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.
If that's the argument you've seen me make, then something about this action seems to have made you so unreasonably angry that you can't read or think clearly. I'll talk to you more whe you've got your head in straight.
Well, you just hallucinated two things that you asserted with great confidence that I said. I paraphrased your "this looks very stronk and cool" as what you saw above, and that certainly is much closer. Not unreasonable angry, although this retard repeatedly backstabbing his supporters to pleasure neocons should make one that.
Aside from the fedpilled "nothing ever happens" crowd in the stupid corners of the internet, Trump's supporters seem pretty universally happy with this move. Perhaps not quite as happy as the Venezuelans themselves are, but he has 85% support from Republicans right now. Despite the desperate black-pilling efforts from the groypers and other fed psyops, the MAGA base are pretty satisfied with Trump. They haven't been backstabbed: they're getting what they voted for.
I expected better of you than to fall for manufacturing consent based on AI-videos and fakes. But even if this were true, this is just a reprise of the earlier "we'll be greeted as liberators in Iraq".
Sorry, I forgot we're not allow to bring up your previous monumental regime change disasters.
So which am I?
Where did he announce that he was going to coup Venezuela, for them to vote for this? He announced the opposite. Same for Iran.
We'll see what happens in November. He's headed for a historic defeat. And rightly so.
He made it clear throughout his campaign that he was no longer going to allow America's enemies to bribe and bully their way into America's sphere of influence, to flood the United States with illegal immigrants and drugs, to corrupt American officials and the leaders of other states within America's sphere of influence. I have already told you that that is what this was about. This move was targeted at Russia and China, as everyone can see, because they were the ones benefiting from Maduro's corruption and despotism. Venezuela was a major transit route through which the CCP were funding their drug trafficking i to the US and waging their ongoing shadow war against American interests and institutions.
You keep trying to paint this as an act of aggression by the United States, but it wasn't unprovoked. It was a retaliatory offensive in a war that was already ongoing, a war that China started. This is how wars are waged in the 21st century: through corruption, subterfuge and cultural and societal sabotage, and Trump has decided that he's not going to allow America's rivals to pull that shit in America's backyard.
The Dems may shriek about it, as will the RINOcons, because that's where they're getting much of their income from, but Trump's base are pretty universally fine with it.
It is absurd to pretend that Venezuelans are not predominantly happy about this intervention, given that they voted Maduro out of office so overwhelmingly that their votrss overcame his attempt to rig that election in his favour, so he simply nullified it and announced that he was staying in office anyway. Seven million people have fled Venezuela in the past decade to escape that regime, and Trump just cut its head off without a single civilian casualty. In spite of your increasingly desperate efforts to paint this as somehow equivalent to the Iraq and Afghan quagmire, this action has just demonstrated that Trump can and will wage war against a regime without needing to wage war against its people.
And even if the Venezuelans were not happy about this, it wouldn't matter. Not to Trump, and not to his voters. That's what I keep trying to tell you. America First does not and has never meant isolationism, because America could never maintain its power and dominance through those means. America First has always meant exactly what we're seeing: exerting dominance over trade and resources in America's sphere of influence without feeling any obligation to the interests of non-American polities. The strong do what they can, and the rest do what they have to.