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.
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.