It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day. That's not how these things work. This is like the first stone of an avalanche. It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
Considering the extreme amount of crime and violence that currently exists in Venesuela removing it's government without being able to put anything in its place will not be pretty at all...
Without a full military occupation it might just turn into another Haiti just on a much bigger scale. Of course US will probably have to intervene to "secure" the oil industry...
This seems like the type of comment the parent comment is referring to. It's day 1 of the invasion. Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Who said they will remove the government ? From current news they could very well just leave it in place as long as they sell their petroleum in dollars and agree to other restrictions.
And things have already happened. Close allies have stopped sharing intelligence information with the US. Even if the US doesn't need the info the deterioration of those partnerships is concerning. Or maybe good from the perspective of weakening the global surveillance machine but that's a whole other issue.
Not to mention all the other things that happen that when you put together are more concerning.
People forget, there are no real "big things".
Instead there's just a bunch of little things that come together to look big. As programmers we should be intimately familiar with this. Though normally we're using it in the other direction: taking a big problem and determining all the little problems that come together to create the big one. Working in the assembly direction is much harder than the disassembly direction (far larger solution space) but the concept is still the same.
But I agree with you, this isn't the end. This is definitely a concerning inflection point.
> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
What gives you that impression? I haven't seen a single comment that is surprised or wasn't aware of the existing history between the two nations, nor a single comment saying that "Ok, I'm glad/sad that that's over now". What comments specifically are you talking about?
This forum won't have any obviously partisan comments (that are visible, anyway) so you have to read between the lines. They will have an air of "hah, well, Trump already captured Maduro so what do you think of that liberal?" but instead disguised as something like this[0].
There is plenty of talk in MIGA/MAGA circles that say, in effect, that Venezuelans have now been liberated, there will be no occupation, and other related assumptions / coping mechanisms which they are using to preserve the facade of Trump being anti-war.
No matter the outcome, we are not here giving judgement on the action. We are here questioning how is any of this legitimate? How did we elect a person who promised to keep america out of foreign affairs but is now doing the same thing his predecessors did.
Groups of people over time are a complex system. What more of us educated types can do is try to help more people get educated and have good jobs. The more vulnerable, ignorant folks we have in the population, the easier it is to end up with extreme crony types.
Oh, something changed there. Iran's attitude towards nuclear weapons has changed considerably, and none for the better. They're a deal with Pakistan or Russia away from achieving that.
Americans have remarkably short attention spans. In 5 years when Iran is widely acknowledged to have nuclear weapons, you’ll know what changed after Fordrow.
Not to disagree but venezuela's context is different from the middle east, and this was made so quickly it might cause a stable swap. Now that's just my bedroom geostrategist wannabee opinion and yeah it might create a long mess, especially knowing trump emotional profile, if things don't benefit him quick, he might add oil to the fire thinking he's the smartest.
The guy that partially demolished the universal symbol of the United States abroad (the White House, in case that wasn't clear) and tends to not have a plan beyond the next meal would really surprise me if he had contingency plans in place for if this backfires somehow. Right now it is a toss up, it could go any way from here.
The one thing that is a given is that kidnapping foreign heads of state - no matter how despicable - is now on the menu. I'm pretty sure that this isn't the last time we see this. And the pretexts are unconvincing given how Trump dealt with that other drug dealer. I'm guessing Maduro didn't want to play ball more than anything, this feels very personal.
These threads makes it depressingly obvious how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end - albeit periodically latent. Suddenly proportionality disappears and it's one of the worst regimes out there, a narco-state. Obviously unlawful actions is reported as "legally questionable" etc. It doesn't even matter that the current US administration is an unusually vulgar example of erratic, dishonest, and self-serving leadership.
how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end
This is not surprising, this is how society ultimately works, even internally, not just on international scale.
I live in a democracy. I could still name several laws of the land that I consider fundamentally unjust, but the might of the majority translated into political and physical power means that I have to obey them, right or wrong. It is better that this power is controlled democratically and not by a single autocrat or a single ruling party, but it is still fundamentally coercion.
Are there even any alternatives? Ultimately we cannot all agree on what is right for everyone.
To me this is one of those situations where regardless of what happens in Venezuela, there were better, more morally and legally justifiable, ways of achieving the same end.
Yep - That group of people have something we want (gold, spices, women, revenge or the ever classic we want to replace their religion with ours) and for the last 30 years especially now oil and minerals appear to be on the menu
? The arab spring came from the islamic world regularly building population powder kegs, without having a modern industrial society to keep these populations educated, fed and with a perspective beyond fanatic death-cultist movements.
The arab spring exploded, because obama rerouted us-surplus food from subsidizing allied regimes (egypt) into bio-fuels, causing wild price spikes to the bread prices in egypt and the arab world. These situations are not really comparable - like at all. Not even on the surface level.
And apart from the usual destabilisation possibilities, with the current US leadership there's no guarantee the outcome isn't Maduro agreeing to pay some oil revenues into Trump's personal bank account, makes some vague symbolic promise to stop drugs and emigrants and gets released to carry on as he was, but maybe with a few more internal scores to settle
I think no americans are afraid of venezuela, so what could possibly come that we don’t want? you think venezuela can stand toe-to-toe in a full scale military engagement? you see how we just walked into their country, took the president, and his wife, and walked out without issue? have you seen how many venezuelans are celebrating?
> I haven't seen a convincing argument about why it would have been better if he remained in power.
You're way off base here. No one is arguing that he should be in power. It's the way it was done. You're also ignoring a very important question: now what?
Sorry, but the last year has not inspired confidence that this administration knows what it's doing.
6 years ago to the day many people were hysterical when Trump offed Soleimani on his Baghdad field trip. Turned out it brought substantial positive change to the Middle East.
It may not work out this time but when you start from a terrible rock bottom status quo the chances are already biased.
>> Trump also said he believes that American companies will be “heavily involved” in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.[1]
There we have it. The real reason for the invasion. Looks like the start of yet another avalanche as you say.
Jan 6th, extrajudicial killings, ICE deportations, threatening to takeover Greenland, and now the kidnap of a foreign country's leader. The world needs to wake up and realise the USA is just China/Russia with better PR.
Edit: And now he's confirmed the US will run the country until they decide otherwise.
>> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
Trump just said in the press conference that from now on the US will run Venezuela...The US is "designating" the people that will run the country.
They mentioned the president of Colombia has to "watch his ass" and that Cuba is a mess. And said that the US will be selling the oil to other countries, and the US will take "our oil".
I hope to be wrong, but think it certainly will. all the money everyone is spending on arms it seems soon the only game left in town in the military industrial complex. the other career options are to become a doctor, or nurse.
the US in its current form is heading towards long drawn out collapse like the Roman empire, and they're dragging all their former allies down with them. there seem to be no peaceful options to prevent that collapse.
E.g.:
- I do not see any way they can modernize their messed up political system.
- their population is divided more than any country on the planet
- thanks to heavily propagandized citizens they don't have the critical mass to bring in change (not in a country where the companies have so much power)
Also, based on threats Trump has made and that recent national security proposal or whatever, it seems the administration is intent on regime change in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. I bet Brazil is watching its back too. So it’s really going to be many avalanches as America revives colonialism. All to the cheer of half the country.
I doubt any of our allies like Canada or European countries can trust us again.
I think this is something thats really missing. In the vacuum of power who is stepping in? If its someone who is just going to sell oil to the us who gets to continue to oppress and destroy the Venezuelan economy then is it really a win?
It be like the Russians taking out Trump only to have Vance take over. Hes still propped up by miller, hegseth, bondi, the house AND senate AND courts and the cavalcades of sycophants who really only are doing the whims of oligarchs who have no interest in helping society as a whole.
The Arab world is different because the people are largely fundamentalist and there's many extremists while the governments are relatively moderate. So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
> Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
Colombia managed a decades long violent armed conflict with the same demographics. Organized crime, political instability, political ideologues, etc all can get people to kill each other without religious extremists.
Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?
The indecision of the international community to act is what caused the suffering lasting a decade, led to the rise of ISIS and refugee crisis of enormous proportions.
> So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Oh, the so called "extremists" are/were the ones with power. This is where it tops out. I know it's hard to see from a distance but you have no idea how bad can it get under the safe and sound status quo.
Considering all the recent meddling of the USA around the world their track record is pretty bad. Higher chance it will end worse than they began with. Worse on an unpredictable way.
Neither Trump nor the GOP cares about the stability of the country or the health of its citizens. They care about distracting from problems (Epstein, affordability, etc) and about how they can extract Venezuela’s oil and minerals so they can make billions off this theft
As long as they can protect the mining and refining operations the rest doesn’t matter. And I fully expect the America First, America Only group that claims to be the next thing after MAGA, to find ways to justify this regime change and corruption.
Yup. Bangladesh’s government was toppled last year. With at least the tacit support of the Biden administration. Now the formerly banned Islamist is running #2 in the polls and looks like they will be part of a coalition government.
But in the end of the day, Arab spring worked just fine everywhere? In every single country where pro-Russian dictators were in power, they fell (Iran is not pro-Russian, just a potent enemy by itself, and is not Arab for that matter). Except Libya where they fell partially, with country being effectively split in halves. But this is already a big deal - there isn't a single pro-Russian regime now in the entire Arab world.
Why do you think it won't work like that with Venezuela?
PS: I realised that i made a mistake, so-called Palestine is absolutely pro-Russian, the entire ethnic group is created by Russians out of thin air in 1967, but it's a separate case and they did not participate in Arab Spring anyway.
So what if they're pro-Russian? America just showed to the world that they're a terrorist state just like the big scary Russians. Now you can expect Putin to make a BIG play in Ukraine and Europe very soon; the gloves are off.
> It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
Admitting that you don't know is often the most intellectual mature position to take. The world is in a chaotic circumstance right now, there's a sense of this being just the start of something far more horrifying, but anybody telling you they have a crystal ball is lying.
Yeah I remember Occupy protesters. I got trapped in a gaggle of them shouting “Tahir Square!” again and again. I literally lost hearing in one of my ears.
It never really recovered. Probably need a hearing aid, but I can just use the other one.
Reports that Maria Corina Machado (peace prize winner) will be the next leader - so that is a good sign. I've also seen many reports and videos of locals celebrating.
Not a chance in hell. The regime is 100% intact. Maria Corina Machado would be executed the moment she lands. A complete military takeover will follow the ousting of Maduro.
We essentially took out the Venezuelan version of Trump. There are still the cabinet, remaining military leaders, courts, representatives, even down to governors and mayors who all profited from the current setup who are not going to be willing to just roll over cause the US supports someone
I know nothing about her but worth pointing out that 'peace prize winner' is irrelevant. Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She has since presided over ethnic cleansing.
This is the Ron Paul position and its a solid one.
The non-intervention principle applies if you are not actively suffering intervention.
The flaw however, is that applying non-intervention in this instance, is choosing to ignore the real, direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM + US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows Maduro, may be worse.
If I'm getting poked by a neighbor for years and i finally punch back, punching is a valid response. If the neighbor then comes back later and shoots me with a gun, it doesn't mean that my self-defense act was invalid.
It isn't necessarily just a non-interventionist stance. Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things, not whoever is doing currently doing it.
I can't help but think this is going to end so poorly for the innocent men, women, and children in Venezuela. I feel for them. While Maduro seems to not be loved, these periods of violent transition can result in horrid outcomes for the local populace. I can only hope my fellow Americans start to see the light and vote the current administration out of office. I'm not hopeful.
This comment is so out of touch with the reality of Venezuelans. They are crying tears of joy. This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
That pretty much sums it up. I think Zack covered it well too. [1] I do not understand what benefit there was to a dictator remaining in place and why so many on HN support him. Over a third of Venezuelans fled that country and lost everything to escape tyranny.
Venezuelan here. It’s not that simple: Maduro was an _absolutely_ horrible dictator and yes many Venezuelans (myself included, and likely many of the 8+ million that left) are overjoyed with him being ousted, we haven’t seen any change in over two decades. And yet, it is transparently clear that the Trump admin is here not to save Venezuela, or Venezuelans… it’s here to line its pockets and that of its shareholders.
There was a very evident omission during Trump’s press conference: Any mention of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the duly elected president-elect of Venezuela (who won with a super majority last July - backed by Maria Corina Machado). Instead, Trump bad mouthed Maria Corina saying that “she does not have the support or respect of the country to run it”. They ousted Maduro, but they kept his VP (Delcy Rodriguez - which along other things is in charge of running the torture centers for political prisoners) as “she will do anything we ask her”. Trump doesn’t care about democracy or regime change - these things take time and are a long, thorny road (this wouldn’t be the US’ first rodeo). Instead they’ve chosen to keep the regime obedient with the threat of force, and instead just come in and extract as many riches as humanly possible…
Dark times ahead for Venezuela and the Venezuelan people
> > This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
Really? The Venezuelan community online (eg. /r/Vzla and /r/Venezuela) communicate using memes and rather unintelligent discourse.
It's not enough to want democracy, democracy and stability happens when there is an engagement in collective thinking , whereas disorder and chaos happens when people don't want to work and don't think things through
I don’t see that at all. Lots of good things will come from this IMO. The old wet-kneed approach to shenanigans going on in our own backyard is a disastrous message to people around the world. Just as a resurgently effective law enforcement body can restore a local community that has gone to the dogs, so too it works at an international level.
The paradoxical thing about these actions though, is that when they are run by humble mission-oriented and very effective people, they quickly disappear from the public consciousness. So we are all biased to when it goes wrong, ie to when we have incompetent leadership at the helm.
This is a good take if you know nothing about the history of the US meddling with other countries. For those who do have some knowledge here, this is fucking just stupid and naive.
A fairly optimistic way to spin this situation is as follows. Either it somehow works out for Venezuela, in which case we effectively helped millions of people Homer Simpson style. Or, more likely, failure disgraces Trump the same way it disgraced GWB. Then (fingers crossed) we elect a humbler, more realistic leader who works to rebuild the country we wrecked, and we can move on from the Trump era.
Why would Trump allow a peaceful transfer of power? Jan 6 happened and it failed because the first Trump administration still had people who cared about the rule of law (e.g. Pence).
I think the only hope is that the guy is old and unhealthy, in contrast to e.g. when Putin or Orban grabbed power. And it is possible that the GOP will fracture over fights between who see themselves as his successor. If this doesn't happen, I don't have much hope for the US as a democracy.
While I agree with the sentiment, Maduro’s fate, for the time being, seems much better than Gaddafi’s. And while increased chaos in the region is not unlikely, I don’t foresee open air slave markets in SA at least
Libya wasn’t for oil, intervention was approved by the full UN Security Council, it was motivated by stopping crimes against civilians committed by the regime, and the intervention ended immediately after the regime fell, instead of “running things” and taking the oil like Trump is doing.
You obviously seem to have no idea how mafia-style dictatorships like those of Iran, Russian and Venezuela work. No fault of you. Most people don't.
And even their own citizens come to the realization after a long time living under them; partly because they get caught in the constant propaganda campaign which is one hallmark of these regimes. They always live in the propaganda mode.
The Monroe Doctrine is over 200 years old and simple enough for your average dictator to understand. Don't expect the US to turn a blind eye to investments in key strategic assets of your country by its strategic rivals.
I don't think it's a coincidence that a special envoy of Xi met Maduro hours before being captured. It was probably the final straw.
Per the speech given by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this operation was already green light for an unspecified period of time, but they waited on ideal weather conditions to launch the operation.
I just spent way too much time reading through this thread looking for a single post more concerned about Venezuela and its people than the poster's own politics. I gave up when I noticed I was only a 1/4 of the way through thread, should have started from the bottom.
Reading a few hundred mostly low effort reactionary posts of people using the events in Venezuela as validation for their politics had a strong effect on my mood.
These sorts of events are tricky on HN, all the user can do is flag flag flag and hope you or others like you (mods) will sort it all out and give the front page its one thread on the topic, if we don't the front page will be consumed and the community will die. But we can't always rely on mods, you have lives and have to rely on certain pragmatism, you have to wait and see how the community reacts/events unfold to see if something should get a thread on the front page or risk the consequences. And I think you did weigh in but vouching on a single thread may have won out against the flagging, as it should. So I gave the thread a chance and started reading.
One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies. But that would be very difficult to do without being accused of having an agenda by one side or the other.
Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user. I do not envy your position but I appreciate all you do.
With some charity, you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
The politics are baffling. There hasn't even been a case made that one could disagree with. Why are we killing Venezuelans and kidnapping their president? If this is for the greater good, where is that argument?
1. Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out. A striking difference with people from Ukraine about the invasion. This is the most important thing about this and most people here in comments ignore it.
2. Maduro wasn't even the president. He was someone who took the country illegally with cartel people.
3. Why? Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations. And I guess there must be geopolitical reasons. You want China and Russia be there? And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades. You want millions of refugees?
I am perpetrating the exact wrong the parent poster referenced but: this is why liberalism is such a good principle and political position. It's almost a meta-position, and it provides clarity in circumstances like these.
> you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
Let’s be real, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even place Venezuela on a map.
The default state for humans isn’t caring about everything and everyone, nobody has the mental capacity or resources to do that.
We only care about something when we are incentivized to by actual self interest, familial bond, or emotional stories that align this 3rd party with our familial instincts via empathy.
My political reaction comes from the following chain of thought:
* My country just did something I think is wrong.
* My country is led by people elected by a process that I generally trust but believe is under stress.
* The process or the people have failed and I want to stop this from happening by fixing the process so the people are replaced.
And, now I am stuck on how to do this. There a other actions I can take to help the people of Venezuela, but from a civics perspective, I believe it is my responsibility to partake in a discussion about the systemic failure that lead to this.
I think it is common for Americans to do this because we have a history of at least trying to fix our government because we usually believe we can.
Write to your representative and senators. It may seem impotent, but it what you as an American can to today. If you are concerned it is your duty to take the 10 minutes to write. If you do not then you are condoning these actions and the erosion of your rights.
My concern for Venezuelans is precisely what makes me believe "removing Maduro good" even though things are more nuanced and complex than those three words.
Destabilizing the country and/or installing a US puppet or just allowing the power vacuum to fill itself is likely not to the betterment of their people.
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Surely Maduro is bad, but that doesn't mean the next phase won't be worse. Trump has never shown any interest in spreading democracy or human rights. I would not be surprised if the mission involved a side deal with someone in Maduro's inner circle to let them become the new dictator who is willing sell oil leases to the US and who will be as bad or worse to the Venezuelan populace. We have absolutely no idea what happens next and Trump has not given any indication of strategy beyond wanting oil.
Does anyone believe that the US regime, an entity that utterly ignores the needs of its masses in favor of a relative handful of lobbyists, is really going to install a representative government that exists to improve the lives of Venezuelans instead of enriching the same powers that it's beholden to?
Unless the said comments you want to read don't discuss how US imperialism has been benefitting corporations for over a 100 years, I wouldn't expect much honest introspection.
Crazy amount of comments - We need a tool that maps narrative angles and reply/conversational interation mapping. Ratio of comments herein to other stories is wild. Lot of lurkers on this site that seem very informed when things like this come up.
To be blunt, I simply don't have much more than the default respect for Venezuela as a country and fellow human beings. I have no special sentiment to provide in that regard. This is destructive, I hate that more innocent lives are lost over this, etc. I can't speak intimately to its culture, norms, attitudes, nor economics. So I won't talk on ignorant grounds.
Meanwhile, I hold disdain for my country's actions and have some minimal pull to at least protest and complain to my reps about it. So the focus of my discussion will be around those actions.
It's a great point. Maduro won't be missed by anyone. But the top posted comment here perfectly captured my feelings. There's the wider picture to look at. I personally would love it if America did that to Iran, Russia, Cuba etc, but i feel there should be more of a process and i'm allowed to be suspicious of the motives.
If Venezuela actually becomes a functioning country again and drugs, gangs and illegal immigrants stop flooding America then i personally would applaud the operation. Still, you really shouldn't just kidnap other countries presidents just like that as a general rule.
Why does it matter? Illegal actions are illegal. On the 1 in a million chance this results in things getting better for Venezuela the outcome does not forgive the action.
I think 2026 will be the year when we move way past that threshold. When conflicts and casualties are rare, each one gets highlighted and garners significant attention. But once you pass a certain point, it becomes just another conflict, just more people suffering. A tragic event affecting millions of people becomes another line item on a list.
I think you're greatly exaggerating here. I'm seeing pretty nuanced discussion from everyone.
It's a political event between two countries. So people are discussing two things: What it means for Venezuela that Maduro is gone, and what it means that Trump can completely sidestep Congress to start a war. Both seem relevant. But you're trying to reduce it to something narrower. Most of us are aware that feelings in the first 24 hours of something like this are completely irrelevant. Time will tell if this is a net positive.
Care for others is an increasingly condemnable trait in public opinion nowadays, a social suicide, ironically. As history taught us it will not end well.
Americans are too culturally isolated from other countries and cultures to build empathy. I think Americans have main character syndrome at scale, and these comments are obvious when read through this lens.
This may surprise folks who don't live in the U.S., because Americans describe their country as a nation of immigrants and say things like "I'm Italian" and "I'm Irish" when describing their identity. Yet these same folks haven't set foot in Italy or Ireland, don't speak the language or have awareness of present-day concerns from those countries.
I think it's worse than that. There's a general unwillingness to engage with uncomfortable things. Can't really build empathy if there isn't space to talk about problems.
Maybe the whole attempt is to bully the current government into giving the Venezuelan/Cuban faction in the US government exactly what they want. They want an entry into the society, and to open it up, maybe among other things.
With this USA is essentially saying that "see I can just walk into your home and no one will stop me, so better do as I say".
I will be surprised if USA tries to land ground troops into that country. Running the country, I suspect, will be extremely ugly for USA. OTOH, if they can just coerce the existing government into giving them exactly what they want, then it would certainly be mission accomplished.
It's all a huge gamble, and will depend on how obstinate the Venezuelan setup is.
Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured in an unannounced/unnamed military operation by a superpower is wrong from a principled standpoint, and that it’s destabilising a country with 30+ million people if not the entire region.
Not only the region... A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures. Also, here we have another permanent member of UN Security Council making decisions to intervene without consulting the UN or even their own constitutional bodies...
(My opinion of Maduro is that he was not a legitimate leader.)
Especially when no nation wants to touch this (e.g., Starmer being very quick to say that the UK wasn’t involved, etc.), it only reinforces that any power willing or able to make a bold move like this will likely not face much opposition (also see Russia in Ukraine).
> A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures
Go type "list Russian regime change operations from the last 20 years" in chatgpt.
It's not just encouraging, it's almost making it a necessity. Putting aside one's respect for law may be a matter of responsibility when your competitors are gaining advantage by not playing by the rules.
The UN permanent security council members are (or were meant to be) precisely the countries that are so powerful they can choose to invade you and nobody can stop them. The hope was that by letting them veto you, they'll veto you instead of invading you.
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.
Even if you'd accept this warped logic, I don't see how you'd get from "this was just a slightly more complex police action" to "we're gonna run the country from now on and take over the oil sector", legally speaking...
I think the (disputable) argument is that, for global stability and equilibrium reasons, there should be a general prohibition against kidnapping/assassination of de facto heads of state, regardless of whether they were legitimately elected or are dictators.
It's also widely acknowledged that elections in Russia are rigged, and yet the US was quite angry at Ukraine over Russia's (false, as it turned out) claim that Ukraine attacked Putin...
The 3rd section of the 14th amendment[1] states that no person having engaged in insurrection[2] shall hold any office, civil or military, in the United States. So technically Trump isn’t a legitimate head of state either.
Honestly, I'm getting increasingly fascinated with the utterly absurd logic that states are putting into their justifications for war.
You get "preemptive self defense" that urgently requires "buffer zones" on foreign territory, which then mysteriously become your own territory and have to be defended with even more buffer zones.
Some Terror Regime of Literal Nazis is doing Unspeakable Atrocities to its own population which practically forces you to invade the country purely out of empathy and the goodness of your heart. Nevermind that the population has never asked for the invasion and will in fact be worse off through the war than before - and that this other state who is your ally is doing the exact same things, but then it's suddenly "realpolitik" and just the way the world works.
Someone has broken the law of his own country. "Internal affairs" or grounds for invasion? Depends if he is your ally or enemy.
Pardon the cynicism, but my growing impression is that war justifications only serve as discussion fodder for domestic audiences and have very little to do with the actual war.
You know the president said that the Epstein files were a democrat hoax, right?
I feel like at this stage the US administration could contend that the moon is in fact made of cheese and news agencies would respond by running news stories about the implications of this on future possible lunar missions.
I see the point you're trying to make, but I'm not fully convinced it's as black and white as you make it out to be. I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them? Election fraud? Etc. Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
> I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
The greater good of whom? Regardless, we have international organizations where action can be taken by a coalition is states, which provides not only legitimacy but also some level of judicial control.
This is so obviously an imperialist power play for the world's largest oil reserves. That some would portray this as acting for the greater good is beyond ridiculous.
I could go along with this to some degree if any country would be able to act the same way the USA is doing; then there would be a balance of power. But as it is, only a small number of powerful nations are able to act like this, without military repercussions.
So if Venezuela wanted to forcefully reverse a coup in the USA? Or Canada wanted to reverse election fraud in the USA?
They can’t. So the USA shouldn’t either.
Unless you can tolerate living by the whim of a more powerful bully.
Which I, as a non-us resident/citizen, am forced to tolerate now, but don’t like.
So no, I don’t think nations can justify interfering in sovereign nations by force for any reason.
I appreciate your world view and politico-science philosophical approach, but Venezuela has natural resources, is close to the USA, and decided to mingle with American competitors.
Venezuela was supported via economic trade with nations not aligned with US objectives in exchange for security guarantees that would supposedly prevent US intervention.
More concretely: Russia was supposedly supporting them through economic activity and arms trades. Russia is overextended in Ukraine which is providing an opening and a cautionary signal to any other state that has Russian support that, in fact, any Russian security guarantees aren’t backed by more than words. See Iran and Syria as well.
This is very transactional and a spheres of influence move. It’s also pressuring Russia to find an Ukraine deal fast. The longer they’re in Ukraine the more their global sphere of influence is being reduced due to their inability to fight multiple military fronts at once.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer
I don’t think it’s that difficult to answer, and the answer is “no” for two main reasons:
1. I don’t think the US has the greater good of humanity in mind nor even of its citizens except a minority, when it’s policing around.
2. Even if we were to assume otherwise (that the US concerns itself with the greater good), “who will watch the watchmen?” Especially when its institutions are being undermined day by day…
> What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them?
Once upon a time, “forcefully” doing anything with any country for any reason was considered an act of war. I agree that bad people should be removed from power. But the consequences associated with doing so forcefully (i.e., engaging in acts of war) need to be fully acknowledged and dealt with. The U.S. (and others) have played this game of “military actions” for so long that we, the regular people, have taken up that language uncritically as well. Once force enters, it is an act of war. Period. A discussion about whether country A should declare a war to remove the leader of country B is a much more honest and accurate one than vaguely positing whether country A can “capture” the leader of country B.
Maduro is obviously authoritarian. But if the US want to make the world a more democratic place by going to war I could think of a long list of countries they could attack before Venezuela.
there's a lot of assumptions here, but granting it's a difficult question: this is why the legislature holds the responsibility to decide, not the executive.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
I would argue that it should be the UN that does something like this, if it's done at all. I would like to see a world in which there was a top-level body that would arrest a dictator, the same way the US government would arrest someone who tried to become dictator of an American state.
But it wouldn't be up to the governor of one of the other states to do it without the agreement of the rest of the country. That would be chaos.
It's very black and white. It's an internal affair, and no one elected the USA to be the police of the world.
We could also argue that even internally in the US, the current president was not democratically elected. Maybe you agree that another state should go there and remove him, just because.
I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country. You seem to support this logic
How about the country doing the capturing stays the fuck out of the business of all the other countries instead ?
Escalations like this push the doomsday clock closer and closer to midnight, no matter how well intentioned, and I can't say I think Trump has good intentions anyway. America is just privateering, these days.
If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow, is Xi allowed to invade and capture him? Or is it reserved only for small and weak countries while the big ones can do whatever they want?
Right, and in theory that all sounds very thoughtful and morally calibrated—until you remember that U.S. foreign policy decision-making has roughly the transparency of a raccoon operating a shredder at midnight. There is no clear, open process where the U.S. earnestly weighs “dictator versus coup versus fraudulent election” on some ethical flowchart labeled For the Greater Good. Instead, it’s often more like: Is there oil? A lot of oil? Like, cartoonishly large amounts of oil? Because if there is, suddenly democracy becomes very important, very quickly.
And yes, we’re told—solemnly—that every intervention is about democracy, human rights, and justice, which is fascinating because those principles have an uncanny habit of aligning perfectly with strategic interests. Venezuela is a great example, where the rhetoric about freedom somehow managed to coexist with very unsubtle comments about wanting “all that oil.” At that point, the moral argument starts to feel less like a difficult philosophical dilemma and more like a PowerPoint slide hastily slapped over a resource grab labeled “Don’t Look Behind This.”
So while you’re absolutely right that the question of global policing isn’t black and white, the problem is that U.S. interventions often aren’t shades of gray either—they’re shades of green. And once that’s the pattern, claims about benevolent intent stop sounding like hard ethical reasoning and start sounding like a press release written by someone who assumes the audience has the memory of a goldfish.
So we can justify, say, deposing the king of Saudi Arabia? Or Zelenskyy on the pretext that he hasn’t held a timely election? Or the president of Taiwan on the basis of illegitimacy of the election? Regardless of Maduro’s sins, this is a massively destabilizing action and I expect we will see unpleasant downstream effects even if, in a vacuum, the action was justifiable and legal.
Both countries involved are currently dictatorships. Consider the role reversal: Would it be good if Maduro invaded the USA and kidnapped Trump? Why or why not?
> I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about ${WHATABOUTISM}?
I think a regime that is hell-bent on kidnapping foreign leaders at the whim of it's glorious leader by circumventing any of it's checks and balances, such as congress approval, is clearly and by far the worst problem.
And calling the US under the Trump administration "democratic" is a hell of a stretch, even as a thought experiment.
Maduro is not the head of a sovereign state. The President of Venezuela is Edmundo González, the winner of their last election[1]. To know if this violates Venezuela's sovereignty, you would have to ask their President. Personally, I fully support this operation, unless their President indicates otherwise. It's a good day for democracy and freedom.
Yeah, I'll defer judgement of this for 5 years, after we see: results in Venezuela. How this emboldens other wannabe agressors elsewhere in the world, and where the erosion of respect for rules of UN charter will lead.
Until then, the only conclusion I’m comfortable drawing is this: anyone confidently declaring that kidnappings, bombings, and killings are great for democracy, without waiting to see if there are any real long-term benefits, isn’t offering serious analysis. They’re just enthusiastically clapping for violence and hoping history does the cleanup later.
Regardless of your opinion of maduro, you can still acknowledge that if the head of a sovereign state enacts policies that result in the mass emigration of 8M to neighboring countries, destabilizing all of them [1],[2] in the process, exporting criminal enterprises, any affected head of the affected government certainly has casus belli on said head of state.
The policy of no aggression applies. If a government, thru its actions (or inactions) causes massive aggression and hurt on your own people, then its your *duty* as elected official, to stop it and protect your citizens
Self-defense is literally the most important mandate a government can have.
Amusingly what you described translates to USA actions if you are from a country in the middle east. For example did you know that there are at least 5M emigrants of Afghanistan in Iran?
Not arguing about other nations actions, just a reminder that if you apply many western logic indiscriminately, the resulting bad actors are very different.
If two wrongs didn't make a right, we wouldn't punish people who commit crimes.
It should be up to the Venezuelans to decide who leads them. Maduro decided to ignore the will of the people when he held power through clear and blatant election fraud. If some sort of global public service could reach out and punish all politicians who do this, the world would be a better place.
If you are unfamiliar with Venezuela, this is a good primer:
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. He is neither American nor lives in the US.
There are also reports of 40 something people killed. Doesn't that amount to basically (mass) murder? There is no declaration of war, so you can't really call them civilian casualties.
Whether Maduro is corrupt, authoritarian, or illegitimate by your definition doesn’t suddenly make an undeclared foreign military strike to seize a sitting head of state acceptable. Sovereignty isn’t a reward for good behavior. It’s a constraint meant precisely to prevent powerful states from unilaterally deciding which governments get removed by force.
If the standard is “we can capture leaders we deem illegitimate,” then you’ve effectively endorsed a world where power, not law, decides regime change. You can oppose Maduro and still acknowledge that abducting a head of state via air strikes destabilizes a country of 30+ million people and sets a precedent that will be used by actors far less selective than the U.S.
Two wrongs don’t cancel out just because one feels morally satisfying. of course, we all drink the American imperialism koolaid here.
We have different definitions of sovereign state apparently.
"In his time in office, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has stolen two presidential elections, electoral monitors and human rights groups contend, while jailing critics and overseeing an economic collapse that caused eight million Venezuelans to emigrate, including to the U.S.
But in some ways, Maduro is more safely ensconced than ever, with most opposition leaders in exile and Venezuelans too fearful to protest as they once did.
The problem for those who see hope in the military rising up is that Maduro has surrounded himself with a fortress of lieutenants whose fortunes and future are tied to his, from Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López to generals, admirals, colonels and captains throughout the armed forces."
What's that have to do with it being a sovereign state? By that standard, neither Russia nor China are sovereign states.
And it's not like the US gives a shit about democracy outside its borders. The CIA overthrew Jacobo Árbenz in the 50s, supported the military coup in Brazil in 1964, pinochet and Hugo Banzer in the 70s. This is normal behavior for the US in Latin America. It's nothing to do with concern for Venezuela's citizens.
There's really no benefit in arguing on the basis of the definition of sovereignty. There is no definition. It's a self-evident state: if you assert that you are sovereign, and you can back it up, then you're sovereign. That's it.
I do not acknowledge that. If you want to make an argument that overthrowing a dictator is always wrong on principle, go ahead. But I will not accept this as axiomatic.
Claiming this could “destabilize” the country suggests that the country is stable. It’s not.
You mention the 30+ million people who live there, under the dictatorship, but ignore the 8+ million who have fled the country in recent years and the instability that has unleashed on country and the entire region.
I think heads of state bearing personal responsibility for misconduct is an excellent precedent that I would love to see applied much, much more widely. Preferably to the superpowers, especially if said leader were to say, for a totally-hypothetical example, recklessly create a massive security risk near our borders for the sole purpose of benefiting a foreign interest group… but I’ll take what I can get. I think the Sword of Damocles is missing all too often from high society. If life and death decisions, don’t come with life and death risks, then I think they become taken too lightly. I think we are too quick to insulate high society from the consequences of their actions.
Maduro is a dictator and a criminal - there is no doubt about it.
He is an illegitimate president who has systematically violated the rights of the Venezuelan people. He has bought off the military, the judiciary, and other key institutions, hollowing out the state to ensure his grip on power.
His regime has also supported and benefited from the existence of drug cartels in Venezuela as another mechanism to maintain control and stay in power.
Together with Chávez, Maduro has ruled the country for more than 27 years, a period marked by countless atrocities against the population, from forced disappearances to torture and rape.
The result is one of the largest humanitarian and migration crises in modern history: more than 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country to escape the regime.
The international community has proven itself unwilling to act. The UN will do nothing. NATO will do nothing. No one will.
We were, and perhaps still are, watching Venezuela turn into another Cuba, with one crucial difference: Venezuela sits on vast oil reserves.
The "Crazy Red" is a pig, but at least he is the only one willing to confront Maduro. This may end up being the only genuinely positive thing he does during his presidency.
Yes, the attack is not "ideal". But in an ideal world, there would be no dictatorships, there would be no Maduro.
And I say all this as a South American with family in both Colombia and Venezuela.
EDIT: this is written by the Vzla admins in Reddit: Foreigners, if your opinion comes without ever meeting a Venezuelan part of the biggest diaspora of the 21st century, I would advise against commenting. You might deserve a ban from this subreddit, thank you for your attention to this matter.
A wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by yet another wrong...
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"Flood the zone" is a political strategy in which a political figure aims to gain media attention, disorient opponents and distract the public from undesirable reports by rapidly forwarding large volumes of newsworthy information to the media. The strategy has been attributed to U.S. president Donald Trump's former chief political strategist Steve Bannon."
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Pay attention to the context of this moment. The timing of this invasion is no coincidence.
I'm guessing willingly Maduro surrendered as he took the cash offer from Dec 1, 2025 while publicly rejecting it. After all, he left with his wife.
> “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now,” Trump reportedly said, offering safe passage for Maduro, his wife and his son “only if he agreed to resign right away”.
I need you to know that the discussion on this news on Reddit today was the last straw for me, there is no nuance. It’s just simple minded left, and right. I asked ChatGPT to help me find a site that might have more intelligent discussion more nuance, and this was the very first comment I saw after I registered my account and I literally let a sigh of a relief. Thank you.
Substack is another good platform for nuanced discussions. The Notes feature is a bit like Twitter but with +20 IQ points. Literally the first post that popped up when I opened the app:
What's kind of shocking to me is that no matter how obvious they make the motives this time, and how clearly Venezuela doesn't pose a threat, I'm still reading the same Bush-era justifications ironically being offered in the comments.
> Since 2019, more than 50 countries, including the United States, have refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state.
Including the EU and its member states
> a country of 30+ million people
If those 30 M being the remainder after ~8 M fled the country (20% of the population) within the last 10 years, the „destabilization“ was already there.
It's hard to ignore that the country being targeted holds the world's largest oil reserves. In a global context where China has become one of the top oil importers, that makes the situation look less accidental.
America is not a principled country. It has for a long time now operated on the protection racket model: externalizing costs onto citizens.
In the American model, anything that could destabilize society is the fault of an individual who should be punished, ironically this means collectives can do no wrong. Leaving AI safety up to people living in such a country is frightening.
Race is the one exception (maybe sports teams too), but that definitely doesn't help Venezuelans
It's just realpolitik laid particularly bare. The major complaint seems to be that the paperwork wasn't done 'right' here, not much else eh?
What is the real difference between Iraq and what just happened, except this was arguably done much cleaner, and with less BS (no having to come up with Yellow Cake, or fake WMDs, for example).
This does have the effect of hopefully waking up anyone who is still confused, but I doubt it.
I think I agree. For anyone paying attention, the new rules have been officially established and I don't think they bode that well for previous international order. Still, I am only processing the news and I guess I will need to watch the conference now.
You’ll hear a lot of the same people decrying this action simultaneously calling for the assassination of Putin. The cognitive dissonance is something to behold.
We allow brutal dictatorships to continue subjugating tens of millions of people and killing millions in the name of convention. Our international organizations (the UN in particular) are basically ruled by authoritarian regimes. Is there no justification for external powers to effect regime change? We just have to wait and watch as the dictator kills a ton of people? Oh, and of course there is Maduro's support for Putin via sanctions evasion. Even now, Venezuelans face a brutal security force that is likely to retain power, but hopefully that power fragments.
Imo we should have done this right after the last election which Maduro stole.
Something like 50% of the population of the world live under rulers who were not democratically elected. Should the US taxpayers fund all of their removals?
On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
This is a point worth discussing imo. To what extent is the state of a nation and the conditions of its people, the responsibility of the people itself, even if they're oppressed?
The Russians were oppressed and had a revolution about it. Then they didn't like Communism anymore and broke up the USSR about it. Taiwan had a military dictatorship that was killing and jailing people in the thousands, and managed to overthrow it with absolutely zero outside intervention in the 90s, all while the PRC salivated over taking the country even back then.
I'm not sure I think "citizens should just be left to suffer under brutal regimes," but I also want to avoid a prejudice of low expectations. I also wonder, to what degree do citizens bear shared responsibility for the crimes their government commits against others? How responsible for the invasion of Ukraine are Russians for not deposing Putin? How responsible are Americans for the destabilization in southeast Asia, the middle east, south America?
should this same logic apply to someone like say, Hitler? if you hide behind the “sovereign nation” (while denying the US the same) then you can justify all sorts of atrocities.
Let's ignore the politics of the current situation for a while and look at the first principles of right and wrong.
1) When somebody knowingly and intentionally hurts another person without a valid reason, that's wrong.
2) Now the aggressor is in the wrong and requires punishment (there are multiple purposes to punishment: taking away any advantage gained by the offense, further disadvantaging aggressors, compensation for the victim, retribution, deterrence, etc.).
3) A punishment is just if it's proportional to the offense but only those with sufficient certainty about the extent of the offense, about the offender's identify and his guilt can carry it out. Usually, in western style societies, courts serve this purpose but courts are a legal concept, justice is a moral concept. Morally, the punishment can be carried out by anyone who satisfies the criteria, there's nothing to put one person above another morally.
Legality has multiple tiers: tier 1 is individuals, tier 2 is states. States are a tier 2 institution imposed on tier 1. There is no tier 3 court-like institution which can be imposed on tier 2 entities.[0] Does that mean wrongs by tier 2 entities should go unpunished? No. They often do but there's no moral principles saying that it has to be that way, let along that it should be.
4) Punishment by its nature is the act of intentionally and knowingly hurting another person. But it's not wrong because unlike in point 1), it has a valid reason.
*What some people consider the second wrong is not actually a wrong.*
[0]: You could think of international organizations but they don't have a monopoly on violence above state level and therefore no actual mechanism for enforcement.
They want something, they have the means to take it, and so they take it. With no regards to others, others can fck themselves in fact. They proclaimed in loud enough and often enough in the past months.
As every agressors they can hammer together some form of excuse for doing so. Just like anyone else in similar situation did throughout the history. One of them was the leader of Germany once and was called Hitler. But we can name lots of other enemy-of-the-humanity viles from Japan, Russia, Mongolia, etc, etc. the line is long for the despicable beings.
No no no no. We get to have an opinion of Maduro and we should because you have an opinion by saying it is a wrong.
This is not a "regardless" situation. Bookmark this because the support for Maduro AND socialism in Venezuela is strong. They will never let you see socialism succeed because then all our own oligarchs would be out on their a$$e$. This is nothing but some trumped up capitalist Monroe Doctrine BS.
Watching all the Venezuelan CIA toadies on the news this morning was so infuriating.
Both Edmundo González and María Corina Machado are fascists right wing creeps that were working with the US for this to happen.
Pulled what off? Russia was trying to occupy Ukraine, not just kill Zelensky (though they’d obviously like to do that).
Trump announced that the plan is to “run Venezuela” but there are no troops on the ground, the US controls no territory. This isn’t The Wizard of Oz where you kill the wicked witch and the flying monkeys leave. This is only just starting.
High probability that trump gets distracted by something else and forgets, but if not welcome to the next three years of your life.
I almost feel bad for the people who instigated the War on Terror. They did not know how badly it would go - and they worked really hard and tirelessly to build and sell their illegitimate case to the American public.
This administration is making the same mistakes - but in living memory of the first, with a less noble prize, and with complete derision of Congress and Americans' intelligence.
The first political memories i have are the aclu telling everyone who would listen and many who wouldn't that this is exactly the slippery slope invading afghanistan would lead to. Don't feel sorry for anyone who was allowed to do politics from that period
Why? They accomplished their goal (making money in Iraq for US business interests, expanding the power of the presidency massively) and have suffered no consequences.
I’m not sure it’s the same. Seems like one man at the top just wants to continue chaos to divert attention from bad poll number, inflation, pedo friend circle etc.
Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"? The people who came up with these wars against abstract ennemies knew exactly what they were doing, fighting against another country/government is very limiting, once the war is settled you need another reason to start a war. When you go to war with an idea/concept you can continue your forever wars and raise taxes for/increase investment in the War related industries as long as you need to prop up your economy and get reelected.
Trump got reelected with slogans like "no new war" and in less than a year he started at least one (arguably I'd say two with the 12 days wars as Israel knew ut couldn't win this one without American bombers) also makes me think none if this is a "mistake", just a long term plan to keep power.
This is about oil and resources and maybe a proxy attack on China more than anything. A friend of mine called this as soon as that huge oil deposit was discovered off a small neighboring country’s coast. He said, “Venezuela is going to try to claim it, and the US will take them out.” I thought he was full of shit when he said it, but now I’m pretty sure he nailed it.
I don't want to defend Trump - starting a war is about the most serious thing a country can do, and doing it unilaterally is terrible. Trump should be condemned for this.
But most of those doing the condemning were also supportive of Pres. Obama (or at least refused to condemn his actions) back in 2011 when he attacked Libya, and in 2013 and 2014 when he attacked Syria -- all of this happening after we should have learned from what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those people who didn't protest against Pres. Obama's illegal actions have lost moral high ground to protest against Trump.
The 2011 action in Libya was an international effort carried out under a UN authorization to protect civilians, not a unilateral move by Obama based on a fabricated rationale. There were limited airstrikes and aid to rebels, but the US did not directly take out Gaddafi or make any pretense of "running the country."
Obama deliberately went to Congress for authorization to strike the Syrian chemical program in 2013, and after it quailed from taking a vote, the strikes didn't happen.
The 2014 strikes were against ISIS, not Syrian government forces, and carried out under the existing AUMF authorization to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates. One can argue whether ISIS qualified (even the administration at the time acknowledged it was a stretch and wanted a more clear-cut resolution from Congress), but it definitely was a major terrorist threat in the region and had been working with AQ in the past.
2011 was 15 years ago. I was not even legally adult back then. And even if I was old enough back then, people are allowed to change their opinions in 15 years.
Those people were not condemning Fordow. But nearly everyone has high ground on Trump, so they don’t base their objections on simply having the high ground. He’s unfit to be president.
If you're ever confused by Don's actions, just remember: all he cares about is gaining more wealth (and power if possible). This was done to enrich Don and the oil barons who funded his campaign.
Prediction: the regime will not fall. This will destabilize the country further, not so much the regime itself.
There will be a decrease in oil production, marginally boosting world prices. What's probably being taken out right now is the regime's ability to react in any meaningful way to the oil embargo.
It will also allow Maduro to throw his hands in the air and blame the US for all of VZLA's ills going forward. More poverty, more suffering, more migration.
Well they just captured Maduro and flew him out of the country, so yes the regime quite literally did just fall minutes after you created your throwaway account to post this.
Yes. And some russian sources seem very understanding of the situation. I strongly believe Trump made a Deal with Putin. South america belongs to him. Putin can have europe.
Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech. Or really any kind of support except empty words.
there's footage of a half dozen US Chinooks over Caracas with no resistance being put up at all. Possbly a General has acquiesced to a US led coup. This isnt just lobbing missiles.
None of this makes sense. Venezuela has faced crippling sanctions from the US since 2017 that have not allowed it to sell to any western nation. Only China, Russia, and Cuba are potential customers for it. I highly doubt this will have any immediate effect on oil prices. It is also crude oil which only a handful of countries are capable of processing (the US probably being the best equipped)
US corporations will be brought in to exploit oil the same way they did in Iraq where they actually had to amend the constitution to allow for foreign corporations in.
A military coup seems like a decent possibility here IMO.
The Venezuelan opposition leader was extracted and moved to Europe and I assume the US wants to install her. Maybe that is more likely, but a military takeover before the US can install whatever puppet government they're hoping for.
Are you saying the US will decide not to take out the senior leadership of the regime? Or are you saying that the regime will survive even if they do that?
If they have any brains they’ll keep the functionaries and install their own puppet as the new head, likely Machado.
For some reason we wisely keep the machineries of government in place in Japan and Germany post-war and threw that lesson out the window in Iraq. Always boggles my mind, how the CPA ran things immediately into the ground.
Here's another prediction: the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of Venezuelans. Trump admin (which was hugely insecure about its actual strength) will be bolstered and do some really really stupid thing next.
When was the last time America successfully conducted a regime change via military force? One that didn't result in a bloody civil war and hundreds of thousands dead?
It might be welcome by the majority of Venezuelans (nor not, depending what’s next) but it is not justified in a US domestic sense or indeed by international law
Why talk only to displaced Venezuelans though? If you want meaningful data, your sample shouldn't be biased. What is the overall proportion of Venezuelans supporting this action?
I keep seeing this argument in here, but no one seems to point at any actual Venezuelans or message boards or whatever to support the point. Personally I only know a couple, classmates from decades ago who are FB friends and while they don’t support Maduro IIRC, I also don’t see any posts celebrating this great victory for the people. Who knows, maybe they’re partied out.
But a military invasion of another country to commit regime change is literally what Russia tried to do to Ukraine.
America has blood on it's hands yet again.
EDIT: If the reports are true that Maduro has been captured and the fighting stops, then that's the best resolution one could hope out of this horrible situation. I pray for the Venezuelan people.
And we wonder why rogue regimes seek nuclear weapons. My biggest concern in geopolitics is non-proliferation and every little thing we do like this works against it.
This is a red herring. Rogue regimes will, by construction, seek the security offered by nuclear weapons. Hence the need, where possible, to apply diplomatic or military means to prevent exactly that.
That’s counter to what happened for several decades when we actually cared about preventing it. Few regimes at all sought them and several were convinced to abandon nuclear programs.
Every sovereign nation should do. The notion that uppercase D "Democracy" is the only valid type of sovereign state is uppercase L liberalism propaganda.
The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
The US is giving another clear message that it does not care about global order, just global control. We're back in the 70s.
There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, its a power play, if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes. Pinochet, The Brazilian regime are all here as testament to that.
I hope the power change turns out better for the Venezuelans. I hope this is a catalyst of change for a better government. Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
Yeah, I was mostly surprised about the brazenness of it all. So the plan is to take over the government, take over the oil industry, sell the oil and in infinite grace give the Venezuelans some part of it back (minus of course the "compensation" for the years in which US companies were kept out of the country)
And all that as official doctrine, not even some secret strategy paper or covert ops campaign.
Edit: I had to chuckle at his "reviewing" of the Monroe doctrine as DONroe doctrine. There is "on the nose" and there is "punching someone in the face"...
I'd make the case it depends on who's defining what is and is not a crime.
Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal, and yet he not only has total freedom, he literally has the highest quality personal protection ecosystem on the planet, and so much more.
So, who is the criminal here? Which are the crimes? And what is _actually_ going to happen?
Not taking sides here, just trying to steelman: some Venezuelans might be so done with Maduro, that they consider US getting the oil profits to be a fair price.
> "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so."
> "We're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have it"
> "It's gonna make a lot of money"
> "Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial"
> And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela"
Venezuela is down to 1 million barrels per day, down from 3 million per day from the 2000s because of the sanctions after Hugo Chavez. They own the worlds largest reserve (about 300 billion barrels worth) and it was always my understanding that we worked with them before Hugo Chavez went the route he went and brought a great nation to shambles for a power trip.
I think Venezuela will recover with our aid, but a lot of their old infrastructure is gone, they will need investors. They will also need to deal with their crime problem and hold real elections for once.
> I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
I heard that as Trump doing his usual thing patting himself on the back while justifying the continued use of our military for domestic law enforcement.
He also indicated they will work directly with Maduro's second in command, not the putative winning candidate from the last election. This is purely about theft.
I think it’s normalization. If they can ignore Congress, lie to them, break American law, ignore international law, what’s to stop them from violating the constitution? It’s how they will ultimately deport 100 million Americans, like they proposed a few days ago on the DHS Twitter account. Don’t fix things through the political process - just ignore them and use military force.
>>"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and >>judicious transition"- And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go >> into Venezuela"
The new President of Venezuela will be called Fulgencio Batista...
>ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
I get the impression they are concerned at least a bit with the welfare of Venezuelans. Maybe a secondary consideration to drugs and oil but here's what Trump was saying:
>We're going to run the country until
such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious
transition. So, we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get
in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the
country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious
transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about. We
> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
100x times this!
US administration doesn't care about the welfare of most human beings in the world (including in the US).
We saw it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Yemen and now Palestine. Having an assumption that this move was made for Venezuelans and now they're liberated from evil is wrong.
Funny list of countries. Ask women in Afghanistan how they were treated with US presence vs. now. Ask jews in Palestine how Hamas treated them vs. Israel. Ask people in Yemen how they are living right now, but be sure to talk to them directly instead of writing to them, because barely anybody there can read. Their leaders just love them so much, they don't want them to read any bad news.
I see a lot of people posting about a lot of Venezuelans being happy that Maduro is out, and many using that as providing moral justification for the action. But this seems murky to me. If say the majority of the US population would be happy if trump is gone, does that justify some other country coming in and kidnapping him (leave aside the ability and consequence of this)? It doesn't seem like it.
It looks like propaganda. Day after, and then all the American news sites post stories about Venezuelans celebrating? Looks like propaganda. Almost no dissenting stories, no real discussion. Blackhawks and missiles at night, and hooray, spontaneous street parties, and news reporters just happen to be there to capture their "spontaneous" rejoicing. Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, NBC. Rejoicing, dreams of democracy, yatta. CBS seems like one of the only sites that actually carried somewhat balanced coverage of people burning US flags, and no to American war.
> The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
As opposed to what? Who "should" be the decider? China? Russia? Maduro? The Venezuelan Military?
The alternative is not that Venezuelans choose who stays in power democratically. The alternative, as we just saw until now, is that the Maduro dictatorship maintains power through force.
You seem to think US did this because Maduro was a dictator. They themselves clarified it's because of oil.
Why they don't attack Saudi Arabia then? Saudi's even had a role in 9/11.
Decades of lies shaped the narrative that all invasions US do is because countries have dictators, it's being the narrative even now when they explicitly say it's because of oil.
As hard as it is to watch a people suffer a dictatorship; that's the Venezuelan's task, not the US's, not Russia's and not China's.
International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership.
We've seen this principle violated before, when the Ukrainian people took the streets for months to topple their leader in 2014. Russia to this day takes this as an excuse to question Ukrainian sovereignty, framing the events as a "US coup" to justify their violent invasion of Ukraine.
The argument you make just plays in their hand. "There was a violent coup - we need to remove the coup government and bring back democracy to Ukraine", they say.
Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
What if the US decides that it will not recognize the government of Denmark as democratically elected and moves to liberate the people of Greenland from their despotic dictatorship?
You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
You have to think of the long-term consequences of blatantly abandoning the rule of (international) law for might makes right. The end doesn't justify the means.
Not to mention that the "end" here is first and foremost enriching the administrative "elite" and extending their power. If they cared about democracy, they'd stand firmly behind Ukraine instead of humoring Russia.
I think a coup was forming regardless. Fort Tiuna where Maduro was is not near the coast. So basically no one heard/saw/detected the US forces coming that far inland. Also, most importantly, no one stopped them from leaving with their president.
The whole "we got him" is a bit fishy. I think the Venezuelan military (and the current vice president) wanted Maduro out. A coup would have been messy. So the US comes in and does them a favor.
Part of the function of the fleet sitting off the coast for the past month would have been first intimidating then cultivating relationships with collaborators. Collaborators are far easier to find if there's a credible chance that things are about to change.
IMO this has nothing to do with Maduro. This is just the first step. It is about the US securing large reserves of oil. Don't get caught into the propaganda.
The US doesn’t need large reserves of oil. The US is an energy exporter. The country is limiting investment in solar and wind, ON PURPOSE.
This is crony capitalism. This is Trump shoring up support from oil companies.
Mr Trump has purposefully depressed the value of non-petroleum energy sources in the US, which props up the value of US oil Producers and processors.
And now, This is a territory takeover by a mafia don, so he can hand favors to other rich guys. Maduro wasn’t doing the deal Trump wanted, so this is what Trump did.
If solar and wind were thriving in the US (as they could be!) then this new oil territory would be worth less. That’s why Trump hates wind. He cannot convert clean energy into a benefit for himself.
It’s not about drugs or fentanyl. It’s not about democracy or corrupt elections in VZ.
On the relative upside, Panama was a 10X smaller country. The US had some long-term skin in the game with the Canal. And Bush Sr. was in the Oval Office - making it not-too-hard to imagine that sane grown-ups were in charge.
Vs. "70s" sounds far more like Vietnam. And a whole load of other bigger/uglier/longer conflicts, under Presidents whose moral and military leadership seemed rather lacking.
Cuban forces with the help of Russia, Iran and China took control of Venezuela over 25 years ago, effectively looting that nation, and no one bitched about it.
As a brazilian, could you clarify what you mean by "The Brazilian Regime"?
Genuine question, the decades long dictatorship backed by the US military in 64 or the recent pressure Trump made to try and put Bolsonaro back into power despite his crimes?
> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelan
Depending on how cynical you are, you could say that all American administrations are like that. (I don’t think that’s quite true—I think Reagan/Bush had a genuine ideological vision of using foreign policy to promote democracy and capitalism around the work. But it’s certainly a common criticism.)
> Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
Lol this is already proven false.
The put the Vice President in power who is now coincidentally supporting what the US is doing, including sending oil companies in to as Trump put it “sell oil to the Chinese”.
The institutions work if all countries abide by their rulings. The US doing this sort for things is destroying the institutions we have, chief of all the UN and the ICJ, put in place at the end of World War 2 to avoid a repeat. We have not learned.
That would be the UN. The last time the UN invaded a nation was in 1950. That happened because the Soviet Union boycotted the UN, so it wasn't able to veto it.
For the UN to ever fix a international issue it would require that country to anger all 5 UN powers. Venezuela has Russia and China on its side, so nothing would have happened.
>> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans,
I don't think this was a humanitarian mission. I'm speculating from Trump's perspective, Maduro was a major de-stabilizing factor. The Western world also seems to tacitly agree that the man had to go -- I don't think Maria Machado's recent Nobel Peace Prize was coincidence.
Conceptually, tariffs could help manufacturing. The policy Trump actually enacts, massive and unpredictable tariffs on manufacturing inputs, turns out to destroy manufacturing. Conceptually, removing Maduro might help the people of Venezuela…
It is so crazy that he is not turning around and putting the World Peace Prize winner in place. Everyone can get behind that and it is probably the fastest way to getting oil companies in there anyway.
Apparently, the Venezuelan vice president has sold out her country or is acting out of duress because she has allegedly offered full cooperation with the US. That could be a viable way to a US-led military/CIA dictatorship there, if the Venezuelan military and police around her allows it to happen. She seems to be in the line of succession. That seems to be the current "plan."
Maduro stole the election and no one in Venezuela could do anything about it. How exactly was Venezuela going to take care of it themselves?
Ultimately it's going to be outside actors, and no matter who it was, even the UN, Venezuela could just say we don't recognize your authority and nothing would happen
Easiest path from here on for the US is to cooperate with existing power structures in the resources grab/"sharing" + forcing some concessions, like increased efforts to fight against drug trafficking.
Trump also did not even inform the armed services or foreign affairs committees. He spoke to FOX before he spoke to Congress. It is not clear if he's done or if we just declared war. His public statement that the US will now be majorly involved in Venezuelan oil is both very telling and very mysterious. How the hell are we going to assert power over their industry without foisting a new, friendlier government?
Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro.
Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take.
There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple".
Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2].
So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better.
And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place.
As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
All which are currently in foreign countries and are free to express their voices without fear of prosecution. I live in spain with my venezuelan girlfriend, and everybody here from her venezuelan bubble is celebrating and cheering - hoping this is a first step towards freedom. You can turn on your TV to "rtve Telediaro", it is a spanish 24h news channel where they also show venezuelan expats getting together and celebrating from within spain. Other cities in latin america are the same, just watch some news channels from the spanish-speaking world.
They were probably also cheering in the streets in the US, if they weren't afraid of ICE deportations.
> Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil.
It was about the Soviet Union. The British convinced the US that Mosaddegh was going to align himself with the Soviet-proxy communist party (Tudeh) to stay in power. The British, on the other hand, did it because Iran had nationalized British oil fields. The US' oil interests were in Saudi Arabia.
