All those arguments could also be Realpolitik arguments against this - you don't want this set as a precedent for other countries doing the same.
For people who purport to believe in Christianity, they sure have very little regard for the Christian just war tradition.
That is something that is not easy. When white people are becoming a minority in the countries they built, those in power cheer for it and call them racist, get discriminated against and called racist for not liking it, being silenced for saying controversial things like white lives matter, morality is not sustainable.
Morality can be a thing if either everyone plays by it or the large majority enforce it equally.
Don't get me wrong, I think morality needs to be a driving factor here and the Venezuela hit job is a kick in the balls although I had my downfall with Trump from the Epstein stuff already but I do understand why morality as a decision maker does not matter when every leader of the modern world wants your extinction and cheers for it.
I've been struggling with that myself. If 100 nukes hit India I don't think I would care.
Who was it that did all those things? The same people who commit the nasty stuff in other countries. So I'm not sure that we should not criticize them for all that nasty stuff, because they also did nasty stuff domestically.
Well, you were wiser than I was, because I gave him another chance (I know it has zero significance). As embarrassing as it is to have defended Trump to Europeans on anti-war grounds, this now honestly feels liberating.
When I say 'morality', I don't mean following what they try to legitimate under morality. Part of morality, in fact the most important thing, is taking care of your own people rather than destroying them.
Because India, or just because it's another country? What if 100 nukes hit Japan?
Just India. We're all formed of our environment. Been working with Indians for a long time and I just can't stand them. They've invaded IT and are incredibly immoral to the point I hate working in IT because of them. The amounts of cheating, group preference and backstabbing is insane. I work on the premise of never interact with Indians more than the minimum required, always assume their hostile and never share knowledge with them.
I know it's wrong and immoral but trying to be moral when they aren't just doesn't work. I've had projects stolen and I've seen teams being hostiles to non-Indians to the point of removing every non-Indian from teams, cheating on metrics with the full support of their Indian managers.
I don't even blame you. There are people who revel in hating others, but you clearly aren't one of those. But I meant morality in terms of just war theory. I don't agree with wars of aggression or wars to steal people's oil, resources or possessions. I didn't think that was very controversial, but in three days it because very controversial on the American right.
I do blame myself to be honest and I am trying to not fall to much down that path as it is a horrible path to be on.
As for the rest it's crazy to me how many people are ok with what happened. Same people that wanted to stay out of wars, including not getting involved in Palestine vs Israel are more then ok with what happened.
That's actually a good thing, of course, the more for how rare it is. We're all fallen, but the moment we can really go off track is if we forget this and become too convinced of our own righteousness.
Bold of you to assume the feminist right has morals. They're the worst of both worlds. Might makes right woman worshippers, who won't hesitate to throw you against the wall and take your shit for higher birth rates.
I'm not very worried about women throwing me against the wall.
No, it'll be dickless tradfaggots like Kaarous doing it on their behalf.
I don't like Maduro, nobody does. But this lack of restraint with major issues shows a lot of psychological issues with the current right. Today it's Venezuela. Tomorrow it'll be whoever they hate most domestically. It's kind of ironic, they hate non-white people for acting this way, yet the moment they have a modicum of power, they're foaming at the mouth for the ability to rob people they don't like.
Hence why I left. The Commissar can cry at my former doorstep, they're not getting shit from me.
Blue Wave 26, because I do not want to see what the Vance cancer does with unlimited power and a disregard for human rights.
Dude, even MGTOW banned your ass AND your alt. 109 subs indeed.
You need to get over your weird obsession with him. You're more obsessed with him than he was with me, and he spent months downvoting everything I ever posted.
Agreed, except that I fear that this is your way of moving this to "SINGLE PEOPLE ARE BEING ROBBED TO FINANCE PARASITES".
I mean, these morons in charge are making a Democratic landslide inevitable.
It's not a weird obsession. He's literally a paid representative of the current government ideology. He's the closest you'll get to a window inside the retardation of Vance/Kirk '28.
They will come for single people soon enough, but it won't be just us. And regardless of what you feel about my opinion, you should pay attention because I guarantee even those laughing about people like me warning them, will eventually be hit because they crossed some arbitrary line.
There's no guarantee the Democrats will roll any of this tradcuck control mechanism back. That's the worrying part.
Neither you nor Antonio are Americans, what are you on about. If you are in Europe you're already paying thru the nose for maternal care. Freaking retard.
There's never a single reason for some complicated potentially-disastrous operation like this. It's all of the above.
But the biggest reason is "fuck around and find out". Blowing up drugboats, confiscating tankers, abducting the leader restore Trump's Madman Theory credentials.
Other reasons: Globally lower price oil benefits America over Europe because EU spent shittons on renewable. Disrupts drug supply. Some Venezuelans here will self-deport back. Bolster the election rigging message. Keep enemies from influencing our hemisphere. Safer travel through the Panama canal. Threaten Columbia for better access to the land bridge.
There's like a million upsides to the successful operation. Failure would have been worse than Bay of Pigs though.
I'm still caught in euphoria of how we did it over why we did it. no forever war, no civilians hurt, a few American injuries but no American deaths, plus the signaling to other countries "fuck around and your next!"
as far as military operations go, this was the best possible outcome.
there's also an interesting precedent set: the United States can wage war against a government, and not the people. historically, a war against a country always involved the people, there was no way around it. defending your country meant getting your house bombed, getting your food and supplies cut off, and even getting enslaved or raped. capitulating was not just about freedom, but also about weighing the pain of war versus the pain of capitulation.
with this military action, the United States demonstrates the suffering of the people from war does not have to be a factor. they will Target you, the head of the regime, and only you if they can.