Also the way people describe this is rather twisted. The Shah was not installed by the US. The Shah had been in power since 1941. He was installed by the British, same as his father. The coup replaced Mosaddegh with Fazlollah Zahedi, not the Shah.
Moreover, Mosaddegh's government was not remotely democratically elected. There's a rather in-depth State department memo from the era that describes how those "elections" worked in Iran which made clear that the people voting had little to do with who won. Elections were full of ballot stuffing, bribery and just outright manipulation by pretty much everyone - the Shah, Mosaddegh, Tudeh, foreign governments, etc. [1]
Plus, Mosaddegh had halted Parliamentary election counting early to prevent more opposition from getting elected risking his majority (his party controlled the more urban areas of Iran which finished "counting" earlier). He began ruling with emergency powers and jailing his opposition. That led to mass resignations in Parliament - to the point where they couldn't even form a quorum. Mosaddegh then dissolved Parliament and granted himself full dictatorial powers and ruled by decree after another sham election where 10% of the population "voted."
And it's at this point that the coup happened. The Shah, using his power under Iran's constitution, wrote a letter dismissing Mosaddegh. He was replaced with Fazlollah Zahedi and the Shah started to take a far more active role in government.
I'm a Venezuelan in the USA and I think what happened is an absolutely illegal travesty. Trump and his acolytes are nothing better than criminal thugs and this needs to be fought and protested.
As far as one can reasonably know something it’s clear that Maduro was not the fairly elected president. Chavez and Maduro were disastrous for Venezuela and millions now have hope for a better future.
Your perception about Iran in 1953 is badly wrong.
Perhaps people forget that countries are sovereign and can do whatever they want. The "global order" has always been based on strength: the stronger do what they want and the weaker do what they can.
What the US have just done is not something new because of Trump.
We are told about "international law" and "norms" so much that we perhaps forget that this is mostly BS.
This is the attitude that permits world wars. In the aftermath of WW2, a lot of people genuinely believed in the power of international law to prevent WW3. Now, it seems like a ton of people think that's just BS, and the fact that so many people think that is what makes it BS. If a strong majority of people actually believed in international law, it would be "real".
You forget that the cold war wasn't won by the US alone. But by the alliance systems which centered around the US.
The US is no longer a credible partner, and without coalition forces the recreational wars in the 2000s would have been a lot less "fun".
I'm not so sure you want a global order based on strength. You don't want small countries with little to loose arming do with nukes. But voting for it is suddenly very attractive.
Forget Venezuela, this is a major problem for America. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth lied to Congress a couple weeks ago when they explicitly said that this is not about regime change. Entering an illegal war, committing acts of international piracy, and pledging to take over another country’s resources is completely illegal and a violation of American laws as well as international laws.
And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts. Spineless Republican senators and legislators are staying quiet as they allow this horrific dictatorial action to go on without any criticism. And meanwhile, tech billionaires like Elon Musk are continuously tweeting sycophantic support for this illegal act of state terrorism.
How will America recover? Its political system is broken. And its international reputation is shattered.
> And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts.
Well, they said they wanted that. But maybe Trump wasn’t lying to them as much as lying alongside them.
I think most people agree about Maduro being horrible to Venezuela, but this has nothing to do with that. If this is legitimized, any president can be kidnapped by the US at will. This is a very dangerous precedent which a lot of people will regret when the bully turns against them and not their enemy.
Sorry, can't trust claims from a brand new account created in response to a contentious political event. I saw a lot of non-organic stuff like this when the US invaded Iraq too.
Reasoning like this is part of the reason why history keep repeating itself. Completely ignoring how previous US led decapitations turned out, and just hoping this time will be different.
It should not be contentious at this point, the US only cares about the geopolitical value of Venezuela, and if supporting another dictator helps towards this end, then that's what will happen.
Didn’t Trump explicitly say the US is putting Maduro’s second in command in charge? If so, that makes any benefits to the people from removing Maduro pretty unlikely. Besides removing sanctions, assuming the new dictator kisses the ring.
How much of this is if Hong Kong "friends" abroad hypothetically backed the UK invasion of Hong Kong, I just have no respect for this "my friends from that country validate simplistic politics" type of ad hominem. Victims and escapees of oppressive systems are filled with bitter and anger but that doesn't make their solutions automatically the right one.
> The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
"I really want it" is not the reason. Come on! Maduro is indicted in the Southern District of New York. Both charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.
The military operation was merely to lead the operation to allow FBI to arrest. Now, the oil issue certainly can be argued as the real reason for the strike and capture, but frankly they were OUR oil fields (funded by US companies) before Maduro seized them and nationalized them.
Thank you for articulating this outside of the regular "HN myopia" lenses.
This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is. Venezuela is very important strategically for them, they can't let it slide unless they're weak.
Surely, they won't go as far as direct US confrontation, but if they don't make Venezuela into a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there, one can draw the conclusion that China isn't as strong as many make them (including me, I confess).
But it wouldn't be that surprising if Venezuela turns out being a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there...
Swap China for Russia/Iran and Venezuela for Syria/Yemen if you want an idea how that plays. Spoiler: not well for the proxies.
Without some sort of underlying religious ideology to neutralize being concerned about the likely outcome of hellfires dropped on you from 20k feet if you kill American soldiers, I can’t see many stepping up.
> This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is.
Chinese intervention in Venezuela is a suicide mission by every rule of warfare. You are surrounded, you have no supply line and you can't amass your material at the front since America is already there.
You’re not wrong about the motives, but others are:
The U.S. has all the oil it needs right now.
The message from the U.S. to the world is: don’t nationalize our businesses infrastructure and then use it against our interests (even if they are on your sovereign territory) - we do not forgive and we do not forget.
First line: My whole point was the opposite, not sure how you had that reading. Wrong thing, might "maybe" and hopefully turn out good for Venezuelans. The only good outcome trump seems to care is his ego and oil interests.
Second line: You presumed that out of feeling? I did not write anything hinting at that.
Here's a trick I've learnt to get an authentic view of events like these, a nice way to parse through the keyboard warrior and ivory tower voices and noise is to hear what Venezuelans, the millions of Venezuelan migrants, and the citizens of neighboring countries who've had to reckon with the legacy of Chavez think about this. You can extend this to anything really with good results.
No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
I've been traveling South America including Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. There are no good guys anywhere. A lot of the low wage labor come from Venezuela, and in the case of southern Brazil, Cuba. In Lima, Peru it is impossible to take an Uber without having to hear about how much a shit Maduro is. The crisis has strongly affected all countries in South America and if the Venezuelans are able return home and democratically elect a new regime it will be better for everybody.
Yeah. Exactly. There have been many regime changes in the last few centuries. It’s hard to think of more than a handful that were actually objectively better. It’s even harder to think of any where the US was involved in the overthrow and installation of the replacement, and it went well. The Marshall plan was good. Any others?
> For one, immigrants are not representative of their country, they are so biased that they left.
That's close to 20% of their population. And the most relevant factor deciding if people fled or not was whether they could reach another country before Maduro closed the borders.
True, but it is like saying that to know China you have to ask the nationalists in Taiwan. Or that to understand Italian resistance you have to ask the millions of people in Italy that supported fascism.
It’s not a one-way street on principle. Italy could go do whatever it wanted. It’s a one-way street in capabilities to take action.
There isn’t anything stopping Italy, the sovereign state, from doing anything it thinks it could do. What is stopping it from bombing San Francisco (besides it not making sense whatsoever) would be that the US would physically stop the Italian Air Force and navy.
I don’t know how many Americans actually approve of this. The left will hate it. Trump’s base has largely been isolationist.
Obviously if someone like Italy bombed us we would invade and beat the shit out of them. We did a two decade, trillions of dollars revenge tour for like 2700 people dying.
(I’m not advocating for any of this but US policy is pretty consistent. Part of the value of a US passport is knowing (and everyone else knowing) that the government will go to incredible lengths to get you back.)
Anyone can already bomb the United States, and I think most people here in the US just don't imagine it happening here, no matter how much we invite a military response.
On the world stage I see everything on display that we try to teach our children to avoid. Lying, bullying, law breaking, it's all in our faces. And the real problem is that it is supported and even celebrated on television, in print, and socia media.
If you have some hard numbers supporting how much Americans don't like Trump and how shit is their life under Trump, then ..maybe? (Also, why the USA, why not start with North Korea, Venezuela etc first.)
We kinda have the obligation to ensure that Earth is not a practical hell for many people.
"Bomb San Francisco" can mean many things, and it is ultimately a Trolley Problem[0], but the answer is not a simple no.
You simply can’t. Just enjoy the show. Sorry, last 5 years have been a complete destruction of common sense and logic, just focus on something else to remain sane.
Yeah this is just flawed. Even people close to what is happening can be ignorant/brainwashed or (and even more likely) have ulterior motives. Venezuela doesn't exactly come across as a sophisticated nation.
We have an ongoing war in Europe because one President tried to remove the President of another country. You can perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify military actions, and depending on who you ask you will always get the answers you want.
I'm not arguing the point you're making. I'm saying that these discussions on these sorts of things on chat boards populated by privileged western nerds and conspicuous progressives have little merit and are merely a reflection of biases/ego of the privileged western nerd when put up against the lived experiences of people in Venezuela and neighboring states.
That is not a reason why there is a war. The Ukrainian war is an existential one, a continuation of multiple acts of genocide performed by russians for centuries.
That is a big difference between war in Ukraine and war in Iraq or Venezuela.
Russia has unlimited objectives: destroy Ukrainian identity and sovereignty. Annex the country.
While USA has limited objectives, like to overthrow the government.
About the stupidest thing I’ve ever read here. Why does a US perspective not matter when the fucking US conducted the strike? If Russia decides trump stole the election in 2024 you’d just sit back and let them take over?
Information that is known to be wrong is still useful. The immediate talking points on both sides reveal quite a bit if you can read between the lines. Everyone is lying but the lies themselves are revealing.
You will soon see many comments "misteriously" disappear without leaving traces, especially the ones telling the truth about US, "democratic values", "rule of law" and their similars. The better the comment, the faster it "evaporates". As such comments do in Russia or China related discussions, whatever the exact mechanism is.
This forum is not for you to get information about the american "public opinion". It is rather used to shape it (as a myriad of other similar forums in the "free world").
Maduro is a dictator and a murderer but I'm sure most people should now be uncomfortable with the way this was handled. Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold and no there won't be regime remaining because Maduro doesn't have popular support it requires to do so.
I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do or if it will have negative implications in the future. I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
Having said that, international law is a myth. At the power level of nation states what we have is basically anarchy where interests is what matters. Not saying its right or wrong but it is what it is.
We used the same precursor to remove the Taliban in 2003. We used the same formula to remove saddam. All of it was always a bad idea. It destroyed the countries. Venezuela will be no different.
I dont like Maduro but I hate the aftermath of removing him violently.
Arguments over definitions really bore me. To any reasonable person predicting the future, international law is an important factor. It cannot be simply waved off because it is flawed and unevenly enforced.
Any predictive model I would construct about geopolitics does include international agreements such as treaties and laws.
I challenge anyone to build a predictive model that ignores these factors. I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
> I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
And you'd have lost the bet with such a naive understanding of geopolitics and power dynamics played by nation states. Are you reading the thread you're on?
I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
Countries appeal to international law when they don’t have enough power to achieve their goals through brute force alone.
Countries that do appeal to international law but also have the wherewithal to do what they want only make those appeals to conceal their naked ambitions under the guise of the rules based order. It’s just good marketing. Nothing more.
The model you should construct should assume treaties and agreements are stable insofar as the incentives for players to maintain them remain in place.
It’s all about national interest, always has been, and at this point I’m surprised anybody can be so dense as to not be able to see this.
> I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
> Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold
This is BS. If he was an issue for the region he needed to be tried by his country by his own people and they should get their power back. A foreign power taking over the country to siphon it's oil doesn't help in any way.
It's the same situation with Trump, China swooping in and kidnapping Trump wouldn't help. We'd need the US population to fix it's own mess if we're hoping for any improvement.
We're just getting into another cycle of pain and grudges.
Democrats and republicans are concerned about China because it has a massive impact on many issues that both parties care about. This includes Taiwan, Hong Kong, Us manufacturing, US ip, immigration, etc.
Replying to your earlier comment: in terms of words spoken during the 2024 campaign, tariffs and immigration tied for first. I think MAGA heard “China” when tariffs was pronounced positively and “Hispanic” when immigration was pronounced negatively.
The one part of this I will agree with is that US foreign policy is uniparty.
The disastrous War on Terror spanned 4 presidential administrations, 2 Democrat and 2 Republican. Middle East policy differences between the two parties are somewhere between superficial and nonexistent.
Even something like Ukraine where you might say Republicans and Democrats differ isn't true. Had Trump been in office when Russia invaded Ukraine, the two parties would simply be in each other's seats.
This is 100% the case when it comes to China too. Oh, and when it comes to Taiwan (and Hong Kong), official US policy is the so-called One China policy [1].
As for US manufacturing, it's dead. Because capitalists killed it by moving it to China to increase profits and (under Regan, in particular) to destroy unions and the labor movement [2].
As for China and IP, US companies did this to themselves knowingly to increase short-term profits and to break unions and suppress wages. At no point will I accept the framing that a Chinese person, a Mexican, an Indian or a person from [developing country of choice] stole someone's job. No, a capital owner made a choice to take your job and give it to someone else so he or she could become slightly richer.
I'm not sure how immigration factors into China concerns.
The only reason China is the biggest buyer is because of crippling US sanctions since 2017 that have made it impossible for Venezuela to trade with any western nation
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Few hours later: "US oil companies will fix Venezuela's "broken infrastructure" and "start making money for the country", Trump added"
Obviously anyone with common sense understands that the above translates to exporting oil to the US. Just like that, a lot of noise about democracy goes out of the window.
>The US empire currently maintains an imperialist network of over 800 military bases in 70 countries. (For comparison, all other countries combined have only 30 bases)
If this is a list of atrocities, I am already somewhat underwhelmed. Almost all of those bases are present with the consent of the host country, except for Gitmo. Besides Gitmo, the US always leaves when requested in the cases I have been able to find.
(Why do we still have a base in Gitmo? Because Florida is a swing state. It sucks.)
To be fair, the rest of the list looks like an excellent argument for closing all the bases.
I can't speak for other countries, but the regime in Russia has popular support.
And if "every Venezuelan you know" is someone who immigrated because of Chavez and/or Maduro, then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
> then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
I think that if a good chunk of the people that don't agree with their government are basically forced to emigrate you don't get to turn around and say "See, everyone that remains loves the government!"
What happens if the Venezuelan people decide they want their oil profits to stay in Venezuela rather than flowing into oil company coffers? Will they have the "freedom" to choose that?
Don't get me wrong, Maduro being toppled is a positive in isolation, but it's still wait-and-see regarding what he gets replaced with.
"We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so" [1]
If you are talking about those that left the country... yeah, obviously they are happy. They literally left and got a better life. That's called immigration. That doesn't mean that it will be fine for those that stayed.
"Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to 'liberate' by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest.
The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election', 'protecting interests', 'restoring order'. The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.
The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable."
The media can blast propaganda all they want about the reasons.
It’s just history repeating itself. Never trust american politicans.
If this started a war with China (it wont, but as a thought experiment), wouldn’t american politicans at least want to pretend this was the will of the people? Or are they just so sure they can set the discourse that democracy no longer has a meaning?
Man, I don't want to be that guy calling AI on everything, but it's odd that almost every sentence of that is some form of "not X, but Y". Is that an LLMism that persists even in other languages?
Rules and laws only matter if you can enforce them.
The UN sits and is "deeply concerned" about terrible leaders and events all around the world all the time. Leaders of so many EU countries "condemn" people they disagree with. But they can't enforce anything, so it doesn't matter.
I prefer living in a world where a country I'm more aligned with than most can enforce their morality on the world _effectively_, like this. Not just empty words and platitudes and endless talking about "this is against international rule of law" -- none of that is real unless you _enforce_ it.
Venezuelans seem to be celebrating this. Maybe let them speak for themselves for once. And let's not forget, Maduro was indicted under Biden. This isn't a recent invention by the Trump administration.
Some Venezuelans are celebrating. Some Iraqis celebrated when Saddam’s statue fell. How they felt five years later is the more relevant data point.
“Let them speak for themselves” is doing a lot of work here. Which Venezuelans? The ones in Miami and Doral? The ones still in Caracas who’ll live with whatever comes next? The ones who’ll be caught in the crossfire if this destabilizes into civil war?
> I prefer living in a world where a country I’m more aligned with can enforce their morality on the world effectively.
So does everyone. The problem is that China and Russia feel the same way. Rules exist precisely because “let the powerful enforce their values” is a race to the bottom.
You’re comfortable with this because you trust the current enforcer. But frameworks outlast administrations. You’re not just endorsing this action, you’re endorsing the principle that whoever has the most power gets to decide. Hope you still like that principle when the power shifts.
Enforcement without wisdom is just violence with good PR.
It’s estimated there are over a million Venezuelans in the U.S. who fled the country. Over 600,000 are currently under temporary protected status with asylum claims. 7 million in neighboring countries.
Who gets to decide that this is good, but removing the dictator behind this is bad? Who gets to decide that we must live with this chaos because taking action might not reduce the chaos.
> Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election'
Why? Those are two completely different things. We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
> We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
The US has claimed the capacity to make this evaluation before, repeatedly, and has been wrong in ways that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe we're not the ones who should be deciding this unilaterally.
"Oh, but this time is different", you might say. "Maduro is an unambiguous dictator who stole an election, caused 7 million refugees, and was already under indictment. This isn't like Iraq, where we invented WMDs."
The justification was "real and documented" for Libya too (Gaddafi was about to massacre Benghazi, remember?). The result: Libya was rated as the Fragile State Index's "most-worsened" country for the 2010s decade, with ISIS using the country as a hub to coordinate regional violence and Libya becoming the main exit point for migrants trying to get to Europe. The intervention may have also made nuclear nonproliferation harder, since Gaddafi had already given up his nuclear program and then been overthrown anyway. Iran and North Korea both noted that "the Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson".
The issue isn't whether Maduro is bad; he obviously is. It's whether US military intervention produces better outcomes than the alternative. I honestly hope it does this time. I truly hope it's a case of "a broken clock is right twice a day". But am I holding my breath? Absolutely not.
Sure you removed the "bad dictator". Gratz! Will you now leave Venezuelan oil alone ? I am guessing not. The U.S. oil companies effectively become the new dictator behind the scenes, at-least until people realize they are being merrily looted and rise up.
Respectfully, offering asylum to Venezuelan people and choosing to invade Venezuela and remove their dictator are nearly orthogonal. The USA could instead choose not to provide asylum to these people in the future, and accept the reality that for the millions it already has, it has made its bed so to speak.
One is a matter of internal policy, the other is a matter of international law and order. One the USA had complete and total control over for decades, the other is a delicate and precarious matter which requires significant planning, oversight, congressional approval, and international engagement.
> Why? Those are two completely different things.
These are different things, yes, but the problem is exactly that: the same methods and justification will be applied in either case, despite deserving totally different treatment. I believe this is the consequence of permitting brazen realpolitik principles into government.
There is more than just one person behind Venezuela's misfortune. The external pressure to undermine the country has been immense and shouldn't be discounted. As always, not black and white.
If there are terrible crimes being committed by a dictator then there is the ICC and the UN. It would require building up rather than undermining the institution but it’s there.
A lot of talk about how the administration didn't even try to justify this, but I think that the administration actually believes they did justify it. They exist in some bubble completely un-tethered from reality. I don't know what that means for the future but it's terrifying.
Trump was extraordinarily lucky here, the Maduro regime was wholly unprepared and he was immediately extracted from the county; he can claim "mission accomplished", parade Maduro in front of the world media and watch from afar the PSUV leadership tear themselves appart.
But the dice Trump rolled could have easily fell onto a well prepared Maduro regime, which could have downed a few Blackhawks, torpedoed the ship from which they launched, captured and killed a few dozens to a few hundreds US service men, paraded them in the streets of Caracas and used them as human shields protecting the main military targets etc.
I.e, Trump could have easily committed US to a long term war and a ground invasion, without Congress authorization or allied support, and with Iraq or worse long term results.
> Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
Any attempt at holding the admin accountable would make it look a bit more like Venezuela. NA is rightfully too soft to want to ever go that route. They'll peacefully protest and that'll be it. Anything more than that would be the individuals throwing their lives away unless the whole country did it in unison.
It seems it was her wife who pushed for that. By reading the article, it doesn't sound like he believed any of that.
> "If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it," she quoted the president as saying.
Also
> Both the president and Nancy Reagan denied that any policies or decisions were based on astrology.
So we can't really tell to what extent, if any, those consultations affected the actual policies.
In general, I don't trust politicians by default. Still, I also don't trust astrologers (and even less so), so there is no reason for me to believe the astrologer more than the president.
The previous time, 23 years ago, there was a broad campaign beforehand, and Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq. This time, it's just some PR statements before the press.
> Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq
Uh? Bush failed to assemble a coalition by providing dubious and faked proofs of supposed WMDs and chemical weapons. The Europeans and especially the French didn't fall for it. The only one who did was Tony Blair and he's still paying the price both domestically in the UK and abroad. AFAIK, Trump isn't planning to send troops in Venezuela on the scale Bush did in Iraq.
U.S. foreign policy is bipartisan. The big plan was to keep the Russians tied up in Ukraine, get Syria (achieved under Biden) and now get China and Russia out of Venezuela.
It could work with bribing officers like in Syria, in which case there will be minimal resistance and then probably the Nobel War Prize recipient Machado will be installed.
It is possible that all of this was discussed with Russia (you get things in your backyard, we in ours).
Trump is a man who will push boundaries further and further until someone physically stops him from doing so. But you don’t need to justify anything if you have full control over people who would normally investigate, prosecute or restrict such things.
Then you put your thumb on the scale (i.e. Texas) so you don’t cede power to the other party in the midterms and then you never need to worry about consequences for your entire term.
It’s a bit more of a problem in 2028 but Trump is term-limited so that’s someone else’s problem.
There's a pretty well established Turkic solution to that. (Change the constitution. Claim the term limit applied to the old republic and it's your first term actually and go about your day)
Hum hum... Bombing of Libya. Support for ISIS against Al Assad in Syria. Doesn't make what happened today right, but it is pretty myopic to see this as unique to Trump or unprecedented.
All of the justification in this moment reads to me like: Trump is giving different segments of his coalition reasons to get off the fence and on his side. It’s something different for Rubio than for DoD than for the oil cronies. It’s not really about persuading anyone outside of Trump’s coalition.
I imagine the calculus goes something like "unjustified war didn't matter any of the other times, so it won't matter this time either". Although this time the US would be bringing death and destruction to its own continent so there is a moral improvement on what they normally do and that will probably going to make the war more of a political problem for Trump.
It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same.
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right, and I think it's doubtful if it's legally justified (how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition), but it makes a lot of sense, it aligns with realpolitik and it's morally good for several independent reasons. In particular it has a hugely disproportionate geopolitical impact, and less importantly it can bring a few million people from under a dictatorship.
As an interesting aside, I recently did a quick research on the Grenada invasion, widely spoken of as an embarrassing moment. It went... very well. They came, remove a budding dictatorship right after a coup, left in two months, and Grenada had no ill effects in the years after (both by subjective reporting, and by GDP per capita comparable to neighboring countries). The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. The number of dictatorships that did well in recent history is exactly two, and neither was socialist (SK and Singapore).
> The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region.
This. Your logic could at least make sense with other US president, but not wanna-be dictator one doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators in the world. Not a good fit to fight for democracy.
War can only be justified after the fact as a result of good outcomes. The decision prior is always a roll of the dice that loads the thrower with infinite responsibility.
You say that as if the reason is that Venezuela is a dictatorship. I despise Maduro but this break of international rules is everything but morally good. It opens a world of brute force and lack of international rules. It is only "morally good" in the short term. In the medium-long, it's morally horrible and terrifying.
I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question.
Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky.
Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide.
My country is not a fan of Trump, is it morally right to send a bunch of covert soldiers to capture him and throw him out of the country? We'd be saving the US from a dictatorship.
>It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same.
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right
Ah a textbook case of outgroup homogeneity bias. [1] Your follow up comment about Bernie and AOC is icing on the cake.
> how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition
What? There's a process for initiating an offensive war in the US and they didn't follow it. Legally, Congress must authorize it. Though that hasn't been followed for quite a few wars now.
[edit] Maduro remained under US federal indictment on narco‑terrorism and related cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges throughout the Biden administration.
Venezuela has always been a minor player in the drug trade compared to other countries. The whole narco-terrorism thing has always been code for "he took back the oil and we don't like him"
"Justified" in what sense? Who does this administration - or indeed USA in general - answer to?
Folks there's nothing new or insane here. Countries attacked other countries all throughout human history. The surprise is when they don't.
Now it's not super hard to understand why Trump is fixated on Venezuela in terms of geopolitics. There's a decision by this admin to bolster US in the western hemisphere, possibly in preparation to coming to terms with a bipolar world split between US and China. So the US is now meddling with Canada and Greenland. Now with the shift towards the right in Latam (Milei in Argentina, Bukele in El Salvador, Kast in Chile) Trump is just pushing a few more bricks to create a more uniform American-led sphere. Plus, Venezuela was very close with the Iranians and Russians, so removing this regime surely serves some strategic goals.
I mean, do they really need to justify it any further? They just arrested Maduro while causing very little collateral damage, if they'd failed dramatically then they'd have much more questions to answer.
I think there may have been some deliberate misdirection. I'm writing this after the US announced they have captured Maduro. If they had said they were going to do that he probably would have taken precautions. The subsequent justification may be that María Machado won the election, is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Maduro's removal with US assistance. Though who knows?
He might have. Or he might well have come willingly, ordered his bodyguards not to shoot etc. figuring that he'll have a better chance being an alive headache for the US, than as an Allende being found dead by his own hand (supposedly), or as Saddam being found hiding in a pigsty somewhere 50 days later.
That justification feels weak because of how much it could parallel with Putin's special military operation, where Zelensky is an illegitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Zelenksy's removal with Russian assistance.
I don't like how Trump has unilaterly decided this extreme of an action, but at the moment I am glad that this didn't fail like it did in Ukraine. I am still worried about what the aftermath will lead to. I don't think peace and democracy is having a particularly winning record at the moment.
Maduro is alive and charged with crimes in a US court. So, we will see evidence presented I guess. This is new.
I'm surprised Maduro wasn't just killed, and wonder if he might somehow die in US custody. The US will have to make a case in court while the whole world watches. That will be embarrassing I expect.
If they have evidence he violated US law smuggling weapons and drugs into the domestic USA, he should be tried under such law. It's neither ironic, funny, strange, or anything else. What law should he be tried under if he did these alleged things?
They extradited him by force because Venezuela wouldn't. They don't have an extradition treaty. If Venezuela doesn't want this to happen again - negotiate a treaty.
The USA doesn't "accept" the ICC because it's not a party to the agreement. There are not-insignificant constitutional problems with the USA being a party. It's because they have such strong civil protections that those issues come up.
The ICC is also complementary - you misunderstand what it is for. If the USA is able to prosecute this guy themselves, you don't need an ICC, because it doesn't apply in this case.
There are two possibilities. Either we live in a rules-based international order, in which case China would be punished for invading Taiwan. Or we live in a world where power decides outcomes, in which case China would still be punished, this time by the United States, which is arguably still the strongest actor.
Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
With the US being now engaging her Navy in South America more, I am not so sure that America can really match a Blitzkrieg-style invasion, and it is probably not quite able to project enough soft power to get the 'vassal states' to effectively help.
So while I am by no means pro-Taiwan invasion, I do believe that there is a very significant downside wrt China with this move.
N.B. I'm no military wonk or political strategist, far from it. I just call 'em as i see's 'em.
>Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
There's someone else in this thread suggesting that the quid pro quo was exactly that. My brothers in Christ, I am worried.
As someone old enough to have seen the US invade too many countries, I'm struck by the lack of effort put into justifying this sort of military action these days. There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal and I have no idea where the courts or history will ultimately land on that decision. But the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far.
To briefly quantify some things: US public support at the onset of the Afghanistan invasion polled at 88% [a]; at the onset of the Iraq invasion, 62%, rising to 72% [b]; and Venezuela here and now polls at 30% supporting "U.S. taking military action in Venezuela" [c] (Nov. 19–21 2025).
I suspect that invading and bombing a country for a few hours and then pulling out is not what most people will have in mind when you mention "taking military action". People are much, much more likely to remember the military quagmires in Vietnam or the Middle East, which have absolutely nothing to do with what occurred here.
Public opinion in 2001 and 2003 followed the 9/11 terror attack and was very fresh in peoples mind. A more recent war (2015) would be the attack on Yemen by Barack Obama.
I can however not find any good public opinion for that war.
I think this is a very good indicator US has been transitioning away from democracy towards something else for quite a while and now it has reached a point where no justification for an illegal war is even required.
After the Iraq war we(US allies that were dragged into this war by a bunch of lies) felt like this was very bad, but it was a blunder of one administration and the trust in the US as a whole was going to be restored.
"Rules-based international world order" consists of just two rules:
1. The Western countries (basically meaning USA makes the decision) may attack any country.
2. Other countries may not defend themselves nor attack any country.
Iraq, Iraq (several separate agressions on Iraq, that is not a typo), Afghanistan, Cuba, Serbia, Libya, Sirya, Venezuela... the list goes on, Venezuela is of no particular significance here.
"Rules-based order" just means Washington makes up the rules and gives out the orders. The very phrase hints at its conceit. Why "Rules-based order" instead of "International law" ? Its because International law is something concrete, something you can point to and hold up as a standard. International law means UN, ICC, Geneva conventions, votes and parlimentary procedure. It means accountability and uniform application of said law. "Rules-based order" just gives a slightest hint of legitimacy while Washington and its cronies do whatever they want. "Rules-based order" means that the United States can invoke the Monroe Doctrine in Venezuela, Cuba and all over its "backyard" i.e. South America, but Russia doing the same in Ukraine or China doing it in Taiwan is an affront to civillization.
What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off. They don't even pretend to give a plausible reason anymore because noone will ever buy it so why bother. "All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." That is what we are witnessing now.
Interestingly, this is not just flaunting international law. It is a blatant violation of federal domestic law in the USA itself: Congress is the only body that can declare war, and they have not done so. The Presidency has no right whatsoever to attack a foreign country without a declaration of war.
While yes, Congress authorized the "War on Terror", there is very obviously no possible justification for applying that to the case of Venezuela.
Panama and Granada in the 80s weren't that fundamentally different. And before that US had a very long history of invading or intervening in Latin American countries due to various often dubious reasons.
If anything the last few decades might have been the exception.
Just like how Denmark and Greenland stole American land that happens to be where Greenland is. Or Canada.
Seriously though, even the imperial ambitions from the guy feels racist :)
I guess Turkey can stop worrying on thanksgiving days.
I have a lot of conflicting views with both the "left" and the "right" these days, but it seems the so-called "conservatives" are not that conservative in their ambitions, no?
> the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far
A lot of Americans don't care. They either actually don't care. Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Like, this entire exercise is a leveraged wager by the Trump administration that this will not cost them the Senate in any of these states next year [1].
What data do you have that they don’t care? Waging a war is a pretty massive thing to not care about. I would think that someone would either be positive or negative towards it. Because even if they don’t care about invading countries per se they would presumably care about what their presumed tax money is spent on.
Of course being “nihilistic” is a different matter.
> Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Typical.
Doing anything about US foreign interventions is a very tall order in a country where the vast majority are politically disenfranchised (with income and wealth as a proxy). It’s difficult enough for domestic affairs, like getting universal healthcare. Much harder to fight the war machine.
Americans did put up a fight against the interventionism of the Reagan administration. But that didn’t stop the funding of the Contras. “All it did” was force the interventions to become clandestine. (A big contrast to this admin.)
But ordinary Americans do have the largest power in all of the world to fight the war machine of their own country. That ought to be encouraged. But as usual we see the active encouragement of nihilism from comments where A Lot Of X are deemed to be useless for this particular purpose. Ah what’s the point, People Are Saying that everyone around me are useless or politically katatonic. Typical.
> There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
There might be a local debate about the legality in the US. But from the outside perspective in terms of international law, there is not much to debate. Unless i missed some UN resolution, the US has no jurisdiction in Venezuela.
>There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
Or maybe there wouldn't be any debate and people will move on to the next bombastic thing he does. Populists get away with everything by simply not engaging, people get tired and seek new entertainment and there's no actual checks and balances beyond the decency. When someone has no claim of decency, they are untouchable. No one will ever arrest them, stop them or deny them anything because they can just replace those who do not obey. Maduro, Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Orban and many others are made from the same cloth.
This is a consequence of the society concentrating on its internal culture war. International politics became irrelevant to most voters; they don't really have any personal stake in it anymore, or they at least don't feel so. Their kids won't be drafted to war.
It’s funny how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime change whose ultimate goal isn’t about drugs or democracy, but getting access to oil and minerals to make the Trump family richer.
And that’s so why there is a lack of effort to justify it. The right has been compromised and will support anything the party does - deporting citizens, invading countries, making things unaffordable with tariffs.
It was one or two elections ago that we entirely dropped the pretense of dignity.
Quite refreshing, actually.
Earlier today I heard the argument that idealism was promoted in the West because it encourages a separation from reality and makes people easier to control.
I consider myself an idealist. I just don't believe that ignorance and delusion are the means by which an ideal can be brought about.
I think all that's required here is that Maduro had such bad relationships with everyone both inside and outside the country that there was no one to defend him.
If the UN calls for a vote to condemn the US, it will likely fail even without veto power.
I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.
Maduro isn't a good leader. He's been very repressive, very likely stole the 2024 election from his opponent. Venezuela has terrible economic problems and food and medicine shortages.
They have been assisting Russia, operating a shadow fleet of oil tankers that routinely disable transponders to evade international sanctions against each other. They've also been helping Iran to manufacture UAVs.
They are also a narco-state. The cartel there has at least partially captured the government.
Installing a more palatable leader and administration would perhaps allow the sanctions to be lifted, oil to be sold on the global market, and aid to flow in. The brain drain from the country might partly reverse.
Or, it could devolve into a civil war, insurgency, mass refugee exodus, etc.
All the above describes many countries, more or less. Why the US is targeting Venezuela in particular likely has to do with oil, geopolitical principle (Monroe doctrine) and advantage (weaken Iran and Russia), Venezuelan immigration to the U.S., distraction from Trump's failing health, personal & political scandals, "red meat" for the base and war-hawks, and the political security afforded to a "war time" president.
>Monroe asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence,[4] and thus further efforts by European powers to control or influence sovereign states in the region would be viewed as a threat to U.S. security.[5][6]
>In turn, the United States would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries.
I highly doubt that weakening Iran and Russia is the goal here, and I'm not even sure how people got that idea. This isn't 2010 anymore.
These decisions require a pretty broad coalition to get a workable plan in front of Trump for him to activate for attention. So there is never 1 single reason, but my 2cents are that:
- Most of the oil export goes to China. Especially with the recent metals kerfuffle, this is a quick way to improve the US' negotiation position.
- The hawks in the army are getting restless and are clamoring for real-world modern drone warfare experience - especially if Taiwan turns hot. Getting a trial run in your backyard in similar terrain is good practice. (Assuming they'll send in an occupying force, and it's contested by china backed insurgents).
To be more explicit: Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the entire world and, due to the above, are not inclined to transact it with the US.
This deserves far more than the two little sidenotes you've dropped in here.
POTUS demonstrably does not give a fuck about countries "assisting Russia", "being repressive", "stealing elections" or "having economic/food/health problems".
Trump blamed Venezuela for stealing US oil when it nationalized US oil companies there, and for shipping drugs to America, and for creating Dominion voting machines which he believes were used to cheat in the 2020 election. Some in his administration have also blamed Venezuela for working with Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas. One or more of those could be the reason for the invasion.
Trump also blamed Venezuela for literally conducting an invasion of the United States (not just in rhetoric, but as his legal justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March of 2025.)
no, that makes sense. It's probably too soon to be sure what has happened. This is why we need actual journalists and not just tiktok and yt commentators
POTUS confirmed it, first on CBS News and prior to the Guardian posting that, then on his Mastodon server. There is no room for doubt about who bombed where.
As this is an evolving situation, the OP headline has now been changed to "Trump claims US has captured Venezuelan dictator and wife" and is basically a different article at this point.
The bias in this Guardian reporting is very visible beyond just the headlines.
(I don't blame you for being confused btw)
Suggesting "US bombs Venezuela" for HN headline (still uncertainties around the "capture").
Welcome to the wonderful world of news/media. Try this with US/China, EU/russia, Israel/Palestine, etc. Note the framing, word usage, etc. Both sides could do the same thing but the headlines diverge. One side gets "aggressive", "destablizing", "terrorism", etc. The other gets "defensive", "stabilizing", "anti-terrorism", etc. Not to mention who gets called a "dictator/authoritarian". That one is real funny.
edit: this comment made before two threads were consolidated. Original thread titled "Explosions reported in Venezuelan capital Caracas"
While I agree that "hypocrisy" isn't the right word here, I see where OP is coming from.
At least in American media, the use of passive voice (or as I've heard it called sometimes "exonerative voice") often obfuscates or otherwise provides cover for authorities. For example, "Tower collapses after missile strike" and "Man dies after being struck by bullet during arrest" are both technically true and yet also leave out important context (the country who fired the missile, the person who fired the gun and why).
Even if this headline is appropriate for now, it's not surprising that there should be questions over how it's worded.
Yes they know what "hypocrisy" means. It is the hypocrisy of western media of jumping to say "evil country X bombed/invaded country Y" when it's a non-western country doing something (not that I'm justifying any country bombing/invading another) but when it's done by a country like the US the report is just "wow these buildings in Caracas just popped, crazy huh?"
It's not textbook responsible when it's consistently and predictably done for only one side of every conflict.
That's like if a waiter gives the appropriate amount of attention to the tables with white guests and disregards tables with minority guests. You can't clutch your pearls and say that it isn't hypocrisy to notice that the waiter treats a given table correctly.
So the US will be excluded from the SWIFT banking system? Heavy international sanctions will be put in place? Europe will send weapons and money to help Venezuela defend itself?
They extradited a guy for crimes also illegal in Venezuela. What would the point of sanctioning actions like this be?
This is about the cleanest extraterritorial action you can take. A guy probably did some seriously illegal stuff in your country and his, who was probably illegally elected, who probably had people killed.
Why not do this? Why not say to Venezuela, hand him over or we'll take him ourselves?
He's not going to gitmo, he'll have the same due process that every other American gets. Rights Maduro denied to millions. If you asked me to describe "justice" - I have to give this as a good example. He's going to die in prison like Noriega, after a fair trial.
It’s incredibly depressing to watch the same mistake made again well within my own lifetime. Regime change by chopping off the top failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and it’ll fail here too. Many will die. It doesn’t matter how bad or illegitimate the deposed leader is.
If it's to get access to the oil reserve, it is bad news for the shale oil industry in the USA : maybe "drill baby drill" is not feasible any more, and the only way to maintain the level of GDP is to get the oil from somewhere else.
Or it's just banking oil to prepare a war with China.
Thank FSM some AI-first is going to create fusion any time soon to power the robots solving climate change.
Don't expect the administration to make any sense on this topic. The same time they were signing executive orders and blabbing about the US oil industry, they were telling OPEC to lower prices. There's no coherency to be had with them. They simply don't understand the world or trivial economics.
I get slightly desperate realizing how people are lead to such naive discussions, even in a place with supposedly instructed, informed persons.
Maduro may be a dictator, a murderer, whatever. This has absolutely no relation with the reasons for US invading, bombing and killing Venezuelans, or whichever country. For about a century, US has been doing it all over the world, not because they wanna live in a better, peaceful world - quite the opposite, they've been doing it for supporting coups and stablishing dictatorships that favour their supremacy, their role as the most powerful country in the world.
Do you really, really believe Mr. Donald is very concerned about the lives of poor venezuelans? Or, just to stay in the region, he supports El Salvador dictator because he's a very nice fellow?
I don't understand what you're saying here. First, yep, countries act in self-interest. There's no war in the history of the planet that was started out of the kindness of one's heart. That doesn't mean that the outcome of a self-interested intervention can't be just or good for the country in the long haul. I don't know how this one will pan out, but I suspect that the interests of the US and of the citizens of Venezuela are aligned much more closely than, say, in the Middle East.
Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum. The reality is that there's a fierce competition between superpowers to broaden their spheres of influence and ultimately control the world. There's no future in which a relatively small, resource-rich, and politically dysfunctional country is left to its own devices. The choice is between Russia, China, and the US. Venezuela was more or less one of the Russian client states, and that status quo was maintained through undemocratic means, including mass murder of political opponents using the military gear provided by RU. Now, the US is going to try its hand, probably in a far less brutal way.
The US regime hates Maduro because he kept Venezuelan oil nationalized so it can be benefit the Venezuelan people rather than foreign shareholders of oil companies. Although US sanctions intended to choke their economy and bring about regime change have made that difficult in practice.
The interests of the US imperialists and the Venezuelan people therefore could not be more diametrically opposed.
You clearly did, US is acting out of pure self interest and pretending otherwise.
> Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum
Invading a foreign nation, stealing their resources and imprisoning thier leader is a malicious act, no matter how you slice it.
Just because there are other competitors or good "may" come out of it (so you say), doesn't justify it.
The mental gymnastics by Americans to position themselves as "liberators", while bombing other countries and stealing their territory / resources is stunning.
It's a win-win, it's good for Venezuelans and US wants the country to become an ally. People behind the decision probably took both into account.
In principle, it's morally good to overthrow a dictator in some circumstances. The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
It’s surprising how hard it is for some people to understand this. Yes oil blah blah. A few billion bucks, but the much bigger picture is (at least in this theory) Venezuela gets a democracy and the U.S. gets a stable strategic partner in an important part of its back yard. I’m not evaluating it yet, but there is definitely a bull case for this move on the geopolitical level.
> The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...
Now you have a country where every living being from their birth has been trained that US is bad and their leader is like God on earth.
Your 'little risk of something going wrong' is wishful thinking or naive
This is "we don't let poor people have money because they'll only get fat if they have food to eat" levels of rhetoric.
USA military should be taking heed of their own country's laws before pretending to be enforcing laws in other countries in order to further enrich their oligarchy.
Sure, remove the NK dictator that USA is partly responsible for being put in to power ... but only with international agreement and a plan for rapid move to have open elections. USA is in no place to do this given the lack of democracy there.
Do you really believe the story about freeing Venezuelan's? You're in for a surprise then when USA rapes them for their oil.
How would you feel if Iran captures Trump, a convicted felon with no respect to the rule of the law, running crypto schemes from the office and with proved connections to a pedophile ring trafficking and planning for a 3rd therm and staying in the office for life?
I’m sure a lot of Americans will be celebrating it on the streets. Will that be a win win too?
The US could be acting in their own interest and their actions could benefit Venezuelans at the same time. Venezuela has insane amounts of oil and could be the Saudi Arabia of south America. Why aren't they? Why are there food shortages there? Where's all the oil revenue going? Why isn't there more oil revenue?
A major factor is that Venezuela's oil is mostly heavier crude, which is denser and more viscous. This makes it costlier and more difficult to extract and refine, and usually sells for a lower price than lighter crude.
There's also rampant mismanagement, poor infrastructure, and sanctions affecting the output and outcomes. See also: "resource curse"
Based on where I was born and my background, I should not know as much as I do about Venezuela. Improbably, life led me to develop close ties to some Venezuelans, and with them as a window, I've learned a lot about that country.
In this case, the people of Venezuela are desperate to get rid of their socialist government. It has, predictably and inevitably, led them directly to poverty, starvation, and violent repression.
I have a lot of reservations about the way in which Trump is operating and in this case, the legality of every aspect of how he is doing this operation in Venezuela. Despite all those reservations, this is a rare situation where this action benefits everyone and the world.
HN comments is a heavily biased and propagandized place. The most moderate opinion you'll find here will be something like "actually Venezuelans are happy that they are being bombed by the US!"
Have you considered that it might not be HN being propagandized but instead all other social medias from which you likely use to construct your worldview? It would be an incredible waste of time to try and sway opinion here on global politics.
Ironic comment. El Salvador’s president has extremely high approval ratings and was definitely elected democratically. The US hasn’t ousted a democratically elected government since the end of the Cold War (as far as I know).
"The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was presented with the inaugural 'FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World' by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ at the iconic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC" [1].
…that they invented from whole cloth this year just so they could award it to Trump, the most deserving president of a fake prize from one of the most corrupt organisations on Earth.
Yes, it's more peaceful than war. Especially when the "illegitimately" part is determined by US-aligned and sponsored organizations for the purpose of manufacturing consent for regime change.
I think people are overindexed on the US's failures to turn Islamic theocracies into democracies. The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
Venezuela had a democracy for decades. It's the US that has been trying to destroy it for decades because the venezuelans voted for the wrong guy. It's funny how we forgot that the US also tried to remove the previous elected leader of venezuela.
Given the US position in favor of Bolsanaro against Lula indicates that Trump is not interested in Democracy if it produces the wrong result. If Venezuelans elect a Socialist, they will immediately be out of our good graces.
> The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney (but I'm sure it'll work out this time)
There is a whole lot of directions this can go after we arrest the dictator, but a liberal democracy magically immediately popping isn't on my list. There might be one in the future but there will be a lot of chaos and violence between now and then.
What happened in Europe after WW2? Dick Cheney didn't invent the idea of America liberating a country and being greeted as liberators, it had happened before, specifically in countries that had a history of liberal democracy.
For some reason he thought it would apply to Islamic theocracies and it clearly didn't. Pattern matching Venezuela against Iraq or Afghanistan is an obvious mistake.
I don't know if you remember that Hugo Chavez was voted into power, had a legitimate mandate to dismantle the democracy that elevated him, and then his voters defended him against a violent coup to restore that democracy.
The funny part of that narrative is the US government currently being led by people who have been trying to tear down the concept of democracy in the US. Maybe once Venezuela has their democracy back, they can help out the people in the US?
Why would Washington try to get oil from Venezuela when its domestic oil industry produces all the oil the US needs (and if production were to decrease, the US economy could easily make up the shortfall by buying oil from Canada)?
Determining the goodness of a blatantly illegal action by its ultimate success is a very Machiavellian view. Why have laws if all that matters is the final result?
What kind of democracy do Venezuelans want and will it be the same kind of democracy Trump wants to install? What if they want a democracy that continues to be friendly towards Cuba and wary of the US? Will Trump accept that?
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
― George Orwell
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. On the sixth day of Hate Week... it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally."
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
I'm old enough that I grew up (well) before 9/11. Many in my age bracket will describe the 90s as the last great decade. I feel sad for those who are younger who never experienced that world, the world between the Cold War and the War on Terror.
It was a time when you could walk up to the gate in an airport before the TSA. A lot of younger people don't realize that's how it actually was. They think it's one of those things made up for movies.
Houses were cheap. Rent was cheap. Cars were cheap. Gas was cheap. Food was cheap. A friend of mine had college buddies who shared a 4 bedroom house in Iowa for $175/month. Not each. Total. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment close to a train and the city center for a little over $200/month. I lived as a student just fine on $200/week (in 1995), including paying for rent. My degree cost me about $10,000.
The other side of that was the Cold War when we lived under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. I think this was generationally traumatic to people who grew up in the 50s (way before my time) but by the 80s? It wwas like background noise.
There was a lot of optimism with the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Union. On reflection, much later, I think this was terrible for the world. When the USSR existed as a counter to the US, the US was forced to at least do something for its citizens. The Red Scare destroyed collectivism and the US does things like the War on Terror now and, well, capturing the Venezuelan president, with complete impunity. They're open about it too: it's for oil. A handful of billionaires will get richer as a result of this.
The Big Lebowski is, to me, the most 90s movie of all time and it just gets better with age. Oh, the output of HOllywood in general was amazing in the 1990s. At that time I used to go see movies once or even twice a week. There was always something good on. Goodfellas and Terminator 2 spring to mind.
There just seemed to be more hope then. Now? I feel for anyone who was born after 2000. Crippled with debt with limited prospects of any kind of security. It's just so different to how it was.
EDIT: qualified that the $200/week figure was in 1995, not the 1980s. That's like $430 in today's money by the same inflation calculator.
Important to note here that the $200/week figure from 80s is the same as $830/week today due to inflation [0]. Rent and degrees specifically have gone up a ridiculous amount, yes, but as far as the rest of it goes, most students today would jump at the opportunity of having that much disposable income.
I believe the Jesus Jones song, "Right Here, Right Now" has become an ironic commentary on Gen X; in that brief moment in the 90's when we thought the nuclear sword of Damocles dangling over all of us had finally been cut down...
Not a great song, but one that expresses the zeitgeist in a pretty succinct way.
We thought that we were at the cusp of a new era... one where we could overcome the injustices of the past and author a future based on the best version of ourselves.
In the end, Gen X never even got a chance to start; we watched from the sidelines as geriatric Boomers clung (and still cling) to power -- leaving less and less of that (ever more naive) dream behind.
"Right here, right now,
there's no other place I'd rather be.
Right here, right now,
watching the world wake up from history."
The song hasn't aged well & has become a cloy reminder of that time and what we didn't become.
The standard playbook. If its not nuclear weapons, it's the spread of democracy, or "helping people". The global police just securing their natural resources, nothing to see here.
No dictatorship has been communist. They use the mantle, that it's for nation and country, but they don't even pay lip service to communism ideals and mechanism. They are just crony capitalist, where the head of the state is the one that uses the state to control the economy rather than the rich doing it by proxy.
“If we [Economic Hit Men] falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military.”
At best this is a violation of international law, at worst we have seen many times how badly things can turn when leaders are removed by foreign power.
Congress practically matters when significant mobilization, boots on the ground, money, with high likelihood of many lives lost. Iraq. Not random one-off adventures.
Otherwise modern Presidents have done this thing for decades.
I think it’s more an effective argument to question this as a policy. As in “is there a plan for what comes next”. Congress should be holding hearings and performing oversight to understand whether theres actually a plan and to allow debate.
Hard to draw conclusions from early reports like this. Situations involving explosions tend to generate a lot of noise before verified facts emerge, especially in politically tense environments. Best to wait for confirmation on cause, scale, and impact before speculating, and hopefully accurate information follows quickly.
followup: the little black outlines in the video correspond to helicopter-like objects. I just referred to Apache for some reason, most local memory of an attack helicopter. apparently it's something else
Based on the fleet and aircraft movement and mobilization reports, this was probably a combination of 3/75 Ranger Regiment and/or RRC, Delta/CAG, 24th STS, and probably 1 or more SEAL teams based on the sub movement.
The clear fly-out with rotary wing craft seemingly without a concern in the world tells me they absolutely decapitated Venezuela's air defenses.
Their intelligence must have been flawless to have this level of confidence.
This wasn't just a raid, it was an extremely visible one meant to send a message.
Edit: Bloomberg is reporting they captured and extracted Maduro
I’m not suggesting it’s “nothing” or minimizing it. Just that in the first hours after explosions, reports are often incomplete or wrong. Past cases show everything from industrial accidents, gas explosions, ammo depots, infrastructure failures, or internal security incidents getting misattributed early on.
Jumping straight to geopolitical conclusions before verified facts usually adds heat, not clarity. Waiting for confirmation on what actually happened doesn’t excuse anyone’s behavior, it just keeps the discussion grounded in evidence rather than emotion.
It is early in the news but I also read about the US working on directly having the nation transition. Gives me bad vibes as someone who lived through the invasion of Iraq. TBH, I am not very knowledgeable but I assume there's less sectarianism and lack of infrastructure so it is a different situation. Although with all things Trump, it's his execution and competency following through after the immediate ready decision.
We have seen the same scenario. First military occupation, second a puppy US-phile government, third oil infra rebuild by US oil companies. Simultaneously a clear sign to Russia/China who the boss is in South America.
Easy: he’s the Emperor of America. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court said that laws don’t apply to him and the Republican-controlled Congress disbanded itself. Are you honestly surprised that he’s just doing whatever he wants?
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?
Wtf kind of dumbass answer is this. It's not even out of character for the USA to do this.
The brain-rot seeping from this comment.
The guy committed crimes in Venezuela and USA. Now he's going to be tried for him. They could have just killed him - they didn't. He will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison.
And for cleanly executing that we have people talking about an emperor and disbanded congress.
If you want a real answer, it's because the president is the supreme commander ("commander-in-chief") of the US armed forces. He can order them to, and it's unlikely that they would refuse to carry out an operation like that.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
It's been like this for a while. It has been assumed that Congress doesn't have that power anymore but the president does. Here is a letter that President Obama wrote on the subject that explains it a bit (but if you want to hear more about this check 99 Percent Invisible podcast on the latest constitution breakdown series).
> Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
Trump does whatever he wants. He ignores the courts and congress. Approval only matters if a power exists to hold him accountable (enforcement of laws). It doesn't. Trump has the military and law enforcement in his pocket, so there is no power capable of challenging him.
I haven't yet seen what the legal cover for this use of military action was but there's a lot of guessing it will be the same Authorization of the Use of Military Force that was passed in response to 9/11 [1]. Yes, seriously.
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
He has delegated authority, from congress, to do this. Rephrase please. This is not abdication. Are you a Chevron deference die hard too? Yes the executive and legislature didn't turn out exactly as the framers intended - deal with it in healthier ways than calling him a dictator.
You misunderstand unitary executive theory. It's not completely settled law but most of it is and requires your own interpretation of Vesting - but that has nothing to do with what happened in Venezuela so I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Unitary executive is about executive power. Go read some opinions about it, even the 5-4 opinions don't have much daylight between them. If you can cite AUMF you can read judicial review of the executive. It is so annoying to have taken the time to read these things and then come across some nitwit saying unitary executive is a softer way of saying dictator. Go say that in a law school.
> CNN, citing a source: The Trump administration justified Maduro's arrest to Congress by stating that President Trump is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
That's not going to play well with DJT's bid for Nobel Peace Prize. Although I guess invading Sweden would be a solution, and there are probably plenty of reasons to invade Sweden - they must be looking badly at Russia, or he can mix it up with Groenland, or something.
That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per default", leaving only Oceania ? Should Australians brace themselves ?
To be fair, the existence of Surströmming [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming] is a valid casus belli. We aren't talking about food here - it's "haloanaerobic bacteria producing hydrogen sulfide in a pressurized vessel". An unregulated bio-weapons program hiding in plain sight.
Australians are currently paying him billions for 2nd hand nuclear submarines (which are not likely to ever be delivered), so that they can protect themselves from their biggest trading partner.
Australia is more dependant on Chinese trade than the reverse. If something untoward happens and China's relationship with Australia changes, it is prudent for Australia to have long range submarines.
The deal is admittedly shakey, but so is most things the US is involved in these days.
So, Australia has a trade déficit with China ? Surely Trump is going to invade Australia to put tarifs between New-Zealand and "Newer-Zealand", as Emperor Trump is soon planed to rename Australia.
A trading partner that has absolutely nothing to gain from ever setting foot on the Australian continent, and has never expressed or even implied the slightest intention to do so.
But hey, if making up a bogus threat is what it takes to sell guns…
Just because DJT has limited subtlety, doesn't mean he has zero subtlety. The ambassador to Sweden will tell the members of the committee, one by one in a way where they can't confer with each other, to accept the bribes or "else". It's not like it would be the first inducement to the committee in recent years, so they are likely to go along with it.
Why is it so popular to make up ridiculous fantasy stories about bad things that people/organizations you don't like might do? There's plenty of real stories you can refer to. It's almost as if you want your enemies to do more bad things to justify your hate.
Would he be as equally justified to correct the names of Greenland and Iceland (by swapping their names) as he was justified to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America?
I actually believe the majority of children who need to study geography would prefer Greenland (which has a lot of ice) to be called Iceland, and Iceland (which doesn't have a lot of ice) to be called Greenland.
I think a majority consensus would be easily achieved.
Language is defined by how people use it, not decreed top down. It would just be convenient if the very apogee of power (despite the deep state) concurred with and recognized the wisdom of the least represented in the world: children.
If you think this is primarily about drugs and authoritarianism, don't overlook this one important dimension: the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world is...Venezuela.
It also is predominately heavy crude oil, something the US lacks (it's what it mainly imports, with domestic shale oil being 'light') even though a lot of it's refineries are optimised for this.
By "given" you mean sold and by "Cuba, Iran, Russia, China..." you mean the only countries that aren't gonna follow the US' absurd sanctions that have led to so much suffering inside of Venezuela
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
This really doesn't have much to do with oil. This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge and subscribe to an absurd notion of Domino Theory where communism will fall. Maduro already promised to stop trading with China and negotiate absurdly favorable mineral and energy deals. He even conceded to give up power on a 2-3 year timeline. Obviously, we will go in and control the nation and take a ton of resources. However, this was primarily about Marco Rubio living out his father's fantasy as outlined in his autobiography. It was sold to Trump as a drugs bust because he is an absolute moron and needed a distraction from Epstein.
Honestly, this is disgusting. Trump is personally renting and selling out America for personal profit. To Israel and now a cadre of South Floridians. He is selling passports and pardons and letting countries have trade deals or bases. I simply do not understand how everyone with power is letting this happen. This is not even ideological. The country is in recession and we are attached to 3 wars. WTF IS HAPPENING?
> This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge
Maybe. Combating communism in south america is certainly a noble goal. Maduro is one of many communists that plague this region and his fall will undoubtedly contribute to significant power shifts in south american politics.
But it's not Marco Rubio who holds the power, it's Donald Trump. And Trump absolutely will deal with communists if it's profitable for him and/or the USA. His dealings with Brazil prove it. He embarrassed not only Rubio but various other staff and arguably his entire administration by leveraging tariffs and Magnitsky sanctions into some kind of deal with the communist brazilian president.
Trump could not care less about communism in south america. His past discourse on the matter of Venezuela is entirely focused on oil. He's been talking about seizing the resources for years. It's also easy to see how doing so benefits him and his country greatly.
I was hoping that he'd also end up unwittingly fighting the communists and drug gangs over the course of his war so that south america as a whole might at least reap some benefit but now it looks like even that was too much to hope for.
I am in favor of leaders fighting each other directly instead of sending millions of their citizens to die in their stead.
I can only hope there's a plan for what happens in Venezuela now. But I'm certain that as long as it isn't a protracted war with millions dead, it is better for everyone than what's going on in Ukraine.
The problem with having leaders fight eachother is you get a situation like feudal europe where all your leaders are soldiers whose chief qualifications are skill in combat and extracting resources from their subjects to keep them combat ready.
You really want to stop unnecessary wars, make the leaders dig the latrines for any forces they want to send off to fight.
I'm not advocating cage matches here. Just that the objective of any military action should be capturing or killing opposing leaders as efficiently as possible rather than any other objective.
I will spare saying the obvious illegality of such actions and how serious this is.
I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s, when the world felt like it was going towards a brighter age of peace and respect. Berlin wall falling, China opening, Apartheid ending in South Africa, even Palestine and Israel were moving towards a more peaceful future.
But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages.
General public not caring anymore about any tragedy, it's just news, general public being fine with their press freedom being eroded, journalists being spied and targeted, more and more conflicts all around.
I just don't see nor feel we're heading where we should considering how developed and rich we are.
We should boast in how well we raise our kids, how safe and healthy our cities are, but it's nothing but ego, ego, money and money.
I agree with your condemnation of this and other conflicts, but disagree that this is in any way new or worse than any purported golden age.
One month after the Berlin Wall fell the US invaded Panama to kidnap its leader so he could stand trial in the US on drug trafficking charges [1], an almost identical situation to this one.
- Yugoslav Wars (1991-1999)
- The Troubles
- Ethiopian Civil War (1974 - 1991)
- Ugandan Bush War (1981-1986)
- Angolan Civil War (1975 - 2002)
- Mozambican Civil War (1977 - 1992)
- Second Sudanese Civil War (1983 - 2005)
- Rwandan Civil War and Genocide (1990 -1994)
- First Congo War (1996 - 1997)
- Second Congo War (began 1998)
- Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 - 2009)
- Salvadoran Civil War (1980 -1992)
- Guatemalan Civil War (1960 - 1996)
- Nicaraguan Contra War (1981 - 1990)
- Iran–Iraq War (1980 -1988)
- Lebanese Civil War (1975 - 1990)
- Israeli–Palestinian First Intifada (1987 - 1993)
I think the cycle is because people forget how destructive war is for all sides, how much human wealth is thrown away in order to achieve enormous human misery. If it's happened in recent memory, people are reluctant to let those who think they might benefit from it to pursue it. The more time that passes, the easier it is to distract people from the misery and the easier it is to persuade people that it's justified.
The first thing to learn from a well-examined life and study of history is that we must always be vigilant and active to protect progress and human betterment.
The second thing to learn from recent history is that transnational petroleum interests will not quietly and meekly surrender their control, influence and interests.
We didn't have the internet back in the 80's and 90's to doom scroll all day. We read the events in the newspaper and watched it on on the news at 6pm and that was it. This might be partially why things seem darker.
Yeah as someone being born in the early 90s to Eastern European parents who experienced generational joy when Causescu and his wife were shot dead, the globalization that followed hasn’t exactly delivered for people - mostly so in the West.
Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since, but beyond that, wealth has flowed to the top 1% any country you look at (check median wealth ownership in the US, basically plummeted for the average Joe since the mid 80s), the environment has gone to shit and the generational promise that the children will have it better than their parents has gone over board with asset prices ballooning.
I‘m right there with you, the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight.
> Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since...
That... seems like something that shouldn't just be waved by.
And if you include China and India it's more like hundreds of millions. Like, if you think about the people of the world and not just "the West" the standard of living since the time Causescu was overthrown has increased dramatically.
That's because the WWII generation who created these institutions and laid the groundwork for many of these change were still around for all that time. Around 2016 the last remaining members passed away. Now we have the boomers in charge and they are at long last able to enact all their fantasies without restraint in their final few years before they too pass.
There’s probably something to theories of generational cycles. But the people in charge are put their by voting populations who aren’t all one demographic.
If it wasn't a man suspected of being impeached over a looming child-sex trafficking scheme so deep that it makes watergate look like a game then maybe we'd pretend drugs has anything to do with it.
We tried every peaceful way to get rid of the regime, they stole the elections, commit multiple human rights violations, the list of crimes is too long. The majority of Venezuelans wanted this to finally happen.
He didn't give Trump a gold CD to invade Venezuela.
He gave Trump a gold CD so you didn't have to pay a 30-50% tariff on iPhones, and it worked.
If it was as simple as giving Trump a golden CD to stop being a moron, some billionaire would've done that already. Turns out, that problem is much harder to solve.
Yep, Cook has worked against his personal interests for decades. He probably feels like a sociopath, but why would that stop him? There's money to be made.
Moreover, it's fascinating how both sides of America's political aisle refuse to see anything but the best in Apple. To liberals, Apple is a shining beacon of innovation and social justice that exercises their private cudgel to bring digital offenders in-line. To conservatives, Apple is a stalwart defender of private capital and the halcyon of privacy and free speech for the common man. Neither one can decipher the fact that they've been duped, instead they both hold onto the belief that Apple will fully embrace their politics and vindicate their faith.
To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night:
1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night.
3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
5. There is still stability because most of the people in charge are still there. Only the illegitimate president is gone. Venezuela can have a real election now.
> 1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
> 3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
Concern:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.(
How is it a lie? It’s a plausible story to be sure and you certainly haven’t given us any reason to think that a different story is more likely than this one
> ... we're making that decision now. We can't take a chance on letting somebody else run it, just take over where he left off. So we're making that decision
they have already signaled that this is not what will be allowed to happen
Yes. I am generally dumbfolded on how many of these comments trying to explain the situation completely ignore oil, when it is the main drive for US going to war in the last 50 years. This _is_ an oil motivated attack no doubt
The US has no use for Venezuelan oil. The US is sitting on a vast reserve of relatively good quality oil and is pumping as much as the global markets can handle. Venezuela is sitting on massive reserves of low quality, difficult to process oil.
The US goal is deprive China of access to Venezuelan oil. China is ~80% of all Venezuelan oil exports (legal or illegal). Venezuela represents a very large potential supply of oil for China, for the next 30-50 years (a time after which oil probably won't matter very much to China).
Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil. China & India mostly have got that output. The US spent trillions of dollars, used its super power military to fully invade and occupy Iraq, and then did not take its oil. Read that again if anybody still feels brainwashed from the false campaign that endlessly proclaimed the US invasion of Iraq was to Steal The Oil.
Iraq was about the great power conflict with Russia across the Middle East (see: Syria, Libya, etc).
Venezuela is about the great power conflict with China and controlling what the US considers its backyard.
Never in the past 60 years has it been more clear from observing the current US administration in its international "relations" and its domestic abuses that there is no charitable interpretation.
If Maduro stole the election from someone else, and the US does not put that someone else in power, then what does that mean? If the US exercises their own decision making and judgement when installing someone in Maduro’s place and overrides or eclipses the will of the Venezuelan people, then how is this in support of democracy?
Are dictators hypnotists? Are they wizards? If the regime functioned on the existence of a single man in a single chair, and EVERYONE around him wanted him gone, why does it take the military force of a different country to make it happen? Why isn't it the responsibility of the people in that country to remove him from power?
So as long as we have excuses we can bomb a country? Right? This time we don’t sanction and shut off swift, visa, Mastercard? Because this time we are the good guys?
No, you're not steel manning. You're just justifying unilateral regime change.
None of that matters.
There was no declaration of war powers from Congress, this entire operation is a flagrant violation of US and international law.
And, to point 1, this operation was carried out by a US President who attempted to violently overthrow the US government to avoid ceding power, which really puts a damper on point 1 I think.
> 4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
What's the point of this? Surely there's no deniability if the bases were abandoned?
It doesn't matter. The supreme court has made Trump immune, Trump has no accountability. He can just do this and face little consequences.
Your steelman means nothing. Nor does the opposite.
We're powerless. Trump isn't.
The discussion should be about accountability of his actions first. When he can actually be made accountable then steelmanning and debating his actions in general can come into play because then it will actually mean something.
The SCOTUS ruling I think you are referring to was about crimes commited by the person who happens to be president, and whether they are punishable. (So not stuff like "you need to undo that bad thing", but "you will go to jail for that".) The acts of the executive branch are absolutely still accountable to the Court via suits of legality and constitutionality.
Also, raise hell at your law makers who thought it was a good idea for Congress to give sweeping powers to the executive in the first place.
Fox News: What do you see as the future of Venezuela’s oil industry?
Trump: Well, I see that we’re going to be very strongly involved in it. That’s all I can say. We have the greatest oil companies in the world—the biggest, the greatest—and we’re going to be very much involved in it.
Come on, this is borderline insulting. I think most of us are educated enough in US history and foreign policy to know that this is fanciful.
I don't doubt that there were people in the Venezuelan govt who want Maduro gone and would be happy for a US-backed coup and collaborated with the US (i.e., provided intel, etc.)
But it's still a foreign coup and military-backed regime change, no matter how you or Trump spin it.
The lesson to the world continues to be: if you're big and powerful, you can do whatever the f you want in other countries to ensure they are "on your side" and to gain access to their natural resources.
Alternative explanation: The election was stolen overnight by US barbarism, prepared by years of reactionary rhetoric by the election stealer in chief.
This part of the situation is the interesting thing to me.
Is this US administration establishing itself as the effective dictator of Venezuela indefinitely? What does running that country have to look like directed by the US president and what changes will they make to restrict the position to prepare it for transition? Is the plan to make no changes to the position and then forever make a mockery of their elections by only letting people run in the future who suite US interests? It feels like this situation has the potential to turn into a colonial-like relationship always under threat of direct US military intervention.
It’s wild to me that (at least for now) Trump has publicly repudiated the second (or first if one swings that way) place vote getter in last election as unqualified even after she brown nosed Trump hard. He apparently needs a bigger sycophant in charge like his cabinet members https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-03/nobel-win...
This is illegal, immoral, unsupported by the vast majority of the US population and requiring immediate action by every US citizen and elected official.
Unlike popular opinion before other US actions like this, opinion polls show any military action in Venezuela as being very unpopular, like half the popularity of Trump, 20% popular.
That can change after the action, especially depending on how the media covers it, so we will see. The past few years have greatly lessened my faith in the inherent goodness of Americans, and I believe that we have let ourselves abandon our traditional ideals.
Trump got 77 million votes in 2024, which is 44% of the eligible voting population and a mere 32% of the US adult population. Trump's current approval rating is 39%. Even among those who support Trump overall, presumably a non-trivial portion don't support this particular action.
HN seems to mostly lean right...maybe not most users, but certainly the mods. It's not really surprising since it's a VC backed forum and concern for maximizing profit dwarfs everything else, even/especially moral issues.
Just look at how often relevant stories get suppressed.
Risking being downvoted to oblivion but as a South American this is a way more complex situation morally speaking.
Law-wise I agree and it has set an awful precedent.
But in the other hand Venezuelans all over the world (certainly the Venezuelans here that I know) are celebrating. I myself am in some way relieved. This is a dictator that did unspeakable things to their own population, set proxy criminal organizations, sent hitmen to kill dissidents in my country, highly decreasing our perceived safety.
So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Willing to completely give up domestic control of your energy sector in exchange for this regime change?
Because that's what has actually happened here.
It's not like there will be peaceful and organized elections now. The template from US actions in Latin America in the past is: A puppet regime will be installed and it will be involved in heavy domestic oppression of its own.
As an American, I’m outraged at this blatant disregard for international norms.
As a person living in the Americas… I’m surprised at how good this outcome is? Did we just remove a terrible regime in a comparably bloodless way?
This appears to be a prisoner’s dilemma. What just happened is probably a utilitarian win. But the president it sets could enable horrible abuses in the future.
Exactly this, as a Colombian with many friends who fled Venezuela, the consensus is that the means aren't good but it's looking like a great outcome for democracy (might be too early to tell)
Same as you. This piece of shit needed to be gone.
I've seen Venezuelans begging for food, money and shelter in geographic areas where you wouldn't even imagine due the exodus.
I've seen South American communities orbiting xenophobia on Venezuelans because the lack of opportunities of immigrants where almost impossible in countries where there weren't any for many of the current residents.
>So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Putting her in charge just means that the country will get looted by the Western Parasite Capitalist class instead of the South American Socialist Mobster class.
Let's say best case scenario, zero innocent casualties and a democratic government takes over and Venezuela prospers - would you still consider it immoral?
That isn’t how morality works. It’s expressly the opposite, a restating of “end justifies the means”. It’s a defensible position to hold, but not a moral one.
Laws often fail to matter in cases where they should. If a country as powerful as the USA wants to handle a problematic country (from its perspective) by whatever means, they will do so and with a glaikit smirk on the faces of its leaders and politicians. "Here's democracy and justice on your face," has been a typical American foreign policy for a long time whether we like it or not. A lot of people thankfully do see through this pretence, but also at the same time, the fierce followers of Cheneyism are trying hard to find possible explanations to legitimize this.
"US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Venezuela that strong action would be taken if Guyana is invaded or an attack is launched on ExxonMobil's oil assets in the Stabroek Block."
https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
Why take a chance?
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. If you're looking for bias, he is neither American nor lives in the US.
It's hard to think through the implications of living in a world where it is accepted that countries with more power simply invade each other and take land and possessions from those with less power. I can't think how it doesn't ultimately lead to broadscale instability and ultimately, war. In turn it depresses me that this is toxic to the humanity progressing and solving its bigger picture problems.
You can even go further, _all_ human history had stronger groups taking things from weaker groups. On the classical era of Aristotle and on the paleolithic pre-history. We sometimes forget that humanity can be cruel and work only for self-interest, we like to think that war and pillaging is something from the past, but it will be forever with us
Speaking of the 1800s, I wonder if we could learn anything about peace in a multipolar world by studying the Concert of Europe. Might be a good topic for a historian to write a book about. I'm looking right now, and it's kinda sad to see so many books about WW1 and so few about the peaceful period which came before.
Meanwhile, One America News Network's front page reporting that Mamdani is undoing protections against "antisemitism"; DOJ is demanding Minnesota voting records; Will Smith accused of sexual harassment of a male violinist; and, of course, polling readers on the question "Does President Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?"
All your "moral" comments don't matter, I live in Argentina and the ABSURD amount of venezuelans that migrated here in the last 10/15 years is nothing you'll ever see. I have 3 venezuelan friends here and a couple more that I only know (one is an Uber I once took and have a couple neighbors in the building), all were able to escape the dictatorship and left their family there, I just can't express with words the JOY I saw in their statuses from WhatsApp and Instagram today when the door to maybe go back to their country finally opened.
One of my friends is my motorcycle mechanic, met him in 2015 when I bought my first KTM, still my mechanic to this day. A lot of the bike services I stayed with him talking while he worked, I listened to a lot of his stories from back in the day, why he had to run, why his family stayed, how he had to send money to them to eat and some other horror stories.
In the name of my friends, if you think what happened today is bad, you can respectfully go fuck yourself.
Responsibility for the aftermath is with the US. They previously didn't do a good job in Afghanistan or Iraq after they assumed defacto control, without really trying to make the countries stand on their own. Life is not much better for the average person there.
Venezuela has lots of oil and drugs. If different factions fight between themselves there's no reason you couldn't end up with a divided and dangerous country that in some ways could be worse for the people than Maduro.
The best way for "oppressed" people to be liberated is through some joint effort by parties that really want to help out and assume responsibility, or by supporting a revolution that naturally takes over. I don't think there's been any cases of success from this process of forcibly removing the dictator, and crossing your fingers that things will go well.
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible.
"
Well, this thread certainly hasn't aged well. Lots of people here trying to spin this as an act of liberation while the real motivation has been more than obvious.
Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!
Reading through this thread is disturbing not because people disagree, but because of how the disagreement is happening.
What I'm seeing is a breakdown in the ability to hold consistent principles across contexts. The same people who condemned Russian actions in Ukraine are now making "realpolitik" arguments about Venezuela. The same people who claim to oppose foreign intervention are now calculating whether this was "done cleanly enough." Positions seem determined entirely by tribal affiliation rather than any coherent framework about sovereignty, international law, or the use of military force.
There's also a striking historical amnesia at work. The US has been running this exact playbook in Latin America for over a century. We have extensive data on how these interventions typically unfold, what the second and third-order effects tend to be, and how the initial justifications relate to the actual outcomes. Yet that entire body of evidence seems to have evaporated from the conversation. People are reasoning about this as if it's a novel situation requiring fresh analysis, rather than a well-worn pattern.
Most concerning is the casual normalization. We're discussing whether it's "justified" to invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader as if this is a routine policy question. The window of what's considered shocking has shifted so far that outright imperial aggression gets the same treatment as a zoning dispute. When someone points out we didn't even attempt to follow Constitutional requirements for declaring war, the response is essentially "yeah, we stopped doing that decades ago, so what?"
The nihilism is the most insidious part. "What are we supposed to do about it?" Well, at minimum, we could refuse to let the Overton window keep drifting. We could maintain some continuity of ethical standards. We could recognize power plays for what they are instead of generating elaborate post-hoc rationalizations about democracy and narcotics.
The question isn't whether Maduro is a dictator (he is) or whether this particular operation succeeded tactically (it apparently did). The question is whether we've collectively lost the capacity to see what we're actually doing and where this pattern of behavior leads.
The US is completely cooked man, the right has fully committed to mashing the gas pedal towards fossil fueled 'based' racist authoritarianism while the so-called-left is writing strongly worded op-eds. Even if Dems win again, they've proven to be way too cowardly to fix anything, this democracy is 100% done. Personally I just hope California is able to secede and do a Nordic Model before the entire country becomes Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but I'm pretty doubtful anything good can ever happen here. Good luck everyone.
As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
Also, some people seems to miss the fact that South America military power is very weak, and we, culturally, are way less proned to fight and die than people in middle east.
Yeah, we know this is all about oil, and I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge. But the fact is we don't have a, undeniable, dictator as neighbor, and my friends can see their families again.
No, we are not happy. We were not happy when they intervened and installed their friendly dictator. I can criticize Maduro and I can censure these actions. I don't want any other country to invade mine because they didn't like the government that we had.
> I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge
If history teaches us anything, a democracy won't emerge. Nothing good comes from the US intervening in foreign affairs. This is being done to the benefit of the invaders, not those being invaded.
Publicly, it's about oil, privately, it's also about China getting a foothold in South America, on the USA's doorstep and denying them a source of cheap oil from the world's largest proven reserve. It's the modern version of the Great Game.
You are still young so you don't seem to get it yet but history has shown that killing or capturing the leader of a country with outside actors rarely leads to anything good. It usually just leads to more instability.
Pop-culture shows you that if you get rid off Mojo Jojo you suddenly get rainbows and flowers but reality doesn't work that way very often and it is just propaganda.
Colombian here. Maduro wasn't the leader of a country; he lost the elections and became a cruel dictator. He led a regime that murdered, tortured, and disappeared thousands of people, turning Venezuela into a narco-state run by the ELN and other paramilitary groups. It may not have worked in other areas, but the US intervention in Panama, which resulted in the capture of another dictator, Noriega, transformed Panama into the fastest-growing economy in Latin America (6% average annual growth). Poverty fell by 60%, and today it's a very prosperous country. I can assure that there will be massive celebrations today by all our Venezuelan brothers and sisters living in Latin America.
Edit: I just discovered that Noriega was also captured on January 3rd.
it's a positive step for the population, my worry is about global signalling.. we were trying to keep the armed fascists floodgates tight since putin invaded ukraine and now US is doing bold military regime changes, not even covert (some would argue old CIA was worse).
hard to sleep well these days
ps: if anybody knows places where people discuss this, feel free to hit me
Yeah, totally agree. Like anything that matters this is a complex topic with multiple reasons to each move in this game, my positive position towards what happened is pretty much related to the reactions of my Venezuelans friends and my personal perception of how people has suffered with Maduro's regime.
Fixing the dilapidated oil production will take years I think. But my best wishes to all my Venezuelan friends. Hoping for a bloodless transition and a brighter future for the country.
That's good to hear. As a European, I do hope our leaders keep this in mind... It may be an unconventional move, but it's hard to argue this is a bad outcome.
I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
> I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil
Why would the US be entitled to any oil here? And how would that be a good outcome for the people of Venezuela?
> and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
That's a big if. Ask the Iraqis how well it went when their dictator was gone. And that was with boots on the ground not just leaving a power vacuum like this.
> It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
Wait a few decades till China does this to you and we'll see how you feel.
A forever war implies people in the ground that actually would want to resist, and barring conscription (Which will be limited, because diaspora) I don't see how that could actually work
Check social media or go ask a trusted Venezuelan / Latino, happiest I've ever seen the community, because regardless of what's comming, it looks like the light at the end of a tunnel
> Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
Agreed about the better lives, but has it come to a point we accept invading other countries to "secure their oil" is a great outcome? I mean, what is this, Hitler's "Operation Blue"?
Securing oil is NOT a valid reason to invade countries. Does this need to be said!? Mind boggling.
This is peak cynicism. I'm really surprised to read some opinions here.
Next up: "imperialism wasn't bad, securing a big empire with colonies is a great outcome".
"War for oil" is always the easy go-to to criticize any American military action, even in countries that don't have oil.
And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
America has more oil than it knows what to do with, and because of that, prices are so low that there are lots of newspaper articles about how American oil companies have dramatically slowed exploration and production. Plus, even under the current administration, America is using more and more renewable energy sources (some states now get more than 50% of their energy from wind/solar).
With the whole Chevron situation, I'm willing to think that oil may play a role here, but again the "war for oil" seems like nothing more than a convenient slogan for a high schooler's protest sign.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
This along with other direct quotes from officials is what led me to the conclusion that, yes, oil is a large factor.
America has plenty of the wrong type of oil. They need heavy oil as that's what the usa oil refinery are made to handle, but they have a shortage of heavy oil, and a oversupply of light oil. Venezuela has the heavy oil they need
US even mastermind amd helped overthrowned Iranian elected government and then only recently admitted and apologized to that but the damaged already done [2].
> And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
Yes it is.
> But Trump has also made his desire for Venezuelan oil clear. He said that the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going to and from the country would remain “until such time as they return to the United States all of the oil, land, and other assets that they stole from us.” He did not clarify what land and “other assets” he was referring to.
> In a social media post, Miller also characterized the expropriations as an injustice against the US. “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” wrote. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
> And in a 2023 speech, Trump was even more pointed about his designs on the country’s oil. “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse,” he said, referring to the end of his first term in the White House. “We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.”
This is especially silly because the US is always going to control oil extraction in Venezuela because nobody else has the technical capabilities required to do so profitably at a large scale.
There's no need to really fight with the Venezuelan government over this, unless Venezuela decided that they'd rather leave the oil in the ground.
Trump has a history of using resource cutoff as a bargaining or coercive tool. hes doing it with Minnesota right now with the scandal and has done it with NYC. control over oil flows to European allies or other allies and adversaries gives his tactic more reach.
Oil is fungible. If America takes Venezuelan oil for themselves and doesn't let China have any, China will just buy more from Russia and the Middle East instead. There's no oil blockade to China, those ships aren't being stopped, and the minute such a blockade would be announced is the minute this 5th generation warfare WW3 turns into a 3rd generation war.
What I find interresting and would like to see discussed more, is the psychology at play that makes us believe this is another "exception to the rule of international law". I wonder if one could generalize the terror management theory (TMT) to social obedience?
In principle, our diplomats have mentioned "respecting the prohibition on the use of force enshrined in international law and the territorial integrity of sovereign states"
(Alexander the Great, on his deathbed, was asked who would inherit his empire; whether because he was an early "realist" or because he was apathetic or simply narcissistic [or?], he replied: the strongest)
"Be the change yo want to see", I guess. So, my pet peeve theory is that "the rule of law" is not something the ruling class needs to cover their track; it's something the ruled class needs to cover their shame. Shame of being ruled, but also terror of being ultimately subjected to arbitrary power.
For instance, I believe that in the feodal past lay people used to genuinely believe that kings got their authority from God; not because kings were good observants of the precepts of religion (they were not), but because that protects the self-esteem and helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes.
I find it surprisingly hard to try to convince myself that there is no such thing as "rule of law", that for instance the overthrown of a non-aligned regime could be just about the oil and competition with China, although I know that's how future historians will deal with that non-story; There is some surprising amount of resistance from within to this idea. It's interresting to do the experiment.
Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela?
Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?
I don't think you can meaningfully answer this without knowing the military goals or the ultimate outcome.
The worst-case outcome for the US is that it gets pulled into another unpopular, long-term conflict that undermines its international standing and allows assorted rogues to advance their goals (Ukraine, Taiwan, who knows what else).
The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran. How you assess the likelihood of these outcomes sort of depends on your priors.
I would say, however, that the recent history of US military interventions doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Venezuela is nowhere near being the cluster---- that we've dealt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc, but who knows.
Intelligence seems more capable nowadays compared to 2003, probably due to better cyber/SIGINT. It took 3 years for the coalition to find Saddam despite a large ground presence. I wouldn't give Maduro more than a month if the US was intent on taking him out, after the capabilities that we saw in Iran and South Lebanon the last two years that simply did not exist 2 decades ago. For the first time, war has been inverted, and it's the regime that dies first instead of the soldiers.
Second difference is the absence of political Islamism as a dominant ideology in the culture. This makes it more comparable to regime change wars against Japan and Germany in WW2 than recent wars in MENA.
> The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran.
There is no need to scare Iran. The mullahs are already scared shitless and were utterly humiliated this summer. They could have easily been removed, but it was decided that it was not worth it, as the next regime could be even worse. A weak, scared Iran is the best outcome.
It won't help with oil. The Permian's breakeven prices have crept upwards and, because VZ crude grades are high-sulfur, the US refinery complex can't absorb it without retooling away from the plants specialised for the low-sulfur Permian output.
Possibly dragging supply down, with no net effect at best.
>90% of Venezuelan crude has been refined in China in recent years.
This is going to hurt China economically, and in a way that isn’t going to be seen as targeted at China or unfair by international community.
Russia’s production and refining capacity has been seeing attrition from Ukraine’s efforts. They’re producing less oil, selling it for less, and for rubles that each buy less.
I’ve said before on HN that I thought Venezuela was intended to soak up Russian resources - this is just the next step.
What is the risk calculation one would perform before attempting to invade Taiwan while Trump is calling shots? Whatever else you think about Trump, for better or worse, he is not bound by establishment prerogatives: make the "wrong" move, as Trump exclusively defines it, and anything — literally any conceivable thing plus a distant horizon of things you are cognitively incapable of conceiving — might happen.
Maduro is in a cage somewhere pondering this right now. Iran's leaders are all thinking about the threats Trump made not 48 hours ago, possibly to the great benefit of rebels in the streets right now. Federal investigators are closing in on Walz and friends in Minnesota right now: he could find himself in a cell within earshot of Maduro at any time.
Probably not much. If Maduro is kicked out, you still need time to establish a new government and ramp up oil production. That's bullish, but it's far from guaranteed; there could be coups, instability, etc. If Maduro isn't kicked out, things get murky. Will the US intervene with boots on the ground? Will they just keep sanctions in place? For how long? Will there be resistance?
Actually, thinking about it more, this makes little sense. There's very little upside (and it's far off), while there's plenty of short and long-term downside. Great geopolitical strategizing out there.
There was a time in my life when I would spend a few hours learning about US-Venezuela relations and the Venezuelan government and related topics so I could have a skin deep understanding of it and play an internet expert in threads like this.
I’m not going to do that today. It’s sunny, and I want to spend time with family. Being naive about this topic doesn’t affect the core of things I want to be knowledgeable about. And the reality is, having a vote only gives me nominally more agency over US foreign policy than someone who can’t vote. I am mostly just observing.
Always remember the role of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in preparing this unprovoked and illegal (under international law) attack on Venezuela by awarding the prize to María Corina Machado.
Julian Assange actually filed a Swedish criminal complaint against Nobel Foundation officials, alleging misappropriation of Nobel endowment funds and facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, and it seeks immediate freezing of funds and a full investigation: https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
This is a unilateral invasion and regime change operation with no Congressional authorization, no UN mandate, no coalition. It's unprecedented in its brazenness—not because the U.S. hasn't done regime change before (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.), but because there's not even the pretense of justification or coalition-building.
The "narco-terrorism" charges are a legal fig leaf. The real drivers appear to be oil (Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves), geopolitical positioning (removing a Russian/Chinese/Iranian ally from the hemisphere), domestic politics (Trump wants a "win" and to appear strong), and what seems like a personal vendetta given how publicly Trump has obsessed about Maduro.
What's disturbing goes beyond the act itself. Trump literally said the U.S. will "run Venezuela"—not "support democracy," not "help transition"—run the country. That's colonial language with no euphemism.
There was no Congressional authorization. This violates the War Powers Act at minimum. If a president can unilaterally invade a country, kidnap its leader, and declare we're taking control, what's the limiting principle? Where does this stop?
The mask is completely off. Previous imperial adventures at least performed the ritual of justification, built coalitions, went through motions at the UN. This is naked power. Trump explicitly mentioned oil, saying American companies will "invest billions" to "refurbish" Venezuela's oil industry. He's just admitting it openly.
What we're witnessing is the final abandonment of even the performance of international norms. The question isn't whether this is legal or justified—it clearly isn't. The question is whether there are any remaining constraints on executive power when it comes to foreign military action.
Man, the guy probably broke a ton of Venezuelan and American laws. Maduro is responsible for the break down in diplomacy - what did he think was going to happen if he kept breaking the law?
There's no extradition treaty - how else does the USA bring him to trial?
Go to the courthouse when he gets convicted and yell about how clearly illegal it all is. You'll look like a nutcase. I'll just celebrate that he's going to die in prison.
What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal? Why does he get away with it because he's a president? He's not even the president of Venezuela, it's disputed - chiefly by Venezuelan's themselves.
Now we get to hold him to account in an open court. This is just good ass news. You don't get to declare the whole thing illegal and unjustified.
He will get returned in 20 years and probably tried for murder by the people he repressed.
Finally - he's a really cool thing about the US legal system, if his rendition was illegal, as you say, he can claim that in court. It won't work because it wasn't.
> What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal?
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
Also good to read the Hernández indictment from 2022[1] and the press release at the time[2].
> Maduro and Other High Ranking Venezuelan Officials Allegedly Partnered With the FARC to Use Cocaine as a Weapon to “Flood” the United States
> Hernández Allegedly Partnered with Some of the Largest Cocaine Traffickers in the World to Transport Tons of Cocaine through Honduras to the United States
They don't have an extradition treaty so they took him. What Maduro was doing was illegal in Venezuela too.
If you can give me an argument about why it's illegal or improper to try Maduro in a USA court for crimes he committed against the USA, like drug trafficking, I would love to hear it.
If you think the extraction itself was illegal - under what law? What do you think a military is for? If you have a military to defend your country and capture a criminal who you then try for laws that he broke - this seems like a good reason to have a military.
Under normal circumstances - diplomatic relations can solve this, but the consequences of breaking diplomacy is that the only way to get criminals into court is military/CIA. It's not diplomacy or nothing, that's not the world I want to live in, that's Neville Chamberlain theory.
I guess somehow the US will argue that Maduro was directly responsible for smuggling drugs to the US, and that he has broken US laws. Or acts of "drug terrorism".
The second someone without US jurisdiction as much as investigates US servicemen abroad, or Israel for that mater, they are sanctioned by the US. See ICC judges that have been sanctioned for doing exactly those things. The US argues that ICC does not have any jurisdiction to do so.
When it comes to US geopolitics, there's a wafer-thin line between taking the moral high ground, and straight up hypocrisy backed up by "who's gonna stop us?"
As far as I can tell from the narrative, Venezuela was basically serving as a puppet state for China, and if that's true, I would probably give that as the primary reason, but who knows. Maybe it's because Venezuela did poorly in the FIFA World Cup qualifier and this was action dictated by his recent peace prize award.
You’re getting downvoted but your take is simply the truth. Trump does not think like a politician or leader- he does not listen to, care about, or consider things like facts or broader consequences. Insiders in his administration have repeatedly leaked that they are not allowed to communicate information or facts to him, and he never shares reasons for his orders, they have to creatively make that up after the fact for the media. He operates the presidency as a reality TV show, he is interested only in how an action will play with the public and his base in the short term- will it increase his power and help him shift public narratives the way he wants, or not?
None of these things are the most likely reason. The national security establishment doesn't want a Chinese-allied socialist state with a regime perceived to be hostile in South America, especially if its resource-rich. But the timing is very convenient for burying the Epstein stuff.
Maybe Trump captured Maduro just so he could pardon him? This would be a joke but comedy died when that man was elected, and this might actually be the case.
Interesting that World War 3 never happened; instead, we smoothly transitioned to War World, where war is just something that happens all the time, randomly, intermittently, undeclared, and interminably.
I’m not so sure. This War World is very similar to the geopolitical game played by the great European - and increasingly US as well, especially in SA - powers in the 19th century. That Belle Epoque was of course what drove the global politics into the first Great War.
Kissinger maintained his goal was to avoid stumbling into another Great War; we may or may not believe him, but at least he took the trouble to rationalize his actions.
You don't know what the ICC is for. It absolutely cannot stop the USA from trying him for breaking domestic USA law. That is a foundational principle of what it is.
It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans. Especially the Venezuelans. It’s been 25 years of hell. They don’t really care at the moment if Trump did it for oil. You think Russia and China just wanted the recipe for Arepas? That’s the common saying. Venezuelans just wanted a chance to live a normal life. This is not a society like Afghanistan that cannot function as a democracy when autocrats are removed.
The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.
Americans may lack theory of mind of Venezuelans, but that doesn't invalidate thethe concerns of outsiders, as you yourself says it's TBD how things play out, especially with global ramifications and in the long run for all nations affected by this American action.
Agreed. But… the other alternative is continued repression and suffering of millions of people. Iranians are wishing their captors would fall next. Not that people will see those posts on blue sky.
“You know as well as we do that justice, as the world goes, is only a matter between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” From Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.
I personally think this quote explains the Trump administration’s worldview far better than anything Trump himself would say.
Last month the US president pardoned a Honduran politician who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into America.
Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.
Nobody with interest in politics thinks it's about drugs. It's a pretext and a way to gain legitimacy to exert force over foreign nation with some legitimacy that would otherwise clearly go against international law.
Many might not like it, but given US interests and Chinese ambitions, the Monroe doctrine is one of the few parts of American foreign policy that makes sense (in a realpolitik way) in the current geopolitical landscape.
The state sponsored drug smuggling is symbolic of a country not paying sufficient fealty to its master, but is secondary to the larger strategic issues in play.
> Nicolás Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
I'm sorry but "possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
What kind of visa Mr. Maduro was using when he entered the US?
I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.
But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.
The fact that the cureent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has called on the foreign power most responsible for the problems in her home country to launch a war against her home country is all the proof anyone should need of how much of a sham this prize is (if Kissinger getting it has gone out of living memory, of course).
Not to say that the Maduro regime is not terrible, it obviously is, but cheering on a literal invasion makes you either a complete moron, or a psychopath of the highest order, hoping to rule over the ashes.
I rejoice any time something doesn’t go Donald Trump’s way because he frequently says that he hates me and wishes to do me harm. I separately agree that Nobel Peace Prize awards often don’t make much sense.
Looking just at the facts, the action to take over Venezuela seems to be a good decision.
1. Public opinion isn't as important anymore, as Trumpism has found a way to flood the zone with so much shit, they have many more options
2. International environment looks way harsher and less cooperative, stressing the need to gain resources/influence
3. Resource rich, unstable country that has been in the headline and run down for years, right on the doorstep of the US
If they really gain access to all that oil the challenges US hegemony is bolstered up again. Seems low risk high reward. If they give it the facade of legitimacy by installing a local puppet government, they might get away with it.
As expected: "Trump now turns now to oil. He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a 'bust', and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"."
If you’re tracking signals around geopolitical events, there’s a quirky one a few folks like to watch: the Pentagon Pizza Index. It’s a real-time dashboard that monitors pizza shop activity near the Pentagon as an informal indicator of unusual late-night activity. Historically people have pointed to spikes in food orders before major operations as a sort of low-tech OSINT signal.
https://www.pizzint.watch/
Obviously this isn’t hard intelligence — correlation isn’t causation — but when combined with more grounded indicators (verified reports, diplomatic channels, satellite data) it can be a piece of the broader picture. Just a fun example of how people try to find patterns in publicly available data.
well maybe the world is indeed back to different spheres of influence, as per the latest US security policy
overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants
hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..
it's truly incredible the harm that the psychological need for "strong man" leaders has on the world. What's even more strange, in my opinion, is that the bumbling and incoherent stuff Trump says is actually viewed by anyone as tough or strong. In my view it shows tremendous fear of directness and accountability. To call it womanish would be an insult to women.
Similarly, how does picking on much weaker countries (some of whom are allies) seem tough to anyone? In my view it's ugly and shows weakness rather than strength.
If USA can attack Venezuela for oil, why other countries, like France, couldn't do the same to Qatar or Koweit for example? France has more needs for oil that USA.
They attacked Venezuela because it's ruled by an illegitimate leader who allegedly commands a drug cartel responsible for smuggling cocaine and fentanyl.
It's also not difficult to see the broader strategy: every US adversary (China, Russia, Iran) has been taking a piece of Venezuela over the past several months. They were already "conquered". This could also give the US an upper hand in ending the war in Ukraine as it further weakens Russia as it loses access to cheap oil.
It can’t be fun running HN right now. Sorry, dang et al.
It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.
Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!
(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)
For everyone defending these actions on the basis of Maduro's own corruption and the desires of Venezuelans, I would encourage you to research the history of American intervention and regime change in Latin America. It is impossible to anticipate the second and third order effects of this change, and how it will be absorbed in the local politics. We are witnessing the return of American military intervention in Latin American, nothing more and nothing less.
To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.
Your comment was chemically and biologically decomposed by microorganisms and fungi, which extracted energy from it and returned the remaining nutrients to the surrounding soil, providing a fertile ground for the growth of plants?
Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
> Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea.
is just bollocks.
> On 21 May 1992 the Supreme Soviet of Russia declared 1954 transfer of Crimea as having "no legal force", because it was adopted "in violation of the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Russian SFSR and legislative process", but because subsequent legislation and the 1990 Russo-Ukrainian treaty constituted that fact
I talk about people, not government. Unfortunately it's two different things. And of course I don't mean 100% of people. But percentage wise - you wouldn't say that majority wanted to "get it back". And that's my point - leaders less and less represent the people.
As for the government - your are absolutely on point. And I don't disagree.
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague.
Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.
Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.
> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague
Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.
I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.
On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government.
What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"?
I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
Well, 'western' 'rules based order' involves democratic elections and being in 166th place for government transparency isn't a good sign. Appointing your successor isn't exactly democratic, in fact it's very much the sign of most countries that end in dictatorship:
"Chavez was elected to a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in due to medical complications; he died in March 2013.[95] Nicolás Maduro was picked by Chavez as his successor, appointing him vice president in 2013."
Some certainly will, but not many I think. There are very few westerners outside of the US, who want to have anything to do with what the US are doing now.
> all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it
MAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they're doing it while criticising Trump.
If the last 2 years of Gaza genocide didn't do that, I'm n not sure why this would. They'll spend the first 20 minutes talking about how bad Maduro is and the next 5 minutes saying this is "misguided" and didn't go through the proper channels.
No idea what you're going on about. Those in the West who stand for a rules-based international order certainly didn't ask for this war, and Trump, who did start this war, never gave a shit about rules or norms, international or otherwise.
Trump hardly is a representative for "westerners", actually the majority of them think he's a lawless looney. No one outside of his administration or party is justifying his actions.
Rapist presidents have no authority to defend 'rules based order'. Were you also ok with him defending 'rules based order' by arming Israel as they committed genocide? Or when he committed war crimes by blowing up the boats over the last few months?
This is illegal, immoral and not supported by the vast majority of the country. Every us citizen and every elected official needs to act, now, to stop this.
At this very moment I am likely a lot of things, but at the top of the list is mad. Very, very mad. I don't have words for this anymore or the patience to debate the intricacies of the broken system that has gotten us here. I am just viscerally, exceptionally, mad. Something will change.
Technically ~49.8% of voters, ~31.6% of eligible voters, or ~22.7% of the US population. Or at least those were the numbers when I looked it up 10 months ago.
Trump asked why the US can't nuke other countries when it has so many nukes. Trump loves war ("department of war") loves bombing other countries - always has. That he is so eager to use nukes should frighten everyone.
I agree with the rest of your point but I dont think its factual to say the majority of the country voted for trump. 77m/343m or ~20% of the country voted for trump, though I'm sure this is what you meant to say.
Especially in the US, this is a strawman. There is simply not enough granularity of choice that you can make voters accountable for every action Trump does.
Footage is quickly spreading, looks like strikes on military bases as well as a bunch of low-flying helicopters, so a strike + a ground invasion? They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent for a war against Venezuela. Wonderful.
> Even the ballot box isn't enough. We don't have an anti-war party in the US
This is lazy and wrong. Simple answer is leadership is betting this won't lose them the Congress in the midterms because enough Americans won't care. Conceding ex ante the ballot box is literally proving that hypothesis.
Protest has never stopped a government from doing what it wanted. Not a single time in history.
When it's appeared to work, that has one of two causes: either the government didn't really care very much to begin with, or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face. (See civil rights)
Is that really necessary? Venezuela recently held an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power. Very few US citizens will find this particularly odious.
> They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent
Chomsky was smart and influential. But he was a linguist. Not a political scientist. The manufacturing-consent hypothesis sort of worked under mass media. But even then, it wasn't a testable hypothesis, more a story of history.
In today's world, unless you're willing to dilute the term to just persuasion in general, I'm not sure it applies.
Instead, the dominant force here is apathy. Most Americans historically haven't (and probably won't) risk life, liberty or material wealthy on a foreign-policy position. Not unless there is a draft. (I'm saying Americans, but this is true in most democracies.)
Most of Manufacturing Consent is about ideological alignment in media and government being an emergent property, not the product of deliberate conspiring. People seek out jobs with people/organizations they already agree with. People hire people they already agree with. People are more likely to get promoted if their boss thinks they have good opinions, etc. It's not a conspiracy, at least there doesn't need to be a conspiracy, because Manufacturing Consent describes an anti-conspiracy. All of this obviously still happens today, there hasn't been any fundamental change in human behavior, people still have special affinity for people they agree with. Always have, and always will.
Chomsky, as a linguist, was probably better equipped to understand the implications of emergent behavior than more mainstream political scientists.
Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Plus, the more of a splash, the more Epstein stays out of the news.
> Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Or, he could acknowledge that their is a conflict, and pretend he didn't start it but Venezuela did. Like he could claim that Venezuela invaded the US first (oh, wait, he actually did that last March, using it as the pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.)
I understand the point that some dictators are so bad he damages the whole region. The world invented the procedure to resolve it through the UN and the international institutions.
Yet one superpower decides to do it itself because no one can stop it. I think that makes world more chaotic, it is the opposite of restoration of the order ax it was declared.
No surprise Pam Bondi can just use her Grok subscription to make an incitement appear out of thin air, but what jury is going to be fair and unbiased here? How are American citizens Maduro’s peers? How could a judge have jurisdiction over him?
The question is irrelevant as the US just pardoned a major Honduran drug smuggler head of state, not to mention the well documented US involvement in the foreign drug trade (e.g., Afghanistan).
The other day there were people here seriously arguing that China was more interventionist than the US.
The latest US mass theft and aggression is far from surprising to anyone that studied south American history. Trump just drops the humanitarian pretexts, but the act itself is exactly in line with how US treats South America.
Maduro has apparently been indicted in New York on various drug trafficking conspiracy charges and gun charges[0].
Seeing how various other cases have went (James Comey, Letitia James) in this administration run by loyalists, what are the chances that he's acquitted due to prosecutorial incompetence?
Maduro is a dictator who stayed in power by force after losing an election. No one who believes in democracy should mourn his fall. Trump's pretexts and potential geopolitical deals especially w Russia deserve scrutiny, but the Venezuelan people deserve a chance at freedom.
As with everything Trump does, his motivations will be about personal power and enrichment. This does not contradict that Maduro was an illegitimate thug allied with others like him. However his removal was arranged (deal?) it shakes the global forces of dictatorship.
Condemning a nation's people to authoritarianism and repression because of potential bad outcomes after the fall of their dictator is a free world observer's luxury. Democracy and prosperity can never be guaranteed, but the opportunities for them should be promoted.
I don't like our dictator, but I am glad our dictator took out this other dictator (for personal reasons) who was working with other dictators (some of which our dictator supports) because it might mean that we have less dictators even if it comes with the risk of severe instability.
I can understand this position and have always admired Kasparov's principled ideology, but I think this is too narrow of a look. More things could've been done to peacefully attempt to oust Maduro with the cooperation of other countries.
I grow tired of the might makes right world we inhabit again. If you are not a citizen of a hegemon, or their allies, all the best envisioning a stable environment to thrive for your children when you know that the price of sovereignty and nationalised natural resources is a US invasion.
looking through the comments one thing I find strange that no one has picked up on is that maduro had met the chinese hours before being captured. To me I think the initial plan was to just let the economy tank by blockading the economy, chinese stepped into help and trump goes nuclear and kidnaps the guy.
still pretty shocking that they wont hand over power to the party who won the election and plan on setting up a puppet state and steal the oil, does seem USA has become some despot country albeit with a large army.
I don't think people didn't "pick up" on it, I just don't think anyone thinks it matters. There is no smoke-and-mirrors back-room strategizing here. It looked cool on Fox News. Then the president went onto Fox News and talked about how cool it looked on Fox News. The text is text. The subtext is nonexistent.
So they are taking the oil reserves, that's why they came, oh the hypocrisy is unbearable, the democratic powerhouse terrorising a weak country the same way for what they condemned Russia for.
> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."
PBS [2]:
> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."
Venezuelan oil is kind of crappy. I would say the two biggest reasons for this are 1. Trump wanting migrants from Venezuela to stop and 2. Ending Venezuelan support for Cuba. Oil is definitely one of the reasons though.
Venezuelan oil is very heavy, but the US oil industry is literally designed to process this type. The US exports their sweet crude elsewhere because they can't process it.
It is heavy crude but it's what our refineries are set up to use. There was a very informative news report on this recently posted to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk
Apparently shale oil mostly comes out as light, so our own production doesn't feed our refineries and we've increasingly taken to importing heavy crude.
Considering the former state AG lost the election to the felon facing two open-and-shut federal cases, I think the "law and order" label has to be retired.
On the plus side, nothing here is permanent, this guy is out in just over three years. How much more damage could he possibly do?
> USA is officially a roque state internally and externally
All of the great powers are. So are most of the regional powers. It's basically the EU and Brazil hanging on to the old rules-based international order.
Here in middle Europe the rumble is that it is time to BDS the United States. I hear this everywhere, on the streets, at parties, at work.
I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
It’s going to be bumpy if/when it happens, but does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice. Everything else is doom.
I would say we are not a Democracy and it doesn't matter who we vote for. I think it will take a full on dollar collapse to end it, and I think Washington would sacrifice every one of us to not lose grip on power.
> I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
I doubt that. It's far more likely to backfire into increased support for aggressive right-wing populism of the kind Trump peddles. It also seems doubtful that Europe could really afford that economically at the time when it's already in an open confrontation with Russia and not exactly on friendly terms with China.
> does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice.
We do not have an effective mechanism for that. Even if our democracy were truly functional, people have voted for candidates who promised no more wars for >15 years now, and yet here we are. Meaningful reforms that would _perhaps_ enable this require constitutional amendments, which have such a high bar as to be unattainable in this political climate. I don't think the system can recover, but it still has a lot of capacity to do damage as it breaks down.
If this results in Maduro leaving office with a small number of mostly military deaths, followed by the swift return of Venezuelan democracy, I would concede that the hawks made a good call this time. It is extraordinarily uncommon for US regime change wars to go that way and I don’t think this is going to be the exception.
(E: Honesty compels me to come back and say that it is looking somewhat likely I was wrong and will have to concede to the hawks.)
The Guardian reports that Maduro has been charged with: "narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
Good to know that possession of machine guns is finally being made illegal by the US!
Marco Rubio needed this for his presidential run in 2028. Does this mean that Putin will look the other way for Maduro as long as Trump looks the other way when Putin captures or kills Zelenskyy? Have they officially agreed to divide the world as spheres of influence?
Crazy how far down I had to scroll to see this. Yeah, the timing of it is an Epstein thing. He knows he's gonna get impeached again and files will be released in 2026 when he loses midterms, and needs to concoct an emergency.
Here's how to know if I'm right -- since this isn't high enough drama, he'll make it amp up by a factor of 1-5 with false-flag attacks on America or something else to try to create a real sense of emergency in the next year.
Who might be the first European head of state or similar they lift out? Ursula von der Leyen? :-D
Air defenses in the EU does not seem to be in the best shape, the way Russian drones seem to operate without trouble.
arabs and iran you should now team up and do something about your collective security, because US is now openly started kidnaping the future of countries. team up with pakistan and ensure it's economic stability and make some NATO like agreement and get atleas 10 Nukes each otherwise you will also see the same day as maduro. i beleave you have very little time.
There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
The congress people who are military veterans recently put out a public service announcement reminding those in the military that they must refuse illegal orders, and Trump called that reminder of the law "treasonous" and said the veterans should be executed for reminding people of the law.
There should be military tribunals for all involved here to ensure that law and order is maintained. The US is losing its constitution, its rule of law. There is not country if we have two different sets of laws, one for normal people but zero laws for those following rhe president's wishes. That's a monarchy.
No American, but the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions? That doesn’t make them any better but I was wondering the same thing
> There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
No. From an international-law perspective, Trump is stepping into the footprints left by Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Khamenei and his own predecessors in D.C.
From a domestic-law perspective, this is un-Constitutional.
Just checked on r/conservative what the diehard MAGA fans are saying and they seem to be very happy that Trump is attacking the Cartels and Chinese influence in their backyard. That seems to be the current narrative among MAGA right now.
It’s so simple to understand. There are tens of dictatorships around. Why this one? Shit is fucked more a lot more in Congo. Why is the US not interested? This is not about human rights. This is about oil.
Very disappointing to see some of the arguments being put forth in favour of this blatant aggression. After reading through quite a few comments I'm left with the impression that very many people seem to hold some pretty dubious opinions:
1. That previous justifications in the lead up to this event are now irrelevant or to be ignored or forgotten about ('narco-terrorism', 'it's our oil', 'sanctions busting', etc).
- These were all weak to begin with (but are still relevant because the truth is in there and stated almost explicitly - i.e. 'US interests').
2. That this attack on Venezuelan sovereignty was done for moral reasons ('bad regime').
- Even accepting that the government of Venezuela is a 'bad regime', this is insufficient - there are many arguably much worse governments in the world.
3. That might is right.
- Correct in some sense but morally bereft.
All in all a lot of post-facto nonsense on display.
I'm frankly appalled at the self-serving moral blindness on display here. I refuse to believe that people are arguing in good faith here. Disappointing to see from the otherwise thoughtful commenters on this site.
To anyone making the above arguments, let me ask you - what do you think of the saying "do unto others as you would have done unto you"?
Trump's handlers have proven the USA military don't care about the Constitution. They're happy to enforce the dictators will even though they know it to be unlawful. Seems like that is a significant movement that opens the door for Trump to be even more evil. They've rallied to the sex offender, they probably have to follow through now to avoid joining him and his cohort in jail.
I hope the rest of south america doesn’t let this stand. Heavy sanctions on US, maybe even military intervention. The US can’t go to war with an entire continent.
Are you from South America? Do you think the neighboring countries are happy about all the Venezuelan refugees? What about Guyana - do you think they would join sanctions in support of Venezuela?
Yes, I am, and yes I don’t particularly mind the immigrants.
Even if I did mind them, venezuelan immigrants are preferable to the US military invading my neighbours.
The TIAR? The one that says an attack on one is an attack on all, which both USA and Venezuela are members of? Fat lot of good that did to protect them.
But I don’t know why I bother to reply to you when given your “farmers with sticks” comment it’s clear that you’re a racist asshole.
So the US can just fly into a country and kidnap it's president and his wife at will now? Just because Donald Trump feels like it. And most Americans will somehow praise and love it.
What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?
Yup. Venezuelans voted for the Bolivaran Revolution. This is it. We shouldn’t waste our time with it. Especially because every time we topple a regime like this it creates a refugee crisis and a huge influx of refugees to the U.S.
I didn't know Maduro was responsible for protecting the US border. Perhaps he should be charged with "dereliction of duty"? To go along with his other trumped up charges (ha.. ha..) such as "possession of machine guns and other destructive devices".
What is the “it” they voted against? Did the reject the ideology? Or are they just unhappy with the current dictator but will vote for the next one that comes along?
Surprise, surprise, US still the country of regime change and military intervention, when control of or access to valuable natural resources are at play.
US flexing its muscles and showing that it's in charge of its "backyard", just as it always has been.
Please don't insult our intelligence with comments about how this is about justice, drugs, or democracy. I've lived long enough to have seen this movie many times.
If one believes we are moving towards major conflict with China this sort of operation is justifiable given Maduro's closeness to the CCP.
It is very unlikely this will be met with anything like a coordinated condemnation from the Europeans given Maduro's closeness to Russia. Hence giving Trump some degree of international political cover for the move.
"Trump claims Maduro 'captured and flown out of the country'
US president Donald Trump claims that the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife have been “captured and flown out of the country”.
In a Truth Social post shared only moments ago, Trump wrote:
The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify this report."
Combat footage is coming out by the minute. Watching it, I don't understand how Americans can be so fundamentally evil. Watching helicopters gun people on the ground down. What makes you so sick in the head that you would do this? How could you obey these orders and feel nothing as you slaughter innocent people? There isn't even any possible pretext to this invasion. They know what they're doing and still choose to do it. It's utterly incomprehensible.
Yep. It's the illiberal authoritarians. The people who need hierarchy, for domination and submission. This is why equality is an scary abomination to them.
All societies have such people. But civil societies prevent them from gaining significant power. Failing that, it's going to be expensive.
This society elected a known abuser. Of course this society will be abused. But also because of this society's global power, the world will also be abused.
I regret to inform you that this is not how the cycle of violence works. As the US itself has repeatedly found, inflicting violence on people makes them more supportive of violence, both because you’ve taught them it’s a legitimate tool and because many of them want revenge on you.
Trump is solidifying control over (North and South) American oil to ensure oil reserves in the event of a global war. China's first move would be to control middle eastern and russian oil - choking manufacture.
Am I going to see Venezualan flags pop up all over European capitals like I did when Putin did the exact same thing in Ukraine that Trump just did?
I had highly doubt it. I guess invading foreign countries is fine if it’s „our“ side doing it.
I think it will be regarded as a poor move long term to so boldly put the us stamp on what will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or two
I'm admittedly somewhat ignorant of all the details but I don't see what the real benefit is
my only guess is that it's to disincentivize the Russians and Chinese from being more involved in South America but it feels like it could do the opposite and act as an annoying wedge
Venezuela already was a refugee crisis ~5 years ago, until they liberalized the economy slightly some years ago. Not sure what the current status is.
I could foresee
* some US-backed pro-business president coming to power
* GDP going up
* still no completely liberal democracy but anyway better than Maduro
* less emigration or maybe people start coming back
The main casualty is the notion that the US follows rules instead of doing whatever it wants. I'm not sure if I'd say democracy is a casualty as well, because (AFAIK with my non-leftist sources) Venezuela wasn't a real democracy.
Yes, I’m sure a US invasion will help the local populace finally understand that they should be friendly with Uncle Sam and his freedom loving ways rather than the Russians and Chinese who brought mostly shady investments as a way of building influence.
I guess even the last former voter now understands that a certain orange man is a huge liar. So much for "I'm gonna get the peace nobel prize" by Invasion 2.0. Actually, it is not even an invasion right now - it is just a distraction from certain files. How much has not yet been revealed with regard to that network involving underage people?
From the standpoint of international law, this is an unprovoked attack, it's a war crime and act of terror.
Trump and United States of America can now be officially treated as a terrorists and terrorist state!
I just woke up to this madness, and have heard nothing about it prior to today. Has this come as a surprise to everyone in the USA too, or were there murmurings leading up to it? What was the reason given? I'm presuming there was _something_, even if it was clearly nonsense?
It's not entirely unexpected - you must have missed the recent deployment of the US Navy in the region, which looked like a naval blockade. But this operation is certainly daring - far more impressive than simply blowing Maduro up with a drone strike, which I personally expected.
It's justified by portraying Maduro as a drug kingpin responsible for the fentanyl epidemic in the US. He is also blamed for some gang activity.
I figured it was coming because of Dear Leader's ramblings. TBH, I thought it was going to be the focus of the sudden address given on December 17. Instead we got amphetamine-fueled yelling about "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, THE ECONOMY IS REALLY GREAT" and something about a military bonus that was really just a way to rename and tax a pre-existing housing allowance.
Venezuela is playing the usual card about America trying to seize oil; US playing usual card about narcotics. You can believe what you want, or buy into whatever mainstream narrative you want, I’m not here to judge, but I’ve seen these cards played out so many times in my lifetime.
Neither makes sense to me for this level of resistance and response from the US. I have a feeling this has to do far more with Iran, Russia, and China, than Venezuela/drugs.
For instance next-door, China is active around the Darien gap region, developing roads and highways. Allegedly this is for port infrastructure, but given Chinese history of low intensity conflicts and island building techniques in the South China sea, this could be a land version of that strategy.
I need to read up about Venezuelan and Iranian Russian connections and interactions. I think the most underrated piece of news is the seizure of tankers under embargo, with blowing up drug boats as the distraction.
One thing is for sure; even the most hard core right of uneasy to support Trump in a new war, and Trump has publicly lamented the expense (of all things) of war.
Not too much info out yet, but I'm guessing one of these happened:
A) Maduro negotiated some deal for himself and his family.
B) His whole military leadership sold him out.
(A) Makes sense if you assume that he had no other exit strategies. If he could have fled to Russia, he'd already done that. I'm thinking that Trump pressed hard on Putin not to take him. With no strong allies left, there's no exit for him. At best he'd be exposed to full-scale invasion by the US, civil war, or other internal power struggles.
(B) Makes sense if you assume that someone simply took the bait, and were flown out of Venezuela with the US operatives. But from a military perspective, it wouldn't be easy - any serious country has contingency plans, and there are many moving parts. Obviously one (or many) generals could provide these things in great detail, but there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel that will stick to their procedures once shit hits the fan.
From what I've seen, some airstrikes took out AA systems. And there's been reported some fighting back.
I don't know. (A) sounds a bit more likely to me. By any measure, the man was backed into a corner. I think his hail marry was for Putin to offer to save him. But that never happened...a big clue will be how Russia, and the Russian disinformation campaigns react to this.
Abuse of power by a self-serving oligarchy, redux. “ Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny out of the most extreme form of liberty.” ~ Plato (The Republic)
Trump is acting exactly as an agent of Russia would. Pissing off allies, trying to break up the EU and NATO, creating a distraction war to cut aid to Ukraine.
Do you disagree? Come, let's inspect your thoughts. What news have you been consuming. Who do you trust? We can precisely evaluate your degree of susceptibility to propaganda. Aka "retardation"
A reasonable person can say international law is unevenly enforced. This does not mean it does not matter. Both positive (what exists) and normative (what is ethical) considerations matter.
Communicating well matters. The above style of exaggeration is unhelpful if one cares about making sense of the world. Try to predict what happens in the future without factoring in international agreements and laws. Predictions from such models will be inferior, relatively speaking, to a version that does include paying attention to law.
> Vice President J. D. Vance suggested on X that this morning’s incursion is legal because “Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism.” But as my colleague Conor Friedersdorf has noted, this logic would mean that the president can order an invasion of “any country where a national has an outstanding arrest warrant.”
It's a US military invasion. I hope that an unpopular invasion with zero justification results in some level of political consequences for Trump but sadly I remain skeptical
I just called my representatives and told them they need to do their jobs and put a check on the executive branch and stop this illegal, undeclared war. Please do the same.
Considering the general incompetence of this administration, this level of success with such a surgical operation seems completely out of character.
Incredibly impressive operation, whether or not you agree with it. Although the ability to operate helos over Caracas with such impunity may very well suggest high-level collaborators in the local military.