This will never happen, due to the deep, deep rot within America itself, but there is a utopian timeline where America lives up to its promise and becomes the genuine protector of human freedom and opportunity by beheading regimes that are completely detached from the people they purport to govern.
But perhaps that's just me dreaming from under the thumb of Kier Starmer and his cronies.
it just happened
I was on the fence on the matter till I saw a friend crying with joy. I had forgotten he was Venosolano, and realized what it meant to him.
I once asked my Dad why Evita was so big in Argentina. She was extremely corrupt and self centered.
"Compared to everyone else, she was a saint"
South America has had to deal with Saints like that for a long time. Just having hope of a normal life is good enough for them.
Also, the war was all of thirty minutes long. Very few if any commoners were killed, and the leadership was taken down quickly. That's probably the biggest fear by the powers that be, their entire control could end in 30 minutes. Boots on ground won't even be a thing. The grand parades and battles will be only in history books. All attacks will be direct and quick. They want this power, but also realize it means it will be used against them.
Compare Biden's Ukraine war with Trump's Venezuela war. Which would you rather have?
Those are my thoughts on the matter.
First: I didn't think it was a good idea to go kinetic inside of Venezuela's borders.
That said, there's a lot in the indictment, but this is the only thing that I've heard any of the detractors discuss. Probably because it actually does seem pretty ridiculous. Listened to Redacted and Judge Nap talk about it yesterday, among others. But the rest of the indictment is pretty fucking damning. Robert Gouvea (Watching the Watchers) does a really good breakdown on it.
The simple fact of the matter is that we appear to have been in a one-sided war with Venezuela for at least a decade. I'm not sure how you resolve this without actually fighting back.
Netanyahu said Venezuela was a threat to Israel when he flew to visit Trump…
It's obvious this is being done to try and stem the bleeding financially from the retarded fiscal policy.
Venezuela cut ties with the IMF and World Bank in 2007. They nationalized their oil and expropriated ExxonMobil assets in the country that same year. Vanguard Group and Blackrock are the two largest shareholders. In 2009 Venezuela expelled Israeli diplomats and condemned Israel for killing Palestinians.
Chavez is quoting as saying "I take this opportunity to condemn again from the bottom of my soul and my guts the State of Israel: Cursed be, State of Israel! Cursed is cursed, terrorists and assassins!".
A few days before the raid, Benjamin Netanyahu with no proof was claiming that Iran was sending arms to Venezuela and that they were working together to harm America.
I have a feeling it was more about zionists getting revenge than drugs. 90% of drug trafficking comes from Mexico, by the US governments own numbers. Unless we see strikes in Mexico, it's all fake and gay.
Glen Beck actually nailed the Geo-Political game at play here (which is a fucking wild sentence to say): https://xcancel.com/glennbeck/status/2008289807374385386#m
Same with Firas Modad, but Geo-Politics is his job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhuqlU7rzA4
This effort is about out-maneuvering China and beginning to secure the Americas from Chinese influence. China out-maneuvered us badly by vassalizing Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, and damn near the UK, and even risking our nuclear naval deterrence with the UK selling an island to a Chinese proxy. That's nothing to say how undermined we've been in America.
Meanwhile with Venezuela and Iran in extremely vulnerable spots; China is risking an economic collapse with high energy prices, can not foment an invasion of Taiwan, it can not maintain BRICS maneuvers, and they just lost a monopoly on rare earth minerals. I suspect a new round of trade negotiations on China will probably start relatively soon. Meanwhile, Guyana (an American vassal state) is secure, and Leftist influence in Brazil and Argentina is going to be less well armed and weakened.
"We" aren't doing this.
From what I've heard, the machine guns charge is only applicable because of the allegation that he used those machine guns to traffic drugs to the U.S. That charge falls under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1):
Lol that's interesting but a huge stretch. I highly doubt Maduro was carrying a machine gun in furtherance of his drug trafficking crimes. I don't even know how involved he was in trafficking drugs.
I don't know how involved he was either. Maybe more evidence will be revealed in time, maybe not, but I don't doubt there were ulterior motives in capturing Maduro. People generally agree he was a communist though, which automatically makes him an unsympathetic target.
DING DING DING
The real reason Trump invaded Venezuela. - by FelixRex
In short: Venezuela was joining Bricks and this is dangerous for the Petro-dollar. Everything else seems to be lies.
For the same reason, Iran is the next target.
Venezuela has been anti-Israel since Chavez, and that's why the US has been trying to topple it's government for decades now.
It seems like they bagged Maduro but left his party running the country. I can't tell what exactly that means going forward.
The problem is that it is a distraction and a desperate attempt at some kind of a win. There are plenty of domestic problems that need solving, housing jobs and oh how about fucking arresting traitors and concentration on draining the swamp. But because trump can't do shit on those fronts, he's off okay world police again.
If any foreign country puts our people up for any crime we should send the delta force to rescue them and kill as many of the foreigners along the way as we can.
This isn't an era of peace anymore so stop pretending. Bow down to American superiorism or face the consequences.