The army is full of very competent people regardless of who's in charge for the last 4 years, it's not like they start from scratch at every new administration. And most of them just like to blow shit up regardless of the moral aspect of it, as we've seen in the past
I certainly don't doubt the competence of the US army, but the fact that they spent only minutes on active SEAD bombing raids to enable this operation suggests that it wasn't just cool tech or super competent SOF operators that truly enabled this operation.
> suggest high-level collaborators in the local military
This - almost guaranteed that this was a negotiated outcome/coup from the military.
Also it's telling i had to scroll halfway down the page to find the first non "trump therefore bad" comment. The cognitive dissonance of the posters vis a vis Machado is pretty astounding.
It's really a shame topics like this attract such lazy ideological struggle on HN. Reiterating Trump=bad over and over simply doesn't make for interesting conversation regardless of how true it may be.
Even on this particular story, there are so many interesting HN-worthy details to discuss. Instead we're stuck lazily debating whether this was right or wrong.
You can find higher-quality, much more aggressively moderated conversations on topics like this on r/CredibleDefense. However, even that subreddit struggles with the traffic from high-profile events like this.
Damn. And no large-scale military activity in play.
I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win, especially where Maduro has been considered being more and more authoritarian, rejecting democracy, and probably would've been willing to sacrifice thousands of lives in a ground war if this increasing threat was handled less finely.
Add to this the fact that Venezuela has crazy amounts of oil BUT a totally mismanaged and badly exploited extraction operation and the economy is in the toilet. Unless this somehow leads in to a Libya situation, everyone could benefit from this, compared to the hopelessness of the past.
> I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win
It has only been a few hours, so nobody knows what is going to follow. Even if US does not engage further this may well trigger a civil war in Venezuela with massive casualties.
You can't really put politics aside when the US was obviously dangling the return of the Monroe doctrine for Ukraine. Let's see what that "deal" looks like.
„The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Holy whataboutism. Regardless of what you think about Trump the US system is nothing like that of Venezuela or Russia or any other actually authoritarian state.
Before anyone starts telling us how they are attacking a legitimate president and that the people will defend it, take your time to find your closest Venezuelan (there are 8 million around the world, so don't need to look to far) and ask him how he feels about this, you will find that happy is part of their emotions.
Are they Venezuelans living in Venezuela? I think the ones you have to worry about are the ones still living there.
Additionally, might it be that every dictatorship is hated by most expatriates? I think that that was the case for the 2 (or 3) countries that the neo-cons invaded, and I don't remember any of those invasions turning out well. Reckless.
I imagine, purely as a thought experiment, if you asked a sample of US expats what their reaction to the "forced removal" of the current president from office you'd get a similar response.
I don't see a single comment in this thread praising Maduro, I have basically never heard anyone express this sentiment in these discussions: "Maduro: Democratic leader, universally loved by his ever grateful people for standing up to the autocratic regimen of the USA" the argument is that regime change and military intervention in foreign conflicts have led to disaster time and again.
Let me strap on my vocabulary filter for this site and say very diplomatically that what you typed is completely, entirely incorrect, a caricature, and is not relevant.
I get why some people were neo-con the first 3 or so times (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) but it's criminal not to learn after failing 3 times over. I want the most severe consequences for the people who have enabled this to happen again.
We won't know for a while but I don't imagine there will be mass civilian graves, abducted children, or the intent to annex the country. This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.
"This is more about oil and deposing Maduro."
Scary how overt these 'operations' are these days. 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this. Someone said 'lack of shame' is very concerning with governments of today. Wonder if this is a reflection of where we as a humanity are heading.
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don't intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn't plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?
For one the whole country of Ukraine is fighting like hell for almost 4 years following the orders of their elected government to defend their country.
If Russia was on the right, the people of Ukraine would have just hanged Zelenskyy and his gov, instead of sending their children to the meat grinder.
Let’s see if Venezuelans will put their lives on the line to protect the regime.
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically: maybe Venezuela will get a bit less sympathy because it's a somewhat shittier (see emigration numbers) and less democratic government than Ukraine's. And I suspect we have a more positive view of US troops than Russian troops, despite everything (Abu Ghraib is seen as an aberration and not as the normal way of working).
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically it's different in that Trump hopefully will not going to kill 220,000+ and leave 500,000+ war invalids of US military personnel in process. Though you never know...
A surgical strike that was over before the news broke out vs. a 4-year campaign of plundering with literal criminals, press-ganged foreigners, and chechen blocking detachments, featuring mass rape, executed civilians, abduction and forced reeducation of thousands of children, gross mistreatment of PoW, etc.
Russia's goal is to destroy Ukraine as nation and a country, because there's no "Ukrainians", there's no "Ukrainian language", and every country that speaks Russian should be controlled by Russian tsar. That's why they don't care and demolish ("liberate") Ukraine, town after town.
Emphasizing that I’m not defending this war at all, but one key difference I’m extremely confident in is that the US will not attempt to annex its favorite regions of Venezuela.
FWIW Russia was initially quite happy with "independent" Ukraine provided that their guy Yanukovich was in charge. It was only when he was ousted that they switched to open invasion tactics.
So from that perspective, I don't think US is really much different, just better at keeping its own puppets in power.
Another difference that has not been mentioned in other comments is that: The US is not completely delusional about its military capabilities and could actually complete this invasion in three days. In fact, it may already be over, as Maduro have been captured.
There's a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel, disallowing them access to things like Microsoft software and unbanking them:
> a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel
Yeah. Pettiness. The ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in the United States. We aren't a signatory to the Rome Statute. (Most of the world's population doesn't live under its jurisdiction.)
Translation: "Name a Zionist-holocaust-of-babies-supporting-pedophile-rapist-infested-government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention"
This administration is just a continuation of the last administration. Same policies on anything important. But it is possible you missed the Gaza Genocide?
Unless Maduro was somehow actually deposed BEFORE the US mil came into the country, or at least into Maduro's residence, Trump just changed the standing international order of centuries to allow kidnapping of heads of state
So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".
This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.
This is just sad. We have a long history and lots of data to know this will be catastrophic for the Venezuela. Hope it doesn’t go that way but feels inevitable. The us is never expected to learn from its mistakes so nothing new there, with the administration desperate to distract from the Epstein files has decided war is the way.
This is a crime. It is an unlawful act of aggression which may defacto trigger an international armed conflict. There will be paper thin justifications of course but those are merely to give loyalists talking points and a thread to grasp to in their mental gymnastics.
Why are comments allowed on these posts? What is the point? What is ever gained? Conservatives question and deny. Liberals point out the multiple laws broken. People from the rest of the world tell those of in the USA that we have our head up our ass.
How are any of us better for this? How is this better than Facebook's engagement-bait?
There was already an Israeli pundit on Fox News saying that Venezuela harbors Hamas and Hezbollah operatives. My assumption is that they are throwing that out there to garner support from Trump’s “anti-war unless it’s defending Israel” supporters.
I suggest reading the few south american comments in this thread hidden by the usual whatever Trump does vitriol fro EU/US commenters.
r/venezuela is one placce to start. Very different tone there than the ill informed commenters here ( and I say that with detest for “that other site”)
Hopefully the Venezuelan people will have a fighting change to restore their country now.
What did y’all think María Machado won the Nobel for over Trump? Does it even matter or is orange man bad all you care about anymore? HN was over the moon to see her win just a few months ago.
Regardless of how retarded maduro was, "i felt like it" should not be justifiable reason to kidnap a president of a different country on their own turf.
Maybe i felt better about that if trump wasnt in bed with another dictator.
"Venezuelan allies Russia, Cuba and Iran were quick to condemn the strikes as a violation of sovereignty."
Right, Russia, who has been attacking Ukraine not just for one night, but for four years, is now going to lecture the US about violations of sovereignty. Their moral high ground, if they ever had any, is long gone.
I'm not sad if Maduro's gone. I'm even less sad if this results in actual freedom for Venezuela after 20 years of nightmare.
But I am not happy about the president of the US, on his own authority, choosing to remove the head of other countries, on rather flimsy pretexts. (If he presents actual evidence that Maduro was actively and deliberately shipping drugs to the US, or worse, criminals, then I will change my opinion. But I need evidence, not just claims and bluster.)
1. It's distraction on a grand scale from the Epstein Event Horizon, also on a grand scale.
2. Trump: (2018) We don't want to be the policemen of the world BY BRETT SAMUELS - 04/30/18 [0]
> President Trump on Monday said the U.S. should no longer serve as the “policemen of the world.”
> “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
> “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority,” he said.
> Trump ran on the promise that he would extricate the U.S. from foreign wars.
Neither the republican nor democrat base wanted this. There wasn't even an attempt at justification, the drugs argument was a complete and utter joke. They could at least do a little false flag attack.
Hernàndez was captured by Biden. Trump pardoned him because Biden bad.
This world is a shitshow. Honestly, I am GenX and always read of wars and tensions as historical artefacts (there were wars, but localized and far away from France).
Now I am seriously wondering if this is going to end well for us over here. I do not work that much about myself, I had an interesting life, but rather about my children whom I now start to regret. I did not expect to hand them a world like this one.
I know, global warming was there but I was 30 and was looking my close surroundings. My bad. This said, if I know what the world would be today I wrote reconsider having them.
What's the desired strategic outcome here - to remove the incumbent president and his political party from power and replace it with one more favorable to US oil interests? And to do that without putting ground troops in to some Latin American Vietnam? Good luck with that.
It'll be the usual playbook: replace Maduro with a pet dictator. It won't go well for Venezuela and it's people, but since when did the USA give a damn about people?
And yet droves and droves from south and Central America want to come here and live instead!
Also do these countries governments care for their own ppl? Seems like no as if they did ..they wouldn’t be corrupt 2nd to 3rd world countries & their citizens wouldn’t be fleeing to America in droves
The USA are a blight on the Americas and the larger World. Their fanatic population will immediately jump in to justify a violent, naked attempt at stealing this country's mineral resources. This already happened dozens of times, always with terrible outcome, yet here we are again. The fall of the American empire can't happen fast enough.
Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."
Venezuela has had plenty of recent multinational support in recent years from China National Petroleum, Anhui Guangda Mining, Rosneft (Russia), and Iran.
Those who rejoice today with the fall of Maduro may not rejoice when China or India or any other regional player decides to topple the government of another country and kidnap their leaders and then install a "friendly" regime in their place.
Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.
Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?
Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.
Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.
Boy is trying to outdo both Regan and Dubya. He didn't even try to sell it to us like they did with Iraq.
Venezuelans, I'm sorry my shithole country is about to inflict a fascist puppet state on you. Nobody here gives enough of a shit despite all the chest-thumping and "MUH LIBERTY TREE". We'd rather have drum circles and ask for permission to dissent.
Yes—there are very clear, recurring *themes*, and what’s striking is how consistently people keep circling the same fault lines from different angles. I’d group them like this:
---
## 1. *Legality vs. Morality*
*Core tension:*
> Is overthrowing a dictator morally right even if it violates international law?
* One side argues law exists precisely to restrain power, not to reward virtue.
* The other argues moral urgency overrides abstract legalism when human suffering is extreme.
* This becomes a meta-question: Who decides when morality trumps law?
This is the philosophical backbone of the entire thread.
---
## 2. *Precedent Anxiety*
*“Today Maduro, tomorrow anything.”*
* Fear that once unilateral regime change is normalized, the justification becomes infinitely elastic:
* Libya and Iraq function as *cautionary archetypes*, not historical footnotes.
This is less about Venezuela than about *future permission structures*.
---
## 3. *Outcomes Over Intentions*
*Ends don’t redeem means if outcomes are catastrophic.*
* Even commenters who despise Maduro emphasize:
* removing a dictator is easy
* building a functioning state is hard
* Post-intervention chaos (ISIS, slave markets, fragmentation) is cited repeatedly.
* There’s deep skepticism that this time will be different, even when facts are “better documented.”
This is pragmatic pessimism rather than ideological purity.
---
## 4. *American Power & Self-Deception*
*A recurring, uncomfortable self-indictment.*
* Several comments converge on the idea that:
* Americans benefit materially from interventionism
* but psychologically disavow responsibility for the costs
* The line “Americans want this but don’t like knowing they want it” resonates strongly.
* Counterpoint: lack of agency within political structures blunts individual responsibility.
This becomes a debate about *collective guilt vs. structural impotence*.
---
## 5. *Realpolitik vs. Institutionalism*
*Power acting directly vs. power constrained by process.*
* Appeals to ICC, UN, asylum frameworks represent belief in institutions.
* Skeptics argue those institutions are deliberately weakened by the same powers invoking morality.
* Others argue asylum and invasion are orthogonal issues—and conflating them is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Underlying question: Is global governance real, or decorative?
---
## 6. *Lived Experience vs. Abstract Judgment*
*Who gets moral authority?*
* “Those who’ve never lived under dictatorship say this.”
* Counter: “Those who never lived through US intervention say that.”
* Venezuelans in-thread complicate narratives of total collapse or total liberation.
* Firsthand testimony destabilizes neat moral binaries.
This creates epistemic friction: *whose suffering counts as evidence?*
---
## 7. *Cynicism About Motives*
*Oil never disappears from the conversation.*
* Even when people argue it’s not literally about barrels of crude, they frame it as:
* control
* leverage
* profit flows
* contractor ecosystems
* What’s new is not cynicism—but how brazen the cynicism feels.
Several commenters note the lack of even performative moral cover.
---
## 8. *Democratic Exhaustion*
*A sense that democracy is no longer the brake it claims to be.*
* Rapid escalation vs. slow electoral correction
* Legislatures perceived as compliant or irrelevant
* No clear mechanism for popular restraint short of catastrophe
This feeds resignation rather than outrage.
---
## 9. *Historical Echoes & Decline Narratives*
*“We’ve seen this movie.”*
* Arab Spring
* Iraq
* Libya
* Panama (Noriega)
History is invoked less as analogy and more as *warning fatigue*—people feel trapped in a loop.
---
## 10. *A Deeper Subtext: Loss of Moral Coherence*
Perhaps the most important theme:
> The argument isn’t about whether Maduro is bad.
> It’s about whether the system judging him is still capable of moral credibility.
That’s why the thread feels less like debate and more like *collective unease*.
---
### If you zoom out:
This isn’t really a Venezuela thread.
It’s a conversation about *power without trust*, *law without enforcement*, and *morality without consensus*—and whether any of those concepts still function in the current world order.
If you wanted to fictionalize this, it wouldn’t be a war story.
It would be a story about *people arguing at the edge of legitimacy*, trying to decide whether the rules still mean anything once the strong stop pretending they do.
I honestly have little sympathy, and not because Maduro is a dictator or whatever label the US has given him. It's because he spent his country's resources on useless, incompetent staff that fell apart before any conflict even began. Say what you want about Iran, but at least they maintain a solid defensive posture.
Any country that doesn't invest in its own tech stack gets what it deserves. This is information superiority in action; made possible by the deep proliferation of American technology. The US is now leveraging information warfare for what used to require physical force. The difference is stark. We've seen it with the Hezbollah pager attacks, high-profile targeting in Iran, and now this.
It's time for you Americans to wake up. You're supporting the wrong things!
National sovereignty is a fundamental principle of international law and cannot be selectively applied according to the interests of global powers. Donald Trump’s threats and aggressive rhetoric toward Venezuela undermine this principle by treating a nation’s self-determination as negotiable. Criticizing this stance does not mean endorsing the Venezuelan government, but acknowledging that sanctions, intimidation, and external pressure rarely affect political elites and instead harm ordinary people, deepening humanitarian crises.
Latin American history reveals a recurring pattern of foreign interference framed as the defense of democracy. From a moral standpoint, collective punishment and imposed solutions are indefensible. If such actions would be unacceptable when directed at the United States, they cannot be justified against Venezuela. A responsible international approach requires multilateral dialogue, international mediation, and genuine respect for the sovereignty of nations.
The reaction on HN to what just happened in Venezuela is exhausting and revealing. People who have never lived under socialism, communism, dictatorship, or military rule speak with total confidence while dismissing those who have.
More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country, one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. They are celebrating. You are being critical. That alone should give pause.
Those condemning this action (and almost defending the oppressors) have never:
- Lived under a dictatorship where dissent leads to prison, torture, rape or disappearance
- Watched the military and police become criminal enterprises
- Seen private property and entire industries seized by the state, as happened under Chávez and Maduro
- Experienced the collapse that follows decades of corruption, repression, and ideological control
Latin America knows this story well. Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela have followed different paths with the same outcomes: repression, exile, fear, and destroyed civil society. Venezuela didn’t “fail suddenly.” It was dismantled over decades through nationalization, purges, censorship, and military collusion with organized crime.
If you claim to care about migrants, human rights, or the oppressed, you cannot only care after people escape. You cannot oppose every serious attempt to end regimes that jail, torture, and kill their own citizens while calling yourself humanitarian. That is not morality, it’s distance.
Is oil involved? Of course. Venezuela’s oil industry, built with foreign investment, was expropriated, looted, and mismanaged into ruin. But this is also about state-backed criminal networks, narcotrafficking, and regional destabilization that have killed hundreds of thousands beyond Venezuela’s borders.
If you had lived under these conditions, if your family had been broken by fear, disappearance, or exile, you would not be citing abstract “international law” to defend your oppressors. You would be hoping, every night, that someone powerful enough would intervene.
What’s missing here isn’t compassion. It is context.
Before defending dictators from the safety of a functioning democracy, have the self-awareness to ask whether you understand the reality you’re judging. Otherwise what comes through isn’t moral clarity, it’s ignorance dressed up as virtue.
Had a few interactions in person over the holidays where the presence of discussion of certain narratives would cause an otherwise normal and talented adult person to almost immediately respond in a repulsive rage.
Yes, that's very much the type of brain virus we've been dealing with for around a decade. Social media did not help. Critical thinking went out the door completely. And the pandemic made is massively worse, driving people into deep dark holes characterized by ignorant resonance with a healthy dose of zero thought given to everything.
Right now you have entire news networks defending --actively defending-- a brutal dictator who exported death in the form of drugs, tortured, jailed and killed his own people. I almost feel like I am watching a primitive primate culture from space driven to rage without a clue or care of where reality lies.
I think this will pass eventually, but it might take another ten years.
yeah might is right. if you wanna bully citizens like dictators do - now they fear some big bully might come snatch them in the middle of the night like bully does to its citizens
Your comment is completely and utterly disconnected from reality. Venezuelans WANT THIS and have been wanting this for decades.
I lived in Argentina at the time when the military were making people disappear by the thousands, never to be found again. Most commenters on HN have no clue what they are talking about and no context whatsoever.
Give it a few weeks. Maybe a few months, hard to say. You will see people joyfully demonstrating on every street in Venezuela flying both Venezuelan and American flags. Just hold your thoughts and opinions if you can for a a bit of time and you'll see. And, of course, don't get your news from leftist outfits who are angry about a socialist/communist/dictator losing power. You'll be able to watch news directly from Venezuela.
Important point: Venezuela is NOT Iraq or Afghanistan. I've seen people equate events. Again, ignorant. Venezuelans WANT democracy. Latin Americans are culturally and religiously aligned with the west. They want this and they want the socialist-dictatorial nightmare to be over.
As is always the case, most are not thinking past the headlines. Venezuela, once the transition to sanity, rule of law and democracy is completed, is likely to become a major player both in the region and globally.
How?
Well, most go for the obvious: Oil.
That's not it though. Expand beyond that: Energy.
And expand beyond that yet again: Manufacturing.
And yet one more time: AI data centers (which need energy, manufacturing and a stable environment).
Venezuela could become a magnet for investment and development we cannot possibly imagine. This one move by Trump, if executed well, will change the face of the American continent --for the better-- in ways that are hard to imagine today. This is a good moment in history. I hope other nations understand the reign of terror is over and join a coalition to truly make Latin America not only great again, but part of what could become the most powerful association in the world, a new, powerful, integrated and developed American continent. I hope to see this in my lifetime. It would be amazing.
This will lead to a long drawn out guerilla war in the name of oil. Thousands or tens of thousands will die. And trump does. Not. Care. At. All. Neither their lives, or yours or mine, have any meaning to him and his cabinet. They simply do not care.
Maduro was a monstrous dictator who was guaranteed to kill more people than this US strike did. And there is an opposition party which has been suppressed by Maduro, but is otherwise ready to go. There is much hope to be had for this beautiful country and its people now.
Hopefully this act will also have a chilling effect on other vile left wing dictators like those in North Korea and Cuba
So correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a new kind of crime committed by the US? We've been involved in a lot of regime change operations but I can't think of one where we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state and bring them to the US. I guess Saddam Hussein but that was after we caused the collapse?
Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
The US has historically captured and executed heads of states in wars, including Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2006 (executed by the US-administered Iraqi government), and Imperial Japan's Tojo in 1948.
The US extradited, convicted, and imprisoned Honduras' Juan Orlando Hernández, for drug trafficking crimes (though Trump, incongruously, pardoned him in 2025).
Another notable example, the UK arrested Chile's Pinochet in 1998 on a Spanish arrest warrant claiming universal jurisdiction, though no conviction followed from that.
edit: And US Marines captured Grenada's Hudson Austin in 1983, turning him over to Grenada's new government who sentenced him to death, commuted to prison.
edit²: Two other heads of state imprisoned in the US were Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala (extradited to and convicted in US courts in 2014), and Pavlo Lazarenko of Ukraine (fled willingly to the US, convicted in 2006).
It has been presented as a law enforcement action to bring a wanted criminal to justice. What do you mean by “televised sham trial”? Are you suggesting the US manufactured evidence?
Have you considered this is part of a negotiated exit?
It's so hard to talk about this from the perspective of a venezuelan.
Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. Their headquarters is El Helicoide, a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it is the largest torture center in Latin America.
On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and had to convince him to participate in the elections.
During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.
If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.
There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.
I couldn't disagree more with those statements.
I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does. Here in Venezuela, she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols. I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her.
Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.
It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.
Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world.
Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.
There's no more proof that any Venezuelan election's results has been tampered with than with any US election. The state of Venezuela's state is sad, and so is the fact that millions of people have felt forced to flee the country due to economic uncertainty. But this is probably a mix of culture, ingrained corruption and US blockage for decades.
It's down here for a reason. Anything that even alludes to the fact that Trump's broken clock might accidently be right for some people twice a day can't surface. Thus the anti-regime Venezuelans get their comments pushed down into the shithole, because we can't outright say the very people we are white-knighting are wrong so we just ignore them.
Thank God, Chavez turned the richest country in south america into the poorest and Maduro continued his legacy with the average person losing 17lbs in a year when the price of oil fell. Although I'm surprised Trump is getting involved in world affairs we're at least at a point where the situation can't get any worse. Hopefully Trump will end socialism and bring back democracy to Venezuela
This administration is lawless to an almost a comical degree. First murdering people with little more than the most obvious figleaf, now invading a country without Congressional approval. Clearly the US constitution is just a list of suggestions to Trump.
I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.
This takes the American Oligarchy to the next level. Trump is now enabling his billionaire friends plunder another country, no doubt Trump will get a cut of the profits.
It's funny how all the comments are discussing it from a "was Maduro good or bad" point of view.
This is an invasion for oil, nothing to do with drugs since they come from Mexico, and that propaganda is weak. And nothing to do with Maduro being a dictator or anything similar since each one of our politicians is objectively worse than him, I wish this was an exgeration, but when you look at the Epstein files, even the few unredacted things found there (and most of them are redacted) make it obvious that we are literally ruled by criminals.
Now you either look at it as it is, and accept that Santa isn't real, and that life is hard, and we are greedy, and we don't care about other people, and then you stop the moralizing when you do nothing about it, or you keep gobbling up the lie after lie, that Murica is the good guy, and everyone else is evil, and that all Murica's wars are moral and bringing freedom and liberating those third worlders.
TLDR: free your mind before you talk about freeing others (which is ironic because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm also writing this message for myself).
There is a science fiction book "The inhabited island" ("Prisoners of power"?) by A. and B. Strugatsky. In one of episodes they try to describe the feeling of being in a very human-looking but also completely alien culture (a different planet with humanoid inhabitants). So they describe how a group of people works out a credentials/paperwork situation (they need to move a prisoner from one place to another) but literally, as these actions are seen by the prisoner who does not understand the meaning. "This one gave that one a yellow rectangle but that one refused to take it and said something in a raised voice."
I always remember that episode as I see headlines like that.
Prediction: it won't. HN is very touchy about things that make the president look bad, as well as about bold statements, as well as about politics (except when it's good for VC money, then it's apolitical).
I try to stay humble when predicting the future. But there is just no way there will be a literal military invasion. Trump would never risk a bunch of american dying on the ground, it would be terrible optics.
So many people in the comments arguing as if the U.S. government made a rational decision based on specified goals and policies.
Trump is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He admires dictators like Putin and wanted to emulate his invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Miller is pure evil, and Hegseth is a fool, so they came up with a pretext to attack Venezuela. All of this conveniently distracts from the Epstein files.
Nothing that's happened is justified, legal or rational. It's just the egos of idiots who should not be in power.
there are other people behind these decisions proposing them to trump as options, and its following the current US strategic plan about militarily dominating the americas.
its gonna be some other central and south american countries next like panama, the on to conquering greenland from the danes and greenlanders, then canada
His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
In reality, he's building out Imperium Americanum, he is fighting wars without Congressional approval and proper casus bellis, he's not bringing the troops home and it is clear he represents the fucking Deep State even more than any of his predecessors since JFK. Shame on him for renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center. Which is absolutely disgusting given the reality of things!
Prime example: Invading Venezuela to steal their oil, just like his predecessors did with Syria (if you do not believe me, look where the US Army is located in Syria, and the prime locations of their oil fields).
Additionally: Trump's United States now has given Putin's Russia and Xi's China precedent to do whatever they fucking want to whoever or whatever. Because who fucking cares about international law if even the United States government, home of freedom and democracy and the rule of law, currently doesn't even give a fuck?
So now fucking what?
(And yes, as you might have noticed I AM FURIOUS AS HELL.)
> His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
A journalist asked him in the press conference just now how capturing Maduro and running the country in iterim is "America First". His simple answer is that a more stable set of countries in the region is good for America.
Right now the US have not invaded Venezuela but in effect attempted to precipitate a "coup". We shall see what happens now. Note, too that Maduro is not widely recognised as President by Western countries because of accusation of election rigging.
This is classic US action South of the border since the 19th century so I think the outrage is excessive. Perhaps people think, wrongly, that this is new becaude of Trump. What is new is that this seems actually aimed against China.
Regarding international law, it seems that it's been invoked so much in recent years that people have "drunk the Kool Aid" and actually believe that this is something carved in stone that must be obeyed, or even just actual "law"...
Y'all never lived under a dictatorship, and it's felt.
"Fuck venezuelans, how can you capture a dictator, that violates a law no one gives a fuck about". You should be really happy how Trump treats putin, like a dear friend, not violating any law. I hope marines will raid kremlin next.
You're obviously just trolling. The US is still a solid democracy - a country you disagree with, sure. In a couple years Trump will be out and life goes on. As for Maduro, he's a dictator - he needed to go. He works closely with Iran, Russia and with China doing very nefarious things.
I agree however that Trump is largely self centered and this is a risk. Oil should not be the goal here, it should be the freedom of the Venezuelans.
It is not a solid democracy if the only two political parties are largely aligned on most issues, leaving citizens helpless to change the way the uni party functions.
As for foreign policy, yes the United States is a terrorist state and has been for a long time.
USA bombed iraq, killed thousands of civilians
USA bombed libya, killed thousands of civilians
USA funding israel, killing thousands of civilians
USA bombed vietnam, killed thousands of civilians
and the list goes on.
I am not trolling, USA is built on white supremacy by genocide of native americans and is sustained by war because military industrial complex needs to sell their weapons so some american can afford starbucks.
America is a terrorist state, far from democracy where avg citizen doesnt even know the crimes of their govt. Just few days ago their whole leadership was revealed to be sinister pedophiles and americans basically did nothing. Americans are the most propagandized people ever
That's an excellent outcome to hope for. The odds are that we have already used up our "stopped clock is right every 12 hours" karma. Not that anyone should feel sorry for Maduro.
Episodes like these only serve to cement that Iran and North Korea are right to think that having nuclear deterrence is the only viable insurance policy.
(Delivery & effectiveness is another subject on its own but still)
What we saw with Venezuela was something nukes wouldn't prevent. Doing the same with Putin is infinitely harder, but if it did occur, chances are whoever fills in the power vacuum in Russia would be pretty happy with their situation.
Does fact that Congress, not the President, has the power to "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water" matter? Or is the constitution not what you voted for?
You are correct, but also it doesn't matter because the US has flaunted the constitution in precisely this way for every single war America has been in since WW2. Wars without congressional declaration are de facto legal and have been for as long as you and I have been alive.
Look I agree this whole thing is wrong, but to say this instance of regime change, unprovoked attack, war, whatever you call it is UNIQUELY unconstitutional is obviously wrong.
Every US President since the end of WW2 has waged war without a formal declaration of war from Congress. And presidents from both parties will continue to do so.
This is not to say it's right or good. But there is surely widespread agreement that it is constitutional to do things like this, and there has been for nearly a century.
Any nuclear-empowered nation is obviously off limits, but any nation without nuclear and with active hostilities towards the US is certainly thinking twice.
Trump has spent the last year (decade actually) doing a disgraceful show of pleasing a dictator who invaded his neighbour. To say nothing of his own authoritarian projects at home. And let's not even get started about Netanyahu.
How can you talk about this as if it was a crusade for justice against dictators? Some people are just terminally gullible.
> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
The irony of someone who (presumably, from statements) voted for Trump saying this while their own country tortures, disappears and in some cases murders thousands, plus potentially rigged elections...
I don't see any case of US citizens being tortured, murdered, and disappeared at scale. Source please?
Source on rigged elections? I didn't believe it when Trump cried wolf and I don't believe it when people think 2024 was rigged.
Edit: "But ICE!" - ICE is deporting (not torturing or murdering thousands of) non-citizens. They are doing a fantastic job (low false positive rate, maybe 10/300,000 with 0 permanent citizen deportations.) I am asking specifically about citizens.
You voted for brown people on flimsy boats to be blown up in extrajudicial killings and for regime change? I thought MAGAs were all about love and peace unlike the war monger, Barrack Obama.
Russia invaded Ukraine under a U.S. President that believed (and talked about often) in "international norms". Due to which international law violation did the Japanese attack pearl harbor? Do you think the reason China didn't attack Taiwan yet is because "well, America is acting moral, we can't go around disturbing the global order"
You realize that this kind of vigorous foreign policy that you are a fan of is going to rebound massively? Or have the last 80 years worth of lessons learned passed you by?
Plundering Latin America is not just going to be unpopular with European HNers, it will be with the vast majority of the world. You are hoping for 'exciting times', you fail to realize that 'may you live in exciting times' is a curse, not a blessing.
Broadly speaking, you can shape the world, or decide to sit it out and let everyone else try.
We should absolutely do everything in our power to make the world a better place for us.
The last 80 years taught me we can take down the USSR if we try, we can build europe back up if we try etc. I don't know what lessons you've learned from the past but there were many who were anti fighting (not literally, but through proxies, economics - soft power) the USSR and they were wrong. It's possible to win! & yes, I'm happy we have that spirit again
Even though the military was involved, I think this was officially a law enforcement action, much like capturing Manuel Noriega and sentencing him to prison.
Nicolás Maduro was indicted for various crimes in 2020. I have a feeling the "possession of a machinegun" charge will be dropped, but the US does have a long track record of saying drug activity affects the US enough that it can arrest and prosecute almost anybody.
The invasion of Ukraine, on the other hand, is -- I believe -- a regular military exercise. Putin has claimed that he wants to achieve some unusual goals ("denazify the Ukraine special forces"), but even those goals aren't really law enforcement.
Main difference is that Russia is 1409 days into their 3 day "special operation" that has obviously become a war, while this looks like it was actually a special operation.
A "special operation" that makes hypocrites of every US official complaining that the EU is engaged in over-reach* and that EU has no sovereignty in the USA, but still it is success (at least with regard to the immediately stated objectives) that's the difference.
Long term, I expect this to be a colossal failure for the USA, the USA has a very poor record for pulling long term benefits out of this kind of action, and Trump is a sub-unity multiplier on that.
That said, if I was anyone in Mexico right now, I'd be worried by the rhetoric. There's things Mexico can do to prepare for this, that's not going to be any fun at all for the USA. I can see a big pile of dry tinder here waiting to ignite, but I don't want to suggest details because path dependency is a huge variable, e.g. consider that Trump himself could be impeached for all the Epstein stuff at fairly short notice by Republicans worried he's dragging them down in domestic polls.
* with regard to the EU telling Big Tech that certain content is not welcome within the EU. I mean, imagine if any EU nation did this to forcibly extradite Musk. Or if the UK did it for 4chan. I wouldn't cry over either, but I would definitely be shocked. And neither Musk nor 4chan's staff have diplomatic immunity.
Drugs? No. War?! No, words have meanings and that's not what "war" means.
Ignoring diplomacy? Are you accusing the US of ignoring diplomacy, because that's the only half ways reasonable interpretation.
This is weak and pathetic misinformation. I guess it will take a few days before the propaganda machine gets going to try to justify this gigantic waste of taxpayer money and pointless destruction. Hopefully the pros get involved because this is just sad.
You can watch even CBS explain why this was done. Maduro was letting the cartel use private planes under diplomatic immunity to traffic drugs and weapons. EVEN CBS. Don't close your eyes and ears now.
Trump gave one of the biggest drug dealers ever a pardon as well as the Silk Road guy. Time to sanitise where you get your news, you seem to be eating all the propaganda.
You - and Venezuela - should solve your own internal problems at your own time table. Foreign intervention more often than not translates into puppet regime installation.
> should solve your own internal problems at your own time table
That's not how international geopolitics works. There are many means in which nation states pull levers to take on problems that exist in other countries. Sanctions, diplomacy, trade barriers, propaganda, military interventions, threats, etc. are all tools that are used by nation states around the world every day.
Beyond this, if you are from Venezuela it's difficult to stay in the middle beyond the outcomes, it is completely different when prople talk without living or being an expat.
You’re right. We should stop screwing around in foreign conflicts. Why are we spending money helping Ukraine? Who cares if Israel bombs Gaza? If Maduro wants to starve his people to death under a police state to emulate North Korea. Not my problem!
The US only exists due to the foreign intervention of France, and the at-the-time foreign intervention of a few Indian tribes, to help overthrow the crown regime. You might note the domestic efforts were also a dominating force, but I have no reason to believe anti-Maduro domestic efforts were not an instrumental force in making such a smooth operation possible for the US.
> As an American, I’m glad to see an authoritarian dictator removed
Personally I'm not. This is like kidnapping the CEO of Kroger because your eggs are too expensive, and then telling everyone you did it because he wasn't listening to his employees enough.
We can't undo this and this was a very big stick we used. I highly doubt this was done with the interests of the common American in mind.
> You think it’s a good idea for foreign countries to overturn domestic elections?
I certainly don't, and I don't speak for the person you replied to but I figure most people commenting here don't think that either
> The Bolivarian regime came to power in a free and fair election
Hugo Chavez was elected president legitimately in 1998, so it's true that the Bolivarian regime came to power fairly. But just about nobody that's paying attention thinks Maduro won the presidential election in 2024. Elections were held, Maduro lost (by a huge margin), and he continued being president anyway
I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections… The official results reported Maduro winning with about 51 % of the vote.
European Parliament resolutions and reports explicitly described the process as lacking transparency and integrity such as not publishing detailed polling station results, meaning the results could not be independently verified, and concluding the election was neither free nor fair.
You may recall María Corina Machado was barred from running shortly before the election itself.
If you look at the Wikipedia article on the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, it seems to be unlikely that the outcome of that election was that Maduro won.
Venezuela haven't had any free and fair election since the dictator in power was Chaves.
IMO, the US doing piracy around it is way more concerning than kidnapping a dictator that sent the military against its people, architected a couple of famines, and forced a double-digts percentage of their population out of the country.
Still, this won't lead to anything good. Because the entire US Executive is composed of incompetent sadistic people right now. But it could be a good thing for Venezuela in different circumstances (but I imagine anybody capable of making good change there would refrain from doing so).
So once elected more than 25 years ago they are allowed to stay and perpetuity and stage sham election just because they won a legitimate one a generation ago?
Telling someone they're biased must be the most low-effort comment there is. Everyone is biased about any subject where they have even a nuanced self interest in. And in your case, you didn't even specify which part of their comment was allegedly being affected by bias. Nor did you acknowledge your own bias.
This is a completely unacceptable comment on HN, and we have to ban accounts that post abusive comments repeatedly. HN is for people who have higher standards than this in what they think is appropriate to post online. Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to keep participating here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It’s also a crime against the US constitution and the international legal order. By condoning “might is right” Trump has given an excuse to every tinpot dictator, from Putin to Kim, to invade and kill whoever they want
And the voters who elected Trump because he promised to stop with "nation building".
But with Venezuela's +300bn oil barrels at Trump's disposal now, I bet the gas prices will plummeted. I wonder how the MAGA fanbase will react (probably will be happy to let just this one "nation building" project to slip through their ethics).
Just wait a few years for Trump to pardon you as he did for the jailed former Honduran president recently, same charges even. The hubris of this administration is off the charts.
Maduro had it coming, although I'm not surprised the bleeding hearts on HN can't see that. The guy was a dictator. Fuck him. Well done USA and happy new year.
Bolivian here - no tears will be shed over this scumbag. Check tiktok live and people are celebrating in the streets. Believe venezolanos, and neighbors, and not redditors lol.
I really don't understand one thing: is there a single american who still think this has been done to liberate a country from a dictator in the name of freedom?
Seriously?
This has been done for economical and power interests and USA is the most destabilizing power in the world and a source of war and desperation and death: they supports israel to get political power in middle east, they invaded countries as done in Iraq, they push Nato to the border of Russia and provoke war (not to say Putin had right to invade Ukraine but what would have done usa if mexico Canada or Cuba had russian weapons and support? Oh yes, we knew about Cuba).
And the president Trump: he’s just a ridicolous bully like the ones you can find at high schools.
Please US citizens, grow up. There had been a time when you were admired and respected, now your country is killing the world.
I’m not saying former soviet countries lived better under soviet imposition, but no one can be so naive to think US did that to help and free people.
When a mobster comes to you and free you from your previous mobster, it’s not because he is a good man and wants you to live freely: he does it to impose you his will and power exactly as US have always done.
The world is complex... It is a fact that Chavez and Maduro have completely ruined Venezuela.
That doesn't mean things can't get worse.
I pray the majority of Venezuelans really have had enough of socialist dictatorships and can find a way to govern themselves. The US should not govern Venezuela - but neither should Maduro or his cronies.
This can only be good news for the Venezuelans, having lived in such poor conditions for so long. Soon they will be able to go to McDonald's, drink Starbucks, and maybe one day if they really prove themselves to have that special drive and spirit that only Americans have, apply for US citizenship!
Alright
So I'm fully expecting that companies like Visa and Mastercard to promptly exit US market, for the EU to stop issuing visas to US citizens and harsh sanctions on the US economy by the EU.
"Officials from the United States and other countries have questioned the legality of the strikes."
Look, this is getting tiring. You have no idea what the people in this country went through and they might as well see it as a "good thing". I think the same applies to Iran, an intervention by the US could be the best thing that ever happened in these countries, so the "legality" issue doesn't quite sound warranted in my opinion.
Im not sure we want the president to be going around bypassing congress in regards to the military. I would prefer a congress that took back its power from the executive.
I'm not well informed on how this came to be, but to consider this with regard to US's own interests, I think it is simply a problem to be dealt with sooner than later. You definitely don't want to ignore it until it's a "real problem".
edit: I'd also add that this was also a message to the Supreme Leader -- he seems to be oblivious to the consequences of the threats for his own people and, quite frankly, counts on the percentage of people who disagree. The sheer volume of the lies that is going around is astonishing and you have to live it to know.
It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day. That's not how these things work. This is like the first stone of an avalanche. It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
Remember the 'Arab spring' and what came after.
Considering the extreme amount of crime and violence that currently exists in Venesuela removing it's government without being able to put anything in its place will not be pretty at all...
Without a full military occupation it might just turn into another Haiti just on a much bigger scale. Of course US will probably have to intervene to "secure" the oil industry...
There is not an extreme amount of crime and violence. Years ago yes. But now it's a lot better. Source: living here.
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They haven’t removed the government. They removed Maduro. Very different.
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Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez is in charge, so nothing is gonna change for Venezuelan citizens.
Oil industry in Venezuela is Chinese, or for China, this is not gonna change either.
What we are seeing here is a show, or may be also more related to Venezuela being a narco-state.
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This seems like the type of comment the parent comment is referring to. It's day 1 of the invasion. Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
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Who said anything about removing the government? Has the government been removed? Is there any sign it will be?
Who said they will remove the government ? From current news they could very well just leave it in place as long as they sell their petroleum in dollars and agree to other restrictions.
The US has not toppled Venezuelan government.
[flagged]
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Maria Corina Machado (nobel peace prize winner) is purported to be their new leader. So all the signs so far are looking up.
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I wouldn't even say it's the first.
And things have already happened. Close allies have stopped sharing intelligence information with the US. Even if the US doesn't need the info the deterioration of those partnerships is concerning. Or maybe good from the perspective of weakening the global surveillance machine but that's a whole other issue.
Not to mention all the other things that happen that when you put together are more concerning.
People forget, there are no real "big things".
Instead there's just a bunch of little things that come together to look big. As programmers we should be intimately familiar with this. Though normally we're using it in the other direction: taking a big problem and determining all the little problems that come together to create the big one. Working in the assembly direction is much harder than the disassembly direction (far larger solution space) but the concept is still the same.
But I agree with you, this isn't the end. This is definitely a concerning inflection point.
> Close allies
"Allies" like "The West" who take our money, don't have the same beliefs or core values, no shared religion or culture? those "Allies"?
good riddance. I am sick of us propping up failed European states
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> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
What gives you that impression? I haven't seen a single comment that is surprised or wasn't aware of the existing history between the two nations, nor a single comment saying that "Ok, I'm glad/sad that that's over now". What comments specifically are you talking about?
Andrew Yang: "Bringing Maduro to stand trial feels like a win for the region and the world."
Could be!
Could also be really bad.
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Plenty of far-right pages are already celebrating "Mission accomplished!"
Only reason I know, is that if I check out any of the explore pages on IG etc. I get too many of those pages.
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> "He [Rubio] anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody," says Senator Lee
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This forum won't have any obviously partisan comments (that are visible, anyway) so you have to read between the lines. They will have an air of "hah, well, Trump already captured Maduro so what do you think of that liberal?" but instead disguised as something like this[0].
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46474662
There is plenty of talk in MIGA/MAGA circles that say, in effect, that Venezuelans have now been liberated, there will be no occupation, and other related assumptions / coping mechanisms which they are using to preserve the facade of Trump being anti-war.
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> What gives you that impression?
What's the next stage then according to the administration?
Anyone celebrating has the tone of "we did it, it's over". You wouldn't really celebrate if you thought anything bad comes next.
This is kind of more like a "gasp" moment, even if Maduro sucks.
No matter the outcome, we are not here giving judgement on the action. We are here questioning how is any of this legitimate? How did we elect a person who promised to keep america out of foreign affairs but is now doing the same thing his predecessors did.
> How did we elect a person who promised to keep america out of foreign affairs but is now doing the same thing his predecessors did.
Anybody who voted for current POTUS who is actually surprised at this turn of events...words fail me.
Whether you like the man or not, DT and his team have been more than forthcoming on what their plans were and they have more or less delivered to a T.
Groups of people over time are a complex system. What more of us educated types can do is try to help more people get educated and have good jobs. The more vulnerable, ignorant folks we have in the population, the easier it is to end up with extreme crony types.
Or... nothing will change at all. See the Fordow strike: attack another country, pull out unexpectedly, and pretend nothing ever happened.
Oh, something changed there. Iran's attitude towards nuclear weapons has changed considerably, and none for the better. They're a deal with Pakistan or Russia away from achieving that.
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Americans have remarkably short attention spans. In 5 years when Iran is widely acknowledged to have nuclear weapons, you’ll know what changed after Fordrow.
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They did not capture the Iranian leadership, though.
Not to disagree but venezuela's context is different from the middle east, and this was made so quickly it might cause a stable swap. Now that's just my bedroom geostrategist wannabee opinion and yeah it might create a long mess, especially knowing trump emotional profile, if things don't benefit him quick, he might add oil to the fire thinking he's the smartest.
The guy that partially demolished the universal symbol of the United States abroad (the White House, in case that wasn't clear) and tends to not have a plan beyond the next meal would really surprise me if he had contingency plans in place for if this backfires somehow. Right now it is a toss up, it could go any way from here.
The one thing that is a given is that kidnapping foreign heads of state - no matter how despicable - is now on the menu. I'm pretty sure that this isn't the last time we see this. And the pretexts are unconvincing given how Trump dealt with that other drug dealer. I'm guessing Maduro didn't want to play ball more than anything, this feels very personal.
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These threads makes it depressingly obvious how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end - albeit periodically latent. Suddenly proportionality disappears and it's one of the worst regimes out there, a narco-state. Obviously unlawful actions is reported as "legally questionable" etc. It doesn't even matter that the current US administration is an unusually vulgar example of erratic, dishonest, and self-serving leadership.
Maduro making himself dictator was also a "might makes right" move tbh.
how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end
This is not surprising, this is how society ultimately works, even internally, not just on international scale.
I live in a democracy. I could still name several laws of the land that I consider fundamentally unjust, but the might of the majority translated into political and physical power means that I have to obey them, right or wrong. It is better that this power is controlled democratically and not by a single autocrat or a single ruling party, but it is still fundamentally coercion.
Are there even any alternatives? Ultimately we cannot all agree on what is right for everyone.
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It obviously doesn’t end today but it should be fast.
When Noriega was arrested by the US, the legitimate president started operating normally a few days after.
Trump is threatening, today, the new Next In Line leader of Venezuela.
I'm skeptical it will be over soon.
We in the USA now own Venezuela. It's all our fault going forward.
To me this is one of those situations where regardless of what happens in Venezuela, there were better, more morally and legally justifiable, ways of achieving the same end.
Right on. We haven’t even tried to win the hearts and minds yet. Not to mention a surge or two.
Panama was an opened and closed book in practically less than a week.
I was there and no it wasn't.
Open and closed in the collective US attention span
I think it has been like this forever, since the beginning of human civilization.
Yep - That group of people have something we want (gold, spices, women, revenge or the ever classic we want to replace their religion with ours) and for the last 30 years especially now oil and minerals appear to be on the menu
Remember the end of Saddam and what came after that.
Very different interventions and very different countries.
Venezuela was a prosperous, serious and fully democratic country before Maduro and their predecessors took over.
? The arab spring came from the islamic world regularly building population powder kegs, without having a modern industrial society to keep these populations educated, fed and with a perspective beyond fanatic death-cultist movements.
The arab spring exploded, because obama rerouted us-surplus food from subsidizing allied regimes (egypt) into bio-fuels, causing wild price spikes to the bread prices in egypt and the arab world. These situations are not really comparable - like at all. Not even on the surface level.
And apart from the usual destabilisation possibilities, with the current US leadership there's no guarantee the outcome isn't Maduro agreeing to pay some oil revenues into Trump's personal bank account, makes some vague symbolic promise to stop drugs and emigrants and gets released to carry on as he was, but maybe with a few more internal scores to settle
I definitely would not rule that out. This is very specific. I wonder how well Mark Carney sleeps tonight.
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> there's no guarantee the outcome isn't Maduro agreeing to pay some oil revenues into Trump's personal bank account
Too late, Maduro is in custody - that bargain is for the next Venezuelan president to make
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As we saw in Iraq, Americans do not care. It creates opportunities for them anyway while someone else is going to bear consequences.
I think no americans are afraid of venezuela, so what could possibly come that we don’t want? you think venezuela can stand toe-to-toe in a full scale military engagement? you see how we just walked into their country, took the president, and his wife, and walked out without issue? have you seen how many venezuelans are celebrating?
Have you learned absolutely nothing from 9/11?
Or Afghanistan
What?!? Not end in one day? Nonsense!
Soon you will be telling me the Taliban still run Kabul.
"Events in the present determine events in the future".
Very deep observation.
Maduro had to be removed, this is a win for Venezuela. On one side he's a criminal, on the other side people at the country are cheering for this [1].
He didn't even win the most recent election. I'll write that again, he was not elected.
I haven't seen a convincing argument about why it would have been better if he remained in power.
1: https://x.com/SofyCasas_/status/2007455810884886992
People were asking for an example of such attitudes on HN, thank you for providing one.
All of the reasons you list apply to many world leaders, legitimately elected or not. You must be ecstatic about the pardon of Hernández then.
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"He shouldn't be in power" and "He should be kidnapped and removed by the US military (and his county bombed)" are two different arguments to make.
Could you redo this analysis and explain why China shouldn't fly into Florida and kidnap Trump?
After all most of the country wants him out, he's a felon and broke the law countless times since his election.
Seems like a win for the people of the US and America.
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Good do Putin next then.
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As Trump said, Venezuela was not pumping it's oil out of the ground at a high rate. Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves.
Trump is risking organized human life by helping accelerate global warming and ecological collapse.
This is not a good outcome for the world.
> I haven't seen a convincing argument about why it would have been better if he remained in power.
You're way off base here. No one is arguing that he should be in power. It's the way it was done. You're also ignoring a very important question: now what?
Sorry, but the last year has not inspired confidence that this administration knows what it's doing.
> He didn't even win the most recent election. I'll write that again, he was not elected.
The most recent election in Venezuela was in 2025 and Maduro's faction(s) won a landslide victory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Venezuelan_parliamentary_.... Nothing indicates that the results were fraudulent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
Except they didn’t even bother to manufacture consent this time? Or did a very lousy job of it.
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6 years ago to the day many people were hysterical when Trump offed Soleimani on his Baghdad field trip. Turned out it brought substantial positive change to the Middle East.
It may not work out this time but when you start from a terrible rock bottom status quo the chances are already biased.
Can you point out the substantial positive change?
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Increased nuclear proliferation is a one of those possible paths.
Trump has done a great deal already to incentivize nuclear proliferation by destroying confidence that the US will be a reliable defensive ally.
>> Trump also said he believes that American companies will be “heavily involved” in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.[1]
There we have it. The real reason for the invasion. Looks like the start of yet another avalanche as you say.
Jan 6th, extrajudicial killings, ICE deportations, threatening to takeover Greenland, and now the kidnap of a foreign country's leader. The world needs to wake up and realise the USA is just China/Russia with better PR.
Edit: And now he's confirmed the US will run the country until they decide otherwise.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
>> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
Trump just said in the press conference that from now on the US will run Venezuela...The US is "designating" the people that will run the country.
They mentioned the president of Colombia has to "watch his ass" and that Cuba is a mess. And said that the US will be selling the oil to other countries, and the US will take "our oil".
Insanity does not even starts to describe it...
> or it could roll on for quite a while
I hope to be wrong, but think it certainly will. all the money everyone is spending on arms it seems soon the only game left in town in the military industrial complex. the other career options are to become a doctor, or nurse.
the US in its current form is heading towards long drawn out collapse like the Roman empire, and they're dragging all their former allies down with them. there seem to be no peaceful options to prevent that collapse.
E.g.:
- I do not see any way they can modernize their messed up political system.
- their population is divided more than any country on the planet
- thanks to heavily propagandized citizens they don't have the critical mass to bring in change (not in a country where the companies have so much power)
>the US in its current form is heading towards long drawn out collapse like the Roman empire,
The Roman empire collapsed for more than 250 years. Longer than US exists. I think it's too early to compare those two.
Who is already seeing this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day?
Also, based on threats Trump has made and that recent national security proposal or whatever, it seems the administration is intent on regime change in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. I bet Brazil is watching its back too. So it’s really going to be many avalanches as America revives colonialism. All to the cheer of half the country.
I doubt any of our allies like Canada or European countries can trust us again.
Don't forget Greenland.
"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"
“MI$$ION ACCOMPLISHED”
Well it’s even simpler than that on paper. The government has a succession plan. Most likely outcome: Maduros party stays in power
It may actually mean next to nothing geopolitically other than to outrage the rest of the world and make Trump look tough.
> make Trump look tough.
But only to his loyalists.
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I think this is something thats really missing. In the vacuum of power who is stepping in? If its someone who is just going to sell oil to the us who gets to continue to oppress and destroy the Venezuelan economy then is it really a win?
It be like the Russians taking out Trump only to have Vance take over. Hes still propped up by miller, hegseth, bondi, the house AND senate AND courts and the cavalcades of sycophants who really only are doing the whims of oligarchs who have no interest in helping society as a whole.
Of course assuming that this is a book that was opened today and not many years ago, is the tell tale sign where this argument comes from.
The Arab world is different because the people are largely fundamentalist and there's many extremists while the governments are relatively moderate. So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
> Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
Colombia managed a decades long violent armed conflict with the same demographics. Organized crime, political instability, political ideologues, etc all can get people to kill each other without religious extremists.
Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?
The indecision of the international community to act is what caused the suffering lasting a decade, led to the rise of ISIS and refugee crisis of enormous proportions.
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> So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Oh, the so called "extremists" are/were the ones with power. This is where it tops out. I know it's hard to see from a distance but you have no idea how bad can it get under the safe and sound status quo.
Considering all the recent meddling of the USA around the world their track record is pretty bad. Higher chance it will end worse than they began with. Worse on an unpredictable way.
Neither Trump nor the GOP cares about the stability of the country or the health of its citizens. They care about distracting from problems (Epstein, affordability, etc) and about how they can extract Venezuela’s oil and minerals so they can make billions off this theft
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...
As long as they can protect the mining and refining operations the rest doesn’t matter. And I fully expect the America First, America Only group that claims to be the next thing after MAGA, to find ways to justify this regime change and corruption.
Unfortunately, the action is perpetrated by the least capable amaerican government so theres slim chance ultimate good comes out.
Yup. Bangladesh’s government was toppled last year. With at least the tacit support of the Biden administration. Now the formerly banned Islamist is running #2 in the polls and looks like they will be part of a coalition government.
I’m not sure we can compare US involvement between Venezuela and Bangladesh. It is interesting that Nobel prizes are involved in both.
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But in the end of the day, Arab spring worked just fine everywhere? In every single country where pro-Russian dictators were in power, they fell (Iran is not pro-Russian, just a potent enemy by itself, and is not Arab for that matter). Except Libya where they fell partially, with country being effectively split in halves. But this is already a big deal - there isn't a single pro-Russian regime now in the entire Arab world.
Why do you think it won't work like that with Venezuela?
PS: I realised that i made a mistake, so-called Palestine is absolutely pro-Russian, the entire ethnic group is created by Russians out of thin air in 1967, but it's a separate case and they did not participate in Arab Spring anyway.
So what if they're pro-Russian? America just showed to the world that they're a terrorist state just like the big scary Russians. Now you can expect Putin to make a BIG play in Ukraine and Europe very soon; the gloves are off.
> It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
So, your prediction is "anything is possible".
I gotta say nobody can disagree with that.
Admitting that you don't know is often the most intellectual mature position to take. The world is in a chaotic circumstance right now, there's a sense of this being just the start of something far more horrifying, but anybody telling you they have a crystal ball is lying.
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Yeah I remember Occupy protesters. I got trapped in a gaggle of them shouting “Tahir Square!” again and again. I literally lost hearing in one of my ears.
It never really recovered. Probably need a hearing aid, but I can just use the other one.
> It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
So you'd prefer.. inaction? So we know for a fact we will going to reach world peace ten years from now having done absolutely nothing?
Its worked for north korea going on over 70 years now
Reports that Maria Corina Machado (peace prize winner) will be the next leader - so that is a good sign. I've also seen many reports and videos of locals celebrating.
Not a chance in hell. The regime is 100% intact. Maria Corina Machado would be executed the moment she lands. A complete military takeover will follow the ousting of Maduro.
We essentially took out the Venezuelan version of Trump. There are still the cabinet, remaining military leaders, courts, representatives, even down to governors and mayors who all profited from the current setup who are not going to be willing to just roll over cause the US supports someone
I don't think that's likely. The current president is Maduro's VP.
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I know nothing about her but worth pointing out that 'peace prize winner' is irrelevant. Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She has since presided over ethnic cleansing.
This is the Ron Paul position and its a solid one.
The non-intervention principle applies if you are not actively suffering intervention.
The flaw however, is that applying non-intervention in this instance, is choosing to ignore the real, direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM + US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows Maduro, may be worse.
If I'm getting poked by a neighbor for years and i finally punch back, punching is a valid response. If the neighbor then comes back later and shoots me with a gun, it doesn't mean that my self-defense act was invalid.
Invading and kidnapping the leader of a sovreign nation sounds rather illegal to me.
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I've met Ron Paul.
You, sir, are no Ron Paul.
It isn't necessarily just a non-interventionist stance. Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things, not whoever is doing currently doing it.
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That way lies madness.
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I can't help but think this is going to end so poorly for the innocent men, women, and children in Venezuela. I feel for them. While Maduro seems to not be loved, these periods of violent transition can result in horrid outcomes for the local populace. I can only hope my fellow Americans start to see the light and vote the current administration out of office. I'm not hopeful.
This comment is so out of touch with the reality of Venezuelans. They are crying tears of joy. This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
They are crying tears of joy.
That pretty much sums it up. I think Zack covered it well too. [1] I do not understand what benefit there was to a dictator remaining in place and why so many on HN support him. Over a third of Venezuelans fled that country and lost everything to escape tyranny.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_x9aWccFCE [video][52m][language]
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Venezuelan here. It’s not that simple: Maduro was an _absolutely_ horrible dictator and yes many Venezuelans (myself included, and likely many of the 8+ million that left) are overjoyed with him being ousted, we haven’t seen any change in over two decades. And yet, it is transparently clear that the Trump admin is here not to save Venezuela, or Venezuelans… it’s here to line its pockets and that of its shareholders.
There was a very evident omission during Trump’s press conference: Any mention of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the duly elected president-elect of Venezuela (who won with a super majority last July - backed by Maria Corina Machado). Instead, Trump bad mouthed Maria Corina saying that “she does not have the support or respect of the country to run it”. They ousted Maduro, but they kept his VP (Delcy Rodriguez - which along other things is in charge of running the torture centers for political prisoners) as “she will do anything we ask her”. Trump doesn’t care about democracy or regime change - these things take time and are a long, thorny road (this wouldn’t be the US’ first rodeo). Instead they’ve chosen to keep the regime obedient with the threat of force, and instead just come in and extract as many riches as humanly possible…
Dark times ahead for Venezuela and the Venezuelan people
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people naturally want to sound smart, sound empathetic without thinking
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> > This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
Really? The Venezuelan community online (eg. /r/Vzla and /r/Venezuela) communicate using memes and rather unintelligent discourse.
It's not enough to want democracy, democracy and stability happens when there is an engagement in collective thinking , whereas disorder and chaos happens when people don't want to work and don't think things through
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Maduro and Chavez before him are the horrid outcomes.
Chavez was the result of democratic elections, before he grabbed dictatorial powers.
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I don’t see that at all. Lots of good things will come from this IMO. The old wet-kneed approach to shenanigans going on in our own backyard is a disastrous message to people around the world. Just as a resurgently effective law enforcement body can restore a local community that has gone to the dogs, so too it works at an international level.
The paradoxical thing about these actions though, is that when they are run by humble mission-oriented and very effective people, they quickly disappear from the public consciousness. So we are all biased to when it goes wrong, ie to when we have incompetent leadership at the helm.
Yes, because that is exactly what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Libya, Syria, and on and on and on and on.
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Good point. I could be wrong. I hope you are right.
This is a good take if you know nothing about the history of the US meddling with other countries. For those who do have some knowledge here, this is fucking just stupid and naive.
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Maduro was handing out guns to civilians but people here thinking he was not loved.
People forget that Iraq was a key wedge issue which allowed Trump to gain mindshare within the GOP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ThZcq1oJQ
A fairly optimistic way to spin this situation is as follows. Either it somehow works out for Venezuela, in which case we effectively helped millions of people Homer Simpson style. Or, more likely, failure disgraces Trump the same way it disgraced GWB. Then (fingers crossed) we elect a humbler, more realistic leader who works to rebuild the country we wrecked, and we can move on from the Trump era.
Why would Trump allow a peaceful transfer of power? Jan 6 happened and it failed because the first Trump administration still had people who cared about the rule of law (e.g. Pence).
I think the only hope is that the guy is old and unhealthy, in contrast to e.g. when Putin or Orban grabbed power. And it is possible that the GOP will fracture over fights between who see themselves as his successor. If this doesn't happen, I don't have much hope for the US as a democracy.
Does no one remember when Obama did this for the exact same reason in Lybia? He wasn’t as dumb about it, but the outcome will be the same.
While I agree with the sentiment, Maduro’s fate, for the time being, seems much better than Gaddafi’s. And while increased chaos in the region is not unlikely, I don’t foresee open air slave markets in SA at least
Libya wasn’t for oil, intervention was approved by the full UN Security Council, it was motivated by stopping crimes against civilians committed by the regime, and the intervention ended immediately after the regime fell, instead of “running things” and taking the oil like Trump is doing.
You’re rewriting history.
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Because the oligarchy running the show behind the scenes is the same.
You obviously seem to have no idea how mafia-style dictatorships like those of Iran, Russian and Venezuela work. No fault of you. Most people don't.
And even their own citizens come to the realization after a long time living under them; partly because they get caught in the constant propaganda campaign which is one hallmark of these regimes. They always live in the propaganda mode.
The US continuing a long tradition of interference in LatAm:
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/the-united-states-hist...
edit: typo
The Monroe Doctrine is over 200 years old and simple enough for your average dictator to understand. Don't expect the US to turn a blind eye to investments in key strategic assets of your country by its strategic rivals.
I don't think it's a coincidence that a special envoy of Xi met Maduro hours before being captured. It was probably the final straw.
That doesn't make it in any way acceptable. No one accepts (nor should they accept) Russia doing the same in its sphere of influence, for example.
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> It was probably the final straw.
Per the speech given by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this operation was already green light for an unspecified period of time, but they waited on ideal weather conditions to launch the operation.
Yeah, it's a long list. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
Yawn. That site is like the conspiracy nut's dream. If you look hard enough, you find evidence for pretty much anything, it turns out.
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And a list of the wider world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
It's a long read but that should not be a surprise to most people.
I just spent way too much time reading through this thread looking for a single post more concerned about Venezuela and its people than the poster's own politics. I gave up when I noticed I was only a 1/4 of the way through thread, should have started from the bottom.
I hear you, but it takes time for these threads to play out.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Reading a few hundred mostly low effort reactionary posts of people using the events in Venezuela as validation for their politics had a strong effect on my mood.
These sorts of events are tricky on HN, all the user can do is flag flag flag and hope you or others like you (mods) will sort it all out and give the front page its one thread on the topic, if we don't the front page will be consumed and the community will die. But we can't always rely on mods, you have lives and have to rely on certain pragmatism, you have to wait and see how the community reacts/events unfold to see if something should get a thread on the front page or risk the consequences. And I think you did weigh in but vouching on a single thread may have won out against the flagging, as it should. So I gave the thread a chance and started reading.
One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies. But that would be very difficult to do without being accused of having an agenda by one side or the other.
Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user. I do not envy your position but I appreciate all you do.
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With some charity, you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
The politics are baffling. There hasn't even been a case made that one could disagree with. Why are we killing Venezuelans and kidnapping their president? If this is for the greater good, where is that argument?
1. Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out. A striking difference with people from Ukraine about the invasion. This is the most important thing about this and most people here in comments ignore it.
2. Maduro wasn't even the president. He was someone who took the country illegally with cartel people.
3. Why? Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations. And I guess there must be geopolitical reasons. You want China and Russia be there? And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades. You want millions of refugees?
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I am perpetrating the exact wrong the parent poster referenced but: this is why liberalism is such a good principle and political position. It's almost a meta-position, and it provides clarity in circumstances like these.
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> you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
Let’s be real, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even place Venezuela on a map.
The default state for humans isn’t caring about everything and everyone, nobody has the mental capacity or resources to do that.
We only care about something when we are incentivized to by actual self interest, familial bond, or emotional stories that align this 3rd party with our familial instincts via empathy.
Because it benefits the people in power. Probably in numerous ways.
My political reaction comes from the following chain of thought:
* My country just did something I think is wrong.
* My country is led by people elected by a process that I generally trust but believe is under stress.
* The process or the people have failed and I want to stop this from happening by fixing the process so the people are replaced.
And, now I am stuck on how to do this. There a other actions I can take to help the people of Venezuela, but from a civics perspective, I believe it is my responsibility to partake in a discussion about the systemic failure that lead to this.
I think it is common for Americans to do this because we have a history of at least trying to fix our government because we usually believe we can.
Write to your representative and senators. It may seem impotent, but it what you as an American can to today. If you are concerned it is your duty to take the 10 minutes to write. If you do not then you are condoning these actions and the erosion of your rights.
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My concern for Venezuelans is precisely what makes me believe "removing Maduro good" even though things are more nuanced and complex than those three words.
Destabilizing the country and/or installing a US puppet or just allowing the power vacuum to fill itself is likely not to the betterment of their people.
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A wide majority of Venezolans are happy with having Maduro out.
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The most good we can do is allowing Venezuela to live without sanctions
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Why would you believe anyone the US installs as a puppet will be any better?
I'm not sure many people will believe you saying that
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Surely Maduro is bad, but that doesn't mean the next phase won't be worse. Trump has never shown any interest in spreading democracy or human rights. I would not be surprised if the mission involved a side deal with someone in Maduro's inner circle to let them become the new dictator who is willing sell oil leases to the US and who will be as bad or worse to the Venezuelan populace. We have absolutely no idea what happens next and Trump has not given any indication of strategy beyond wanting oil.
Does anyone believe that the US regime, an entity that utterly ignores the needs of its masses in favor of a relative handful of lobbyists, is really going to install a representative government that exists to improve the lives of Venezuelans instead of enriching the same powers that it's beholden to?
I'm more concerned for Greenland and Canada than for Venezuela.
I believe regarding greenland the statement "we have to have it" was made by the US dictatorial leadership. Rather chilling.
Unless the said comments you want to read don't discuss how US imperialism has been benefitting corporations for over a 100 years, I wouldn't expect much honest introspection.
Crazy amount of comments - We need a tool that maps narrative angles and reply/conversational interation mapping. Ratio of comments herein to other stories is wild. Lot of lurkers on this site that seem very informed when things like this come up.
Astroturfing and opinion manipulation.
There is none to be found. The people need to play the zombie apocalypse - arm and survive.
The main players: - current government - local army - invading army - chinese and Russian proxies - multiple smaller groups - opposition
And probably more will play the power struggle in the foreseeable future. Unaffiliated people will somehow need to find a way to navigate this mess
To be blunt, I simply don't have much more than the default respect for Venezuela as a country and fellow human beings. I have no special sentiment to provide in that regard. This is destructive, I hate that more innocent lives are lost over this, etc. I can't speak intimately to its culture, norms, attitudes, nor economics. So I won't talk on ignorant grounds.
Meanwhile, I hold disdain for my country's actions and have some minimal pull to at least protest and complain to my reps about it. So the focus of my discussion will be around those actions.
Its 2026, why does this surprise you?
It's a great point. Maduro won't be missed by anyone. But the top posted comment here perfectly captured my feelings. There's the wider picture to look at. I personally would love it if America did that to Iran, Russia, Cuba etc, but i feel there should be more of a process and i'm allowed to be suspicious of the motives.
If Venezuela actually becomes a functioning country again and drugs, gangs and illegal immigrants stop flooding America then i personally would applaud the operation. Still, you really shouldn't just kidnap other countries presidents just like that as a general rule.
Agreed
I have concerns about my own country because it has a big border with Venezuela.
Why does it matter? Illegal actions are illegal. On the 1 in a million chance this results in things getting better for Venezuela the outcome does not forgive the action.
I think 2026 will be the year when we move way past that threshold. When conflicts and casualties are rare, each one gets highlighted and garners significant attention. But once you pass a certain point, it becomes just another conflict, just more people suffering. A tragic event affecting millions of people becomes another line item on a list.
How would that differ from any other year in the past 20?
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I think you're greatly exaggerating here. I'm seeing pretty nuanced discussion from everyone.
It's a political event between two countries. So people are discussing two things: What it means for Venezuela that Maduro is gone, and what it means that Trump can completely sidestep Congress to start a war. Both seem relevant. But you're trying to reduce it to something narrower. Most of us are aware that feelings in the first 24 hours of something like this are completely irrelevant. Time will tell if this is a net positive.
Care for others is an increasingly condemnable trait in public opinion nowadays, a social suicide, ironically. As history taught us it will not end well.
Americans are too culturally isolated from other countries and cultures to build empathy. I think Americans have main character syndrome at scale, and these comments are obvious when read through this lens.
This may surprise folks who don't live in the U.S., because Americans describe their country as a nation of immigrants and say things like "I'm Italian" and "I'm Irish" when describing their identity. Yet these same folks haven't set foot in Italy or Ireland, don't speak the language or have awareness of present-day concerns from those countries.
I think it's worse than that. There's a general unwillingness to engage with uncomfortable things. Can't really build empathy if there isn't space to talk about problems.
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[flagged]
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Maybe the whole attempt is to bully the current government into giving the Venezuelan/Cuban faction in the US government exactly what they want. They want an entry into the society, and to open it up, maybe among other things.
With this USA is essentially saying that "see I can just walk into your home and no one will stop me, so better do as I say".
I will be surprised if USA tries to land ground troops into that country. Running the country, I suspect, will be extremely ugly for USA. OTOH, if they can just coerce the existing government into giving them exactly what they want, then it would certainly be mission accomplished.
It's all a huge gamble, and will depend on how obstinate the Venezuelan setup is.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured in an unannounced/unnamed military operation by a superpower is wrong from a principled standpoint, and that it’s destabilising a country with 30+ million people if not the entire region.
Not only the region... A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures. Also, here we have another permanent member of UN Security Council making decisions to intervene without consulting the UN or even their own constitutional bodies...
(My opinion of Maduro is that he was not a legitimate leader.)
Especially when no nation wants to touch this (e.g., Starmer being very quick to say that the UK wasn’t involved, etc.), it only reinforces that any power willing or able to make a bold move like this will likely not face much opposition (also see Russia in Ukraine).
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> A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures
Go type "list Russian regime change operations from the last 20 years" in chatgpt.
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These things happened today subsequent to Venezuela:
North Korea ‘has fired ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/north-korea-ha...
UK and France carry out strikes against Isis target in Syria https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/uk-france-s...
Can't rule out Leopold's Congo scenario, as the first comments do not look good:
* resource extraction focus
* dismissal of local leadership (Machado "does not have the following or respect" -- Nobel hurting?)
* no transition plan to self-governance (perhaps it is early)
* military occupation ("not afraid of boots on the ground", "military will protect oil operations")
It's not just encouraging, it's almost making it a necessity. Putting aside one's respect for law may be a matter of responsibility when your competitors are gaining advantage by not playing by the rules.
Xi Jinping is probably sending thank you cards to Trump right about now.
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That's the point of being a permanent member of UN Security Council -- it's a position of power, not of subordination.
The UN permanent security council members are (or were meant to be) precisely the countries that are so powerful they can choose to invade you and nobody can stop them. The hope was that by letting them veto you, they'll veto you instead of invading you.
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An observation:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.
* https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/2007450814097305734#m
Also, the irony:
> the administration's position is that American courts can hold any president accountable for crimes, except the American president
* https://x.com/SevaUT/status/2007433614657552640#m
Even if you'd accept this warped logic, I don't see how you'd get from "this was just a slightly more complex police action" to "we're gonna run the country from now on and take over the oil sector", legally speaking...
Might makes right.
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> Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured (...)
Note the US administration contends that he wasn't the legitimate head of state. [1] [2]
[1] https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/marco-rubio-nicolas-m...
[2] I'm (obviously) being sloppy regarding head of state vs. head of government.
I think the (disputable) argument is that, for global stability and equilibrium reasons, there should be a general prohibition against kidnapping/assassination of de facto heads of state, regardless of whether they were legitimately elected or are dictators.
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I contend my net worth is actually 9 figures
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It's also widely acknowledged that elections in Russia are rigged, and yet the US was quite angry at Ukraine over Russia's (false, as it turned out) claim that Ukraine attacked Putin...
> Note the US administration contends that he wasn't the legitimate head of state. [1] [2]
Trump contends that Biden wasn't the legitimate President because the 2020 election was rigged.
If Trump ends up contending the 2026 mid-terms are not legitimate is that valid too? Are they able to act on those contentions to… do stuff?
The 3rd section of the 14th amendment[1] states that no person having engaged in insurrection[2] shall hold any office, civil or military, in the United States. So technically Trump isn’t a legitimate head of state either.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
[2]https://www.npr.org/2025/12/31/g-s1-104190/capitol-riot-trum...
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Honestly, I'm getting increasingly fascinated with the utterly absurd logic that states are putting into their justifications for war.
You get "preemptive self defense" that urgently requires "buffer zones" on foreign territory, which then mysteriously become your own territory and have to be defended with even more buffer zones.
Some Terror Regime of Literal Nazis is doing Unspeakable Atrocities to its own population which practically forces you to invade the country purely out of empathy and the goodness of your heart. Nevermind that the population has never asked for the invasion and will in fact be worse off through the war than before - and that this other state who is your ally is doing the exact same things, but then it's suddenly "realpolitik" and just the way the world works.
Someone has broken the law of his own country. "Internal affairs" or grounds for invasion? Depends if he is your ally or enemy.
Pardon the cynicism, but my growing impression is that war justifications only serve as discussion fodder for domestic audiences and have very little to do with the actual war.
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Well Russia contends Zelensky isn't the legitimate head of state of Ukraine.
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So did the EU parliament and a whole range of European countries
You know the president said that the Epstein files were a democrat hoax, right?
I feel like at this stage the US administration could contend that the moon is in fact made of cheese and news agencies would respond by running news stories about the implications of this on future possible lunar missions.
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I see the point you're trying to make, but I'm not fully convinced it's as black and white as you make it out to be. I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them? Election fraud? Etc. Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
> I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
The greater good of whom? Regardless, we have international organizations where action can be taken by a coalition is states, which provides not only legitimacy but also some level of judicial control.
This is so obviously an imperialist power play for the world's largest oil reserves. That some would portray this as acting for the greater good is beyond ridiculous.
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I could go along with this to some degree if any country would be able to act the same way the USA is doing; then there would be a balance of power. But as it is, only a small number of powerful nations are able to act like this, without military repercussions.
So if Venezuela wanted to forcefully reverse a coup in the USA? Or Canada wanted to reverse election fraud in the USA?
They can’t. So the USA shouldn’t either.
Unless you can tolerate living by the whim of a more powerful bully.
Which I, as a non-us resident/citizen, am forced to tolerate now, but don’t like.
So no, I don’t think nations can justify interfering in sovereign nations by force for any reason.
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I appreciate your world view and politico-science philosophical approach, but Venezuela has natural resources, is close to the USA, and decided to mingle with American competitors.
Venezuela was supported via economic trade with nations not aligned with US objectives in exchange for security guarantees that would supposedly prevent US intervention.
More concretely: Russia was supposedly supporting them through economic activity and arms trades. Russia is overextended in Ukraine which is providing an opening and a cautionary signal to any other state that has Russian support that, in fact, any Russian security guarantees aren’t backed by more than words. See Iran and Syria as well.
This is very transactional and a spheres of influence move. It’s also pressuring Russia to find an Ukraine deal fast. The longer they’re in Ukraine the more their global sphere of influence is being reduced due to their inability to fight multiple military fronts at once.
Unclear how China fits in the picture.
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> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer
I don’t think it’s that difficult to answer, and the answer is “no” for two main reasons:
1. I don’t think the US has the greater good of humanity in mind nor even of its citizens except a minority, when it’s policing around.
2. Even if we were to assume otherwise (that the US concerns itself with the greater good), “who will watch the watchmen?” Especially when its institutions are being undermined day by day…
> What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them?
Once upon a time, “forcefully” doing anything with any country for any reason was considered an act of war. I agree that bad people should be removed from power. But the consequences associated with doing so forcefully (i.e., engaging in acts of war) need to be fully acknowledged and dealt with. The U.S. (and others) have played this game of “military actions” for so long that we, the regular people, have taken up that language uncritically as well. Once force enters, it is an act of war. Period. A discussion about whether country A should declare a war to remove the leader of country B is a much more honest and accurate one than vaguely positing whether country A can “capture” the leader of country B.
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Maduro is obviously authoritarian. But if the US want to make the world a more democratic place by going to war I could think of a long list of countries they could attack before Venezuela.
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there's a lot of assumptions here, but granting it's a difficult question: this is why the legislature holds the responsibility to decide, not the executive.
Basically the entire theme of the Culture novels by Iain. M. Banks.
Look at the track record of past US interventions. In hindsight, they almost never "beneficial for the greater good". Things turn to chaos quickly.
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> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
I would argue that it should be the UN that does something like this, if it's done at all. I would like to see a world in which there was a top-level body that would arrest a dictator, the same way the US government would arrest someone who tried to become dictator of an American state.
But it wouldn't be up to the governor of one of the other states to do it without the agreement of the rest of the country. That would be chaos.
It would be true if the invading dictator didn’t have ulterior motives and dubious intentions.
Sadly I don't think anyone is coming to save us.
Intervening in another nation, for whatever purposes, requires much more discussion and negotiations than there was here.
> What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them? Election fraud?
My country, USA, yearns for freedom. Please someone, anyone, liberate us!
It's never anybody's business to remove a dictator but its own people. End of story.
Nobody else has the right to have anything to do with it, unless that dictator is attacking you.
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It's very black and white. It's an internal affair, and no one elected the USA to be the police of the world.
We could also argue that even internally in the US, the current president was not democratically elected. Maybe you agree that another state should go there and remove him, just because.
I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country. You seem to support this logic
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How about the country doing the capturing stays the fuck out of the business of all the other countries instead ?
Escalations like this push the doomsday clock closer and closer to midnight, no matter how well intentioned, and I can't say I think Trump has good intentions anyway. America is just privateering, these days.
If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow, is Xi allowed to invade and capture him? Or is it reserved only for small and weak countries while the big ones can do whatever they want?
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And where do you stop?
If Trump is prosecutor, judge and executioner all in one, then who is a good person and who is a bad person?
So...
Nicolás Maduro Moros of Venezuela - drugs - bad... (got kidnapped by Trump)
Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras - drug - gooood.... (got pardoned by Trump)
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Right, and in theory that all sounds very thoughtful and morally calibrated—until you remember that U.S. foreign policy decision-making has roughly the transparency of a raccoon operating a shredder at midnight. There is no clear, open process where the U.S. earnestly weighs “dictator versus coup versus fraudulent election” on some ethical flowchart labeled For the Greater Good. Instead, it’s often more like: Is there oil? A lot of oil? Like, cartoonishly large amounts of oil? Because if there is, suddenly democracy becomes very important, very quickly.
And yes, we’re told—solemnly—that every intervention is about democracy, human rights, and justice, which is fascinating because those principles have an uncanny habit of aligning perfectly with strategic interests. Venezuela is a great example, where the rhetoric about freedom somehow managed to coexist with very unsubtle comments about wanting “all that oil.” At that point, the moral argument starts to feel less like a difficult philosophical dilemma and more like a PowerPoint slide hastily slapped over a resource grab labeled “Don’t Look Behind This.”
So while you’re absolutely right that the question of global policing isn’t black and white, the problem is that U.S. interventions often aren’t shades of gray either—they’re shades of green. And once that’s the pattern, claims about benevolent intent stop sounding like hard ethical reasoning and start sounding like a press release written by someone who assumes the audience has the memory of a goldfish.
So we can justify, say, deposing the king of Saudi Arabia? Or Zelenskyy on the pretext that he hasn’t held a timely election? Or the president of Taiwan on the basis of illegitimacy of the election? Regardless of Maduro’s sins, this is a massively destabilizing action and I expect we will see unpleasant downstream effects even if, in a vacuum, the action was justifiable and legal.
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If only there was some process in the constitution for Congress to declare a war or something.
Both countries involved are currently dictatorships. Consider the role reversal: Would it be good if Maduro invaded the USA and kidnapped Trump? Why or why not?
Yes, obviously it's the US defending Democracy, and not salivating about the Oil reserves, like Trump and other conservatives did on TV the last weeks
> I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about ${WHATABOUTISM}?
I think a regime that is hell-bent on kidnapping foreign leaders at the whim of it's glorious leader by circumventing any of it's checks and balances, such as congress approval, is clearly and by far the worst problem.
And calling the US under the Trump administration "democratic" is a hell of a stretch, even as a thought experiment.
Having lived roughly 50 years on the planet, I recognise this as both a view I used to hold and as pretty naive.
Why then doesn't the US attack other countries that fit the description? It's another dangerous precedent.
Edit: I fully understand the deterrents. I'm making the case that attacking for the sake of 'liberty for all' is a farce.
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Maduro is not the head of a sovereign state. The President of Venezuela is Edmundo González, the winner of their last election[1]. To know if this violates Venezuela's sovereignty, you would have to ask their President. Personally, I fully support this operation, unless their President indicates otherwise. It's a good day for democracy and freedom.
[1] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
The world is full of dictators, one of them just a few miles from Florida, yet the USA only seems interested in dictators with plenty of oil.
You fool no one.
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Yeah, I'll defer judgement of this for 5 years, after we see: results in Venezuela. How this emboldens other wannabe agressors elsewhere in the world, and where the erosion of respect for rules of UN charter will lead.
Until then, the only conclusion I’m comfortable drawing is this: anyone confidently declaring that kidnappings, bombings, and killings are great for democracy, without waiting to see if there are any real long-term benefits, isn’t offering serious analysis. They’re just enthusiastically clapping for violence and hoping history does the cleanup later.
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How did that work out for Iraq?
It wasn't a good day for the million Iraqi civilians that the US murdered.
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Completely agree.
Are we against democracy now?
Maduro is the elected president. Don't spread misinformation.
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Regardless of your opinion of maduro, you can still acknowledge that if the head of a sovereign state enacts policies that result in the mass emigration of 8M to neighboring countries, destabilizing all of them [1],[2] in the process, exporting criminal enterprises, any affected head of the affected government certainly has casus belli on said head of state.
The policy of no aggression applies. If a government, thru its actions (or inactions) causes massive aggression and hurt on your own people, then its your *duty* as elected official, to stop it and protect your citizens
Self-defense is literally the most important mandate a government can have.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/crime-migration-spect...
[2] https://www.cgdev.org/publication/data-against-fear-what-num...
Amusingly what you described translates to USA actions if you are from a country in the middle east. For example did you know that there are at least 5M emigrants of Afghanistan in Iran?
Not arguing about other nations actions, just a reminder that if you apply many western logic indiscriminately, the resulting bad actors are very different.
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If two wrongs didn't make a right, we wouldn't punish people who commit crimes.
It should be up to the Venezuelans to decide who leads them. Maduro decided to ignore the will of the people when he held power through clear and blatant election fraud. If some sort of global public service could reach out and punish all politicians who do this, the world would be a better place.
If you are unfamiliar with Venezuela, this is a good primer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. He is neither American nor lives in the US.
So if China came in and "helped" the Venezuelan people to get rid of Maduro, you'd feel the same way? Of course not.
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There are also reports of 40 something people killed. Doesn't that amount to basically (mass) murder? There is no declaration of war, so you can't really call them civilian casualties.
Whether Maduro is corrupt, authoritarian, or illegitimate by your definition doesn’t suddenly make an undeclared foreign military strike to seize a sitting head of state acceptable. Sovereignty isn’t a reward for good behavior. It’s a constraint meant precisely to prevent powerful states from unilaterally deciding which governments get removed by force.
If the standard is “we can capture leaders we deem illegitimate,” then you’ve effectively endorsed a world where power, not law, decides regime change. You can oppose Maduro and still acknowledge that abducting a head of state via air strikes destabilizes a country of 30+ million people and sets a precedent that will be used by actors far less selective than the U.S.
Two wrongs don’t cancel out just because one feels morally satisfying. of course, we all drink the American imperialism koolaid here.
> then you’ve effectively endorsed a world where power, not law, decides regime change.
This has always been the case throughout the vast majority of human history including current day.
You are sovereign if you can prove it, and you aren't sovereign if you can't.
"International law" is something superpowers ignore at will. It is not "wrong" or "right", it simply is.
We have different definitions of sovereign state apparently.
"In his time in office, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has stolen two presidential elections, electoral monitors and human rights groups contend, while jailing critics and overseeing an economic collapse that caused eight million Venezuelans to emigrate, including to the U.S.
But in some ways, Maduro is more safely ensconced than ever, with most opposition leaders in exile and Venezuelans too fearful to protest as they once did.
The problem for those who see hope in the military rising up is that Maduro has surrounded himself with a fortress of lieutenants whose fortunes and future are tied to his, from Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López to generals, admirals, colonels and captains throughout the armed forces."
https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/venezuela-maduro-coup-tru...
What's that have to do with it being a sovereign state? By that standard, neither Russia nor China are sovereign states.
And it's not like the US gives a shit about democracy outside its borders. The CIA overthrew Jacobo Árbenz in the 50s, supported the military coup in Brazil in 1964, pinochet and Hugo Banzer in the 70s. This is normal behavior for the US in Latin America. It's nothing to do with concern for Venezuela's citizens.
There's really no benefit in arguing on the basis of the definition of sovereignty. There is no definition. It's a self-evident state: if you assert that you are sovereign, and you can back it up, then you're sovereign. That's it.
I am going to assume that if you were old enough at the time that you thought Iraq had WMD's?
How people can just read one article and think they know the world is fascinating to me.
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I do not acknowledge that. If you want to make an argument that overthrowing a dictator is always wrong on principle, go ahead. But I will not accept this as axiomatic.
Claiming this could “destabilize” the country suggests that the country is stable. It’s not.
You mention the 30+ million people who live there, under the dictatorship, but ignore the 8+ million who have fled the country in recent years and the instability that has unleashed on country and the entire region.
I think heads of state bearing personal responsibility for misconduct is an excellent precedent that I would love to see applied much, much more widely. Preferably to the superpowers, especially if said leader were to say, for a totally-hypothetical example, recklessly create a massive security risk near our borders for the sole purpose of benefiting a foreign interest group… but I’ll take what I can get. I think the Sword of Damocles is missing all too often from high society. If life and death decisions, don’t come with life and death risks, then I think they become taken too lightly. I think we are too quick to insulate high society from the consequences of their actions.
Maduro is a dictator and a criminal - there is no doubt about it.
He is an illegitimate president who has systematically violated the rights of the Venezuelan people. He has bought off the military, the judiciary, and other key institutions, hollowing out the state to ensure his grip on power.
His regime has also supported and benefited from the existence of drug cartels in Venezuela as another mechanism to maintain control and stay in power.
Together with Chávez, Maduro has ruled the country for more than 27 years, a period marked by countless atrocities against the population, from forced disappearances to torture and rape.
The result is one of the largest humanitarian and migration crises in modern history: more than 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country to escape the regime.
The international community has proven itself unwilling to act. The UN will do nothing. NATO will do nothing. No one will.
We were, and perhaps still are, watching Venezuela turn into another Cuba, with one crucial difference: Venezuela sits on vast oil reserves.
The "Crazy Red" is a pig, but at least he is the only one willing to confront Maduro. This may end up being the only genuinely positive thing he does during his presidency.
Yes, the attack is not "ideal". But in an ideal world, there would be no dictatorships, there would be no Maduro.
And I say all this as a South American with family in both Colombia and Venezuela.
EDIT: this is written by the Vzla admins in Reddit: Foreigners, if your opinion comes without ever meeting a Venezuelan part of the biggest diaspora of the 21st century, I would advise against commenting. You might deserve a ban from this subreddit, thank you for your attention to this matter.
A wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by yet another wrong...
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"Flood the zone" is a political strategy in which a political figure aims to gain media attention, disorient opponents and distract the public from undesirable reports by rapidly forwarding large volumes of newsworthy information to the media. The strategy has been attributed to U.S. president Donald Trump's former chief political strategist Steve Bannon."
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Pay attention to the context of this moment. The timing of this invasion is no coincidence.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone
I'm guessing willingly Maduro surrendered as he took the cash offer from Dec 1, 2025 while publicly rejecting it. After all, he left with his wife.
> “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now,” Trump reportedly said, offering safe passage for Maduro, his wife and his son “only if he agreed to resign right away”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/01/trump-maduro-u...
Arresting the leader of a narco terrorist tyranny allied with even worse powers like Iran, China and Russia is in fact a good thing.
I need you to know that the discussion on this news on Reddit today was the last straw for me, there is no nuance. It’s just simple minded left, and right. I asked ChatGPT to help me find a site that might have more intelligent discussion more nuance, and this was the very first comment I saw after I registered my account and I literally let a sigh of a relief. Thank you.
Substack is another good platform for nuanced discussions. The Notes feature is a bit like Twitter but with +20 IQ points. Literally the first post that popped up when I opened the app:
https://substack.com/@jaysophalkalyan/note/c-194741864?
Yep - Reddit is unfortunately now where the simpletons hang out. This is far better, you can have intelligent debates
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Agreed. Watching the worldwide reactions so far, it’s surprising to see the RN (hard-right) in France most vocal in condemning.
Also the Chavistas have broad support in the population. To point where they won several elections.
That's empirically wrong. Also nearly every single Venezuelan who's left the country since Chavez is against Maduro
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No, they lost the 2024 election by a landslide, it’s one of the reasons of what happened today.
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For starters even EU does not recognize Maduro as legit head of state
USA just pardoned leader of drug mafia and for.er president along with stream of major criminals.
We all know any attempts to frame USA choices as noble right now is dishonest.
What's kind of shocking to me is that no matter how obvious they make the motives this time, and how clearly Venezuela doesn't pose a threat, I'm still reading the same Bush-era justifications ironically being offered in the comments.
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Exactly. And worse, it’s violating international law just because you can. This will be used by Putin and China etc to justify ever worse actions
Russia is already doing horrible things without this pretext, so I dont think this argument holds.
> head of a sovereign state
Err
> Since 2019, more than 50 countries, including the United States, have refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state.
Including the EU and its member states
> a country of 30+ million people
If those 30 M being the remainder after ~8 M fled the country (20% of the population) within the last 10 years, the „destabilization“ was already there.
Putin and Xi must be ecstatic at the leverage this gives them.
It's hard to ignore that the country being targeted holds the world's largest oil reserves. In a global context where China has become one of the top oil importers, that makes the situation look less accidental.
America is not a principled country. It has for a long time now operated on the protection racket model: externalizing costs onto citizens.
In the American model, anything that could destabilize society is the fault of an individual who should be punished, ironically this means collectives can do no wrong. Leaving AI safety up to people living in such a country is frightening.
Race is the one exception (maybe sports teams too), but that definitely doesn't help Venezuelans
It's just realpolitik laid particularly bare. The major complaint seems to be that the paperwork wasn't done 'right' here, not much else eh?
What is the real difference between Iraq and what just happened, except this was arguably done much cleaner, and with less BS (no having to come up with Yellow Cake, or fake WMDs, for example).
This does have the effect of hopefully waking up anyone who is still confused, but I doubt it.
I think I agree. For anyone paying attention, the new rules have been officially established and I don't think they bode that well for previous international order. Still, I am only processing the news and I guess I will need to watch the conference now.
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Would you have said the same thing in the 40s if the US were able to capture Hitler?
You’ll hear a lot of the same people decrying this action simultaneously calling for the assassination of Putin. The cognitive dissonance is something to behold.
This is a core problem of international politics.
We allow brutal dictatorships to continue subjugating tens of millions of people and killing millions in the name of convention. Our international organizations (the UN in particular) are basically ruled by authoritarian regimes. Is there no justification for external powers to effect regime change? We just have to wait and watch as the dictator kills a ton of people? Oh, and of course there is Maduro's support for Putin via sanctions evasion. Even now, Venezuelans face a brutal security force that is likely to retain power, but hopefully that power fragments.
Imo we should have done this right after the last election which Maduro stole.
Something like 50% of the population of the world live under rulers who were not democratically elected. Should the US taxpayers fund all of their removals?
On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
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This is a point worth discussing imo. To what extent is the state of a nation and the conditions of its people, the responsibility of the people itself, even if they're oppressed?
The Russians were oppressed and had a revolution about it. Then they didn't like Communism anymore and broke up the USSR about it. Taiwan had a military dictatorship that was killing and jailing people in the thousands, and managed to overthrow it with absolutely zero outside intervention in the 90s, all while the PRC salivated over taking the country even back then.
I'm not sure I think "citizens should just be left to suffer under brutal regimes," but I also want to avoid a prejudice of low expectations. I also wonder, to what degree do citizens bear shared responsibility for the crimes their government commits against others? How responsible for the invasion of Ukraine are Russians for not deposing Putin? How responsible are Americans for the destabilization in southeast Asia, the middle east, south America?
should this same logic apply to someone like say, Hitler? if you hide behind the “sovereign nation” (while denying the US the same) then you can justify all sorts of atrocities.
> Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I hate this statement with a passion.
Let's ignore the politics of the current situation for a while and look at the first principles of right and wrong.
1) When somebody knowingly and intentionally hurts another person without a valid reason, that's wrong.
2) Now the aggressor is in the wrong and requires punishment (there are multiple purposes to punishment: taking away any advantage gained by the offense, further disadvantaging aggressors, compensation for the victim, retribution, deterrence, etc.).
3) A punishment is just if it's proportional to the offense but only those with sufficient certainty about the extent of the offense, about the offender's identify and his guilt can carry it out. Usually, in western style societies, courts serve this purpose but courts are a legal concept, justice is a moral concept. Morally, the punishment can be carried out by anyone who satisfies the criteria, there's nothing to put one person above another morally.
Legality has multiple tiers: tier 1 is individuals, tier 2 is states. States are a tier 2 institution imposed on tier 1. There is no tier 3 court-like institution which can be imposed on tier 2 entities.[0] Does that mean wrongs by tier 2 entities should go unpunished? No. They often do but there's no moral principles saying that it has to be that way, let along that it should be.
4) Punishment by its nature is the act of intentionally and knowingly hurting another person. But it's not wrong because unlike in point 1), it has a valid reason.
*What some people consider the second wrong is not actually a wrong.*
[0]: You could think of international organizations but they don't have a monopoly on violence above state level and therefore no actual mechanism for enforcement.
This is agression in its purest form.
They want something, they have the means to take it, and so they take it. With no regards to others, others can fck themselves in fact. They proclaimed in loud enough and often enough in the past months.
As every agressors they can hammer together some form of excuse for doing so. Just like anyone else in similar situation did throughout the history. One of them was the leader of Germany once and was called Hitler. But we can name lots of other enemy-of-the-humanity viles from Japan, Russia, Mongolia, etc, etc. the line is long for the despicable beings.
No no no no. We get to have an opinion of Maduro and we should because you have an opinion by saying it is a wrong.
This is not a "regardless" situation. Bookmark this because the support for Maduro AND socialism in Venezuela is strong. They will never let you see socialism succeed because then all our own oligarchs would be out on their a$$e$. This is nothing but some trumped up capitalist Monroe Doctrine BS.
Watching all the Venezuelan CIA toadies on the news this morning was so infuriating.
Both Edmundo González and María Corina Machado are fascists right wing creeps that were working with the US for this to happen.
[dead]
What principles are you citing? Are they principles that someone made up out of nothing and that no one has ever consistently applied?
Is Maduro the head of a sovereign state? Says who?
Russia already attempted it, failed, and now are into the 4th year of their debacle. The US pulled it off in one night.
The only thing it reinforces is the US' military superiority.
Pulled what off? Russia was trying to occupy Ukraine, not just kill Zelensky (though they’d obviously like to do that).
Trump announced that the plan is to “run Venezuela” but there are no troops on the ground, the US controls no territory. This isn’t The Wizard of Oz where you kill the wicked witch and the flying monkeys leave. This is only just starting.
High probability that trump gets distracted by something else and forgets, but if not welcome to the next three years of your life.
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If he committed crimes against the USA, it shouldn’t really matter what his title is. The USA has a duty to uphold its laws.
The EU does the same. Putin has a warrant for his arrest in every EU country, and they are legally allowed to extract him from russia AFAIK.
I almost feel bad for the people who instigated the War on Terror. They did not know how badly it would go - and they worked really hard and tirelessly to build and sell their illegitimate case to the American public.
This administration is making the same mistakes - but in living memory of the first, with a less noble prize, and with complete derision of Congress and Americans' intelligence.
The first political memories i have are the aclu telling everyone who would listen and many who wouldn't that this is exactly the slippery slope invading afghanistan would lead to. Don't feel sorry for anyone who was allowed to do politics from that period
Why? They accomplished their goal (making money in Iraq for US business interests, expanding the power of the presidency massively) and have suffered no consequences.
Any war on <concept> is illegitimate by default. Because there will not be any argument that survives scrutiny capable of defending it.
I’m not sure it’s the same. Seems like one man at the top just wants to continue chaos to divert attention from bad poll number, inflation, pedo friend circle etc.
Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"? The people who came up with these wars against abstract ennemies knew exactly what they were doing, fighting against another country/government is very limiting, once the war is settled you need another reason to start a war. When you go to war with an idea/concept you can continue your forever wars and raise taxes for/increase investment in the War related industries as long as you need to prop up your economy and get reelected.
Trump got reelected with slogans like "no new war" and in less than a year he started at least one (arguably I'd say two with the 12 days wars as Israel knew ut couldn't win this one without American bombers) also makes me think none if this is a "mistake", just a long term plan to keep power.
This is about oil and resources and maybe a proxy attack on China more than anything. A friend of mine called this as soon as that huge oil deposit was discovered off a small neighboring country’s coast. He said, “Venezuela is going to try to claim it, and the US will take them out.” I thought he was full of shit when he said it, but now I’m pretty sure he nailed it.
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> Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"?
"Good" news! The War on Drugs and The War on Terror have been combined with the invention of the concept of "narcoterrorism"!
Trump pardoned the largest opiates by mail operator in world history on his first or second day in office (Ross Ulbricht).
I don't want to defend Trump - starting a war is about the most serious thing a country can do, and doing it unilaterally is terrible. Trump should be condemned for this.
But most of those doing the condemning were also supportive of Pres. Obama (or at least refused to condemn his actions) back in 2011 when he attacked Libya, and in 2013 and 2014 when he attacked Syria -- all of this happening after we should have learned from what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those people who didn't protest against Pres. Obama's illegal actions have lost moral high ground to protest against Trump.
The 2011 action in Libya was an international effort carried out under a UN authorization to protect civilians, not a unilateral move by Obama based on a fabricated rationale. There were limited airstrikes and aid to rebels, but the US did not directly take out Gaddafi or make any pretense of "running the country."
Obama deliberately went to Congress for authorization to strike the Syrian chemical program in 2013, and after it quailed from taking a vote, the strikes didn't happen.
The 2014 strikes were against ISIS, not Syrian government forces, and carried out under the existing AUMF authorization to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates. One can argue whether ISIS qualified (even the administration at the time acknowledged it was a stretch and wanted a more clear-cut resolution from Congress), but it definitely was a major terrorist threat in the region and had been working with AQ in the past.
2011 was 15 years ago. I was not even legally adult back then. And even if I was old enough back then, people are allowed to change their opinions in 15 years.
Those people were not condemning Fordow. But nearly everyone has high ground on Trump, so they don’t base their objections on simply having the high ground. He’s unfit to be president.
Morality isn't real, but power certainly is.
If you're ever confused by Don's actions, just remember: all he cares about is gaining more wealth (and power if possible). This was done to enrich Don and the oil barons who funded his campaign.
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...
Read that article and it makes most of this conversation irrelevant and pointless. I have to say this is the only thing that even makes sense.
Do people struggle with the concept that an old ruthless businessman continues to be a ruthless businessman?
I don't remember him setting up a foundation and giving away all his money and assets prior to getting into office!
Though I don't like it as explanation or topic as it ventures into "it's just business" and "business as usual" in a way that normalises it
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Prediction: the regime will not fall. This will destabilize the country further, not so much the regime itself.
There will be a decrease in oil production, marginally boosting world prices. What's probably being taken out right now is the regime's ability to react in any meaningful way to the oil embargo.
It will also allow Maduro to throw his hands in the air and blame the US for all of VZLA's ills going forward. More poverty, more suffering, more migration.
Well they just captured Maduro and flew him out of the country, so yes the regime quite literally did just fall minutes after you created your throwaway account to post this.
The regime isn’t the President in this case. It’s the ruling party and its institutions.
The power stays in Maduros party and just goes To the VP. It’s anyone’s guess what happens next - but nothing changing is a relatively easy bet.
Pay attention to who is generating the wrong predictions, and what their other opinions are on tangential questions.
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Yes. And some russian sources seem very understanding of the situation. I strongly believe Trump made a Deal with Putin. South america belongs to him. Putin can have europe.
Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech. Or really any kind of support except empty words.
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there's footage of a half dozen US Chinooks over Caracas with no resistance being put up at all. Possbly a General has acquiesced to a US led coup. This isnt just lobbing missiles.
Argentine newspaper Clarín reports some resistance.
https://www.clarin.com/mundo/respuesta-nicolas-maduro-explos...
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If it was strictly a decapitation attack there probably wouldn't be multiple sites involved. They're claiming four states were targeted.
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It's a country not a ticker symbol. VE is proper but even VZ would be better.
VZLA is the abbreviation Venezuelans use
None of this makes sense. Venezuela has faced crippling sanctions from the US since 2017 that have not allowed it to sell to any western nation. Only China, Russia, and Cuba are potential customers for it. I highly doubt this will have any immediate effect on oil prices. It is also crude oil which only a handful of countries are capable of processing (the US probably being the best equipped)
US corporations will be brought in to exploit oil the same way they did in Iraq where they actually had to amend the constitution to allow for foreign corporations in.
A military coup seems like a decent possibility here IMO.
The Venezuelan opposition leader was extracted and moved to Europe and I assume the US wants to install her. Maybe that is more likely, but a military takeover before the US can install whatever puppet government they're hoping for.
Are you saying the US will decide not to take out the senior leadership of the regime? Or are you saying that the regime will survive even if they do that?
If they have any brains they’ll keep the functionaries and install their own puppet as the new head, likely Machado.
For some reason we wisely keep the machineries of government in place in Japan and Germany post-war and threw that lesson out the window in Iraq. Always boggles my mind, how the CPA ran things immediately into the ground.
Either, really. Just a prediction, not clairvoyance.
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Prediction: nobody is going to lift a finger to defend Maduro. Unless he already has escaped, his cronies will sell him out.
But afterwards, there's going to be a free-for-all struggle between ACTUAL cartels. That will be indistinguishable ftom a civil war.
Already captured. Press conference in 5 hours.
US is an expert in trying to artificially build democracies.
They're more expert at demolishing democracy right now, their very own.
when you predict something you state a time line.
I wonder who is financing your efforts with throwaway accounts? Iran? Russia? China? or is it from drug cartels?
Here's another prediction: the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of Venezuelans. Trump admin (which was hugely insecure about its actual strength) will be bolstered and do some really really stupid thing next.
When was the last time America successfully conducted a regime change via military force? One that didn't result in a bloody civil war and hundreds of thousands dead?
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> the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of $CountryInvaded
When have we not heard this line? When has it even been true?
We always hear it, it's never true.
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I tend to agree with you. Venezuela is no beacon of freedom or prosperity and I think Maduro might prove even less popular than thought.
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show positions or go away; skin in the game
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Maduro is a coward and has no military power
People here saying it's "unjustified" should go and talk to a displaced Venezuelan.
It might be welcome by the majority of Venezuelans (nor not, depending what’s next) but it is not justified in a US domestic sense or indeed by international law
Why talk only to displaced Venezuelans though? If you want meaningful data, your sample shouldn't be biased. What is the overall proportion of Venezuelans supporting this action?
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I keep seeing this argument in here, but no one seems to point at any actual Venezuelans or message boards or whatever to support the point. Personally I only know a couple, classmates from decades ago who are FB friends and while they don’t support Maduro IIRC, I also don’t see any posts celebrating this great victory for the people. Who knows, maybe they’re partied out.
Maduro is a piece of shit.
But a military invasion of another country to commit regime change is literally what Russia tried to do to Ukraine.
America has blood on it's hands yet again.
EDIT: If the reports are true that Maduro has been captured and the fighting stops, then that's the best resolution one could hope out of this horrible situation. I pray for the Venezuelan people.
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And we wonder why rogue regimes seek nuclear weapons. My biggest concern in geopolitics is non-proliferation and every little thing we do like this works against it.
This is a red herring. Rogue regimes will, by construction, seek the security offered by nuclear weapons. Hence the need, where possible, to apply diplomatic or military means to prevent exactly that.
The US is the rogue regime in this scenario.
That’s counter to what happened for several decades when we actually cared about preventing it. Few regimes at all sought them and several were convinced to abandon nuclear programs.
Even democratic regimes should start acquiring nuclear weapons - ie. every EU country, given Trump's comments and stance about the EU.
Not easy though, the US has to basically allow it.
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Every sovereign nation should do. The notion that uppercase D "Democracy" is the only valid type of sovereign state is uppercase L liberalism propaganda.
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I wish more people understood this.
The worst part is the people who make these decisions understand it and they do it anyway because the proliferation will occur in someone else’s term.
You have to admit that non-proliferation was a masterful coup by the capitalist ruling class.
The fruits have just ripened, and they're starting to harvest them.
If they get close we drop a bunker buster on them to remove the threat but you complain anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
North Korea, Israel, and Pakistan prove you wrong.
A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it.
Maduro is not good for Venezuela.
The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
The US is giving another clear message that it does not care about global order, just global control. We're back in the 70s.
There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, its a power play, if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes. Pinochet, The Brazilian regime are all here as testament to that.
I hope the power change turns out better for the Venezuelans. I hope this is a catalyst of change for a better government. Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition"
And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela"
Never the US has been so honest around so many lies in the same speech.
I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
Yeah, I was mostly surprised about the brazenness of it all. So the plan is to take over the government, take over the oil industry, sell the oil and in infinite grace give the Venezuelans some part of it back (minus of course the "compensation" for the years in which US companies were kept out of the country)
And all that as official doctrine, not even some secret strategy paper or covert ops campaign.
Edit: I had to chuckle at his "reviewing" of the Monroe doctrine as DONroe doctrine. There is "on the nose" and there is "punching someone in the face"...
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> Washington being now safest and free of crime
I'd make the case it depends on who's defining what is and is not a crime.
Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal, and yet he not only has total freedom, he literally has the highest quality personal protection ecosystem on the planet, and so much more.
So, who is the criminal here? Which are the crimes? And what is _actually_ going to happen?
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The ironic thing is that nationalizing the oil was pretty much the most defensible part of Chávez's legacy.
(To be clear I'm not a fan of Chávez or of Maduro.)
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Not taking sides here, just trying to steelman: some Venezuelans might be so done with Maduro, that they consider US getting the oil profits to be a fair price.
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I prefer this honesty over the unrealistic expectations the US set up in each Mid East country plus Afghanistan.
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How exactly will the US run the country? They have just one guy
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More quotes in that vein,
> "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so."
> "We're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have it"
> "It's gonna make a lot of money"
> "Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial"
Reading @atrupar.com 's live transcriptions,
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com
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> And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela"
Venezuela is down to 1 million barrels per day, down from 3 million per day from the 2000s because of the sanctions after Hugo Chavez. They own the worlds largest reserve (about 300 billion barrels worth) and it was always my understanding that we worked with them before Hugo Chavez went the route he went and brought a great nation to shambles for a power trip.
I think Venezuela will recover with our aid, but a lot of their old infrastructure is gone, they will need investors. They will also need to deal with their crime problem and hold real elections for once.
Oil companies already had contracts that Maduro violated.
> I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
I heard that as Trump doing his usual thing patting himself on the back while justifying the continued use of our military for domestic law enforcement.
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He also indicated they will work directly with Maduro's second in command, not the putative winning candidate from the last election. This is purely about theft.
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I think it’s normalization. If they can ignore Congress, lie to them, break American law, ignore international law, what’s to stop them from violating the constitution? It’s how they will ultimately deport 100 million Americans, like they proposed a few days ago on the DHS Twitter account. Don’t fix things through the political process - just ignore them and use military force.
>> Never the US has been so honest around so many lies in the same speech.
Its more this: https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1q34556/mill...
>>"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and >>judicious transition"- And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go >> into Venezuela"
The new President of Venezuela will be called Fulgencio Batista...
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>ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
I get the impression they are concerned at least a bit with the welfare of Venezuelans. Maybe a secondary consideration to drugs and oil but here's what Trump was saying:
>We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious
transition. So, we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get
in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the
country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious
transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about. We
want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela. (https://youtu.be/cQdRlS4uf0E?t=3784)
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> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
100x times this!
US administration doesn't care about the welfare of most human beings in the world (including in the US).
We saw it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Yemen and now Palestine. Having an assumption that this move was made for Venezuelans and now they're liberated from evil is wrong.
All those Mid East operations were way more for Israel than for the US. At least that's not a factor here.
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Funny list of countries. Ask women in Afghanistan how they were treated with US presence vs. now. Ask jews in Palestine how Hamas treated them vs. Israel. Ask people in Yemen how they are living right now, but be sure to talk to them directly instead of writing to them, because barely anybody there can read. Their leaders just love them so much, they don't want them to read any bad news.
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I see a lot of people posting about a lot of Venezuelans being happy that Maduro is out, and many using that as providing moral justification for the action. But this seems murky to me. If say the majority of the US population would be happy if trump is gone, does that justify some other country coming in and kidnapping him (leave aside the ability and consequence of this)? It doesn't seem like it.
> But this seems murky to me.
It looks like propaganda. Day after, and then all the American news sites post stories about Venezuelans celebrating? Looks like propaganda. Almost no dissenting stories, no real discussion. Blackhawks and missiles at night, and hooray, spontaneous street parties, and news reporters just happen to be there to capture their "spontaneous" rejoicing. Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, NBC. Rejoicing, dreams of democracy, yatta. CBS seems like one of the only sites that actually carried somewhat balanced coverage of people burning US flags, and no to American war.
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They may not be happy with him now, but they did vote for him. Can't say the same about Maduro.
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> The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
As opposed to what? Who "should" be the decider? China? Russia? Maduro? The Venezuelan Military?
The alternative is not that Venezuelans choose who stays in power democratically. The alternative, as we just saw until now, is that the Maduro dictatorship maintains power through force.
You seem to think US did this because Maduro was a dictator. They themselves clarified it's because of oil.
Why they don't attack Saudi Arabia then? Saudi's even had a role in 9/11.
Decades of lies shaped the narrative that all invasions US do is because countries have dictators, it's being the narrative even now when they explicitly say it's because of oil.
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There are many alternatives to a unilateral unconstitutional action by a convicted felon.
Anything multilateral for starters, and involving multilateral nonviolent interventions first.
You… What?
How can you say that like it’s a real argument? You’re REALLY, in 2026, defending that the US is “bringing democracy” to other countries by force?
I… How?
As hard as it is to watch a people suffer a dictatorship; that's the Venezuelan's task, not the US's, not Russia's and not China's.
International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership.
We've seen this principle violated before, when the Ukrainian people took the streets for months to topple their leader in 2014. Russia to this day takes this as an excuse to question Ukrainian sovereignty, framing the events as a "US coup" to justify their violent invasion of Ukraine.
The argument you make just plays in their hand. "There was a violent coup - we need to remove the coup government and bring back democracy to Ukraine", they say. Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
What if the US decides that it will not recognize the government of Denmark as democratically elected and moves to liberate the people of Greenland from their despotic dictatorship?
You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
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If it was about democracy the US would be kidnapping presidents left and right every year all around the world...
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The Venezuelan people?
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You have to think of the long-term consequences of blatantly abandoning the rule of (international) law for might makes right. The end doesn't justify the means.
Not to mention that the "end" here is first and foremost enriching the administrative "elite" and extending their power. If they cared about democracy, they'd stand firmly behind Ukraine instead of humoring Russia.
I think a coup was forming regardless. Fort Tiuna where Maduro was is not near the coast. So basically no one heard/saw/detected the US forces coming that far inland. Also, most importantly, no one stopped them from leaving with their president.
The whole "we got him" is a bit fishy. I think the Venezuelan military (and the current vice president) wanted Maduro out. A coup would have been messy. So the US comes in and does them a favor.
One can look at the shadow of drug boat strikes and reasonably conjecture that there are some undisclosed collaborative relationships.
Part of the function of the fleet sitting off the coast for the past month would have been first intimidating then cultivating relationships with collaborators. Collaborators are far easier to find if there's a credible chance that things are about to change.
If it's fair game to do this in Venezuela, it's fair game here in the US.
That's not really how power works
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There is no "fair game" in geopolitics
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Its all about the oil.
Yeah, Trump directly said it multiple times throughout his speech today.
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IMO this has nothing to do with Maduro. This is just the first step. It is about the US securing large reserves of oil. Don't get caught into the propaganda.
The US doesn’t need large reserves of oil. The US is an energy exporter. The country is limiting investment in solar and wind, ON PURPOSE.
This is crony capitalism. This is Trump shoring up support from oil companies.
Mr Trump has purposefully depressed the value of non-petroleum energy sources in the US, which props up the value of US oil Producers and processors.
And now, This is a territory takeover by a mafia don, so he can hand favors to other rich guys. Maduro wasn’t doing the deal Trump wanted, so this is what Trump did.
If solar and wind were thriving in the US (as they could be!) then this new oil territory would be worth less. That’s why Trump hates wind. He cannot convert clean energy into a benefit for himself.
It’s not about drugs or fentanyl. It’s not about democracy or corrupt elections in VZ.
Alas, we're back to 1989. Bush did the same to Noriega in Panama when he stopped playing ball with the CIA.
Yes it is similar. And note that Congress was also not consulted back then.
> We're back in the 70s
To be fair we did almost exactly this in 1989 in Panama [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
On the relative upside, Panama was a 10X smaller country. The US had some long-term skin in the game with the Canal. And Bush Sr. was in the Oval Office - making it not-too-hard to imagine that sane grown-ups were in charge.
Vs. "70s" sounds far more like Vietnam. And a whole load of other bigger/uglier/longer conflicts, under Presidents whose moral and military leadership seemed rather lacking.
greenland must be having difficult discussions right now
I guess Europe has a new base of operations and colo for radar and signal intelligence. Welcome to the EU. Bullies are coming, prepare yourself.
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Cuban forces with the help of Russia, Iran and China took control of Venezuela over 25 years ago, effectively looting that nation, and no one bitched about it.
As a brazilian, could you clarify what you mean by "The Brazilian Regime"?
Genuine question, the decades long dictatorship backed by the US military in 64 or the recent pressure Trump made to try and put Bolsonaro back into power despite his crimes?
> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelan
Depending on how cynical you are, you could say that all American administrations are like that. (I don’t think that’s quite true—I think Reagan/Bush had a genuine ideological vision of using foreign policy to promote democracy and capitalism around the work. But it’s certainly a common criticism.)
> Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
Lol this is already proven false.
The put the Vice President in power who is now coincidentally supporting what the US is doing, including sending oil companies in to as Trump put it “sell oil to the Chinese”.
>ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
Neither was doing that with other countries they ransacked. The other was pouring enough propaganda at you so that you think it is somehow different.
Looks like it: celebratory crowd
https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2007464418565648690
I hate to break it to you, but that video’s from Chile, as it says in the chat.
See for yourself: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BctQ7hV798imS4cF8?g_st=ipc
Why couldn’t this be resolved using the international institutions we already have? What needs to change?
> Why couldn’t this be resolved using the international institutions we already have?
They’re dead and have been for decades. The reason is they had no enforcement arm.
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The institutions work if all countries abide by their rulings. The US doing this sort for things is destroying the institutions we have, chief of all the UN and the ICJ, put in place at the end of World War 2 to avoid a repeat. We have not learned.
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That would be the UN. The last time the UN invaded a nation was in 1950. That happened because the Soviet Union boycotted the UN, so it wasn't able to veto it.
For the UN to ever fix a international issue it would require that country to anger all 5 UN powers. Venezuela has Russia and China on its side, so nothing would have happened.
It's debatable - to put it mildly - whether Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela.
>> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans,
I don't think this was a humanitarian mission. I'm speculating from Trump's perspective, Maduro was a major de-stabilizing factor. The Western world also seems to tacitly agree that the man had to go -- I don't think Maria Machado's recent Nobel Peace Prize was coincidence.
Maduro was a figurehead. The rest of the inner circle of that government is still running things.
Given his 0/2 track record on targeted prosecutions I wonder what the chance is that Maduro wins in court. What the hell would happen then?
Deportation to el salvador of course. You really need to keep up.
A more important question is if he does get sentenced will Trump just pardon him https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
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They brought a lot of drugs into the US, don't ignore that. The drugs are destroying the US teens.
Conceptually, tariffs could help manufacturing. The policy Trump actually enacts, massive and unpredictable tariffs on manufacturing inputs, turns out to destroy manufacturing. Conceptually, removing Maduro might help the people of Venezuela…
It is so crazy that he is not turning around and putting the World Peace Prize winner in place. Everyone can get behind that and it is probably the fastest way to getting oil companies in there anyway.
Whether Maduro was the legitimate president of Venezuela remains to be proved.
Everyone knows he wasn't. That's not the issue here.
> if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes
This is the key. Trump loves dictators, no matter how they got into power. As long as they give him what he wants or he's afraid of them.
No, he just plays politics like you must in a complex world of 185 countries, many of which are run by dictators or dictator-like figures.
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There's no power change, the core of your whole post is wrong
All of Maduro's people are still in power and the president just said the woman who actually won the vote is not suitable to be in charge
Good luck with the US running another country when we are cratering ourselves
Impeach him and send him to the Hague for trial if this was so justified
BTW they are now talking about Cuba, we are headed for WW3 by 2028
And Mexico, he just talked about it.
Apparently, the Venezuelan vice president has sold out her country or is acting out of duress because she has allegedly offered full cooperation with the US. That could be a viable way to a US-led military/CIA dictatorship there, if the Venezuelan military and police around her allows it to happen. She seems to be in the line of succession. That seems to be the current "plan."
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Don't celebrate early. It's all a Hollywood plot, just like 911. Only the innocent suffer
Maduro stole the election and no one in Venezuela could do anything about it. How exactly was Venezuela going to take care of it themselves?
Ultimately it's going to be outside actors, and no matter who it was, even the UN, Venezuela could just say we don't recognize your authority and nothing would happen
Easiest path from here on for the US is to cooperate with existing power structures in the resources grab/"sharing" + forcing some concessions, like increased efforts to fight against drug trafficking.
Trump also did not even inform the armed services or foreign affairs committees. He spoke to FOX before he spoke to Congress. It is not clear if he's done or if we just declared war. His public statement that the US will now be majorly involved in Venezuelan oil is both very telling and very mysterious. How the hell are we going to assert power over their industry without foisting a new, friendlier government?
We definitely didn't declare war if Congress isn't in session or otherwise able to vote.
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“ The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.”
This is a new opinion. What is your basis for not believing might makes right in an anarchic system?
Because might makes right in all systems
> A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it.
Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro.
Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take.
There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple".
Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2].
So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better.
And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place.
As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
> Which Venezuelans?
All which are currently in foreign countries and are free to express their voices without fear of prosecution. I live in spain with my venezuelan girlfriend, and everybody here from her venezuelan bubble is celebrating and cheering - hoping this is a first step towards freedom. You can turn on your TV to "rtve Telediaro", it is a spanish 24h news channel where they also show venezuelan expats getting together and celebrating from within spain. Other cities in latin america are the same, just watch some news channels from the spanish-speaking world.
They were probably also cheering in the streets in the US, if they weren't afraid of ICE deportations.
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Cubans would be much better off today if Bay of Pigs had succeeded. Venezuela is so bad that around 20% of the population emigrated.
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> Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil.
It was about the Soviet Union. The British convinced the US that Mosaddegh was going to align himself with the Soviet-proxy communist party (Tudeh) to stay in power. The British, on the other hand, did it because Iran had nationalized British oil fields. The US' oil interests were in Saudi Arabia.
Also the way people describe this is rather twisted. The Shah was not installed by the US. The Shah had been in power since 1941. He was installed by the British, same as his father. The coup replaced Mosaddegh with Fazlollah Zahedi, not the Shah.
Moreover, Mosaddegh's government was not remotely democratically elected. There's a rather in-depth State department memo from the era that describes how those "elections" worked in Iran which made clear that the people voting had little to do with who won. Elections were full of ballot stuffing, bribery and just outright manipulation by pretty much everyone - the Shah, Mosaddegh, Tudeh, foreign governments, etc. [1]
Plus, Mosaddegh had halted Parliamentary election counting early to prevent more opposition from getting elected risking his majority (his party controlled the more urban areas of Iran which finished "counting" earlier). He began ruling with emergency powers and jailing his opposition. That led to mass resignations in Parliament - to the point where they couldn't even form a quorum. Mosaddegh then dissolved Parliament and granted himself full dictatorial powers and ruled by decree after another sham election where 10% of the population "voted."
And it's at this point that the coup happened. The Shah, using his power under Iran's constitution, wrote a letter dismissing Mosaddegh. He was replaced with Fazlollah Zahedi and the Shah started to take a far more active role in government.
[1] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira...
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I'm a Venezuelan in the USA and I think what happened is an absolutely illegal travesty. Trump and his acolytes are nothing better than criminal thugs and this needs to be fought and protested.
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As far as one can reasonably know something it’s clear that Maduro was not the fairly elected president. Chavez and Maduro were disastrous for Venezuela and millions now have hope for a better future.
Your perception about Iran in 1953 is badly wrong.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articl...
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Perhaps people forget that countries are sovereign and can do whatever they want. The "global order" has always been based on strength: the stronger do what they want and the weaker do what they can.
What the US have just done is not something new because of Trump.
We are told about "international law" and "norms" so much that we perhaps forget that this is mostly BS.
This is the attitude that permits world wars. In the aftermath of WW2, a lot of people genuinely believed in the power of international law to prevent WW3. Now, it seems like a ton of people think that's just BS, and the fact that so many people think that is what makes it BS. If a strong majority of people actually believed in international law, it would be "real".
I guess sometimes you just need WW3.
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You forget that the cold war wasn't won by the US alone. But by the alliance systems which centered around the US.
The US is no longer a credible partner, and without coalition forces the recreational wars in the 2000s would have been a lot less "fun".
I'm not so sure you want a global order based on strength. You don't want small countries with little to loose arming do with nukes. But voting for it is suddenly very attractive.
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The conversation is about what's right
People commit crimes despite it being illegal. That doesn't make laws "BS".
And yes, this is not something new. It is something old. It is something that we have left behind us and Donald Trump should therefore be condemned.
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Forget Venezuela, this is a major problem for America. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth lied to Congress a couple weeks ago when they explicitly said that this is not about regime change. Entering an illegal war, committing acts of international piracy, and pledging to take over another country’s resources is completely illegal and a violation of American laws as well as international laws.
And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts. Spineless Republican senators and legislators are staying quiet as they allow this horrific dictatorial action to go on without any criticism. And meanwhile, tech billionaires like Elon Musk are continuously tweeting sycophantic support for this illegal act of state terrorism.
How will America recover? Its political system is broken. And its international reputation is shattered.
You should read how the international press received this. They're openly wondering if Trump has gone insane.
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> And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts.
Well, they said they wanted that. But maybe Trump wasn’t lying to them as much as lying alongside them.
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Very eloquent, thanks.
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I think most people agree about Maduro being horrible to Venezuela, but this has nothing to do with that. If this is legitimized, any president can be kidnapped by the US at will. This is a very dangerous precedent which a lot of people will regret when the bully turns against them and not their enemy.
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I would advice them to get ready for what comes next, past experience says it will not be good.
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Sorry, can't trust claims from a brand new account created in response to a contentious political event. I saw a lot of non-organic stuff like this when the US invaded Iraq too.
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Reasoning like this is part of the reason why history keep repeating itself. Completely ignoring how previous US led decapitations turned out, and just hoping this time will be different.
It should not be contentious at this point, the US only cares about the geopolitical value of Venezuela, and if supporting another dictator helps towards this end, then that's what will happen.
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Didn’t Trump explicitly say the US is putting Maduro’s second in command in charge? If so, that makes any benefits to the people from removing Maduro pretty unlikely. Besides removing sanctions, assuming the new dictator kisses the ring.
How much of this is if Hong Kong "friends" abroad hypothetically backed the UK invasion of Hong Kong, I just have no respect for this "my friends from that country validate simplistic politics" type of ad hominem. Victims and escapees of oppressive systems are filled with bitter and anger but that doesn't make their solutions automatically the right one.
Look at how well Iraq and Afghanistan turned out. Good times ahead.
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The opinions of the womanizer who is surprised by how intelligent the right wing Venezuelan expats he knows are, oh yay now we’ll understand things
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> The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
"I really want it" is not the reason. Come on! Maduro is indicted in the Southern District of New York. Both charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.
The military operation was merely to lead the operation to allow FBI to arrest. Now, the oil issue certainly can be argued as the real reason for the strike and capture, but frankly they were OUR oil fields (funded by US companies) before Maduro seized them and nationalized them.
Thank you for articulating this outside of the regular "HN myopia" lenses.
This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is. Venezuela is very important strategically for them, they can't let it slide unless they're weak.
Surely, they won't go as far as direct US confrontation, but if they don't make Venezuela into a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there, one can draw the conclusion that China isn't as strong as many make them (including me, I confess).
But it wouldn't be that surprising if Venezuela turns out being a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there...
Swap China for Russia/Iran and Venezuela for Syria/Yemen if you want an idea how that plays. Spoiler: not well for the proxies.
Without some sort of underlying religious ideology to neutralize being concerned about the likely outcome of hellfires dropped on you from 20k feet if you kill American soldiers, I can’t see many stepping up.
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> This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is.
Chinese intervention in Venezuela is a suicide mission by every rule of warfare. You are surrounded, you have no supply line and you can't amass your material at the front since America is already there.
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we should not dilute the effect of what's been by saying Maduro was not good for Venezuela.
> The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY
Good thing then that Maduro isn't the president of Venezuela, but a narco-terrorist usurper.
EDIT: Downvoting me will not change that fact, only hide it.
Other than his country's oil, what's the difference between him and the Honduran president that Trump pardoned?
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You’re not wrong about the motives, but others are:
The U.S. has all the oil it needs right now.
The message from the U.S. to the world is: don’t nationalize our businesses infrastructure and then use it against our interests (even if they are on your sovereign territory) - we do not forgive and we do not forget.
Which might signal to the EU to not build local cloud infrastructure?
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Like Russia did in 2022?
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So the US did the right thing for the wrong reasons and therefore it is bad? (not that I even agree with your premise).
Also I presume that it is not OK for the US to have its say on who stays in power in Venezuela, but it's OK for Cuba or Russia to do so?
First line: My whole point was the opposite, not sure how you had that reading. Wrong thing, might "maybe" and hopefully turn out good for Venezuelans. The only good outcome trump seems to care is his ego and oil interests.
Second line: You presumed that out of feeling? I did not write anything hinting at that.
Right and wrong here are all subjective. In this case it's like, abducting another man's wife from their house and saying it's right for their kids
Here's a trick I've learnt to get an authentic view of events like these, a nice way to parse through the keyboard warrior and ivory tower voices and noise is to hear what Venezuelans, the millions of Venezuelan migrants, and the citizens of neighboring countries who've had to reckon with the legacy of Chavez think about this. You can extend this to anything really with good results.
No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
I've been traveling South America including Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. There are no good guys anywhere. A lot of the low wage labor come from Venezuela, and in the case of southern Brazil, Cuba. In Lima, Peru it is impossible to take an Uber without having to hear about how much a shit Maduro is. The crisis has strongly affected all countries in South America and if the Venezuelans are able return home and democratically elect a new regime it will be better for everybody.
If Venezuelans will end up with fair elections, it will be a good result from a bad action.
But knowing the usual modus operandi in SA, a dictator is more likely to be installed than not.
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Lots and lots of locals were equally excited, if not more, at the beginning of Arab Spring…
Yeah. Exactly. There have been many regime changes in the last few centuries. It’s hard to think of more than a handful that were actually objectively better. It’s even harder to think of any where the US was involved in the overthrow and installation of the replacement, and it went well. The Marshall plan was good. Any others?
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In 1917's Russia too.
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Thankfully Venezuelans aren't Muslim fanatics with a 40-50% chance of their parents being first cousins.
> and the citizens of neighboring countries who've had to reckon with the legacy of Chavez think about this.
Sure, just ask them about the legacy of Chevron in South America next.
If they're old enough ask them about the United Fruit Company.
> You can extend this to anything really with good results.
Your trick is not enough to overcome your ignorance of history.
> No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
Ridiculous. How exactly do you expect me to probe the feelings of an entire nation of people? Have CNN do it for me?
For one, immigrants are not representative of their country, they are so biased that they left.
But i think the opinion of venezuelans has leaked and it s pretty obvious his regime is not popular at home
> For one, immigrants are not representative of their country, they are so biased that they left.
That's close to 20% of their population. And the most relevant factor deciding if people fled or not was whether they could reach another country before Maduro closed the borders.
Venezuelans didn't leave because they were "biased", good grief. They left because they were suffering under poverty, hyperinflation and violence.
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I don’t think any valuable insight is to be found in the opinions of migrants either in terms of what any of this means long term.
A lot of Iraqis were happy when Saddam was deposed. They certainly didn’t like what happened next.
So that equally applies to your comment here and renders it null?
If we can't talk about the method then I don't know how to get to good results
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Yeah, I agree. But it’s also very hard to gather those voices in one place. Any thoughts on where to find these voices beside a personal network?
True, but it is like saying that to know China you have to ask the nationalists in Taiwan. Or that to understand Italian resistance you have to ask the millions of people in Italy that supported fascism.
It doesn't work.
So if Americans don't like Trump then, say, Italy can unilaterally bomb San Francisco?
Or should this only be a one way street? Is dropping bombs to disapprove of elections how we're being adults in 2026?
It’s not a one-way street on principle. Italy could go do whatever it wanted. It’s a one-way street in capabilities to take action.
There isn’t anything stopping Italy, the sovereign state, from doing anything it thinks it could do. What is stopping it from bombing San Francisco (besides it not making sense whatsoever) would be that the US would physically stop the Italian Air Force and navy.
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Americans can delete Italy.
Venezuelans can't delete America.
Yes, a bit of a one way street.
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I don’t know how many Americans actually approve of this. The left will hate it. Trump’s base has largely been isolationist.
Obviously if someone like Italy bombed us we would invade and beat the shit out of them. We did a two decade, trillions of dollars revenge tour for like 2700 people dying.
(I’m not advocating for any of this but US policy is pretty consistent. Part of the value of a US passport is knowing (and everyone else knowing) that the government will go to incredible lengths to get you back.)
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I’m American and I don’t like Trump. If Italy did bomb San Francisco and you asked me what I thought of that, I’d say I disapproved.
If China invaded overnight and absconded with Trump, I’d say I disapproved even though I don’t like him.
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Anyone can already bomb the United States, and I think most people here in the US just don't imagine it happening here, no matter how much we invite a military response.
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Moral authority through physical superiority.
On the world stage I see everything on display that we try to teach our children to avoid. Lying, bullying, law breaking, it's all in our faces. And the real problem is that it is supported and even celebrated on television, in print, and socia media.
> Italy can unilaterally bomb San Francisco?
They can try.
I am not an expert but "Don't like" doesn't sound the same of multinational cartel organization overtaking countries, making 8 million people exilees.
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Sure, they can certainly try. Sovereignty is an illusion until it is tested.
If you have some hard numbers supporting how much Americans don't like Trump and how shit is their life under Trump, then ..maybe? (Also, why the USA, why not start with North Korea, Venezuela etc first.)
We kinda have the obligation to ensure that Earth is not a practical hell for many people.
"Bomb San Francisco" can mean many things, and it is ultimately a Trolley Problem[0], but the answer is not a simple no.
[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
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You simply can’t. Just enjoy the show. Sorry, last 5 years have been a complete destruction of common sense and logic, just focus on something else to remain sane.
Yeah this is just flawed. Even people close to what is happening can be ignorant/brainwashed or (and even more likely) have ulterior motives. Venezuela doesn't exactly come across as a sophisticated nation.
> Venezuela doesn't exactly come across as a sophisticated nation.
Yeah this is just flawed.
We have an ongoing war in Europe because one President tried to remove the President of another country. You can perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify military actions, and depending on who you ask you will always get the answers you want.
I'm not arguing the point you're making. I'm saying that these discussions on these sorts of things on chat boards populated by privileged western nerds and conspicuous progressives have little merit and are merely a reflection of biases/ego of the privileged western nerd when put up against the lived experiences of people in Venezuela and neighboring states.
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That is not a reason why there is a war. The Ukrainian war is an existential one, a continuation of multiple acts of genocide performed by russians for centuries.
That is a big difference between war in Ukraine and war in Iraq or Venezuela.
Russia has unlimited objectives: destroy Ukrainian identity and sovereignty. Annex the country.
While USA has limited objectives, like to overthrow the government.
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You mean one unelected dictator tried to annex a neighboring country and wanted to remove the elected president of that country.
Please don't spread Russian propaganda by taking over their talking points.
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That's how you get the most reactionary voices. The ones that liked Maduro presumably stayed in Venezuela and didn't start complaining online.
The fish celebrate when the bear is hunted. It does not mean order has been restored to the wild.
About the stupidest thing I’ve ever read here. Why does a US perspective not matter when the fucking US conducted the strike? If Russia decides trump stole the election in 2024 you’d just sit back and let them take over?
Many Americans were asking for just this.
Information that is known to be wrong is still useful. The immediate talking points on both sides reveal quite a bit if you can read between the lines. Everyone is lying but the lies themselves are revealing.
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You will soon see many comments "misteriously" disappear without leaving traces, especially the ones telling the truth about US, "democratic values", "rule of law" and their similars. The better the comment, the faster it "evaporates". As such comments do in Russia or China related discussions, whatever the exact mechanism is.
This forum is not for you to get information about the american "public opinion". It is rather used to shape it (as a myriad of other similar forums in the "free world").
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Maduro is a dictator and a murderer but I'm sure most people should now be uncomfortable with the way this was handled. Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold and no there won't be regime remaining because Maduro doesn't have popular support it requires to do so.
I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do or if it will have negative implications in the future. I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
Having said that, international law is a myth. At the power level of nation states what we have is basically anarchy where interests is what matters. Not saying its right or wrong but it is what it is.
We used the same precursor to remove the Taliban in 2003. We used the same formula to remove saddam. All of it was always a bad idea. It destroyed the countries. Venezuela will be no different.
I dont like Maduro but I hate the aftermath of removing him violently.
Mission accomplished
Arguments over definitions really bore me. To any reasonable person predicting the future, international law is an important factor. It cannot be simply waved off because it is flawed and unevenly enforced.
Any predictive model I would construct about geopolitics does include international agreements such as treaties and laws.
I challenge anyone to build a predictive model that ignores these factors. I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
> I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
And you'd have lost the bet with such a naive understanding of geopolitics and power dynamics played by nation states. Are you reading the thread you're on?
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> International law is an important factor
I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
Countries appeal to international law when they don’t have enough power to achieve their goals through brute force alone.
Countries that do appeal to international law but also have the wherewithal to do what they want only make those appeals to conceal their naked ambitions under the guise of the rules based order. It’s just good marketing. Nothing more.
The model you should construct should assume treaties and agreements are stable insofar as the incentives for players to maintain them remain in place.
It’s all about national interest, always has been, and at this point I’m surprised anybody can be so dense as to not be able to see this.
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> I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
I mean, why?
Have you tried asking the Venezuelans?
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> Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold
This is BS. If he was an issue for the region he needed to be tried by his country by his own people and they should get their power back. A foreign power taking over the country to siphon it's oil doesn't help in any way.
It's the same situation with Trump, China swooping in and kidnapping Trump wouldn't help. We'd need the US population to fix it's own mess if we're hoping for any improvement.
We're just getting into another cycle of pain and grudges.
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"It (Venezuela) currently exports (oil) about 900,000 barrels per day and China is by far its biggest buyer."
Ah ok, so this was about China. MAGA's fixation on China is certainly going to lead to more instability.
Democrats and republicans are concerned about China because it has a massive impact on many issues that both parties care about. This includes Taiwan, Hong Kong, Us manufacturing, US ip, immigration, etc.
Replying to your earlier comment: in terms of words spoken during the 2024 campaign, tariffs and immigration tied for first. I think MAGA heard “China” when tariffs was pronounced positively and “Hispanic” when immigration was pronounced negatively.
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The one part of this I will agree with is that US foreign policy is uniparty.
The disastrous War on Terror spanned 4 presidential administrations, 2 Democrat and 2 Republican. Middle East policy differences between the two parties are somewhere between superficial and nonexistent.
Even something like Ukraine where you might say Republicans and Democrats differ isn't true. Had Trump been in office when Russia invaded Ukraine, the two parties would simply be in each other's seats.
This is 100% the case when it comes to China too. Oh, and when it comes to Taiwan (and Hong Kong), official US policy is the so-called One China policy [1].
As for US manufacturing, it's dead. Because capitalists killed it by moving it to China to increase profits and (under Regan, in particular) to destroy unions and the labor movement [2].
As for China and IP, US companies did this to themselves knowingly to increase short-term profits and to break unions and suppress wages. At no point will I accept the framing that a Chinese person, a Mexican, an Indian or a person from [developing country of choice] stole someone's job. No, a capital owner made a choice to take your job and give it to someone else so he or she could become slightly richer.
I'm not sure how immigration factors into China concerns.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_China
[2]: https://ourfuture.org/20140930/reagan-set-up-the-death-of-th...
The only reason China is the biggest buyer is because of crippling US sanctions since 2017 that have made it impossible for Venezuela to trade with any western nation
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Few hours later: "US oil companies will fix Venezuela's "broken infrastructure" and "start making money for the country", Trump added"
Obviously anyone with common sense understands that the above translates to exporting oil to the US. Just like that, a lot of noise about democracy goes out of the window.
Less than 1% of global oil consumption.
So what? They have the largest global oil reserves. MAGA even spelled it out for you.
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This is pretty standard for America, nothing new.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
>The US empire currently maintains an imperialist network of over 800 military bases in 70 countries. (For comparison, all other countries combined have only 30 bases)
If this is a list of atrocities, I am already somewhat underwhelmed. Almost all of those bases are present with the consent of the host country, except for Gitmo. Besides Gitmo, the US always leaves when requested in the cases I have been able to find.
(Why do we still have a base in Gitmo? Because Florida is a swing state. It sucks.)
To be fair, the rest of the list looks like an excellent argument for closing all the bases.
I'm surprised Github let something like this to stay up.
Why wouldn't it?
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Let freedom ring. Every Venezuelan I know is happy for the regime to fall.
Let's hope Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Russia follow soon.
Yes because it went so well for all the other countries the US meddld with lol
We dropped a lot of ordnance on Germany and Japan and they seem to be doing alright.
I suppose South Korea is doing fine as well, so let’s just hope Chinese troops do not flow over their land border with Venezuela.
If we need a more recent and perhaps more relevant comparison point, Operation Just Cause had a successful outcome.
I know it’s trendy and important to mock Iraq and Vietnam but it’s not all a failures.
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South Korea is doing very well. So is Taiwan.
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Iran is already in revolution, started a few days ago.
I can't speak for other countries, but the regime in Russia has popular support.
And if "every Venezuelan you know" is someone who immigrated because of Chavez and/or Maduro, then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
>>> but the regime in Russia has popular support.
Yeah, because in Russia if you don't support the regime then straight to jail.
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> then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
I think that if a good chunk of the people that don't agree with their government are basically forced to emigrate you don't get to turn around and say "See, everyone that remains loves the government!"
That’s interesting who are they? The few venezuelas I know hate it too, so like is this a gulf war 1 or Iraq war 2?
This usually (never) goes well for the USA. (Source: pick a regime change war.)
> Let freedom ring
What happens if the Venezuelan people decide they want their oil profits to stay in Venezuela rather than flowing into oil company coffers? Will they have the "freedom" to choose that?
Don't get me wrong, Maduro being toppled is a positive in isolation, but it's still wait-and-see regarding what he gets replaced with.
"We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so" [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/03/trump-venezu...
If you are talking about those that left the country... yeah, obviously they are happy. They literally left and got a better life. That's called immigration. That doesn't mean that it will be fine for those that stayed.
There's a difference between happy for the regime to fall" and "a superior military invades and starts a war"
When will the US let freedom to ring in Saudi Arabia?
Nukes make a lot of difference though, wouldn't be so sure about russia
Bombs are not the solution.
There are still Maduro-linked armed rebel groups like the ELN in Venezuela that aren't that keen on the US version of freedom.
"Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to 'liberate' by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest.
The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election', 'protecting interests', 'restoring order'. The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.
The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable."
-Jose Mario
https://bsky.app/profile/cristianfarias.com/post/3mbjlwkmb6c...
I own stocks in an american oil company.
The media can blast propaganda all they want about the reasons. It’s just history repeating itself. Never trust american politicans.
If this started a war with China (it wont, but as a thought experiment), wouldn’t american politicans at least want to pretend this was the will of the people? Or are they just so sure they can set the discourse that democracy no longer has a meaning?
> tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election'
It was actually yesterday. Check Argentina and honduras.
Man, I don't want to be that guy calling AI on everything, but it's odd that almost every sentence of that is some form of "not X, but Y". Is that an LLMism that persists even in other languages?
> the world reverts to the law of the strongest.
insert "always has been" meme
Rules and laws only matter if you can enforce them.
The UN sits and is "deeply concerned" about terrible leaders and events all around the world all the time. Leaders of so many EU countries "condemn" people they disagree with. But they can't enforce anything, so it doesn't matter.
I prefer living in a world where a country I'm more aligned with than most can enforce their morality on the world _effectively_, like this. Not just empty words and platitudes and endless talking about "this is against international rule of law" -- none of that is real unless you _enforce_ it.
Venezuelans seem to be celebrating this. Maybe let them speak for themselves for once. And let's not forget, Maduro was indicted under Biden. This isn't a recent invention by the Trump administration.
Some Venezuelans are celebrating. Some Iraqis celebrated when Saddam’s statue fell. How they felt five years later is the more relevant data point.
“Let them speak for themselves” is doing a lot of work here. Which Venezuelans? The ones in Miami and Doral? The ones still in Caracas who’ll live with whatever comes next? The ones who’ll be caught in the crossfire if this destabilizes into civil war?
> I prefer living in a world where a country I’m more aligned with can enforce their morality on the world effectively.
So does everyone. The problem is that China and Russia feel the same way. Rules exist precisely because “let the powerful enforce their values” is a race to the bottom.
You’re comfortable with this because you trust the current enforcer. But frameworks outlast administrations. You’re not just endorsing this action, you’re endorsing the principle that whoever has the most power gets to decide. Hope you still like that principle when the power shifts.
Enforcement without wisdom is just violence with good PR.
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It’s estimated there are over a million Venezuelans in the U.S. who fled the country. Over 600,000 are currently under temporary protected status with asylum claims. 7 million in neighboring countries.
Who gets to decide that this is good, but removing the dictator behind this is bad? Who gets to decide that we must live with this chaos because taking action might not reduce the chaos.
> Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election'
Why? Those are two completely different things. We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
> We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
The US has claimed the capacity to make this evaluation before, repeatedly, and has been wrong in ways that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe we're not the ones who should be deciding this unilaterally.
"Oh, but this time is different", you might say. "Maduro is an unambiguous dictator who stole an election, caused 7 million refugees, and was already under indictment. This isn't like Iraq, where we invented WMDs."
The justification was "real and documented" for Libya too (Gaddafi was about to massacre Benghazi, remember?). The result: Libya was rated as the Fragile State Index's "most-worsened" country for the 2010s decade, with ISIS using the country as a hub to coordinate regional violence and Libya becoming the main exit point for migrants trying to get to Europe. The intervention may have also made nuclear nonproliferation harder, since Gaddafi had already given up his nuclear program and then been overthrown anyway. Iran and North Korea both noted that "the Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson".
The issue isn't whether Maduro is bad; he obviously is. It's whether US military intervention produces better outcomes than the alternative. I honestly hope it does this time. I truly hope it's a case of "a broken clock is right twice a day". But am I holding my breath? Absolutely not.
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Sure you removed the "bad dictator". Gratz! Will you now leave Venezuelan oil alone ? I am guessing not. The U.S. oil companies effectively become the new dictator behind the scenes, at-least until people realize they are being merrily looted and rise up.
Respectfully, offering asylum to Venezuelan people and choosing to invade Venezuela and remove their dictator are nearly orthogonal. The USA could instead choose not to provide asylum to these people in the future, and accept the reality that for the millions it already has, it has made its bed so to speak.
One is a matter of internal policy, the other is a matter of international law and order. One the USA had complete and total control over for decades, the other is a delicate and precarious matter which requires significant planning, oversight, congressional approval, and international engagement.
> Why? Those are two completely different things.
These are different things, yes, but the problem is exactly that: the same methods and justification will be applied in either case, despite deserving totally different treatment. I believe this is the consequence of permitting brazen realpolitik principles into government.
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There is more than just one person behind Venezuela's misfortune. The external pressure to undermine the country has been immense and shouldn't be discounted. As always, not black and white.
It is usually those who never experienced dictatorship complaining
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> Who gets to decide that this is good, but removing the dictator behind this is bad?
The sovereign governments who agree to take in refugees. It's not a complicated answer. They get to decide what happens within their sovereignty.
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If there are terrible crimes being committed by a dictator then there is the ICC and the UN. It would require building up rather than undermining the institution but it’s there.
A lot of talk about how the administration didn't even try to justify this, but I think that the administration actually believes they did justify it. They exist in some bubble completely un-tethered from reality. I don't know what that means for the future but it's terrifying.
They don’t need to justify it because Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
They're too busy worrying about making rent and defending their neighbors from getting abducted by masked adult boys
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I don't see how they're any less complicit than the Russians living nice and chilled in Moscow.
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Trump was extraordinarily lucky here, the Maduro regime was wholly unprepared and he was immediately extracted from the county; he can claim "mission accomplished", parade Maduro in front of the world media and watch from afar the PSUV leadership tear themselves appart.
But the dice Trump rolled could have easily fell onto a well prepared Maduro regime, which could have downed a few Blackhawks, torpedoed the ship from which they launched, captured and killed a few dozens to a few hundreds US service men, paraded them in the streets of Caracas and used them as human shields protecting the main military targets etc.
I.e, Trump could have easily committed US to a long term war and a ground invasion, without Congress authorization or allied support, and with Iraq or worse long term results.
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Any ideas? All ears.
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> Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
Any attempt at holding the admin accountable would make it look a bit more like Venezuela. NA is rightfully too soft to want to ever go that route. They'll peacefully protest and that'll be it. Anything more than that would be the individuals throwing their lives away unless the whole country did it in unison.
Un tethered from reality is hardly new. Ronald Reagan had his astrologer: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/reagan-familys-trusted... ; American politics has little to do with the "reality based community".
Nor is "US carries out murder campaign in Latin American country for unclear reasons"
It seems it was her wife who pushed for that. By reading the article, it doesn't sound like he believed any of that.
> "If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it," she quoted the president as saying.
Also
> Both the president and Nancy Reagan denied that any policies or decisions were based on astrology.
So we can't really tell to what extent, if any, those consultations affected the actual policies.
In general, I don't trust politicians by default. Still, I also don't trust astrologers (and even less so), so there is no reason for me to believe the astrologer more than the president.
It was Nancy Reagan.
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There ware some claims that Putin consulted shamans over the use of nuclear weapons, wanted to get their blessing.
The previous time, 23 years ago, there was a broad campaign beforehand, and Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq. This time, it's just some PR statements before the press.
> Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq
Uh? Bush failed to assemble a coalition by providing dubious and faked proofs of supposed WMDs and chemical weapons. The Europeans and especially the French didn't fall for it. The only one who did was Tony Blair and he's still paying the price both domestically in the UK and abroad. AFAIK, Trump isn't planning to send troops in Venezuela on the scale Bush did in Iraq.
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i think they prefer the chaos as a welcomed distraction from local issues
I mean it does call into question the timing of the sudden release of jack smiths deposition on Friday. Curious.
The New York Times has been manufacturing consent for some time:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/politics/venezuela-uni...
U.S. foreign policy is bipartisan. The big plan was to keep the Russians tied up in Ukraine, get Syria (achieved under Biden) and now get China and Russia out of Venezuela.
It could work with bribing officers like in Syria, in which case there will be minimal resistance and then probably the Nobel War Prize recipient Machado will be installed.
It is possible that all of this was discussed with Russia (you get things in your backyard, we in ours).
Trump is a man who will push boundaries further and further until someone physically stops him from doing so. But you don’t need to justify anything if you have full control over people who would normally investigate, prosecute or restrict such things.
Then you put your thumb on the scale (i.e. Texas) so you don’t cede power to the other party in the midterms and then you never need to worry about consequences for your entire term.
It’s a bit more of a problem in 2028 but Trump is term-limited so that’s someone else’s problem.
> Trump is term-limited
There's a pretty well established Turkic solution to that. (Change the constitution. Claim the term limit applied to the old republic and it's your first term actually and go about your day)
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Hum hum... Bombing of Libya. Support for ISIS against Al Assad in Syria. Doesn't make what happened today right, but it is pretty myopic to see this as unique to Trump or unprecedented.
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All of the justification in this moment reads to me like: Trump is giving different segments of his coalition reasons to get off the fence and on his side. It’s something different for Rubio than for DoD than for the oil cronies. It’s not really about persuading anyone outside of Trump’s coalition.
I imagine the calculus goes something like "unjustified war didn't matter any of the other times, so it won't matter this time either". Although this time the US would be bringing death and destruction to its own continent so there is a moral improvement on what they normally do and that will probably going to make the war more of a political problem for Trump.
They didn’t even try to have a strong argument for it. They were more like “what are you going to do about it”.
Trump commuted the sentence of a fentanyl trafficker and his crime is their whole justification.
There is the Dixie Mafia and the President all over again
It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same.
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right, and I think it's doubtful if it's legally justified (how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition), but it makes a lot of sense, it aligns with realpolitik and it's morally good for several independent reasons. In particular it has a hugely disproportionate geopolitical impact, and less importantly it can bring a few million people from under a dictatorship.
As an interesting aside, I recently did a quick research on the Grenada invasion, widely spoken of as an embarrassing moment. It went... very well. They came, remove a budding dictatorship right after a coup, left in two months, and Grenada had no ill effects in the years after (both by subjective reporting, and by GDP per capita comparable to neighboring countries). The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. The number of dictatorships that did well in recent history is exactly two, and neither was socialist (SK and Singapore).
> The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region.
This. Your logic could at least make sense with other US president, but not wanna-be dictator one doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators in the world. Not a good fit to fight for democracy.
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War can only be justified after the fact as a result of good outcomes. The decision prior is always a roll of the dice that loads the thrower with infinite responsibility.
You say that as if the reason is that Venezuela is a dictatorship. I despise Maduro but this break of international rules is everything but morally good. It opens a world of brute force and lack of international rules. It is only "morally good" in the short term. In the medium-long, it's morally horrible and terrifying.
> how does one legally justify a was anyways
I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question.
Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky.
Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide.
Some of the discussion of the legality of the US invasion of Panama is relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
My country is not a fan of Trump, is it morally right to send a bunch of covert soldiers to capture him and throw him out of the country? We'd be saving the US from a dictatorship.
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>It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same. For example I'm not american and mostly on the right
Ah a textbook case of outgroup homogeneity bias. [1] Your follow up comment about Bernie and AOC is icing on the cake.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
> how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition
What? There's a process for initiating an offensive war in the US and they didn't follow it. Legally, Congress must authorize it. Though that hasn't been followed for quite a few wars now.
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How? Try this:
https://www.state.gov/nicolas-maduro-moros/
[edit] Maduro remained under US federal indictment on narco‑terrorism and related cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges throughout the Biden administration.
Venezuela has always been a minor player in the drug trade compared to other countries. The whole narco-terrorism thing has always been code for "he took back the oil and we don't like him"
No no, we pardon narco-terrorist cocaine trafficking presidents now.
"Justified" in what sense? Who does this administration - or indeed USA in general - answer to?
Folks there's nothing new or insane here. Countries attacked other countries all throughout human history. The surprise is when they don't.
Now it's not super hard to understand why Trump is fixated on Venezuela in terms of geopolitics. There's a decision by this admin to bolster US in the western hemisphere, possibly in preparation to coming to terms with a bipolar world split between US and China. So the US is now meddling with Canada and Greenland. Now with the shift towards the right in Latam (Milei in Argentina, Bukele in El Salvador, Kast in Chile) Trump is just pushing a few more bricks to create a more uniform American-led sphere. Plus, Venezuela was very close with the Iranians and Russians, so removing this regime surely serves some strategic goals.
> "Justified" in what sense?
"Justified" in the sense of "went to congress for a declaration of war". You know, that thing Presidents stopped doing in the early 2000s.
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I mean, do they really need to justify it any further? They just arrested Maduro while causing very little collateral damage, if they'd failed dramatically then they'd have much more questions to answer.
In a world with at least the appearance of international law, yes they very much would have questions to answer
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So capturing a citizen of another country, who happens to be their leader, and spiriting him out of the country is cool with you?
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The kind of question where I lament what appears to be a newer generation having absolutely no idea of what has gone before ...
It actually terrifies me ...
It's like we're missing intellectual depth of moral backbone where it really matters (and no, I don't mean on Twitter).
I think there may have been some deliberate misdirection. I'm writing this after the US announced they have captured Maduro. If they had said they were going to do that he probably would have taken precautions. The subsequent justification may be that María Machado won the election, is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Maduro's removal with US assistance. Though who knows?
He might have. Or he might well have come willingly, ordered his bodyguards not to shoot etc. figuring that he'll have a better chance being an alive headache for the US, than as an Allende being found dead by his own hand (supposedly), or as Saddam being found hiding in a pigsty somewhere 50 days later.
That justification feels weak because of how much it could parallel with Putin's special military operation, where Zelensky is an illegitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Zelenksy's removal with Russian assistance.
I don't like how Trump has unilaterly decided this extreme of an action, but at the moment I am glad that this didn't fail like it did in Ukraine. I am still worried about what the aftermath will lead to. I don't think peace and democracy is having a particularly winning record at the moment.
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Maduro is alive and charged with crimes in a US court. So, we will see evidence presented I guess. This is new.
I'm surprised Maduro wasn't just killed, and wonder if he might somehow die in US custody. The US will have to make a case in court while the whole world watches. That will be embarrassing I expect.
https://youtu.be/ijFOLv17RX4
This is immensely funny (actually it's not) that the US trials Maduro when they do not accept the ICC. I guess US law is the ultimate law.
If they have evidence he violated US law smuggling weapons and drugs into the domestic USA, he should be tried under such law. It's neither ironic, funny, strange, or anything else. What law should he be tried under if he did these alleged things?
They extradited him by force because Venezuela wouldn't. They don't have an extradition treaty. If Venezuela doesn't want this to happen again - negotiate a treaty.
The USA doesn't "accept" the ICC because it's not a party to the agreement. There are not-insignificant constitutional problems with the USA being a party. It's because they have such strong civil protections that those issues come up.
The ICC is also complementary - you misunderstand what it is for. If the USA is able to prosecute this guy themselves, you don't need an ICC, because it doesn't apply in this case.
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If this is all true, then China has been pretty much given green light to invade Taiwan, in my opinion.
Or maybe it is a message that we have a madman at the top with a finger on the trigger. Do not even try.
What makes you think China needs a green light lmao? International Law has been dead for years now, might makes right
US can easily annihilate Russia. Yet Russia still invades Ukraine. Yet US doesn't do much about it.
Hell, Europe can annihilate Russia. Yet they don't do much of anything to Russia.
International Law is more like a boy scout code.
Did current Taiwan president ignore elections results?
Trump himself did much worse in 2020.
China hasn't invaded Taiwan because of US's military power. That is it. It is not worth it at the moment.
It is not because US isn't a hypocrite. Come on. How naive do we have to be about it this?
I would have agreed completely yesterday.
Today, I just think that the downside just seems much less. I am just not sure how much the political calculus has changed with this move.
There are two possibilities. Either we live in a rules-based international order, in which case China would be punished for invading Taiwan. Or we live in a world where power decides outcomes, in which case China would still be punished, this time by the United States, which is arguably still the strongest actor.
Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
With the US being now engaging her Navy in South America more, I am not so sure that America can really match a Blitzkrieg-style invasion, and it is probably not quite able to project enough soft power to get the 'vassal states' to effectively help.
So while I am by no means pro-Taiwan invasion, I do believe that there is a very significant downside wrt China with this move.
N.B. I'm no military wonk or political strategist, far from it. I just call 'em as i see's 'em.
>Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
There's someone else in this thread suggesting that the quid pro quo was exactly that. My brothers in Christ, I am worried.
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As someone old enough to have seen the US invade too many countries, I'm struck by the lack of effort put into justifying this sort of military action these days. There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal and I have no idea where the courts or history will ultimately land on that decision. But the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far.
To briefly quantify some things: US public support at the onset of the Afghanistan invasion polled at 88% [a]; at the onset of the Iraq invasion, 62%, rising to 72% [b]; and Venezuela here and now polls at 30% supporting "U.S. taking military action in Venezuela" [c] (Nov. 19–21 2025).
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_public_opinion_o...
[b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...
[c] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-venezuela-u-s-military-act...
I suspect that invading and bombing a country for a few hours and then pulling out is not what most people will have in mind when you mention "taking military action". People are much, much more likely to remember the military quagmires in Vietnam or the Middle East, which have absolutely nothing to do with what occurred here.
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Public opinion in 2001 and 2003 followed the 9/11 terror attack and was very fresh in peoples mind. A more recent war (2015) would be the attack on Yemen by Barack Obama.
I can however not find any good public opinion for that war.
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I think this is a very good indicator US has been transitioning away from democracy towards something else for quite a while and now it has reached a point where no justification for an illegal war is even required.
After the Iraq war we(US allies that were dragged into this war by a bunch of lies) felt like this was very bad, but it was a blunder of one administration and the trust in the US as a whole was going to be restored.
Now, no one even pretends this is the case.
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Ironically it's very possible the support for US military intervention is higher among Venezuelans than US citizens.
On the plus side, that's probably good for the odds of success.
On the minus side, they're not paying the bill.
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Even the slightest shadow of a "rules-based international world order" is dead. And all it took was some post-pandemic inflation.
It has been a coordinated effort by a portion of republicans for the past decade. It didn’t happen just because of the pandemic
"Rules-based international world order" consists of just two rules:
1. The Western countries (basically meaning USA makes the decision) may attack any country.
2. Other countries may not defend themselves nor attack any country.
Iraq, Iraq (several separate agressions on Iraq, that is not a typo), Afghanistan, Cuba, Serbia, Libya, Sirya, Venezuela... the list goes on, Venezuela is of no particular significance here.
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I wouldn't call it "some inflation". The living standard of the western middle class has been on the decline for a long, long time.
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2014 was before covid.
"Rules-based order" just means Washington makes up the rules and gives out the orders. The very phrase hints at its conceit. Why "Rules-based order" instead of "International law" ? Its because International law is something concrete, something you can point to and hold up as a standard. International law means UN, ICC, Geneva conventions, votes and parlimentary procedure. It means accountability and uniform application of said law. "Rules-based order" just gives a slightest hint of legitimacy while Washington and its cronies do whatever they want. "Rules-based order" means that the United States can invoke the Monroe Doctrine in Venezuela, Cuba and all over its "backyard" i.e. South America, but Russia doing the same in Ukraine or China doing it in Taiwan is an affront to civillization.
What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off. They don't even pretend to give a plausible reason anymore because noone will ever buy it so why bother. "All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." That is what we are witnessing now.
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Just a slight re-write of the rules needed.
Interestingly, this is not just flaunting international law. It is a blatant violation of federal domestic law in the USA itself: Congress is the only body that can declare war, and they have not done so. The Presidency has no right whatsoever to attack a foreign country without a declaration of war.
While yes, Congress authorized the "War on Terror", there is very obviously no possible justification for applying that to the case of Venezuela.
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>these days
Panama and Granada in the 80s weren't that fundamentally different. And before that US had a very long history of invading or intervening in Latin American countries due to various often dubious reasons.
If anything the last few decades might have been the exception.
Well, "Venezuela has stolen American oil which is in Venezuela".
Isn't that a justification?!
Just like how Denmark and Greenland stole American land that happens to be where Greenland is. Or Canada.
Seriously though, even the imperial ambitions from the guy feels racist :)
I guess Turkey can stop worrying on thanksgiving days.
I have a lot of conflicting views with both the "left" and the "right" these days, but it seems the so-called "conservatives" are not that conservative in their ambitions, no?
> the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far
A lot of Americans don't care. They either actually don't care. Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Like, this entire exercise is a leveraged wager by the Trump administration that this will not cost them the Senate in any of these states next year [1].
[1] https://www.270towin.com/2026-senate-election/
I think also many dont have the time or ressources to care. If you live a precarious life, you are happy if you can pay for food and your home.
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What data do you have that they don’t care? Waging a war is a pretty massive thing to not care about. I would think that someone would either be positive or negative towards it. Because even if they don’t care about invading countries per se they would presumably care about what their presumed tax money is spent on.
Of course being “nihilistic” is a different matter.
> Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Typical.
Doing anything about US foreign interventions is a very tall order in a country where the vast majority are politically disenfranchised (with income and wealth as a proxy). It’s difficult enough for domestic affairs, like getting universal healthcare. Much harder to fight the war machine.
Americans did put up a fight against the interventionism of the Reagan administration. But that didn’t stop the funding of the Contras. “All it did” was force the interventions to become clandestine. (A big contrast to this admin.)
But ordinary Americans do have the largest power in all of the world to fight the war machine of their own country. That ought to be encouraged. But as usual we see the active encouragement of nihilism from comments where A Lot Of X are deemed to be useless for this particular purpose. Ah what’s the point, People Are Saying that everyone around me are useless or politically katatonic. Typical.
> There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
There might be a local debate about the legality in the US. But from the outside perspective in terms of international law, there is not much to debate. Unless i missed some UN resolution, the US has no jurisdiction in Venezuela.
>There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
Or maybe there wouldn't be any debate and people will move on to the next bombastic thing he does. Populists get away with everything by simply not engaging, people get tired and seek new entertainment and there's no actual checks and balances beyond the decency. When someone has no claim of decency, they are untouchable. No one will ever arrest them, stop them or deny them anything because they can just replace those who do not obey. Maduro, Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Orban and many others are made from the same cloth.
And let's not forget that the stated rationale in this case, drugs, is very obviously pretextual.
This is a consequence of the society concentrating on its internal culture war. International politics became irrelevant to most voters; they don't really have any personal stake in it anymore, or they at least don't feel so. Their kids won't be drafted to war.
It’s funny how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime change whose ultimate goal isn’t about drugs or democracy, but getting access to oil and minerals to make the Trump family richer.
And that’s so why there is a lack of effort to justify it. The right has been compromised and will support anything the party does - deporting citizens, invading countries, making things unaffordable with tariffs.
> how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime change
Is it?
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It was one or two elections ago that we entirely dropped the pretense of dignity.
Quite refreshing, actually.
Earlier today I heard the argument that idealism was promoted in the West because it encourages a separation from reality and makes people easier to control.
I consider myself an idealist. I just don't believe that ignorance and delusion are the means by which an ideal can be brought about.
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It’s mind blowing how many people here justify this because Maduro is “bad for Venezuela”, as if the US was appointed to be to police of the world.
Such self centric view that usually leads to dark places.
(I'm not American)
I think all that's required here is that Maduro had such bad relationships with everyone both inside and outside the country that there was no one to defend him.
If the UN calls for a vote to condemn the US, it will likely fail even without veto power.
It's run of the mill conservativism. I wonder if it is just an age group thing or what.
I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.
John Stewart had a good piece about it on The Daily Show a few weeks ago. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QGzYFjVaU
Maduro isn't a good leader. He's been very repressive, very likely stole the 2024 election from his opponent. Venezuela has terrible economic problems and food and medicine shortages.
They have been assisting Russia, operating a shadow fleet of oil tankers that routinely disable transponders to evade international sanctions against each other. They've also been helping Iran to manufacture UAVs.
They are also a narco-state. The cartel there has at least partially captured the government.
Installing a more palatable leader and administration would perhaps allow the sanctions to be lifted, oil to be sold on the global market, and aid to flow in. The brain drain from the country might partly reverse.
Or, it could devolve into a civil war, insurgency, mass refugee exodus, etc.
All the above describes many countries, more or less. Why the US is targeting Venezuela in particular likely has to do with oil, geopolitical principle (Monroe doctrine) and advantage (weaken Iran and Russia), Venezuelan immigration to the U.S., distraction from Trump's failing health, personal & political scandals, "red meat" for the base and war-hawks, and the political security afforded to a "war time" president.
>Monroe asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence,[4] and thus further efforts by European powers to control or influence sovereign states in the region would be viewed as a threat to U.S. security.[5][6]
>In turn, the United States would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
Does that last part apply to Venezuela? Or has the doctrine evolved?
I highly doubt that weakening Iran and Russia is the goal here, and I'm not even sure how people got that idea. This isn't 2010 anymore.
These decisions require a pretty broad coalition to get a workable plan in front of Trump for him to activate for attention. So there is never 1 single reason, but my 2cents are that:
- Most of the oil export goes to China. Especially with the recent metals kerfuffle, this is a quick way to improve the US' negotiation position.
- The hawks in the army are getting restless and are clamoring for real-world modern drone warfare experience - especially if Taiwan turns hot. Getting a trial run in your backyard in similar terrain is good practice. (Assuming they'll send in an occupying force, and it's contested by china backed insurgents).
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To be more explicit: Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the entire world and, due to the above, are not inclined to transact it with the US.
This deserves far more than the two little sidenotes you've dropped in here.
POTUS demonstrably does not give a fuck about countries "assisting Russia", "being repressive", "stealing elections" or "having economic/food/health problems".
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Trump blamed Venezuela for stealing US oil when it nationalized US oil companies there, and for shipping drugs to America, and for creating Dominion voting machines which he believes were used to cheat in the 2020 election. Some in his administration have also blamed Venezuela for working with Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas. One or more of those could be the reason for the invasion.
Trump also blamed Venezuela for literally conducting an invasion of the United States (not just in rhetoric, but as his legal justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March of 2025.)
Trump is blaming Venezuela for the fentanyl crisis in America. But it’s actually about stealing Venezuela’s oil and minerals:
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...
Once a puppet regime has been established, you can bet Trump-related companies will get contracts to extract this stuff.
> it’s actually about stealing Venezuela’s oil and minerals
It's multi-faceted. Venezuela is a hive of Russian, Chinese and Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere. That is–long run–a problem for America.
Venezuela is also a brutal dictatorship that is oppressing its people and producing waves of migrants.
Finally, Venezuela is rich in underdeveloped mineral and energy resources. (Caveat: Exxon currently pumps those wells.)
Venezuela is also not Epstein, so, idk, there's that.
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Should be on the lookout for major upcoming domestic news they're trying to bury.
It doesn't have to be upcoming. This is still a distraction from Epstein.
Notice the hypocrisy of the "explosions reported" title instead of "US bombs Venezuela".
no, that makes sense. It's probably too soon to be sure what has happened. This is why we need actual journalists and not just tiktok and yt commentators
POTUS confirmed it, first on CBS News and prior to the Guardian posting that, then on his Mastodon server. There is no room for doubt about who bombed where.
As this is an evolving situation, the OP headline has now been changed to "Trump claims US has captured Venezuelan dictator and wife" and is basically a different article at this point.
The bias in this Guardian reporting is very visible beyond just the headlines.
(I don't blame you for being confused btw)
Suggesting "US bombs Venezuela" for HN headline (still uncertainties around the "capture").
Welcome to the wonderful world of news/media. Try this with US/China, EU/russia, Israel/Palestine, etc. Note the framing, word usage, etc. Both sides could do the same thing but the headlines diverge. One side gets "aggressive", "destablizing", "terrorism", etc. The other gets "defensive", "stabilizing", "anti-terrorism", etc. Not to mention who gets called a "dictator/authoritarian". That one is real funny.
Do you understand what the word ”hypocrisy” means? This is textbook responsible journalism in a scenario where ”common sense” is not yet verified.
edit: this comment made before two threads were consolidated. Original thread titled "Explosions reported in Venezuelan capital Caracas"
While I agree that "hypocrisy" isn't the right word here, I see where OP is coming from.
At least in American media, the use of passive voice (or as I've heard it called sometimes "exonerative voice") often obfuscates or otherwise provides cover for authorities. For example, "Tower collapses after missile strike" and "Man dies after being struck by bullet during arrest" are both technically true and yet also leave out important context (the country who fired the missile, the person who fired the gun and why).
Even if this headline is appropriate for now, it's not surprising that there should be questions over how it's worded.
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Yes they know what "hypocrisy" means. It is the hypocrisy of western media of jumping to say "evil country X bombed/invaded country Y" when it's a non-western country doing something (not that I'm justifying any country bombing/invading another) but when it's done by a country like the US the report is just "wow these buildings in Caracas just popped, crazy huh?"
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It's not textbook responsible when it's consistently and predictably done for only one side of every conflict.
That's like if a waiter gives the appropriate amount of attention to the tables with white guests and disregards tables with minority guests. You can't clutch your pearls and say that it isn't hypocrisy to notice that the waiter treats a given table correctly.
"There's so much oil in here, US is about to invade this dish!"
--Chef Ramsay
So the US will be excluded from the SWIFT banking system? Heavy international sanctions will be put in place? Europe will send weapons and money to help Venezuela defend itself?
No? Oh... just checking.
They extradited a guy for crimes also illegal in Venezuela. What would the point of sanctioning actions like this be?
This is about the cleanest extraterritorial action you can take. A guy probably did some seriously illegal stuff in your country and his, who was probably illegally elected, who probably had people killed.
Why not do this? Why not say to Venezuela, hand him over or we'll take him ourselves?
He's not going to gitmo, he'll have the same due process that every other American gets. Rights Maduro denied to millions. If you asked me to describe "justice" - I have to give this as a good example. He's going to die in prison like Noriega, after a fair trial.
By your reasoning, Putin invading the US and kidnapping President Trump for his crimes is equally valid
If the EU could we would.
It would be fun to station a few French nukes on Greenland as a response :)
But probably the wise choice is doing nothing publicly. Behind the scenes stop buying US weapon systems.
The key difference is: tHe Us BrInGs DeMoCrAcY
It’s incredibly depressing to watch the same mistake made again well within my own lifetime. Regime change by chopping off the top failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and it’ll fail here too. Many will die. It doesn’t matter how bad or illegitimate the deposed leader is.
Don’t forget Lybia
If it's to get access to the oil reserve, it is bad news for the shale oil industry in the USA : maybe "drill baby drill" is not feasible any more, and the only way to maintain the level of GDP is to get the oil from somewhere else.
Or it's just banking oil to prepare a war with China.
Thank FSM some AI-first is going to create fusion any time soon to power the robots solving climate change.
Don't expect the administration to make any sense on this topic. The same time they were signing executive orders and blabbing about the US oil industry, they were telling OPEC to lower prices. There's no coherency to be had with them. They simply don't understand the world or trivial economics.
I get slightly desperate realizing how people are lead to such naive discussions, even in a place with supposedly instructed, informed persons. Maduro may be a dictator, a murderer, whatever. This has absolutely no relation with the reasons for US invading, bombing and killing Venezuelans, or whichever country. For about a century, US has been doing it all over the world, not because they wanna live in a better, peaceful world - quite the opposite, they've been doing it for supporting coups and stablishing dictatorships that favour their supremacy, their role as the most powerful country in the world. Do you really, really believe Mr. Donald is very concerned about the lives of poor venezuelans? Or, just to stay in the region, he supports El Salvador dictator because he's a very nice fellow?
I don't understand what you're saying here. First, yep, countries act in self-interest. There's no war in the history of the planet that was started out of the kindness of one's heart. That doesn't mean that the outcome of a self-interested intervention can't be just or good for the country in the long haul. I don't know how this one will pan out, but I suspect that the interests of the US and of the citizens of Venezuela are aligned much more closely than, say, in the Middle East.
Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum. The reality is that there's a fierce competition between superpowers to broaden their spheres of influence and ultimately control the world. There's no future in which a relatively small, resource-rich, and politically dysfunctional country is left to its own devices. The choice is between Russia, China, and the US. Venezuela was more or less one of the Russian client states, and that status quo was maintained through undemocratic means, including mass murder of political opponents using the military gear provided by RU. Now, the US is going to try its hand, probably in a far less brutal way.
The US regime hates Maduro because he kept Venezuelan oil nationalized so it can be benefit the Venezuelan people rather than foreign shareholders of oil companies. Although US sanctions intended to choke their economy and bring about regime change have made that difficult in practice.
The interests of the US imperialists and the Venezuelan people therefore could not be more diametrically opposed.
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> I don't understand what you're saying here.
You clearly did, US is acting out of pure self interest and pretending otherwise.
> Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum
Invading a foreign nation, stealing their resources and imprisoning thier leader is a malicious act, no matter how you slice it.
Just because there are other competitors or good "may" come out of it (so you say), doesn't justify it.
The mental gymnastics by Americans to position themselves as "liberators", while bombing other countries and stealing their territory / resources is stunning.
reality has been a rules based order where states voluntary agreements with each other, not spheres of influence.
this is a change to how russia wants the world to work
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All this guessing is based on historical examples of results of US involvement in Americas, I presume?
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So, the taken is, as China and Russia are very evil, it's OK if the US is evil (but just a bit less than the other actors).
I though they (the US?) were aiming to be better. Like, the "great" in MAGA wasn't like in "great empire". /s
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It's a win-win, it's good for Venezuelans and US wants the country to become an ally. People behind the decision probably took both into account.
In principle, it's morally good to overthrow a dictator in some circumstances. The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
> It's a win-win
Bold statement considering the history.
win-win: Panama, Grenada.
not win-win: Brazil, El Salvador, Bolivia, Iran, Nicaragua, Chile, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya.
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Well, last time the US intervened in my country it was to actually install a dictator that would benefit them.
It's too early to say it's a win-win situation.
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It’s surprising how hard it is for some people to understand this. Yes oil blah blah. A few billion bucks, but the much bigger picture is (at least in this theory) Venezuela gets a democracy and the U.S. gets a stable strategic partner in an important part of its back yard. I’m not evaluating it yet, but there is definitely a bull case for this move on the geopolitical level.
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The US has not conducted a successful nation building project since WWII. This is not a coincidence. We don't have the capability.
Killing the dictator is the easy part.
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> The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...
Now you have a country where every living being from their birth has been trained that US is bad and their leader is like God on earth.
Your 'little risk of something going wrong' is wishful thinking or naive
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The most obvious example is a fantasy in your mind.
The most obvious counter-example is the entire history of unilateral regime change.
Wouldn’t NK say the same against US? Are we the good guys? Or they are? Or nobody?
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If only it were that easy…
Overthrowing a dictator most often gets either a new dictator or years of brutal violence and turmoil
Were you in favor of the Iraq war?
This is "we don't let poor people have money because they'll only get fat if they have food to eat" levels of rhetoric.
USA military should be taking heed of their own country's laws before pretending to be enforcing laws in other countries in order to further enrich their oligarchy.
Sure, remove the NK dictator that USA is partly responsible for being put in to power ... but only with international agreement and a plan for rapid move to have open elections. USA is in no place to do this given the lack of democracy there.
Do you really believe the story about freeing Venezuelan's? You're in for a surprise then when USA rapes them for their oil.
How would you feel if Iran captures Trump, a convicted felon with no respect to the rule of the law, running crypto schemes from the office and with proved connections to a pedophile ring trafficking and planning for a 3rd therm and staying in the office for life?
I’m sure a lot of Americans will be celebrating it on the streets. Will that be a win win too?
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Is it?
"Trump announced US oil companies will rebuild Venezuelan oil industry
Oh would you look at that
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZaKSfiOzCw
Sometimes bad people do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, but there is some good aspect to it.
The US could be acting in their own interest and their actions could benefit Venezuelans at the same time. Venezuela has insane amounts of oil and could be the Saudi Arabia of south America. Why aren't they? Why are there food shortages there? Where's all the oil revenue going? Why isn't there more oil revenue?
A major factor is that Venezuela's oil is mostly heavier crude, which is denser and more viscous. This makes it costlier and more difficult to extract and refine, and usually sells for a lower price than lighter crude.
There's also rampant mismanagement, poor infrastructure, and sanctions affecting the output and outcomes. See also: "resource curse"
Well it could have something to do with the US previous involvement in Venezuela dating back over 100 years.
Based on where I was born and my background, I should not know as much as I do about Venezuela. Improbably, life led me to develop close ties to some Venezuelans, and with them as a window, I've learned a lot about that country.
In this case, the people of Venezuela are desperate to get rid of their socialist government. It has, predictably and inevitably, led them directly to poverty, starvation, and violent repression.
I have a lot of reservations about the way in which Trump is operating and in this case, the legality of every aspect of how he is doing this operation in Venezuela. Despite all those reservations, this is a rare situation where this action benefits everyone and the world.
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HN comments is a heavily biased and propagandized place. The most moderate opinion you'll find here will be something like "actually Venezuelans are happy that they are being bombed by the US!"
> The most moderate opinion you'll find here will be something like
The large majority of what I'm seeing is from the other side of the aisle.
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Have you considered that it might not be HN being propagandized but instead all other social medias from which you likely use to construct your worldview? It would be an incredible waste of time to try and sway opinion here on global politics.
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Trump just literally announced that oil companies are coming to get the Oil of Venezuela. Sorry, everything else was naive to believe.
Ironic comment. El Salvador’s president has extremely high approval ratings and was definitely elected democratically. The US hasn’t ousted a democratically elected government since the end of the Cold War (as far as I know).
Could it be because democratically elected governments are becoming a thing of the past?
Uh what? I’m all about American hegemony but let’s not stupid.
Mossadegh Arbenz Allende Goulart Lumunba And Maduro was elected as well though you can go on with it being corrupt if you want.
These are just the ones we directly overthrew who were elected. There are 20 more or so we’ve done so indirectly.
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FIFA looking awful silly right now.
> FIFA looking awful silly right now
They can take bribes with impunity for another 2 years. That's better than 2015 [1] and probably everything they wanted from that trophy.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-...
Pretty sure they knew what they wrought.
What's the FIFA connection here?
FIFA Peace Prize laureate is the person responsible for giving the order to attack, assuming that those are caused by the US military.
https://inside.fifa.com/campaigns/football-unites-the-world/...
"The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was presented with the inaugural 'FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World' by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ at the iconic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC" [1].
[1] https://inside.fifa.com/campaigns/football-unites-the-world/...
Their peace prize…
…that they invented from whole cloth this year just so they could award it to Trump, the most deserving president of a fake prize from one of the most corrupt organisations on Earth.
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Is it more “peaceful” to rule over people illegitimately?
Yes, it's more peaceful than war. Especially when the "illegitimately" part is determined by US-aligned and sponsored organizations for the purpose of manufacturing consent for regime change.
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Not just FIFA, also the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
I think people are overindexed on the US's failures to turn Islamic theocracies into democracies. The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
> The people in Venezuela want democracy.
Venezuela had a democracy for decades. It's the US that has been trying to destroy it for decades because the venezuelans voted for the wrong guy. It's funny how we forgot that the US also tried to remove the previous elected leader of venezuela.
Last year the people decided to vote for an alternative and the dictator decided to stay in power.
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Given the US position in favor of Bolsanaro against Lula indicates that Trump is not interested in Democracy if it produces the wrong result. If Venezuelans elect a Socialist, they will immediately be out of our good graces.
> The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney (but I'm sure it'll work out this time)
There is a whole lot of directions this can go after we arrest the dictator, but a liberal democracy magically immediately popping isn't on my list. There might be one in the future but there will be a lot of chaos and violence between now and then.
What happened in Europe after WW2? Dick Cheney didn't invent the idea of America liberating a country and being greeted as liberators, it had happened before, specifically in countries that had a history of liberal democracy.
For some reason he thought it would apply to Islamic theocracies and it clearly didn't. Pattern matching Venezuela against Iraq or Afghanistan is an obvious mistake.
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> The people in Venezuela want democracy.
Let’s assume for a second this is true, and the US is genuinely helping by removing a dictator.
Why Venezuela? Why not one of the other dozens of countries in the world this is the case?
Hint: oil.
I don't know if you remember that Hugo Chavez was voted into power, had a legitimate mandate to dismantle the democracy that elevated him, and then his voters defended him against a violent coup to restore that democracy.
"had a legitimate mandate to dismantle the democracy"... citation needed.
I wonder if you would defend Trump for the same actions, and also don’t forget ‘dismantling free press’ in Hugo’s list of accomplishments.
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The funny part of that narrative is the US government currently being led by people who have been trying to tear down the concept of democracy in the US. Maybe once Venezuela has their democracy back, they can help out the people in the US?
What’s even funnier is that, in some kind of trial, Maduro should enjoy Presidential Immunity.
And the US want oil and other resources.
So Venezuela has to vote correctly otherwise it will get "freed" again
Going by what recently happened in Honduras, they won't even need to vote. The US will just choose for them!
How convenient.
Why would Washington try to get oil from Venezuela when its domestic oil industry produces all the oil the US needs (and if production were to decrease, the US economy could easily make up the shortfall by buying oil from Canada)?
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Determining the goodness of a blatantly illegal action by its ultimate success is a very Machiavellian view. Why have laws if all that matters is the final result?
What kind of democracy do Venezuelans want and will it be the same kind of democracy Trump wants to install? What if they want a democracy that continues to be friendly towards Cuba and wary of the US? Will Trump accept that?
If your hypothetical plays out I'll say you were right.
The problem US has always had with Latin America is that it's population likes a Socialist flavour of Democracy.
That doesn't rub well to the ruthless capitalist ideals of America. That's the reason why the US has destabilized the region again and again.
Boy I wish I was still this naive
"the common people sew dragon banners and pray for your return"
I can talk to Venezuelans and see videos of them celebrating in the streets.
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I don't think the US has any interest in a democratic and stable middle east.
It's much easier and cheaper to extract resources from a balkanized region.
My entire life, we have always been at war. :|
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” ― George Orwell
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. On the sixth day of Hate Week... it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally."
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
“Big Brother is Watching You.”
I'm old enough that I grew up (well) before 9/11. Many in my age bracket will describe the 90s as the last great decade. I feel sad for those who are younger who never experienced that world, the world between the Cold War and the War on Terror.
It was a time when you could walk up to the gate in an airport before the TSA. A lot of younger people don't realize that's how it actually was. They think it's one of those things made up for movies.
Houses were cheap. Rent was cheap. Cars were cheap. Gas was cheap. Food was cheap. A friend of mine had college buddies who shared a 4 bedroom house in Iowa for $175/month. Not each. Total. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment close to a train and the city center for a little over $200/month. I lived as a student just fine on $200/week (in 1995), including paying for rent. My degree cost me about $10,000.
The other side of that was the Cold War when we lived under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. I think this was generationally traumatic to people who grew up in the 50s (way before my time) but by the 80s? It wwas like background noise.
There was a lot of optimism with the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Union. On reflection, much later, I think this was terrible for the world. When the USSR existed as a counter to the US, the US was forced to at least do something for its citizens. The Red Scare destroyed collectivism and the US does things like the War on Terror now and, well, capturing the Venezuelan president, with complete impunity. They're open about it too: it's for oil. A handful of billionaires will get richer as a result of this.
The Big Lebowski is, to me, the most 90s movie of all time and it just gets better with age. Oh, the output of HOllywood in general was amazing in the 1990s. At that time I used to go see movies once or even twice a week. There was always something good on. Goodfellas and Terminator 2 spring to mind.
There just seemed to be more hope then. Now? I feel for anyone who was born after 2000. Crippled with debt with limited prospects of any kind of security. It's just so different to how it was.
EDIT: qualified that the $200/week figure was in 1995, not the 1980s. That's like $430 in today's money by the same inflation calculator.
I am Polish and I was 15 in 1990 when the Berlin Wall fell.
Lately I was thinking if it was only me or my fellow Poles remembering 90s as times of freedom and hope.
Thanks for confirming it is much wider experience and memory.
yes, i can relate to that. everything went down-the-fucking-hill since then.
but let's not forget the war in Yugoslavia – even in the best of times there were wars.
Important to note here that the $200/week figure from 80s is the same as $830/week today due to inflation [0]. Rent and degrees specifically have gone up a ridiculous amount, yes, but as far as the rest of it goes, most students today would jump at the opportunity of having that much disposable income.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
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I believe the Jesus Jones song, "Right Here, Right Now" has become an ironic commentary on Gen X; in that brief moment in the 90's when we thought the nuclear sword of Damocles dangling over all of us had finally been cut down...
Not a great song, but one that expresses the zeitgeist in a pretty succinct way.
We thought that we were at the cusp of a new era... one where we could overcome the injustices of the past and author a future based on the best version of ourselves.
In the end, Gen X never even got a chance to start; we watched from the sidelines as geriatric Boomers clung (and still cling) to power -- leaving less and less of that (ever more naive) dream behind.
"Right here, right now,
there's no other place I'd rather be.
Right here, right now,
watching the world wake up from history."
The song hasn't aged well & has become a cloy reminder of that time and what we didn't become.
90s Hollywood was immense man. With you there!
I'm horrible at reading between the lines, but this just smells of oil related concerns. It's not about a bad leader, it's not about drugs.
The standard playbook. If its not nuclear weapons, it's the spread of democracy, or "helping people". The global police just securing their natural resources, nothing to see here.
There's nothing to read between the lines. Trump has stated very clearly that he wants to "take back" the oil.
So we are back to the 1980's CIA actions destabilising South America, each day feels more like Cold War is here.
Yeah because a communist dictatorship is so stable /s
That isn't the problem, but you know it.
No dictatorship has been communist. They use the mantle, that it's for nation and country, but they don't even pay lip service to communism ideals and mechanism. They are just crony capitalist, where the head of the state is the one that uses the state to control the economy rather than the rich doing it by proxy.
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“If we [Economic Hit Men] falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military.”
John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Read: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-us-is-attempting-...
Prof. Philips P Obrien's analysis is an interesting one, also highlighting Cuba's reliance on Venezuelan oil, which complicates the situation further.
At best this is a violation of international law, at worst we have seen many times how badly things can turn when leaders are removed by foreign power.
And Maduro was never in violation of international law? Why didn't anyone enforce the law?
Venezuela accuses US after explosions and low-flying aircraft reported in Caracas – live
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Venezuela accuses US of attacking Caracas as explosions rock capital
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/explosions-rep...
A boy receives a horse as a gift. Villagers say, "How wonderful!"
The Zen master replies, "We'll see".
The boy falls while riding the horse, breaks his leg. Villagers say, "How terrible!"
The master says, "We'll see".
War comes, all young men are drafted, but the boy is spared due to his leg. Villagers say, "How lucky!"
The master says, "We'll see".
On the legality front
Congress practically matters when significant mobilization, boots on the ground, money, with high likelihood of many lives lost. Iraq. Not random one-off adventures.
Otherwise modern Presidents have done this thing for decades.
I think it’s more an effective argument to question this as a policy. As in “is there a plan for what comes next”. Congress should be holding hearings and performing oversight to understand whether theres actually a plan and to allow debate.
Hard to draw conclusions from early reports like this. Situations involving explosions tend to generate a lot of noise before verified facts emerge, especially in politically tense environments. Best to wait for confirmation on cause, scale, and impact before speculating, and hopefully accurate information follows quickly.
TikTok videos showing Apache helicopters shooting missiles at targets. Lots of planes and helicopters flying over Caracas
followup: the little black outlines in the video correspond to helicopter-like objects. I just referred to Apache for some reason, most local memory of an attack helicopter. apparently it's something else
I agree. It's now confirmed that DJT ordered military attacks on Venezuela
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/venezuela-us-military-s...
Based on the fleet and aircraft movement and mobilization reports, this was probably a combination of 3/75 Ranger Regiment and/or RRC, Delta/CAG, 24th STS, and probably 1 or more SEAL teams based on the sub movement.
The clear fly-out with rotary wing craft seemingly without a concern in the world tells me they absolutely decapitated Venezuela's air defenses.
Their intelligence must have been flawless to have this level of confidence.
This wasn't just a raid, it was an extremely visible one meant to send a message.
Edit: Bloomberg is reporting they captured and extracted Maduro
https://archive.is/2026.01.03-094534/https://www.bloomberg.c...
>this was probably a combination of 3/75 Ranger Regiment and/or RRC, Delta/CAG, 24th STS, and probably 1 or more SEAL teams based on the sub movement.
If you're going to flaunt nerd speak then just say JSOC.
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I’m not suggesting it’s “nothing” or minimizing it. Just that in the first hours after explosions, reports are often incomplete or wrong. Past cases show everything from industrial accidents, gas explosions, ammo depots, infrastructure failures, or internal security incidents getting misattributed early on.
Jumping straight to geopolitical conclusions before verified facts usually adds heat, not clarity. Waiting for confirmation on what actually happened doesn’t excuse anyone’s behavior, it just keeps the discussion grounded in evidence rather than emotion.
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Replace Venezuela with Iraq, and Maduro with Saddam, and read this whole comment section. We never learn.
That was different. There was an ultimatum, there was a coalition.
Yes, the recreational wars were dumb, wrong, illegal and just all around bad ideas.
But there was a solid attempt at giving them legitimacy. This matters.
You’re describing how Iraq was sold, not why it was justified.
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It is early in the news but I also read about the US working on directly having the nation transition. Gives me bad vibes as someone who lived through the invasion of Iraq. TBH, I am not very knowledgeable but I assume there's less sectarianism and lack of infrastructure so it is a different situation. Although with all things Trump, it's his execution and competency following through after the immediate ready decision.
Yeah, I also read that in the news, which was the thought behind my comment honestly.
how can you possibly make such a call so early on
This is more Panama 1989 than Iraq 2003.
We have seen the same scenario. First military occupation, second a puppy US-phile government, third oil infra rebuild by US oil companies. Simultaneously a clear sign to Russia/China who the boss is in South America.
Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Easy: he’s the Emperor of America. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court said that laws don’t apply to him and the Republican-controlled Congress disbanded itself. Are you honestly surprised that he’s just doing whatever he wants?
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?
Wtf kind of dumbass answer is this. It's not even out of character for the USA to do this.
The brain-rot seeping from this comment.
The guy committed crimes in Venezuela and USA. Now he's going to be tried for him. They could have just killed him - they didn't. He will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison.
And for cleanly executing that we have people talking about an emperor and disbanded congress.
If you want a real answer, it's because the president is the supreme commander ("commander-in-chief") of the US armed forces. He can order them to, and it's unlikely that they would refuse to carry out an operation like that.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
It's been like this for a while. It has been assumed that Congress doesn't have that power anymore but the president does. Here is a letter that President Obama wrote on the subject that explains it a bit (but if you want to hear more about this check 99 Percent Invisible podcast on the latest constitution breakdown series).
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/0...
Presumably under the War Powers Resolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Provisio...
> Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
[0] <https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-...>
[1] See the "The Korean War" section here: <https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11236>
The same way every president since ww2 has been able to.
Trump does whatever he wants. He ignores the courts and congress. Approval only matters if a power exists to hold him accountable (enforcement of laws). It doesn't. Trump has the military and law enforcement in his pocket, so there is no power capable of challenging him.
I haven't yet seen what the legal cover for this use of military action was but there's a lot of guessing it will be the same Authorization of the Use of Military Force that was passed in response to 9/11 [1]. Yes, seriously.
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
He has delegated authority, from congress, to do this. Rephrase please. This is not abdication. Are you a Chevron deference die hard too? Yes the executive and legislature didn't turn out exactly as the framers intended - deal with it in healthier ways than calling him a dictator.
You misunderstand unitary executive theory. It's not completely settled law but most of it is and requires your own interpretation of Vesting - but that has nothing to do with what happened in Venezuela so I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Unitary executive is about executive power. Go read some opinions about it, even the 5-4 opinions don't have much daylight between them. If you can cite AUMF you can read judicial review of the executive. It is so annoying to have taken the time to read these things and then come across some nitwit saying unitary executive is a softer way of saying dictator. Go say that in a law school.
unitary executive and dictator are different things.
a unitary executive cant make new laws, but a dictator can
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> CNN, citing a source: The Trump administration justified Maduro's arrest to Congress by stating that President Trump is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
That's not going to play well with DJT's bid for Nobel Peace Prize. Although I guess invading Sweden would be a solution, and there are probably plenty of reasons to invade Sweden - they must be looking badly at Russia, or he can mix it up with Groenland, or something.
That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per default", leaving only Oceania ? Should Australians brace themselves ?
To be fair, the existence of Surströmming [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming] is a valid casus belli. We aren't talking about food here - it's "haloanaerobic bacteria producing hydrogen sulfide in a pressurized vessel". An unregulated bio-weapons program hiding in plain sight.
> Should Australians brace themselves ?
Australians are currently paying him billions for 2nd hand nuclear submarines (which are not likely to ever be delivered), so that they can protect themselves from their biggest trading partner.
Australia is spending close to $30 billion a year to protect our trade routes to China from China.
Comedy is becoming reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgspkxfkS4k
Australia is more dependant on Chinese trade than the reverse. If something untoward happens and China's relationship with Australia changes, it is prudent for Australia to have long range submarines.
The deal is admittedly shakey, but so is most things the US is involved in these days.
So, Australia has a trade déficit with China ? Surely Trump is going to invade Australia to put tarifs between New-Zealand and "Newer-Zealand", as Emperor Trump is soon planed to rename Australia.
A trading partner that has absolutely nothing to gain from ever setting foot on the Australian continent, and has never expressed or even implied the slightest intention to do so.
But hey, if making up a bogus threat is what it takes to sell guns…
Peace prize is given by the Norwegians.
Therefore invasion on Sweden is 100% consistent with US logic.
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tell ya what, if Trump resigns after the mid terms then I'd fully support him getting Peace Prize.
Australians are hoping he continues being stupid with our trade agreement so we can get a better one.
The Australians made China blink - I don't have any worries about them.
He already has the FIFA Peace Prize, he doesn’t care anymore.
Restoring a democracy and getting rid of a dictator sounds pretty peace-prize worthy to me. If Kissinger can get it then he’s always got a chance.
What about self-determination? Peace enforced by whom?
> Restoring a democracy and getting rid of a dictator
If that was the goal he would put González in charge and not go after oil and minerals.
If you're being honest, though, you would admit that was never the goal.
Why Sweden? Did you mean Norway, perhaps?
As other realized, assuming DJT would mix up Sweden, Norway and Groenland _would_ have been spot on - but truth be told, it was my mistake :D
Well maybe not considering he's just clearing the way for the current nobel peace prize winner to assume power
Just because DJT has limited subtlety, doesn't mean he has zero subtlety. The ambassador to Sweden will tell the members of the committee, one by one in a way where they can't confer with each other, to accept the bribes or "else". It's not like it would be the first inducement to the committee in recent years, so they are likely to go along with it.
Edit, for the benefit of all: /s
Why is it so popular to make up ridiculous fantasy stories about bad things that people/organizations you don't like might do? There's plenty of real stories you can refer to. It's almost as if you want your enemies to do more bad things to justify your hate.
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Would he be as equally justified to correct the names of Greenland and Iceland (by swapping their names) as he was justified to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America?
I actually believe the majority of children who need to study geography would prefer Greenland (which has a lot of ice) to be called Iceland, and Iceland (which doesn't have a lot of ice) to be called Greenland.
I think a majority consensus would be easily achieved.
Language is defined by how people use it, not decreed top down. It would just be convenient if the very apogee of power (despite the deep state) concurred with and recognized the wisdom of the least represented in the world: children.
Hmm, think about that if China does the same thing to Taiwan tonight as well. Capture the current pretendent and install a new pro-China government.
In doing so I feel like my mind just tried to divide by zero.
headline: The wicked CCP that openly flouts human rights
China does not the capacity to execute such a clean job.
China survives and thrives because someone as dumb as you isn't the one running it. What the actual fuck are you saying?
China loses an ally and influence so they decide to flip the table? OK Buddy.
Do as the priest says not as the priest does.
If you think this is primarily about drugs and authoritarianism, don't overlook this one important dimension: the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world is...Venezuela.
[0] https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8...
It's not just oil, it's heavy crude oil; the type US is equipped to process, and rapidly running out of.
a nice visual in support of your comment
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-oil-reser...
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They aren't even trying to hide it. The administration has openly stated this is about recovering "stolen" oil resources.
More importantly, they recently started trading in yuans.
US also bombed the harbor last night. Maybe that will change the currency back.
Source? How recently?
Mostly due to Trump's actions.
It also is predominately heavy crude oil, something the US lacks (it's what it mainly imports, with domestic shale oil being 'light') even though a lot of it's refineries are optimised for this.
Oil that was being given to Cuba, Iran, Russia, China...
By "given" you mean sold and by "Cuba, Iran, Russia, China..." you mean the only countries that aren't gonna follow the US' absurd sanctions that have led to so much suffering inside of Venezuela
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
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It's their oil to give.
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Trump pardoned a drug kingpin exactly one month ago. Of course this isn't about drugs.
I certainly didn't. Along with the oil is more distraction from the Epstein files. Call me jaded but he has done this several times as a distraction.
Seems like the Epstein files are the obvious distraction at this point
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This really doesn't have much to do with oil. This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge and subscribe to an absurd notion of Domino Theory where communism will fall. Maduro already promised to stop trading with China and negotiate absurdly favorable mineral and energy deals. He even conceded to give up power on a 2-3 year timeline. Obviously, we will go in and control the nation and take a ton of resources. However, this was primarily about Marco Rubio living out his father's fantasy as outlined in his autobiography. It was sold to Trump as a drugs bust because he is an absolute moron and needed a distraction from Epstein.
Honestly, this is disgusting. Trump is personally renting and selling out America for personal profit. To Israel and now a cadre of South Floridians. He is selling passports and pardons and letting countries have trade deals or bases. I simply do not understand how everyone with power is letting this happen. This is not even ideological. The country is in recession and we are attached to 3 wars. WTF IS HAPPENING?
> This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge
Maybe. Combating communism in south america is certainly a noble goal. Maduro is one of many communists that plague this region and his fall will undoubtedly contribute to significant power shifts in south american politics.
But it's not Marco Rubio who holds the power, it's Donald Trump. And Trump absolutely will deal with communists if it's profitable for him and/or the USA. His dealings with Brazil prove it. He embarrassed not only Rubio but various other staff and arguably his entire administration by leveraging tariffs and Magnitsky sanctions into some kind of deal with the communist brazilian president.
Trump could not care less about communism in south america. His past discourse on the matter of Venezuela is entirely focused on oil. He's been talking about seizing the resources for years. It's also easy to see how doing so benefits him and his country greatly.
I was hoping that he'd also end up unwittingly fighting the communists and drug gangs over the course of his war so that south america as a whole might at least reap some benefit but now it looks like even that was too much to hope for.
And yet, somehow, people are poor.
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How are we not thugs in this situation? We're taking resources on other's land.
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Except when it's other thugs who do the confiscation.
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I am in favor of leaders fighting each other directly instead of sending millions of their citizens to die in their stead.
I can only hope there's a plan for what happens in Venezuela now. But I'm certain that as long as it isn't a protracted war with millions dead, it is better for everyone than what's going on in Ukraine.
The problem with having leaders fight eachother is you get a situation like feudal europe where all your leaders are soldiers whose chief qualifications are skill in combat and extracting resources from their subjects to keep them combat ready.
You really want to stop unnecessary wars, make the leaders dig the latrines for any forces they want to send off to fight.
This sounds fine, except it is not what happened here. I would give Maduro better odds than Trump in a 1:1.
I'm not advocating cage matches here. Just that the objective of any military action should be capturing or killing opposing leaders as efficiently as possible rather than any other objective.
I will spare saying the obvious illegality of such actions and how serious this is.
I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s, when the world felt like it was going towards a brighter age of peace and respect. Berlin wall falling, China opening, Apartheid ending in South Africa, even Palestine and Israel were moving towards a more peaceful future.
But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages.
General public not caring anymore about any tragedy, it's just news, general public being fine with their press freedom being eroded, journalists being spied and targeted, more and more conflicts all around.
I just don't see nor feel we're heading where we should considering how developed and rich we are.
We should boast in how well we raise our kids, how safe and healthy our cities are, but it's nothing but ego, ego, money and money.
This is all turning worse and worse.
I agree with your condemnation of this and other conflicts, but disagree that this is in any way new or worse than any purported golden age.
One month after the Berlin Wall fell the US invaded Panama to kidnap its leader so he could stand trial in the US on drug trafficking charges [1], an almost identical situation to this one.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
Isolating similar events doesn't negate what the OP says.
There's a wider picture involved here which has more global leaders helping to paint that picture with blood and darkness.
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I agree that the outcomes were largely how Americans wanted them, but in the 80's and 90's we had plenty of big and little problems as a world:
- USSR vs. Afghanistan.
- The chaos after the collapse of the USSR
- Russia vs. Chechnya
- US interventions South America
- US in Somalia
- The Gulf War
How much of our upbringing was our limited media exposure?
I remember these happenings, but still from personal rights to major events we had serious step forwards.
Now we have only the bads but none of the goods.
to continue your list
It seems like a cycle. Peace --> war --> new world order --> peace.
Also, there's probably correlation between wealth inequality and war. Wealth inequality leads to radical leaders which can lead to wars.
I think the cycle is because people forget how destructive war is for all sides, how much human wealth is thrown away in order to achieve enormous human misery. If it's happened in recent memory, people are reluctant to let those who think they might benefit from it to pursue it. The more time that passes, the easier it is to distract people from the misery and the easier it is to persuade people that it's justified.
"But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages." For a different perspective you should read Better Angels by Pinker.
>I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s
We didn't start the fire, it was always burning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire#Histo...
Nothing happened in the 50s.
isn't it the case by pretty much every quantifiable metric the world is better than ever?
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> a brighter age of peace and respect
The first thing to learn from a well-examined life and study of history is that we must always be vigilant and active to protect progress and human betterment.
The second thing to learn from recent history is that transnational petroleum interests will not quietly and meekly surrender their control, influence and interests.
We didn't have the internet back in the 80's and 90's to doom scroll all day. We read the events in the newspaper and watched it on on the news at 6pm and that was it. This might be partially why things seem darker.
Yeah as someone being born in the early 90s to Eastern European parents who experienced generational joy when Causescu and his wife were shot dead, the globalization that followed hasn’t exactly delivered for people - mostly so in the West.
Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since, but beyond that, wealth has flowed to the top 1% any country you look at (check median wealth ownership in the US, basically plummeted for the average Joe since the mid 80s), the environment has gone to shit and the generational promise that the children will have it better than their parents has gone over board with asset prices ballooning.
I‘m right there with you, the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight.
> Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since...
That... seems like something that shouldn't just be waved by.
And if you include China and India it's more like hundreds of millions. Like, if you think about the people of the world and not just "the West" the standard of living since the time Causescu was overthrown has increased dramatically.
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> the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight
That was less of a "promise" than a bait-and-switch, and we're in the switch part.
That's because the WWII generation who created these institutions and laid the groundwork for many of these change were still around for all that time. Around 2016 the last remaining members passed away. Now we have the boomers in charge and they are at long last able to enact all their fantasies without restraint in their final few years before they too pass.
There’s probably something to theories of generational cycles. But the people in charge are put their by voting populations who aren’t all one demographic.
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The "blame is on the boomers" idea is rather poorly supported by facts or even rational ideas.
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There's precedent in the 1989 invasion of Panama and the capture of Manuel Noriega, who was indicted for drug trafficking in the US.
If it wasn't a man suspected of being impeached over a looming child-sex trafficking scheme so deep that it makes watergate look like a game then maybe we'd pretend drugs has anything to do with it.
Watergate does seem rather trivial these days.
I doubt you'll ever find anything against Trump in the Epstein files, as Biden had those files and would have used such against Trump.
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We tried every peaceful way to get rid of the regime, they stole the elections, commit multiple human rights violations, the list of crimes is too long. The majority of Venezuelans wanted this to finally happen.
Really??
Yes, we won the 2024 presidential election by a landslide only to be stolen by Maduro.
So please get rid of the regime, the majority of the country wants to go back to democracy.
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I wonder if Tim Cook is enjoying how his “investments” are being spent.
As for the rest of the us, I suppose now we should sanction the US
Why wouldn't he?
He didn't give Trump a gold CD to invade Venezuela.
He gave Trump a gold CD so you didn't have to pay a 30-50% tariff on iPhones, and it worked.
If it was as simple as giving Trump a golden CD to stop being a moron, some billionaire would've done that already. Turns out, that problem is much harder to solve.
Yep, Cook has worked against his personal interests for decades. He probably feels like a sociopath, but why would that stop him? There's money to be made.
Moreover, it's fascinating how both sides of America's political aisle refuse to see anything but the best in Apple. To liberals, Apple is a shining beacon of innovation and social justice that exercises their private cudgel to bring digital offenders in-line. To conservatives, Apple is a stalwart defender of private capital and the halcyon of privacy and free speech for the common man. Neither one can decipher the fact that they've been duped, instead they both hold onto the belief that Apple will fully embrace their politics and vindicate their faith.
Just commenting here to see how many American clowns justifying these actions based on my down votes.
American anti human parasites are curse of this planet.
To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night:
1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night.
3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
5. There is still stability because most of the people in charge are still there. Only the illegitimate president is gone. Venezuela can have a real election now.
> 1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
> 3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
Concern:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.(
* https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/2007450814097305734#m
> Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
A more direct comparison would be if Mexico decided Trump's lies about the 2020 US election were correct and kidnapped Joe Biden and his wife.
You cant condone these actions and also claim to believe in the rule of law...
> Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
With enough guns, anything is possible.
You don't need to do this, actually. Nobody needs you to lie for the regime, to invent a charitable reading of their actions.
How is it a lie? It’s a plausible story to be sure and you certainly haven’t given us any reason to think that a different story is more likely than this one
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what do you think "steel-man" means, if not inventing a charitable reading of the regime's crimes?
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> Venezuela can have a real election now
Assuming the US wants and will allow that. Which isn’t at all clear, given the desire to get a hold of Venezuelan oil.
> ... we're making that decision now. We can't take a chance on letting somebody else run it, just take over where he left off. So we're making that decision
they have already signaled that this is not what will be allowed to happen
Yes. I am generally dumbfolded on how many of these comments trying to explain the situation completely ignore oil, when it is the main drive for US going to war in the last 50 years. This _is_ an oil motivated attack no doubt
it would 100% be somebody who is aligned with far-right Trumpian values. so basically a fascist kleptocrat a la Bolsonaro, Putin, Orban, et al.
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The US has no use for Venezuelan oil. The US is sitting on a vast reserve of relatively good quality oil and is pumping as much as the global markets can handle. Venezuela is sitting on massive reserves of low quality, difficult to process oil.
The US goal is deprive China of access to Venezuelan oil. China is ~80% of all Venezuelan oil exports (legal or illegal). Venezuela represents a very large potential supply of oil for China, for the next 30-50 years (a time after which oil probably won't matter very much to China).
Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil. China & India mostly have got that output. The US spent trillions of dollars, used its super power military to fully invade and occupy Iraq, and then did not take its oil. Read that again if anybody still feels brainwashed from the false campaign that endlessly proclaimed the US invasion of Iraq was to Steal The Oil.
Iraq was about the great power conflict with Russia across the Middle East (see: Syria, Libya, etc).
Venezuela is about the great power conflict with China and controlling what the US considers its backyard.
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> a more charitable interpretation
Never in the past 60 years has it been more clear from observing the current US administration in its international "relations" and its domestic abuses that there is no charitable interpretation.
If Maduro stole the election from someone else, and the US does not put that someone else in power, then what does that mean? If the US exercises their own decision making and judgement when installing someone in Maduro’s place and overrides or eclipses the will of the Venezuelan people, then how is this in support of democracy?
Good background explanation: USA motives, oil, history ... https://youtu.be/4N9-qop-R8M
Are dictators hypnotists? Are they wizards? If the regime functioned on the existence of a single man in a single chair, and EVERYONE around him wanted him gone, why does it take the military force of a different country to make it happen? Why isn't it the responsibility of the people in that country to remove him from power?
So as long as we have excuses we can bomb a country? Right? This time we don’t sanction and shut off swift, visa, Mastercard? Because this time we are the good guys?
No, you're not steel manning. You're just justifying unilateral regime change.
None of that matters.
There was no declaration of war powers from Congress, this entire operation is a flagrant violation of US and international law.
And, to point 1, this operation was carried out by a US President who attempted to violently overthrow the US government to avoid ceding power, which really puts a damper on point 1 I think.
> unilateral regime change.
The Venezuelan people voted for regime change. Maduro is the one who acted unilaterally by stealing power.
> To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night:
But why? Why not stick with the most probable explanation? The idea that Trump's primary goal is to restore democracy in Venezuela is beyond absurd.
> 4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
What's the point of this? Surely there's no deniability if the bases were abandoned?
It doesn't matter. The supreme court has made Trump immune, Trump has no accountability. He can just do this and face little consequences. Your steelman means nothing. Nor does the opposite.
We're powerless. Trump isn't.
The discussion should be about accountability of his actions first. When he can actually be made accountable then steelmanning and debating his actions in general can come into play because then it will actually mean something.
The SCOTUS ruling I think you are referring to was about crimes commited by the person who happens to be president, and whether they are punishable. (So not stuff like "you need to undo that bad thing", but "you will go to jail for that".) The acts of the executive branch are absolutely still accountable to the Court via suits of legality and constitutionality.
Also, raise hell at your law makers who thought it was a good idea for Congress to give sweeping powers to the executive in the first place.
>Venezuela can have a real election now.
Only if the right candidate wins.
6. Don't forget the oil
Or you can just quote the man himself.
Fox News: What do you see as the future of Venezuela’s oil industry?
Trump: Well, I see that we’re going to be very strongly involved in it. That’s all I can say. We have the greatest oil companies in the world—the biggest, the greatest—and we’re going to be very much involved in it.
You might have convinced me that steelmanning is a bullshit rhetorical device.
Good one, can you steelman the Epstein files or Nazi Germany next please?
Come on, this is borderline insulting. I think most of us are educated enough in US history and foreign policy to know that this is fanciful.
I don't doubt that there were people in the Venezuelan govt who want Maduro gone and would be happy for a US-backed coup and collaborated with the US (i.e., provided intel, etc.)
But it's still a foreign coup and military-backed regime change, no matter how you or Trump spin it.
The lesson to the world continues to be: if you're big and powerful, you can do whatever the f you want in other countries to ensure they are "on your side" and to gain access to their natural resources.
What about Trump wanting to accelerate global warming by taking all the oil?
EDIT: Instead of just downvoting, tell me how I'm wrong.
Trump literally said we want their oil. We are there to install US oil companies and a US friendly government.
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Alright well now we know what Joseph Goebbels has to say about this whole thing
Do you have zero historical knowledge, like absolutely none?
Alternative explanation: The election was stolen overnight by US barbarism, prepared by years of reactionary rhetoric by the election stealer in chief.
Steel-manning is always dishonest and never necessary. They can make their own arguments.
This is a masterpiece on how to sidestep a national debt crisis.
1. Don't acknowledge the problem directly.
2. Take over Venezuela's GDP by benevolent force or whatever he is calling it.
3. Pay off the debt interest with new funding windfall.
4. Profit
tell me the direction the bond market moves then, and show me your positions. this is the dumbest thing i've read in this thread.
Long on bonds, what's your point?
> "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition"
How do you run a country without invading it or at least having a puppet regime already in place?
This part of the situation is the interesting thing to me.
Is this US administration establishing itself as the effective dictator of Venezuela indefinitely? What does running that country have to look like directed by the US president and what changes will they make to restrict the position to prepare it for transition? Is the plan to make no changes to the position and then forever make a mockery of their elections by only letting people run in the future who suite US interests? It feels like this situation has the potential to turn into a colonial-like relationship always under threat of direct US military intervention.
It’s wild to me that (at least for now) Trump has publicly repudiated the second (or first if one swings that way) place vote getter in last election as unqualified even after she brown nosed Trump hard. He apparently needs a bigger sycophant in charge like his cabinet members https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-03/nobel-win...
This is illegal, immoral, unsupported by the vast majority of the US population and requiring immediate action by every US citizen and elected official.
> the vast majority of the US population
Well, it's hard to know whether it's true
It’s actually not. 60% opposed,+20% not sure is 80% of the population would count as a “vast majority”
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53787-scant-ameri...
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Unlike popular opinion before other US actions like this, opinion polls show any military action in Venezuela as being very unpopular, like half the popularity of Trump, 20% popular.
That can change after the action, especially depending on how the media covers it, so we will see. The past few years have greatly lessened my faith in the inherent goodness of Americans, and I believe that we have let ourselves abandon our traditional ideals.
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> This is ... unsupported by the vast majority of the US population
The people that voted for the current president tend to support whatever he tells them to support, so I don't think that's true.
Trump got 77 million votes in 2024, which is 44% of the eligible voting population and a mere 32% of the US adult population. Trump's current approval rating is 39%. Even among those who support Trump overall, presumably a non-trivial portion don't support this particular action.
I am ashamed being part of HN where a lot of people here supporting this terrorism.
No matter how fucked up any country can be, US president has no right to bomb or terrorize other countries.
HN seems to mostly lean right...maybe not most users, but certainly the mods. It's not really surprising since it's a VC backed forum and concern for maximizing profit dwarfs everything else, even/especially moral issues.
Just look at how often relevant stories get suppressed.
Risking being downvoted to oblivion but as a South American this is a way more complex situation morally speaking.
Law-wise I agree and it has set an awful precedent.
But in the other hand Venezuelans all over the world (certainly the Venezuelans here that I know) are celebrating. I myself am in some way relieved. This is a dictator that did unspeakable things to their own population, set proxy criminal organizations, sent hitmen to kill dissidents in my country, highly decreasing our perceived safety.
So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
"I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country."
Yeah, what happens next is kind of the sticky part. That and "unintended consequences".
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I'm in LA.
The Persian expats here want us to Bomb Iran. The Vietnam expats want us to go back Into Vietnam. The Cubans want us to go take over Cuba again.
People who flee country X to the global hegemon seem to be in support of invading country X.
It's a selection bias. Kinda like saying everyone who walked out on their job at company X doesn't think much of company X.
I mean heck, you can probably find Canadians who fled for one reason or another and want America to invade Canada.
I really don't put any credence into that perspective and have been trying to explain this to my Venezuelan friends that this is simply an oil grab.
They don't get it.
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<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20473862>
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Willing to completely give up domestic control of your energy sector in exchange for this regime change?
Because that's what has actually happened here.
It's not like there will be peaceful and organized elections now. The template from US actions in Latin America in the past is: A puppet regime will be installed and it will be involved in heavy domestic oppression of its own.
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As an American, I’m outraged at this blatant disregard for international norms.
As a person living in the Americas… I’m surprised at how good this outcome is? Did we just remove a terrible regime in a comparably bloodless way?
This appears to be a prisoner’s dilemma. What just happened is probably a utilitarian win. But the president it sets could enable horrible abuses in the future.
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Exactly this, as a Colombian with many friends who fled Venezuela, the consensus is that the means aren't good but it's looking like a great outcome for democracy (might be too early to tell)
Same as you. This piece of shit needed to be gone. I've seen Venezuelans begging for food, money and shelter in geographic areas where you wouldn't even imagine due the exodus. I've seen South American communities orbiting xenophobia on Venezuelans because the lack of opportunities of immigrants where almost impossible in countries where there weren't any for many of the current residents.
>So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Putting her in charge just means that the country will get looted by the Western Parasite Capitalist class instead of the South American Socialist Mobster class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMt1TDA848M
Let's say best case scenario, zero innocent casualties and a democratic government takes over and Venezuela prospers - would you still consider it immoral?
That isn’t how morality works. It’s expressly the opposite, a restating of “end justifies the means”. It’s a defensible position to hold, but not a moral one.
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Just like Iraq. Remember?
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Videos from the event already show that civilians were targeted during the attack.
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Why stop there? The best case scenario would include prosecution of Trump and his administration.
Laws often fail to matter in cases where they should. If a country as powerful as the USA wants to handle a problematic country (from its perspective) by whatever means, they will do so and with a glaikit smirk on the faces of its leaders and politicians. "Here's democracy and justice on your face," has been a typical American foreign policy for a long time whether we like it or not. A lot of people thankfully do see through this pretence, but also at the same time, the fierce followers of Cheneyism are trying hard to find possible explanations to legitimize this.
"US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Venezuela that strong action would be taken if Guyana is invaded or an attack is launched on ExxonMobil's oil assets in the Stabroek Block." https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... Why take a chance?
Before jumping in with an opinion on this event, it's a good idea to bone up on the modern history of Venezuela. I recommend this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. If you're looking for bias, he is neither American nor lives in the US.
It also helps to know why the US is so desperate for Venezuela's oil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk
Aggregated the discussions for easier reading: https://hn-discussions.top/venezuela-maduro-captured-us-stri...
It's hard to think through the implications of living in a world where it is accepted that countries with more power simply invade each other and take land and possessions from those with less power. I can't think how it doesn't ultimately lead to broadscale instability and ultimately, war. In turn it depresses me that this is toxic to the humanity progressing and solving its bigger picture problems.
No imagination is necessary: we've been there. The 1800s were exactly that and culminated in two world wars on the next century.
You can even go further, _all_ human history had stronger groups taking things from weaker groups. On the classical era of Aristotle and on the paleolithic pre-history. We sometimes forget that humanity can be cruel and work only for self-interest, we like to think that war and pillaging is something from the past, but it will be forever with us
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Speaking of the 1800s, I wonder if we could learn anything about peace in a multipolar world by studying the Concert of Europe. Might be a good topic for a historian to write a book about. I'm looking right now, and it's kinda sad to see so many books about WW1 and so few about the peaceful period which came before.
Just the 1800s? We’ve been doing for the past 150 years at least
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Years of advocating against bullies, my takeaway from this thread is “the US did this because it can”. So bullying is ok now I guess.
I’m sure it had nothing to do with oil too, just about democracy.
When has the US not been the bully?
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Thats all of human history.
Our biggest problem is us, the Earth will be a much better place when we are gone.
Hypocrisy is the greatest western value. And the west really likes its values
Meanwhile, One America News Network's front page reporting that Mamdani is undoing protections against "antisemitism"; DOJ is demanding Minnesota voting records; Will Smith accused of sexual harassment of a male violinist; and, of course, polling readers on the question "Does President Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?"
http://archive.today/PIvHL
So we know what many Red-Hats are seeing right now.
The "president of peace," everybody!
All your "moral" comments don't matter, I live in Argentina and the ABSURD amount of venezuelans that migrated here in the last 10/15 years is nothing you'll ever see. I have 3 venezuelan friends here and a couple more that I only know (one is an Uber I once took and have a couple neighbors in the building), all were able to escape the dictatorship and left their family there, I just can't express with words the JOY I saw in their statuses from WhatsApp and Instagram today when the door to maybe go back to their country finally opened.
One of my friends is my motorcycle mechanic, met him in 2015 when I bought my first KTM, still my mechanic to this day. A lot of the bike services I stayed with him talking while he worked, I listened to a lot of his stories from back in the day, why he had to run, why his family stayed, how he had to send money to them to eat and some other horror stories.
In the name of my friends, if you think what happened today is bad, you can respectfully go fuck yourself.
Responsibility for the aftermath is with the US. They previously didn't do a good job in Afghanistan or Iraq after they assumed defacto control, without really trying to make the countries stand on their own. Life is not much better for the average person there.
Venezuela has lots of oil and drugs. If different factions fight between themselves there's no reason you couldn't end up with a divided and dangerous country that in some ways could be worse for the people than Maduro.
The best way for "oppressed" people to be liberated is through some joint effort by parties that really want to help out and assume responsibility, or by supporting a revolution that naturally takes over. I don't think there's been any cases of success from this process of forcibly removing the dictator, and crossing your fingers that things will go well.
Emanuel Macron, President of the French Republic:
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible. "
- https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/2007525843401154891
Well, this thread certainly hasn't aged well. Lots of people here trying to spin this as an act of liberation while the real motivation has been more than obvious.
Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!
Reading through this thread is disturbing not because people disagree, but because of how the disagreement is happening.
What I'm seeing is a breakdown in the ability to hold consistent principles across contexts. The same people who condemned Russian actions in Ukraine are now making "realpolitik" arguments about Venezuela. The same people who claim to oppose foreign intervention are now calculating whether this was "done cleanly enough." Positions seem determined entirely by tribal affiliation rather than any coherent framework about sovereignty, international law, or the use of military force.
There's also a striking historical amnesia at work. The US has been running this exact playbook in Latin America for over a century. We have extensive data on how these interventions typically unfold, what the second and third-order effects tend to be, and how the initial justifications relate to the actual outcomes. Yet that entire body of evidence seems to have evaporated from the conversation. People are reasoning about this as if it's a novel situation requiring fresh analysis, rather than a well-worn pattern.
Most concerning is the casual normalization. We're discussing whether it's "justified" to invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader as if this is a routine policy question. The window of what's considered shocking has shifted so far that outright imperial aggression gets the same treatment as a zoning dispute. When someone points out we didn't even attempt to follow Constitutional requirements for declaring war, the response is essentially "yeah, we stopped doing that decades ago, so what?"
The nihilism is the most insidious part. "What are we supposed to do about it?" Well, at minimum, we could refuse to let the Overton window keep drifting. We could maintain some continuity of ethical standards. We could recognize power plays for what they are instead of generating elaborate post-hoc rationalizations about democracy and narcotics.
The question isn't whether Maduro is a dictator (he is) or whether this particular operation succeeded tactically (it apparently did). The question is whether we've collectively lost the capacity to see what we're actually doing and where this pattern of behavior leads.
I completely agree with you on all points. It's terrifying to see these things you've described playing out.
The US is completely cooked man, the right has fully committed to mashing the gas pedal towards fossil fueled 'based' racist authoritarianism while the so-called-left is writing strongly worded op-eds. Even if Dems win again, they've proven to be way too cowardly to fix anything, this democracy is 100% done. Personally I just hope California is able to secede and do a Nordic Model before the entire country becomes Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but I'm pretty doubtful anything good can ever happen here. Good luck everyone.
As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
Also, some people seems to miss the fact that South America military power is very weak, and we, culturally, are way less proned to fight and die than people in middle east.
Yeah, we know this is all about oil, and I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge. But the fact is we don't have a, undeniable, dictator as neighbor, and my friends can see their families again.
No, we are not happy. We were not happy when they intervened and installed their friendly dictator. I can criticize Maduro and I can censure these actions. I don't want any other country to invade mine because they didn't like the government that we had.
> I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge
If history teaches us anything, a democracy won't emerge. Nothing good comes from the US intervening in foreign affairs. This is being done to the benefit of the invaders, not those being invaded.
>> Nothing good comes from the US intervening in foreign affairs.
Idk, I sure prefer Germany / Japan circa 2026 to Germany / Japan circa 1936.
The last time the US did something similar was in Panama in 1989, and that country seems to be a thriving democracy now.
Too early to know how this will play out, but things are more nuanced than you're suggesting.
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This is hardly a regime change. Only Maduro has been captured, the rest is still in power.
Kidnapping a leader is a regime change. When a coup happens you topple the leader.
But now we are looking at a civil war, if we are lucky.
it is very early to tell what it is
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Publicly, it's about oil, privately, it's also about China getting a foothold in South America, on the USA's doorstep and denying them a source of cheap oil from the world's largest proven reserve. It's the modern version of the Great Game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Game
Yes I'm quite sure the Venezuelans are greeting us as liberators.
Yeah, they are [1]
1- https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/internacional/venezuelanos-vao-...
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It's the international community who should decide this sort of thing.
Did the UN agree to this invasion?
Nations aren't supposed to unilaterally attack other nations.
My comment is locked, but I wanted to conclude:
I'm too ignorant of Venezuelan politics to know if removing Maduro benefits Venezuelans, in practice.
I'd sleep easier if the Trump administration had done this by the book (approval from US Congress, and from the international community)
You are still young so you don't seem to get it yet but history has shown that killing or capturing the leader of a country with outside actors rarely leads to anything good. It usually just leads to more instability.
Pop-culture shows you that if you get rid off Mojo Jojo you suddenly get rainbows and flowers but reality doesn't work that way very often and it is just propaganda.
Colombian here. Maduro wasn't the leader of a country; he lost the elections and became a cruel dictator. He led a regime that murdered, tortured, and disappeared thousands of people, turning Venezuela into a narco-state run by the ELN and other paramilitary groups. It may not have worked in other areas, but the US intervention in Panama, which resulted in the capture of another dictator, Noriega, transformed Panama into the fastest-growing economy in Latin America (6% average annual growth). Poverty fell by 60%, and today it's a very prosperous country. I can assure that there will be massive celebrations today by all our Venezuelan brothers and sisters living in Latin America.
Edit: I just discovered that Noriega was also captured on January 3rd.
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And I am a non-American with friends from the US that surely would be happy if someone assassinated Trump. That doesn't make it a good thing.
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Trump is the elected leader of the US though. There's a huge difference there.
For example, if Trump doesn't step down in 2028 then we should hope someone does take him out.
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it's a positive step for the population, my worry is about global signalling.. we were trying to keep the armed fascists floodgates tight since putin invaded ukraine and now US is doing bold military regime changes, not even covert (some would argue old CIA was worse).
hard to sleep well these days
ps: if anybody knows places where people discuss this, feel free to hit me
Yeah, totally agree. Like anything that matters this is a complex topic with multiple reasons to each move in this game, my positive position towards what happened is pretty much related to the reactions of my Venezuelans friends and my personal perception of how people has suffered with Maduro's regime.
Fixing the dilapidated oil production will take years I think. But my best wishes to all my Venezuelan friends. Hoping for a bloodless transition and a brighter future for the country.
[ ok let's just say ] it's a one side deal
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> As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
No, we aren't. You don't speak for the majority of us.
That's good to hear. As a European, I do hope our leaders keep this in mind... It may be an unconventional move, but it's hard to argue this is a bad outcome.
I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
> I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil
Why would the US be entitled to any oil here? And how would that be a good outcome for the people of Venezuela?
> and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
That's a big if. Ask the Iraqis how well it went when their dictator was gone. And that was with boots on the ground not just leaving a power vacuum like this.
> It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
Wait a few decades till China does this to you and we'll see how you feel.
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A forever war implies people in the ground that actually would want to resist, and barring conscription (Which will be limited, because diaspora) I don't see how that could actually work
Check social media or go ask a trusted Venezuelan / Latino, happiest I've ever seen the community, because regardless of what's comming, it looks like the light at the end of a tunnel
And bomb civilians?
> Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
Agreed about the better lives, but has it come to a point we accept invading other countries to "secure their oil" is a great outcome? I mean, what is this, Hitler's "Operation Blue"?
Securing oil is NOT a valid reason to invade countries. Does this need to be said!? Mind boggling.
This is peak cynicism. I'm really surprised to read some opinions here.
Next up: "imperialism wasn't bad, securing a big empire with colonies is a great outcome".
Democracy emerge? Good luck.
Venezuela had a democratic-ish government before they voted for Chavez.
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Sounds like you ok with genocide in your neighbourhood tho. How they see their families if they get bombed?
I think you're severely cheapening the definition of a genocide.
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Yeah, we know this is all about oil
"War for oil" is always the easy go-to to criticize any American military action, even in countries that don't have oil.
And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
America has more oil than it knows what to do with, and because of that, prices are so low that there are lots of newspaper articles about how American oil companies have dramatically slowed exploration and production. Plus, even under the current administration, America is using more and more renewable energy sources (some states now get more than 50% of their energy from wind/solar).
With the whole Chevron situation, I'm willing to think that oil may play a role here, but again the "war for oil" seems like nothing more than a convenient slogan for a high schooler's protest sign.
Direct quote:
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
This along with other direct quotes from officials is what led me to the conclusion that, yes, oil is a large factor.
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America has plenty of the wrong type of oil. They need heavy oil as that's what the usa oil refinery are made to handle, but they have a shortage of heavy oil, and a oversupply of light oil. Venezuela has the heavy oil they need
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Yes it most probably about oil not democracy [1].
US even mastermind amd helped overthrowned Iranian elected government and then only recently admitted and apologized to that but the damaged already done [2].
[1] The real reason Venezuela matters [video]:
https://youtu.be/Pgwny1BiCYk
[2]1953 Iranian coup d'état:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
interesting how they say it's about drug trafficking but then keeps confiscaating oil tankers tho?
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> And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
Yes it is.
> But Trump has also made his desire for Venezuelan oil clear. He said that the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going to and from the country would remain “until such time as they return to the United States all of the oil, land, and other assets that they stole from us.” He did not clarify what land and “other assets” he was referring to.
> In a social media post, Miller also characterized the expropriations as an injustice against the US. “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” wrote. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
> And in a 2023 speech, Trump was even more pointed about his designs on the country’s oil. “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse,” he said, referring to the end of his first term in the White House. “We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-17/trump-s-v...
This is especially silly because the US is always going to control oil extraction in Venezuela because nobody else has the technical capabilities required to do so profitably at a large scale.
There's no need to really fight with the Venezuelan government over this, unless Venezuela decided that they'd rather leave the oil in the ground.
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I was shouting “War for Oil” in 2003 as a college freshman. In retrospect, was oil why we invaded Iraq? How much oil did we get out of the deal?
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Trump has a history of using resource cutoff as a bargaining or coercive tool. hes doing it with Minnesota right now with the scandal and has done it with NYC. control over oil flows to European allies or other allies and adversaries gives his tactic more reach.
"US will be ‘strongly involved’ in Venezuela oil industry, Trump says after Caracas attacked and Maduro captured"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Yes, US foreign policy is connected to oil. It's not just about control but price.
The more credible narrative is Trump and co trying to do good for the Venezuelans and for the regular US folks! /s
Democracy being restored, one oil well a day.
Hey, show some respect, you’re talking about the first ever winner of the prestigious FIFA peace prize!
Is your opinion that we're going to get less oil and less democracy? It seems likely the opposite would be true.
Venezuela GDP is all upside - it's practically a free lunch if they stop punching themselves in the face.
And simultaneously denying China a source of oil and (yet another) foothold in South America on the USA's doorstep?
It's like Cuba all over again.
Oil is fungible. If America takes Venezuelan oil for themselves and doesn't let China have any, China will just buy more from Russia and the Middle East instead. There's no oil blockade to China, those ships aren't being stopped, and the minute such a blockade would be announced is the minute this 5th generation warfare WW3 turns into a 3rd generation war.
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What I find interresting and would like to see discussed more, is the psychology at play that makes us believe this is another "exception to the rule of international law". I wonder if one could generalize the terror management theory (TMT) to social obedience?
What international law is being broken here? And why does that law take precedence over the laws of Venezuela and USA?
When I said this discussion about international law was not worth taking place on HN, I actually meant it, sorry.
In principle, our diplomats have mentioned "respecting the prohibition on the use of force enshrined in international law and the territorial integrity of sovereign states"
using those words as search terms yields:
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2/english/rep_supp7_vol1_a...
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml
In practice, command responsibility is generally upheld against losing commanders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
but an effective way to avoid being tried, at least in the short term, is to be a winning commander: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0072-...
(Alexander the Great, on his deathbed, was asked who would inherit his empire; whether because he was an early "realist" or because he was apathetic or simply narcissistic [or?], he replied: the strongest)
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"Be the change yo want to see", I guess. So, my pet peeve theory is that "the rule of law" is not something the ruling class needs to cover their track; it's something the ruled class needs to cover their shame. Shame of being ruled, but also terror of being ultimately subjected to arbitrary power.
For instance, I believe that in the feodal past lay people used to genuinely believe that kings got their authority from God; not because kings were good observants of the precepts of religion (they were not), but because that protects the self-esteem and helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes.
I find it surprisingly hard to try to convince myself that there is no such thing as "rule of law", that for instance the overthrown of a non-aligned regime could be just about the oil and competition with China, although I know that's how future historians will deal with that non-story; There is some surprising amount of resistance from within to this idea. It's interresting to do the experiment.
Have you read Thucydides, "The Melian Dialogue"? Or Zweig, „Schachnovelle“?
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Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela?
Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?
I don't think you can meaningfully answer this without knowing the military goals or the ultimate outcome.
The worst-case outcome for the US is that it gets pulled into another unpopular, long-term conflict that undermines its international standing and allows assorted rogues to advance their goals (Ukraine, Taiwan, who knows what else).
The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran. How you assess the likelihood of these outcomes sort of depends on your priors.
I would say, however, that the recent history of US military interventions doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Venezuela is nowhere near being the cluster---- that we've dealt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc, but who knows.
> Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria
There are 2 differences that stand out.
Intelligence seems more capable nowadays compared to 2003, probably due to better cyber/SIGINT. It took 3 years for the coalition to find Saddam despite a large ground presence. I wouldn't give Maduro more than a month if the US was intent on taking him out, after the capabilities that we saw in Iran and South Lebanon the last two years that simply did not exist 2 decades ago. For the first time, war has been inverted, and it's the regime that dies first instead of the soldiers.
Second difference is the absence of political Islamism as a dominant ideology in the culture. This makes it more comparable to regime change wars against Japan and Germany in WW2 than recent wars in MENA.
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What about the chance of a Colombian, Bolivian, Ecuadorian or Brazilian missile crisis?
> The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran.
There is no need to scare Iran. The mullahs are already scared shitless and were utterly humiliated this summer. They could have easily been removed, but it was decided that it was not worth it, as the next regime could be even worse. A weak, scared Iran is the best outcome.
It won't help with oil. The Permian's breakeven prices have crept upwards and, because VZ crude grades are high-sulfur, the US refinery complex can't absorb it without retooling away from the plants specialised for the low-sulfur Permian output.
Possibly dragging supply down, with no net effect at best.
>90% of Venezuelan crude has been refined in China in recent years.
This is going to hurt China economically, and in a way that isn’t going to be seen as targeted at China or unfair by international community.
Russia’s production and refining capacity has been seeing attrition from Ukraine’s efforts. They’re producing less oil, selling it for less, and for rubles that each buy less.
I’ve said before on HN that I thought Venezuela was intended to soak up Russian resources - this is just the next step.
US moves on Venezuela, China moves on Taiwan. With no chips, all AI speculation goes to ..? We live in interesting times!
> China moves on Taiwan
What is the risk calculation one would perform before attempting to invade Taiwan while Trump is calling shots? Whatever else you think about Trump, for better or worse, he is not bound by establishment prerogatives: make the "wrong" move, as Trump exclusively defines it, and anything — literally any conceivable thing plus a distant horizon of things you are cognitively incapable of conceiving — might happen.
Maduro is in a cage somewhere pondering this right now. Iran's leaders are all thinking about the threats Trump made not 48 hours ago, possibly to the great benefit of rebels in the streets right now. Federal investigators are closing in on Walz and friends in Minnesota right now: he could find himself in a cell within earshot of Maduro at any time.
Don't forget to breathe!
Doesn't move the needle at all. FX to be determined by what bond markets think about the supply/demand of treasury bonds.
Probably not much. If Maduro is kicked out, you still need time to establish a new government and ramp up oil production. That's bullish, but it's far from guaranteed; there could be coups, instability, etc. If Maduro isn't kicked out, things get murky. Will the US intervene with boots on the ground? Will they just keep sanctions in place? For how long? Will there be resistance?
Actually, thinking about it more, this makes little sense. There's very little upside (and it's far off), while there's plenty of short and long-term downside. Great geopolitical strategizing out there.
There was a time in my life when I would spend a few hours learning about US-Venezuela relations and the Venezuelan government and related topics so I could have a skin deep understanding of it and play an internet expert in threads like this.
I’m not going to do that today. It’s sunny, and I want to spend time with family. Being naive about this topic doesn’t affect the core of things I want to be knowledgeable about. And the reality is, having a vote only gives me nominally more agency over US foreign policy than someone who can’t vote. I am mostly just observing.
You're not just observing, you're opting to be passive. That is a choice.
I would love to hear what you are doing differently.
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Always remember the role of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in preparing this unprovoked and illegal (under international law) attack on Venezuela by awarding the prize to María Corina Machado.
Julian Assange actually filed a Swedish criminal complaint against Nobel Foundation officials, alleging misappropriation of Nobel endowment funds and facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, and it seeks immediate freezing of funds and a full investigation: https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
Not just Assange, incidentally.
Can't reply to the comment, but no idea why this was flagged.
This is a unilateral invasion and regime change operation with no Congressional authorization, no UN mandate, no coalition. It's unprecedented in its brazenness—not because the U.S. hasn't done regime change before (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.), but because there's not even the pretense of justification or coalition-building.
The "narco-terrorism" charges are a legal fig leaf. The real drivers appear to be oil (Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves), geopolitical positioning (removing a Russian/Chinese/Iranian ally from the hemisphere), domestic politics (Trump wants a "win" and to appear strong), and what seems like a personal vendetta given how publicly Trump has obsessed about Maduro.
What's disturbing goes beyond the act itself. Trump literally said the U.S. will "run Venezuela"—not "support democracy," not "help transition"—run the country. That's colonial language with no euphemism.
There was no Congressional authorization. This violates the War Powers Act at minimum. If a president can unilaterally invade a country, kidnap its leader, and declare we're taking control, what's the limiting principle? Where does this stop?
The mask is completely off. Previous imperial adventures at least performed the ritual of justification, built coalitions, went through motions at the UN. This is naked power. Trump explicitly mentioned oil, saying American companies will "invest billions" to "refurbish" Venezuela's oil industry. He's just admitting it openly.
What we're witnessing is the final abandonment of even the performance of international norms. The question isn't whether this is legal or justified—it clearly isn't. The question is whether there are any remaining constraints on executive power when it comes to foreign military action.
Man, the guy probably broke a ton of Venezuelan and American laws. Maduro is responsible for the break down in diplomacy - what did he think was going to happen if he kept breaking the law?
There's no extradition treaty - how else does the USA bring him to trial?
Go to the courthouse when he gets convicted and yell about how clearly illegal it all is. You'll look like a nutcase. I'll just celebrate that he's going to die in prison.
What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal? Why does he get away with it because he's a president? He's not even the president of Venezuela, it's disputed - chiefly by Venezuelan's themselves.
Now we get to hold him to account in an open court. This is just good ass news. You don't get to declare the whole thing illegal and unjustified.
He will get returned in 20 years and probably tried for murder by the people he repressed.
Finally - he's a really cool thing about the US legal system, if his rendition was illegal, as you say, he can claim that in court. It won't work because it wasn't.
> What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal?
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml
If you're wondering WHY, good to read the Maduro indictment from 2020[1] and the press release at the time[2]
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6819579-Maduro-Indic...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
That’s not why, it’s just the official justification and the charges we’ll use to keep him.
Also good to read the Hernández indictment from 2022[1] and the press release at the time[2].
> Maduro and Other High Ranking Venezuelan Officials Allegedly Partnered With the FARC to Use Cocaine as a Weapon to “Flood” the United States
> Hernández Allegedly Partnered with Some of the Largest Cocaine Traffickers in the World to Transport Tons of Cocaine through Honduras to the United States
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21698603-us-v-juan-o...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/juan-orlando-hern%C3...
I'm generally confused about how the US DOJ has jurisdiction in Venezuela.
They don't have an extradition treaty so they took him. What Maduro was doing was illegal in Venezuela too.
If you can give me an argument about why it's illegal or improper to try Maduro in a USA court for crimes he committed against the USA, like drug trafficking, I would love to hear it.
If you think the extraction itself was illegal - under what law? What do you think a military is for? If you have a military to defend your country and capture a criminal who you then try for laws that he broke - this seems like a good reason to have a military.
Under normal circumstances - diplomatic relations can solve this, but the consequences of breaking diplomacy is that the only way to get criminals into court is military/CIA. It's not diplomacy or nothing, that's not the world I want to live in, that's Neville Chamberlain theory.
"Might is right", pretty much.
I guess somehow the US will argue that Maduro was directly responsible for smuggling drugs to the US, and that he has broken US laws. Or acts of "drug terrorism".
The second someone without US jurisdiction as much as investigates US servicemen abroad, or Israel for that mater, they are sanctioned by the US. See ICC judges that have been sanctioned for doing exactly those things. The US argues that ICC does not have any jurisdiction to do so.
When it comes to US geopolitics, there's a wafer-thin line between taking the moral high ground, and straight up hypocrisy backed up by "who's gonna stop us?"
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As far as I can tell from the narrative, Venezuela was basically serving as a puppet state for China, and if that's true, I would probably give that as the primary reason, but who knows. Maybe it's because Venezuela did poorly in the FIFA World Cup qualifier and this was action dictated by his recent peace prize award.
On a slightly more serious note, the charges against Maduro were actually filed in 2020: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
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What a well reasoned take.
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> Trump loves ... drug dealers as long as they kiss the ring.
I'm not aware of a specific example. Who is a drug dealer that Trump loves?
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You’re getting downvoted but your take is simply the truth. Trump does not think like a politician or leader- he does not listen to, care about, or consider things like facts or broader consequences. Insiders in his administration have repeatedly leaked that they are not allowed to communicate information or facts to him, and he never shares reasons for his orders, they have to creatively make that up after the fact for the media. He operates the presidency as a reality TV show, he is interested only in how an action will play with the public and his base in the short term- will it increase his power and help him shift public narratives the way he wants, or not?
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None of these things are the most likely reason. The national security establishment doesn't want a Chinese-allied socialist state with a regime perceived to be hostile in South America, especially if its resource-rich. But the timing is very convenient for burying the Epstein stuff.
Whoever is telling you it is about drugs is lying.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/02/trump-honduras-pard...
Indeed:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Or in the words of DJT (quoted in article):
> "We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we’re going to be very much involved in it."
May the liberation of Venezuelan oil fields commence!
Maybe Trump captured Maduro just so he could pardon him? This would be a joke but comedy died when that man was elected, and this might actually be the case.
keep that american imperialism propaganda bullshit narrative to yourself.
I mean the real answer to "why" is probably going to be pretty boring considering the nature of this administration.
That's not to say that the steelmanned "why" isn't much more interesting than the real "why".
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Don't troll on HN.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484803 and marked it off topic.
I don't have the ability to be a giant meteor
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I didn't know Eren Yaeger was a hacker.
1. Take over the oil companies
2. Reduce price of Gas in USA.
3. Everyone will celebrate
4. Next election. > 80% majority.
Interesting that World War 3 never happened; instead, we smoothly transitioned to War World, where war is just something that happens all the time, randomly, intermittently, undeclared, and interminably.
I’m not so sure. This War World is very similar to the geopolitical game played by the great European - and increasingly US as well, especially in SA - powers in the 19th century. That Belle Epoque was of course what drove the global politics into the first Great War.
Kissinger maintained his goal was to avoid stumbling into another Great War; we may or may not believe him, but at least he took the trouble to rationalize his actions.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia!
> "Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare"
Neither XJP nor Trump are semi-divine by the benchmark of BB, but perhaps the "political structures" (non-pyramidal) are
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I remember, when people said, that the military would refuse illegal orders.
Good times
And had a good laugh
Righteous Americans are coming! They are here to fix the whole world!
Especially parts of the world with large oil reserves.
The only interest Americans have is oil. nothing else.
Put your bet here re: oil inflows from Venezuela to the USA.
Put a number on it. Stop talking shit.
Aren't you watching the news? Trump himself says it.
Statement from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
https://x.com/i/status/2007359985546674407
You might want to directly link the tweet in question.
And use xcancel.com rather than the largely-inaccessible source.
I think Venezuela should take this to the ICC. (The ICJ is irrelevant).
What for? The ICC is only "allowed" to take down criminals with the approval of Western govs.
The squirming from the vassals would be worth it alone.
You don't know what the ICC is for. It absolutely cannot stop the USA from trying him for breaking domestic USA law. That is a foundational principle of what it is.
So they can write a strongly worded letter?
It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans. Especially the Venezuelans. It’s been 25 years of hell. They don’t really care at the moment if Trump did it for oil. You think Russia and China just wanted the recipe for Arepas? That’s the common saying. Venezuelans just wanted a chance to live a normal life. This is not a society like Afghanistan that cannot function as a democracy when autocrats are removed.
The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.
Americans may lack theory of mind of Venezuelans, but that doesn't invalidate thethe concerns of outsiders, as you yourself says it's TBD how things play out, especially with global ramifications and in the long run for all nations affected by this American action.
Agreed. But… the other alternative is continued repression and suffering of millions of people. Iranians are wishing their captors would fall next. Not that people will see those posts on blue sky.
“You know as well as we do that justice, as the world goes, is only a matter between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” From Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.
I personally think this quote explains the Trump administration’s worldview far better than anything Trump himself would say.
Last month the US president pardoned a Honduran politician who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into America.
Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.
Nobody with interest in politics thinks it's about drugs. It's a pretext and a way to gain legitimacy to exert force over foreign nation with some legitimacy that would otherwise clearly go against international law.
Has overtaken Saudi Arabia as nation with largest proven oil reserves.
Although it is 'heavy' oil, the 'brown coal' of liquid fossil reserves (i.e. low quality).
The fact that such a fuss is being made about low-grade oil is a concern in itself.
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It must be about oil.
It's always about the oil.
Venezuela has a substantial amount of heavy crude oil. which the USA is good at refining. Shocking.
Many might not like it, but given US interests and Chinese ambitions, the Monroe doctrine is one of the few parts of American foreign policy that makes sense (in a realpolitik way) in the current geopolitical landscape.
The state sponsored drug smuggling is symbolic of a country not paying sufficient fealty to its master, but is secondary to the larger strategic issues in play.
I believe it's well established that it is primarily about gaining access to the vast oil reserves.
It's the new world order preached by Russia and supported by the BRICS.
The difference is that the US has the resources to play this game ruthlessly and effectively for the most part.
The coherent BRICS reply should be "we pray there's peace".
This is scary stuff.
The multipolar world is truly new and terrifying
Now, even the USA invades foreign countries!
(https://x.com/EventsUkraine/status/2007431899107758263)
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> Nicolás Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
I'm sorry but "possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
When did this happen exactly ??
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
It is not about oil but... blue gold[1]
[1] https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11372/
Somehow, I'm starting to agree with Russia's reason for launching the war because Ukraine wanted to join NATO.
Because...?
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If the last couple of years have taught anyone anything, your country is an open target if it doesn't have its own Iron Dome.
Or nuclear weapons.
Bin Laden found in Afghanistan? Invade and occupy the whole country.
Bin Laden found in nuclear-armed Pakistan? Quietly sneak in with a handful of SOF operators to shoot him in the face then GTFO.
or nukes... Welcome to the new arms race.
What kind of visa Mr. Maduro was using when he entered the US?
I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.
But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.
That easily makes a Nobel Peace Prize. An attack on Iran will make it into the world's first Double Nobel Peace Prize.
Now, it's also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.
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The fact that the cureent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has called on the foreign power most responsible for the problems in her home country to launch a war against her home country is all the proof anyone should need of how much of a sham this prize is (if Kissinger getting it has gone out of living memory, of course).
Not to say that the Maduro regime is not terrible, it obviously is, but cheering on a literal invasion makes you either a complete moron, or a psychopath of the highest order, hoping to rule over the ashes.
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Someone could be both anti-Trump and anti-Nobel Peace Prize 2025 winner. It could be the case.
I rejoice any time something doesn’t go Donald Trump’s way because he frequently says that he hates me and wishes to do me harm. I separately agree that Nobel Peace Prize awards often don’t make much sense.
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Military action on a sovereign state is an act of war. Is that not correct?
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"Venezuela has ~2.7× as much proved oil as the UAE (303 / 111 ≈ 2.73)."
Pretty incredible
The big difference is that the oil in UAE is easy to extract and use, the oil in Venezuela isn't.
Looking just at the facts, the action to take over Venezuela seems to be a good decision.
1. Public opinion isn't as important anymore, as Trumpism has found a way to flood the zone with so much shit, they have many more options
2. International environment looks way harsher and less cooperative, stressing the need to gain resources/influence
3. Resource rich, unstable country that has been in the headline and run down for years, right on the doorstep of the US
If they really gain access to all that oil the challenges US hegemony is bolstered up again. Seems low risk high reward. If they give it the facade of legitimacy by installing a local puppet government, they might get away with it.
As expected: "Trump now turns now to oil. He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a 'bust', and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"."
If you’re tracking signals around geopolitical events, there’s a quirky one a few folks like to watch: the Pentagon Pizza Index. It’s a real-time dashboard that monitors pizza shop activity near the Pentagon as an informal indicator of unusual late-night activity. Historically people have pointed to spikes in food orders before major operations as a sort of low-tech OSINT signal. https://www.pizzint.watch/
Obviously this isn’t hard intelligence — correlation isn’t causation — but when combined with more grounded indicators (verified reports, diplomatic channels, satellite data) it can be a piece of the broader picture. Just a fun example of how people try to find patterns in publicly available data.
You would expect them to have started baking the pizza inside the pentagon already by now :)
Or they order Chinese food to throw it off
Why bother monitoring junk food purchases when we can watch videos of helicopters flying over Caracas being uploaded almost in real time?
Hmm, I guess delivery app API can provide some useful signals if monitored.
(jk, Pentagon OPSEC is TIGHT from what I've been told)
The irony is that this is a president of the US that wants to have a Nobel peace prize.
Well they gave it to a Venezuelan rival to manufacture consent on this invasion instead. Still a good deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Corina_Machado
I'm a bit relieved that UN will do something about this:
https://youtu.be/9DLuALBnolM?si=Vg56GgJCisLOqvw0&t=146
well maybe the world is indeed back to different spheres of influence, as per the latest US security policy
overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants
hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..
it's truly incredible the harm that the psychological need for "strong man" leaders has on the world. What's even more strange, in my opinion, is that the bumbling and incoherent stuff Trump says is actually viewed by anyone as tough or strong. In my view it shows tremendous fear of directness and accountability. To call it womanish would be an insult to women.
Similarly, how does picking on much weaker countries (some of whom are allies) seem tough to anyone? In my view it's ugly and shows weakness rather than strength.
If USA can attack Venezuela for oil, why other countries, like France, couldn't do the same to Qatar or Koweit for example? France has more needs for oil that USA.
They attacked Venezuela because it's ruled by an illegitimate leader who allegedly commands a drug cartel responsible for smuggling cocaine and fentanyl.
It's also not difficult to see the broader strategy: every US adversary (China, Russia, Iran) has been taking a piece of Venezuela over the past several months. They were already "conquered". This could also give the US an upper hand in ending the war in Ukraine as it further weakens Russia as it loses access to cheap oil.
I’ll bet FIFA feels pretty silly now about their peace award.
It can’t be fun running HN right now. Sorry, dang et al.
It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.
Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!
(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)
Oh, it seems Mexico is next. I'm afraid to go to sleep these days, you never know what kind of world you will find in the morning.
Turns out Douglas Dykhouse really meant this years US New Year wishes when he said "Americans and Russians share the same values".
For everyone defending these actions on the basis of Maduro's own corruption and the desires of Venezuelans, I would encourage you to research the history of American intervention and regime change in Latin America. It is impossible to anticipate the second and third order effects of this change, and how it will be absorbed in the local politics. We are witnessing the return of American military intervention in Latin American, nothing more and nothing less.
To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.
Well this aged like shit [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100816
> this aged like shit
Your comment was chemically and biologically decomposed by microorganisms and fungi, which extracted energy from it and returned the remaining nutrients to the surrounding soil, providing a fertile ground for the growth of plants?
Can china use that excuse to do the same thing to Myanmar?
Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
> If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time
I don't think any latin american country can withstand the US for any amount of time, unless it turns into a guerilla war.
I'm sure you wish well, but
> Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea.
is just bollocks.
> On 21 May 1992 the Supreme Soviet of Russia declared 1954 transfer of Crimea as having "no legal force", because it was adopted "in violation of the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Russian SFSR and legislative process", but because subsequent legislation and the 1990 Russo-Ukrainian treaty constituted that fact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Crimea
Russians were planning Crimea takeover for a long time.
I talk about people, not government. Unfortunately it's two different things. And of course I don't mean 100% of people. But percentage wise - you wouldn't say that majority wanted to "get it back". And that's my point - leaders less and less represent the people.
As for the government - your are absolutely on point. And I don't disagree.
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Summary: Venezuela just lost its oil.
Brazil, Iran and China should be prepared for the worst now
How much equity in chevron will the federal gov get for this? 20% seems fair.
Will BP want “their” fields back?
The fed gov gets nothing.
Trump personally gets the 20%
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague.
Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.
Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.
> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague
Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
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It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.
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To be fair that applies to Maduro to if you count crimes against humanity in general. Certainly applied to Sadam.
So now the question is how to do you capture this leadership without foreign intervention while they are still in power?
Talk is nice... but there is no real mechanism to impose what you are proposing besides this.
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I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
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you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
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This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.
On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government.
What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
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Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"?
I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
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Well, 'western' 'rules based order' involves democratic elections and being in 166th place for government transparency isn't a good sign. Appointing your successor isn't exactly democratic, in fact it's very much the sign of most countries that end in dictatorship:
"Chavez was elected to a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in due to medical complications; he died in March 2013.[95] Nicolás Maduro was picked by Chavez as his successor, appointing him vice president in 2013."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela#Bolivarian_governmen...
Some certainly will, but not many I think. There are very few westerners outside of the US, who want to have anything to do with what the US are doing now.
> all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it
MAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they're doing it while criticising Trump.
The UK, for example, stopped intelligence sharing in the Caribbean so as to not be party to war crimes.
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MAGA at its core is a rejection of the lower classes having wealth.
They have the same respect for domestic laws as they do for international ones
Going back 7 months: Germany’s Merz says Israel is doing the ‘dirty work for all of us’ by countering Iran
In this case probably attitude is probably similar
matched by the hegsdeth signal chat that the US bombed the houthis on europe's behalf
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If the last 2 years of Gaza genocide didn't do that, I'm n not sure why this would. They'll spend the first 20 minutes talking about how bad Maduro is and the next 5 minutes saying this is "misguided" and didn't go through the proper channels.
Rules based order has always only applied to small and medium countries. The UN Security Council does whatever the hell they want
It's unreal.
I don't think Trump ever cared about rules based order.
His defenders kept, and keep, using it as an excuse.
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"rules based order" means putting people with dark skin in handcuffs on TV
No idea what you're going on about. Those in the West who stand for a rules-based international order certainly didn't ask for this war, and Trump, who did start this war, never gave a shit about rules or norms, international or otherwise.
Trump hardly is a representative for "westerners", actually the majority of them think he's a lawless looney. No one outside of his administration or party is justifying his actions.
Your comment is just bigotry.
Rapist presidents have no authority to defend 'rules based order'. Were you also ok with him defending 'rules based order' by arming Israel as they committed genocide? Or when he committed war crimes by blowing up the boats over the last few months?
This is illegal, immoral and not supported by the vast majority of the country. Every us citizen and every elected official needs to act, now, to stop this.
Not supported by the people of the USA or the people of Venezuela?
I'd avoid speaking in absolute terms, especially when you're wrong.
At this very moment I am likely a lot of things, but at the top of the list is mad. Very, very mad. I don't have words for this anymore or the patience to debate the intricacies of the broken system that has gotten us here. I am just viscerally, exceptionally, mad. Something will change.
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The majority of the country voted for this. Don’t let them off the hook so easily.
Technically ~49.8% of voters, ~31.6% of eligible voters, or ~22.7% of the US population. Or at least those were the numbers when I looked it up 10 months ago.
The majority of the country voted for this.
Trump won the electoral vote.
Trump asked why the US can't nuke other countries when it has so many nukes. Trump loves war ("department of war") loves bombing other countries - always has. That he is so eager to use nukes should frighten everyone.
I agree with the rest of your point but I dont think its factual to say the majority of the country voted for trump. 77m/343m or ~20% of the country voted for trump, though I'm sure this is what you meant to say.
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Especially in the US, this is a strawman. There is simply not enough granularity of choice that you can make voters accountable for every action Trump does.
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> The majority of the country
He did not win the popular vote.
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> not supported by the vast majority of the country
Votes suggest otherwise.
We both know this is an imperfect statement without getting into a lecture about representative democracy or voting modalities.
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The polls[0] on the war do not necessarily fall along party lines
[0]: https://usapolling.substack.com/p/america-marches-into-anoth...
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He promised his voters no new wars. So your statement is completely wrong.
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Is that the beginning of a three-days special military operation?
Footage is quickly spreading, looks like strikes on military bases as well as a bunch of low-flying helicopters, so a strike + a ground invasion? They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent for a war against Venezuela. Wonderful.
We don't need to manufacture consent anymore. The days of protest ending a war that the US is engaged in are long gone, if they were ever here.
Even the ballot box isn't enough. We don't have an anti-war party in the US.
Our news media are largely captive to the military, with the embedded reporter system.
Congress has abdicated broad war powers to the president, and the courts won't intervene.
The global community can't do anything to the US. Sanctions are very unlikely.
> Even the ballot box isn't enough. We don't have an anti-war party in the US
This is lazy and wrong. Simple answer is leadership is betting this won't lose them the Congress in the midterms because enough Americans won't care. Conceding ex ante the ballot box is literally proving that hypothesis.
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> We don't need to manufacture consent anymore.
You can see it on every popular internet thread
I mean they did it in US media, even used the same wording as they did for the Iraq war.
Protest has never stopped a government from doing what it wanted. Not a single time in history.
When it's appeared to work, that has one of two causes: either the government didn't really care very much to begin with, or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face. (See civil rights)
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Is that really necessary? Venezuela recently held an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power. Very few US citizens will find this particularly odious.
Of course Trump is very much against election fraud in other country unless it's his buddy Putin:
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/595299071/president-trump-con...
> They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent
Chomsky was smart and influential. But he was a linguist. Not a political scientist. The manufacturing-consent hypothesis sort of worked under mass media. But even then, it wasn't a testable hypothesis, more a story of history.
In today's world, unless you're willing to dilute the term to just persuasion in general, I'm not sure it applies.
Instead, the dominant force here is apathy. Most Americans historically haven't (and probably won't) risk life, liberty or material wealthy on a foreign-policy position. Not unless there is a draft. (I'm saying Americans, but this is true in most democracies.)
Most of Manufacturing Consent is about ideological alignment in media and government being an emergent property, not the product of deliberate conspiring. People seek out jobs with people/organizations they already agree with. People hire people they already agree with. People are more likely to get promoted if their boss thinks they have good opinions, etc. It's not a conspiracy, at least there doesn't need to be a conspiracy, because Manufacturing Consent describes an anti-conspiracy. All of this obviously still happens today, there hasn't been any fundamental change in human behavior, people still have special affinity for people they agree with. Always have, and always will.
Chomsky, as a linguist, was probably better equipped to understand the implications of emergent behavior than more mainstream political scientists.
Unlikely to be ann invasion, they appear to be SOF Chinooks so probably a snatch or pinpoint raid.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/03/americas/venezuela-explosions...
Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Plus, the more of a splash, the more Epstein stays out of the news.
MAGA: It's not really a war if they can't retaliate.
No doubt the regime will come up with a "special military operation" equivalent to avoid calling it what it is.
> Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Or, he could acknowledge that their is a conflict, and pretend he didn't start it but Venezuela did. Like he could claim that Venezuela invaded the US first (oh, wait, he actually did that last March, using it as the pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.)
I understand the point that some dictators are so bad he damages the whole region. The world invented the procedure to resolve it through the UN and the international institutions. Yet one superpower decides to do it itself because no one can stop it. I think that makes world more chaotic, it is the opposite of restoration of the order ax it was declared.
No surprise Pam Bondi can just use her Grok subscription to make an incitement appear out of thin air, but what jury is going to be fair and unbiased here? How are American citizens Maduro’s peers? How could a judge have jurisdiction over him?
Does Americans really believe a chief of a big country is state is a drug smuggler?
The question is irrelevant as the US just pardoned a major Honduran drug smuggler head of state, not to mention the well documented US involvement in the foreign drug trade (e.g., Afghanistan).
> Does Americans really believe a chief of a big country is state is a drug smuggler?
Manuel Noriega
Shit, we did this on the anniversary.
The other day there were people here seriously arguing that China was more interventionist than the US.
The latest US mass theft and aggression is far from surprising to anyone that studied south American history. Trump just drops the humanitarian pretexts, but the act itself is exactly in line with how US treats South America.
Maduro has apparently been indicted in New York on various drug trafficking conspiracy charges and gun charges[0].
Seeing how various other cases have went (James Comey, Letitia James) in this administration run by loyalists, what are the chances that he's acquitted due to prosecutorial incompetence?
0: https://xcancel.com/AGPamBondi/status/2007428087143686611
-- Garry Kasparov
https://x.com/Kasparov63/status/2007435764678705347
I don't like our dictator, but I am glad our dictator took out this other dictator (for personal reasons) who was working with other dictators (some of which our dictator supports) because it might mean that we have less dictators even if it comes with the risk of severe instability.
Ok, thanks Garry.
I can understand this position and have always admired Kasparov's principled ideology, but I think this is too narrow of a look. More things could've been done to peacefully attempt to oust Maduro with the cooperation of other countries.
Name the things
Let him cook. He's playing 2D chess.
I grow tired of the might makes right world we inhabit again. If you are not a citizen of a hegemon, or their allies, all the best envisioning a stable environment to thrive for your children when you know that the price of sovereignty and nationalised natural resources is a US invasion.
looking through the comments one thing I find strange that no one has picked up on is that maduro had met the chinese hours before being captured. To me I think the initial plan was to just let the economy tank by blockading the economy, chinese stepped into help and trump goes nuclear and kidnaps the guy. still pretty shocking that they wont hand over power to the party who won the election and plan on setting up a puppet state and steal the oil, does seem USA has become some despot country albeit with a large army.
I don't think people didn't "pick up" on it, I just don't think anyone thinks it matters. There is no smoke-and-mirrors back-room strategizing here. It looked cool on Fox News. Then the president went onto Fox News and talked about how cool it looked on Fox News. The text is text. The subtext is nonexistent.
Drill baby drill.
Captured? To do what with?
To remove, to prevent martyrdom in death, to force a change of government that sells them better oil. Same thing the US always does.
Tune in at the livestream 11am Mar-a-lago time :^)
My guess: he will be imprisoned in a 3rd country, he can't be allowed to move back to Venezuela
That's one way to bring down energy inflation...
Don't know why, this link gives me:
Access Denied
Our apologies, the content you requested cannot be accessed.
Works well, maybe it was a small hiccup?
So they are taking the oil reserves, that's why they came, oh the hypocrisy is unbearable, the democratic powerhouse terrorising a weak country the same way for what they condemned Russia for.
Huh. I thought Greenland was going to be the 51st state.
That's Israel
Wtf
It's explicitly about oil, right?
Wikipedia [1]:
> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."
PBS [2]:
> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_invasio...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-want-it-back-...
Venezuelan oil is kind of crappy. I would say the two biggest reasons for this are 1. Trump wanting migrants from Venezuela to stop and 2. Ending Venezuelan support for Cuba. Oil is definitely one of the reasons though.
Venezuelan oil is very heavy, but the US oil industry is literally designed to process this type. The US exports their sweet crude elsewhere because they can't process it.
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It is heavy crude but it's what our refineries are set up to use. There was a very informative news report on this recently posted to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk
Apparently shale oil mostly comes out as light, so our own production doesn't feed our refineries and we've increasingly taken to importing heavy crude.
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Maybe worth mentioning I posted this before seeing the news about Maduro being captured. No idea whether/how that might change the calculus.
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So the USA is officially a roque state internally and externally and was brought down by its very own law and order party. Poetic.
Considering the former state AG lost the election to the felon facing two open-and-shut federal cases, I think the "law and order" label has to be retired.
On the plus side, nothing here is permanent, this guy is out in just over three years. How much more damage could he possibly do?
You really believe he will be out in three years?
There's only one way he'll be out, and voting will not be part of that
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An awful lot.
> USA is officially a roque state internally and externally
All of the great powers are. So are most of the regional powers. It's basically the EU and Brazil hanging on to the old rules-based international order.
Never thought that whataboutism was going to be the coping mechanism.
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Here in middle Europe the rumble is that it is time to BDS the United States. I hear this everywhere, on the streets, at parties, at work.
I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
It’s going to be bumpy if/when it happens, but does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice. Everything else is doom.
> rumble is that it is time to BDS the United States
I doubt Europe’s fondness for self-flagellation goes that far.
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I would say we are not a Democracy and it doesn't matter who we vote for. I think it will take a full on dollar collapse to end it, and I think Washington would sacrifice every one of us to not lose grip on power.
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you ready to BDS all computers, good chunk of phones and a bunch of other tech ?
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> I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
I doubt that. It's far more likely to backfire into increased support for aggressive right-wing populism of the kind Trump peddles. It also seems doubtful that Europe could really afford that economically at the time when it's already in an open confrontation with Russia and not exactly on friendly terms with China.
> does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice.
We do not have an effective mechanism for that. Even if our democracy were truly functional, people have voted for candidates who promised no more wars for >15 years now, and yet here we are. Meaningful reforms that would _perhaps_ enable this require constitutional amendments, which have such a high bar as to be unattainable in this political climate. I don't think the system can recover, but it still has a lot of capacity to do damage as it breaks down.
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More rogue than ignoring the results of a presidential election?
If this results in Maduro leaving office with a small number of mostly military deaths, followed by the swift return of Venezuelan democracy, I would concede that the hawks made a good call this time. It is extraordinarily uncommon for US regime change wars to go that way and I don’t think this is going to be the exception.
(E: Honesty compels me to come back and say that it is looking somewhat likely I was wrong and will have to concede to the hawks.)
Invading a country is worse than having a constitutional crisis yes.
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The Guardian reports that Maduro has been charged with: "narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
Good to know that possession of machine guns is finally being made illegal by the US!
Marco Rubio needed this for his presidential run in 2028. Does this mean that Putin will look the other way for Maduro as long as Trump looks the other way when Putin captures or kills Zelenskyy? Have they officially agreed to divide the world as spheres of influence?
1. This distracts from the Epstein files.
2. President for peace he never has (silly FIFA award aside).
3. They’re more interested in oil than any other stated goals.
4. This is straight out of the republican playbook of tanking the economy and using a war to distract from it and prop up defense contractors.
5. US regime changes are always a disaster.
Crazy how far down I had to scroll to see this. Yeah, the timing of it is an Epstein thing. He knows he's gonna get impeached again and files will be released in 2026 when he loses midterms, and needs to concoct an emergency.
Here's how to know if I'm right -- since this isn't high enough drama, he'll make it amp up by a factor of 1-5 with false-flag attacks on America or something else to try to create a real sense of emergency in the next year.
Trust in the US is officially broken
As a German I see a lot of history repeating.
The U.S. did perform a regime change in Germany too, not too long ago.
Who might be the first European head of state or similar they lift out? Ursula von der Leyen? :-D Air defenses in the EU does not seem to be in the best shape, the way Russian drones seem to operate without trouble.
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What a disgrace
arabs and iran you should now team up and do something about your collective security, because US is now openly started kidnaping the future of countries. team up with pakistan and ensure it's economic stability and make some NATO like agreement and get atleas 10 Nukes each otherwise you will also see the same day as maduro. i beleave you have very little time.
There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
The congress people who are military veterans recently put out a public service announcement reminding those in the military that they must refuse illegal orders, and Trump called that reminder of the law "treasonous" and said the veterans should be executed for reminding people of the law.
There should be military tribunals for all involved here to ensure that law and order is maintained. The US is losing its constitution, its rule of law. There is not country if we have two different sets of laws, one for normal people but zero laws for those following rhe president's wishes. That's a monarchy.
No American, but the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions? That doesn’t make them any better but I was wondering the same thing
> the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions?
Which one?
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> There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
No. From an international-law perspective, Trump is stepping into the footprints left by Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Khamenei and his own predecessors in D.C.
From a domestic-law perspective, this is un-Constitutional.
He just called it a "war" on TV, and only Congress can declare war.
Just checked on r/conservative what the diehard MAGA fans are saying and they seem to be very happy that Trump is attacking the Cartels and Chinese influence in their backyard. That seems to be the current narrative among MAGA right now.
MAGA is quite literally a cult of personality, so that's hardly surprising.
> they seem to be very happy that Trump is attacking the Cartels and Chinese influence in their backyard
If Trump had just globalised the seizure of shadow tankers, he could have dealt a serious blow to Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
And bring oil prices up 2x-3x to never get re-elected.
It’s so simple to understand. There are tens of dictatorships around. Why this one? Shit is fucked more a lot more in Congo. Why is the US not interested? This is not about human rights. This is about oil.
Trump's post: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
Very disappointing to see some of the arguments being put forth in favour of this blatant aggression. After reading through quite a few comments I'm left with the impression that very many people seem to hold some pretty dubious opinions:
1. That previous justifications in the lead up to this event are now irrelevant or to be ignored or forgotten about ('narco-terrorism', 'it's our oil', 'sanctions busting', etc).
- These were all weak to begin with (but are still relevant because the truth is in there and stated almost explicitly - i.e. 'US interests').
2. That this attack on Venezuelan sovereignty was done for moral reasons ('bad regime').
- Even accepting that the government of Venezuela is a 'bad regime', this is insufficient - there are many arguably much worse governments in the world.
3. That might is right.
- Correct in some sense but morally bereft.
All in all a lot of post-facto nonsense on display.
I'm frankly appalled at the self-serving moral blindness on display here. I refuse to believe that people are arguing in good faith here. Disappointing to see from the otherwise thoughtful commenters on this site.
To anyone making the above arguments, let me ask you - what do you think of the saying "do unto others as you would have done unto you"?
Trump's handlers have proven the USA military don't care about the Constitution. They're happy to enforce the dictators will even though they know it to be unlawful. Seems like that is a significant movement that opens the door for Trump to be even more evil. They've rallied to the sex offender, they probably have to follow through now to avoid joining him and his cohort in jail.
The Constitution isn't that long - state the violations here plainly for all of us to see and critique.
If Maduro had paid the going rate to the right lobbyists it wouldn't have come to this.
He should have learned from the example of the ex Honduran president who was recently pardoned by Trump.
I hope the rest of south america doesn’t let this stand. Heavy sanctions on US, maybe even military intervention. The US can’t go to war with an entire continent.
Are you from South America? Do you think the neighboring countries are happy about all the Venezuelan refugees? What about Guyana - do you think they would join sanctions in support of Venezuela?
Military intervention? Some farmers with sticks?
Do you even know what the Rio Treaty is?
Yes, I am, and yes I don’t particularly mind the immigrants.
Even if I did mind them, venezuelan immigrants are preferable to the US military invading my neighbours.
The TIAR? The one that says an attack on one is an attack on all, which both USA and Venezuela are members of? Fat lot of good that did to protect them.
But I don’t know why I bother to reply to you when given your “farmers with sticks” comment it’s clear that you’re a racist asshole.
So the US can just fly into a country and kidnap it's president and his wife at will now? Just because Donald Trump feels like it. And most Americans will somehow praise and love it.
What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?
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24 hours and no zionists complaining about how this is not tech news/flagging the post.
Thank you, I guess, for allowing the rest of us to talk about whatever we want.
Yup. Venezuelans voted for the Bolivaran Revolution. This is it. We shouldn’t waste our time with it. Especially because every time we topple a regime like this it creates a refugee crisis and a huge influx of refugees to the U.S.
The US already has a refugee crisis because of Maduro's leadership, that refugee crisis is one of the reasons for this.
The US already had a huge influx of Venezualan refugees because of the Maduro regime.
I didn't know Maduro was responsible for protecting the US border. Perhaps he should be charged with "dereliction of duty"? To go along with his other trumped up charges (ha.. ha..) such as "possession of machine guns and other destructive devices".
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Except we didn’t and there’s already an ongoing refugee crisis.
[0] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_refugee_crisis
The refugee crisis was already ongoing precisely due to the dire situation of Venezuela. They stole the 2024 election as well, the opposition won BIG.
Does it matter to you that they then voted against it, probably more than once?
What is the “it” they voted against? Did the reject the ideology? Or are they just unhappy with the current dictator but will vote for the next one that comes along?
...except there already is a refugee crisis caused be the regime that is supposed to be toppled, 20% of Venezuelans have left the country.
USA, the world's bullying.
Surprise, surprise, US still the country of regime change and military intervention, when control of or access to valuable natural resources are at play.
US flexing its muscles and showing that it's in charge of its "backyard", just as it always has been.
Please don't insult our intelligence with comments about how this is about justice, drugs, or democracy. I've lived long enough to have seen this movie many times.
If one believes we are moving towards major conflict with China this sort of operation is justifiable given Maduro's closeness to the CCP.
It is very unlikely this will be met with anything like a coordinated condemnation from the Europeans given Maduro's closeness to Russia. Hence giving Trump some degree of international political cover for the move.
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Venezuelan president Maduro captured and flown out of country following ‘large scale’ US attack, Trump says – live
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
"Trump claims Maduro 'captured and flown out of the country' US president Donald Trump claims that the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife have been “captured and flown out of the country”.
In a Truth Social post shared only moments ago, Trump wrote:
The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify this report."
Combat footage is coming out by the minute. Watching it, I don't understand how Americans can be so fundamentally evil. Watching helicopters gun people on the ground down. What makes you so sick in the head that you would do this? How could you obey these orders and feel nothing as you slaughter innocent people? There isn't even any possible pretext to this invasion. They know what they're doing and still choose to do it. It's utterly incomprehensible.
Genuinely, I think ~30% of Americans just like it when other people suffer. This might also be true of people in general
I'd like to see a study or more information that backs up this ~30% statement - That is alarming!
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Yep. It's the illiberal authoritarians. The people who need hierarchy, for domination and submission. This is why equality is an scary abomination to them.
All societies have such people. But civil societies prevent them from gaining significant power. Failing that, it's going to be expensive.
This society elected a known abuser. Of course this society will be abused. But also because of this society's global power, the world will also be abused.
The hostility toward your comment proves the point: Americans willl only understand when their own cities suffer the same fate
Ironically, that prospect is approaching with each passing year
I regret to inform you that this is not how the cycle of violence works. As the US itself has repeatedly found, inflicting violence on people makes them more supportive of violence, both because you’ve taught them it’s a legitimate tool and because many of them want revenge on you.
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Trump is solidifying control over (North and South) American oil to ensure oil reserves in the event of a global war. China's first move would be to control middle eastern and russian oil - choking manufacture.
There is a war coming. A larger war.
Chinese envoy was meeting Maduro just hours ago in Miraflores. Wonder how that factors into the situation
Am I going to see Venezualan flags pop up all over European capitals like I did when Putin did the exact same thing in Ukraine that Trump just did? I had highly doubt it. I guess invading foreign countries is fine if it’s „our“ side doing it.
If you have the view that all military action is bad - you will remain as confused as you are right now.
A more mainstream view has a different opinion.
I think it will be regarded as a poor move long term to so boldly put the us stamp on what will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or two
I'm admittedly somewhat ignorant of all the details but I don't see what the real benefit is
my only guess is that it's to disincentivize the Russians and Chinese from being more involved in South America but it feels like it could do the opposite and act as an annoying wedge
> will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or two
It will be a small miracle if it doesn't spark a refugee crisis.
Venezuela already was a refugee crisis ~5 years ago, until they liberalized the economy slightly some years ago. Not sure what the current status is.
I could foresee
* some US-backed pro-business president coming to power * GDP going up * still no completely liberal democracy but anyway better than Maduro * less emigration or maybe people start coming back
The main casualty is the notion that the US follows rules instead of doing whatever it wants. I'm not sure if I'd say democracy is a casualty as well, because (AFAIK with my non-leftist sources) Venezuela wasn't a real democracy.
Spark? Venezuela has already been undergoing a refuge crisis. That crisis is the biggest reason for this invasion, trump hates refugees.
Yes, I’m sure a US invasion will help the local populace finally understand that they should be friendly with Uncle Sam and his freedom loving ways rather than the Russians and Chinese who brought mostly shady investments as a way of building influence.
What a publicity hound. Ratings plummeting? Nothing like a foreign war to pump the numbers.
Best it be a puny helpless country, so nobody (important) gets killed. Just some brown folk from South America, nobody cares about them.
Anything to serve the ego; absolutely no crime or moral outrage is off-limits. Long as it serves that endless pit that is ego.
Rules based order.
The other takeaway: if you have oil, and no nukes, in due course, the US will come to steal it.
I guess even the last former voter now understands that a certain orange man is a huge liar. So much for "I'm gonna get the peace nobel prize" by Invasion 2.0. Actually, it is not even an invasion right now - it is just a distraction from certain files. How much has not yet been revealed with regard to that network involving underage people?
Why U.S. army takes orders from a mentally ill person
From the standpoint of international law, this is an unprovoked attack, it's a war crime and act of terror. Trump and United States of America can now be officially treated as a terrorists and terrorist state!
Non-USA citizen here. What's going on?
I just woke up to this madness, and have heard nothing about it prior to today. Has this come as a surprise to everyone in the USA too, or were there murmurings leading up to it? What was the reason given? I'm presuming there was _something_, even if it was clearly nonsense?
It's not entirely unexpected - you must have missed the recent deployment of the US Navy in the region, which looked like a naval blockade. But this operation is certainly daring - far more impressive than simply blowing Maduro up with a drone strike, which I personally expected.
It's justified by portraying Maduro as a drug kingpin responsible for the fentanyl epidemic in the US. He is also blamed for some gang activity.
I figured it was coming because of Dear Leader's ramblings. TBH, I thought it was going to be the focus of the sudden address given on December 17. Instead we got amphetamine-fueled yelling about "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, THE ECONOMY IS REALLY GREAT" and something about a military bonus that was really just a way to rename and tax a pre-existing housing allowance.
When is the US military going to start going after all those Venezuelan fentanyl labs?
Trump just said that Maduro and his wife have been captured and flown out of the country.
What's to stop Russia from simply abducting whoever we install in his place? If we can do it, anyone can. The arrogance is unbelievable.
The whole thing is so weird; both sides are coy.
Venezuela is playing the usual card about America trying to seize oil; US playing usual card about narcotics. You can believe what you want, or buy into whatever mainstream narrative you want, I’m not here to judge, but I’ve seen these cards played out so many times in my lifetime.
Neither makes sense to me for this level of resistance and response from the US. I have a feeling this has to do far more with Iran, Russia, and China, than Venezuela/drugs.
For instance next-door, China is active around the Darien gap region, developing roads and highways. Allegedly this is for port infrastructure, but given Chinese history of low intensity conflicts and island building techniques in the South China sea, this could be a land version of that strategy.
I need to read up about Venezuelan and Iranian Russian connections and interactions. I think the most underrated piece of news is the seizure of tankers under embargo, with blowing up drug boats as the distraction.
One thing is for sure; even the most hard core right of uneasy to support Trump in a new war, and Trump has publicly lamented the expense (of all things) of war.
Myself: no thanks. No more wars please.
Not too much info out yet, but I'm guessing one of these happened:
A) Maduro negotiated some deal for himself and his family.
B) His whole military leadership sold him out.
(A) Makes sense if you assume that he had no other exit strategies. If he could have fled to Russia, he'd already done that. I'm thinking that Trump pressed hard on Putin not to take him. With no strong allies left, there's no exit for him. At best he'd be exposed to full-scale invasion by the US, civil war, or other internal power struggles.
(B) Makes sense if you assume that someone simply took the bait, and were flown out of Venezuela with the US operatives. But from a military perspective, it wouldn't be easy - any serious country has contingency plans, and there are many moving parts. Obviously one (or many) generals could provide these things in great detail, but there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel that will stick to their procedures once shit hits the fan.
From what I've seen, some airstrikes took out AA systems. And there's been reported some fighting back.
I don't know. (A) sounds a bit more likely to me. By any measure, the man was backed into a corner. I think his hail marry was for Putin to offer to save him. But that never happened...a big clue will be how Russia, and the Russian disinformation campaigns react to this.
Dang - is there a way to view all the comments on a story in a single page?
Abuse of power by a self-serving oligarchy, redux. “ Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny out of the most extreme form of liberty.” ~ Plato (The Republic)
Trump is acting exactly as an agent of Russia would. Pissing off allies, trying to break up the EU and NATO, creating a distraction war to cut aid to Ukraine.
<< America needs to be at war so that Trump can halt normal domestic process and procedure under war powers acts etc. This is the next step. >>
US declares war on Venezuela without Congress. The republicans have really destroyed the constitution.
Interesting that they chose to capture him alive. Surely this poses a great problem to the administration. Maduro didn't exactly commit any crimes....
This is a horrifying way for any country to act, and millions of people will be hurt. Truly a travesty of the greatest order.
> Maduro didn't exactly commit any crimes
Lol. Lmao even
Do you disagree? Come, let's inspect your thoughts. What news have you been consuming. Who do you trust? We can precisely evaluate your degree of susceptibility to propaganda. Aka "retardation"
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Claim: according to any sensible definition of international law, this action was illegal. See [1] for example.
Would anyone care to offer a genuinely held counter argument? Preferably based on legal expertise.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/is-there-any-l...
There is no international law. Who enforces it? There are loose treaties that change all the time.
> There is no international law.
This is incredibly confused.
A reasonable person can say international law is unevenly enforced. This does not mean it does not matter. Both positive (what exists) and normative (what is ethical) considerations matter.
Communicating well matters. The above style of exaggeration is unhelpful if one cares about making sense of the world. Try to predict what happens in the future without factoring in international agreements and laws. Predictions from such models will be inferior, relatively speaking, to a version that does include paying attention to law.
> Vice President J. D. Vance suggested on X that this morning’s incursion is legal because “Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism.” But as my colleague Conor Friedersdorf has noted, this logic would mean that the president can order an invasion of “any country where a national has an outstanding arrest warrant.”
- The Atlantic
Worse, it means that any country that the US wants to invade, it can justify it by manufacturing an indictment against the ruler.
It's a US military invasion. I hope that an unpopular invasion with zero justification results in some level of political consequences for Trump but sadly I remain skeptical
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Hell, the current administration doesn’t even see those north of the northern border as worth considering either.
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Oil's a hell of a drug
Rules-based global order, right?
No Interpol or ICC warrant, no answer to sovereignty or jurisdictional issues, no justified claim of extraterritoriality.
Can't we call a kidnapping what it is?
So Trump is jalous because it did not have its peace Nobel and take it on Maduro. Shall we give it to a Russian political opponent next year ?
Good riddance! But there are other key figures that need to be captured.
regime change starts at home
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. The dead and imprisoned for it are evidence.
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I just called my representatives and told them they need to do their jobs and put a check on the executive branch and stop this illegal, undeclared war. Please do the same.
Wondering what and who is going to fill the power vacuum there.
Maduro arrested https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
Considering the general incompetence of this administration, this level of success with such a surgical operation seems completely out of character.
Incredibly impressive operation, whether or not you agree with it. Although the ability to operate helos over Caracas with such impunity may very well suggest high-level collaborators in the local military.
The army is full of very competent people regardless of who's in charge for the last 4 years, it's not like they start from scratch at every new administration. And most of them just like to blow shit up regardless of the moral aspect of it, as we've seen in the past
I certainly don't doubt the competence of the US army, but the fact that they spent only minutes on active SEAD bombing raids to enable this operation suggests that it wasn't just cool tech or super competent SOF operators that truly enabled this operation.
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> suggest high-level collaborators in the local military
This - almost guaranteed that this was a negotiated outcome/coup from the military.
Also it's telling i had to scroll halfway down the page to find the first non "trump therefore bad" comment. The cognitive dissonance of the posters vis a vis Machado is pretty astounding.
It's really a shame topics like this attract such lazy ideological struggle on HN. Reiterating Trump=bad over and over simply doesn't make for interesting conversation regardless of how true it may be.
Even on this particular story, there are so many interesting HN-worthy details to discuss. Instead we're stuck lazily debating whether this was right or wrong.
You can find higher-quality, much more aggressively moderated conversations on topics like this on r/CredibleDefense. However, even that subreddit struggles with the traffic from high-profile events like this.
If you wanna stay up to date on this one just refresh the Wikipedia page. They are on it like crazy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_strikes_in_...
I'd suggest twz, they'll have much better informed takes than wikipedia https://www.twz.com/news-features/explosions-ring-out-across...
Damn. And no large-scale military activity in play.
I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win, especially where Maduro has been considered being more and more authoritarian, rejecting democracy, and probably would've been willing to sacrifice thousands of lives in a ground war if this increasing threat was handled less finely.
Add to this the fact that Venezuela has crazy amounts of oil BUT a totally mismanaged and badly exploited extraction operation and the economy is in the toilet. Unless this somehow leads in to a Libya situation, everyone could benefit from this, compared to the hopelessness of the past.
> this increasing threat
What threat? There is no threat to the US from Venezuela. This is another Banana war.
> I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win
It has only been a few hours, so nobody knows what is going to follow. Even if US does not engage further this may well trigger a civil war in Venezuela with massive casualties.
All Americans are at fault since it claims to be a democracy. They should all be sanctioned into the ground. This is the M.O they deal with others on.
Politics aside: If this is all true and was a snatch and grab, it will go down as one of the most impressive military operations in the 21st century.
Sky News reports that it might have been a "negotiated exit". https://x.com/SkyNews/status/2007391354884894820
Yeah. Maduro was pretty clear he wanted a deal. I’d believe this angle.
You can't really put politics aside when the US was obviously dangling the return of the Monroe doctrine for Ukraine. Let's see what that "deal" looks like.
It'd be in stark contrast to Russia's attempted decapitation strike.
imo this was negotiated, we need more details
and if nobody was killed.
„The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
President DONALD J. TRUMP“
I still care more about what’s on the Epstein files
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US ..."
should be
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US authoritarian government ..."
or (better, really)
"Venezuela has accused the US ..."
Holy whataboutism. Regardless of what you think about Trump the US system is nothing like that of Venezuela or Russia or any other actually authoritarian state.
Yet.
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Before anyone starts telling us how they are attacking a legitimate president and that the people will defend it, take your time to find your closest Venezuelan (there are 8 million around the world, so don't need to look to far) and ask him how he feels about this, you will find that happy is part of their emotions.
I found two, and happy is not part of their emotions.
Just because you don't like your government doesn't mean you want the US to come and deliver your next US flavored dictator
So that juatifies this attack does it? How many dead Venezuelans does it justify?
Are they Venezuelans living in Venezuela? I think the ones you have to worry about are the ones still living there.
Additionally, might it be that every dictatorship is hated by most expatriates? I think that that was the case for the 2 (or 3) countries that the neo-cons invaded, and I don't remember any of those invasions turning out well. Reckless.
I imagine, purely as a thought experiment, if you asked a sample of US expats what their reaction to the "forced removal" of the current president from office you'd get a similar response.
8 million is a lot in a country that around 30 million population.
Plus the opposition won the 2024 election by a landslide, but it was stolen by Maduro.
The overwhelming majority wants the regime to end.
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I don't see a single comment in this thread praising Maduro, I have basically never heard anyone express this sentiment in these discussions: "Maduro: Democratic leader, universally loved by his ever grateful people for standing up to the autocratic regimen of the USA" the argument is that regime change and military intervention in foreign conflicts have led to disaster time and again.
You wrote out a fantasy here that says more about what content you seek out than anything else.
Let me strap on my vocabulary filter for this site and say very diplomatically that what you typed is completely, entirely incorrect, a caricature, and is not relevant.
This is a bit like asking Cubans in the US how they feel about Castro. The ones who left don't tend to be the most ardent supporters of the regime...
I get why some people were neo-con the first 3 or so times (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) but it's criminal not to learn after failing 3 times over. I want the most severe consequences for the people who have enabled this to happen again.
Do any of those people regret those first three?
Gotta get those gasoline prices down before the midterms.
after Iran and now venezuela
Iran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????
what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??
Oil.
We also have a crusade in Nigeria next on the docket for project 2026.
Actually Trump has stated very clearly that Venezuela has "stolen American oil which resides in Venezuela".
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How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about ideals like liberal democracy or allies, but is a warmongering corporatist autocracy.
We won't know for a while but I don't imagine there will be mass civilian graves, abducted children, or the intent to annex the country. This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.
"This is more about oil and deposing Maduro." Scary how overt these 'operations' are these days. 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this. Someone said 'lack of shame' is very concerning with governments of today. Wonder if this is a reflection of where we as a humanity are heading.
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> This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.
Correct.
"This isn't about conquering Ukraine, it's about coal and removing Nazi Żeleński from power"
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Ukraine didn’t hold an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power
Yep. They just ousted the elected president without the votes their constitution mandates.
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Seems like a thin reason to invade a country
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That's just one of the fake reasons Russia likes to point at, with useful idiots like yourself aiding the effort.
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It’s not any different. I have totally lost my faith in America as an American.
Now you did ?
You should've been keeping scores on US' wars and regime changes, you'd had lost faith long time ago.
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> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don't intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn't plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?
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See: Panama, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
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For one the whole country of Ukraine is fighting like hell for almost 4 years following the orders of their elected government to defend their country.
If Russia was on the right, the people of Ukraine would have just hanged Zelenskyy and his gov, instead of sending their children to the meat grinder.
Let’s see if Venezuelans will put their lives on the line to protect the regime.
Military police are forcefully abducting people on the streets by now. Fighting the power of the state is not something that just happens.
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> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically: maybe Venezuela will get a bit less sympathy because it's a somewhat shittier (see emigration numbers) and less democratic government than Ukraine's. And I suspect we have a more positive view of US troops than Russian troops, despite everything (Abu Ghraib is seen as an aberration and not as the normal way of working).
It does differ, in ways that many others listed below. That doesn't make it any legitimate, though.
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically it's different in that Trump hopefully will not going to kill 220,000+ and leave 500,000+ war invalids of US military personnel in process. Though you never know...
A surgical strike that was over before the news broke out vs. a 4-year campaign of plundering with literal criminals, press-ganged foreigners, and chechen blocking detachments, featuring mass rape, executed civilians, abduction and forced reeducation of thousands of children, gross mistreatment of PoW, etc.
Hmmmm... indeed, hard to tell the difference!
"We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about <thing USA has never cared about>, but is a <things USA has always been>"
Russia's goal is to destroy Ukraine as nation and a country, because there's no "Ukrainians", there's no "Ukrainian language", and every country that speaks Russian should be controlled by Russian tsar. That's why they don't care and demolish ("liberate") Ukraine, town after town.
Do US do/want the same for Venezuela?
Emphasizing that I’m not defending this war at all, but one key difference I’m extremely confident in is that the US will not attempt to annex its favorite regions of Venezuela.
It doesn't care about regions. There's a lot of precedent for annexing resources though.
Let's see if some american company is granted all kinds of rights to Venezuelan oil in the end.
Which, if it happens, should really be treated as blood oil like blood diamonds are and then sanctioned by the world
FWIW Russia was initially quite happy with "independent" Ukraine provided that their guy Yanukovich was in charge. It was only when he was ousted that they switched to open invasion tactics.
So from that perspective, I don't think US is really much different, just better at keeping its own puppets in power.
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Absolutely no reason to believe that
do you think that a pro US replacement regime in Venezuela will get US backing and support for it’s claims to eastern Guyana?
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Idiot.
Countries that "defend itself" don't annex territories of other countries.
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Ex-superpower, still regional power, defends itself from Ukraine, right.
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Another difference that has not been mentioned in other comments is that: The US is not completely delusional about its military capabilities and could actually complete this invasion in three days. In fact, it may already be over, as Maduro have been captured.
I think something like The Hague is the moderate position with this administration.
There's a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel, disallowing them access to things like Microsoft software and unbanking them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14203
> a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel
Yeah. Pettiness. The ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in the United States. We aren't a signatory to the Rome Statute. (Most of the world's population doesn't live under its jurisdiction.)
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Name a government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention
Most European governments have already, in their own (weak) way expressed that this intervention isn't legitimate according to international law.
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Denmark? They already condemned it, and are also repeatedly threatened by the schoolyard bullies
Translation: "Name a Zionist-holocaust-of-babies-supporting-pedophile-rapist-infested-government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention"
Great moral measuring stick...
Venezuela is in process of leaving ICC and USA is not party to ICC.
This administration is just a continuation of the last administration. Same policies on anything important. But it is possible you missed the Gaza Genocide?
https://vxtwitter.com/FaytuksNetwork/status/2007338956241985...
Not Venezuelan helicopters...
EU is just headless chicken. They will just blindly agree to whatever Trump says
Unless Maduro was somehow actually deposed BEFORE the US mil came into the country, or at least into Maduro's residence, Trump just changed the standing international order of centuries to allow kidnapping of heads of state
So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".
This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.
So they got Maduro now they gonna commit genocide or why the hell keep bombing??
They have stopped bombing and they're not going to commit genocide. The US isn't Israel.
Looks like the bar is set very low in this day and age.
Taiwan is doomed.
This is just sad. We have a long history and lots of data to know this will be catastrophic for the Venezuela. Hope it doesn’t go that way but feels inevitable. The us is never expected to learn from its mistakes so nothing new there, with the administration desperate to distract from the Epstein files has decided war is the way.
This is a crime. It is an unlawful act of aggression which may defacto trigger an international armed conflict. There will be paper thin justifications of course but those are merely to give loyalists talking points and a thread to grasp to in their mental gymnastics.
In normal parlance, this is an act of war.
Why are comments allowed on these posts? What is the point? What is ever gained? Conservatives question and deny. Liberals point out the multiple laws broken. People from the rest of the world tell those of in the USA that we have our head up our ass.
How are any of us better for this? How is this better than Facebook's engagement-bait?
Peace. Out.
oil price down
There was already an Israeli pundit on Fox News saying that Venezuela harbors Hamas and Hezbollah operatives. My assumption is that they are throwing that out there to garner support from Trump’s “anti-war unless it’s defending Israel” supporters.
It's the Epstein Distraction Action.
Wag the Dog.
I suggest reading the few south american comments in this thread hidden by the usual whatever Trump does vitriol fro EU/US commenters.
r/venezuela is one placce to start. Very different tone there than the ill informed commenters here ( and I say that with detest for “that other site”)
Hopefully the Venezuelan people will have a fighting change to restore their country now.
Time will tell I suppose.
If by “restore their country” you mean “have their oil reserves taken by force without compensation”.
What did y’all think María Machado won the Nobel for over Trump? Does it even matter or is orange man bad all you care about anymore? HN was over the moon to see her win just a few months ago.
Okay, that was smooth and effective. But now what? Let's hope not another Libya.
International law does not exist.
Regardless of how retarded maduro was, "i felt like it" should not be justifiable reason to kidnap a president of a different country on their own turf.
Maybe i felt better about that if trump wasnt in bed with another dictator.
Looks like Maduro and his wife were captured https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
"Venezuelan allies Russia, Cuba and Iran were quick to condemn the strikes as a violation of sovereignty."
Right, Russia, who has been attacking Ukraine not just for one night, but for four years, is now going to lecture the US about violations of sovereignty. Their moral high ground, if they ever had any, is long gone.
I'm not sad if Maduro's gone. I'm even less sad if this results in actual freedom for Venezuela after 20 years of nightmare.
But I am not happy about the president of the US, on his own authority, choosing to remove the head of other countries, on rather flimsy pretexts. (If he presents actual evidence that Maduro was actively and deliberately shipping drugs to the US, or worse, criminals, then I will change my opinion. But I need evidence, not just claims and bluster.)
russia doesnt need moral high ground to be correct.
its not like the US is now banned from supporting ukraine just because they overthrew the Iraqi government and created a migrant crisis in europe.
They're American aircraft. It sure seems like after repeatedly threatening to invade Venezuela, Trump is now invading Venezuela. For what though?
Same reason USA invades anything.
The largest oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela
last unredacted copy of epstein files /s
1. It's distraction on a grand scale from the Epstein Event Horizon, also on a grand scale.
2. Trump: (2018) We don't want to be the policemen of the world BY BRETT SAMUELS - 04/30/18 [0]
> President Trump on Monday said the U.S. should no longer serve as the “policemen of the world.”
> “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
> “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority,” he said.
> Trump ran on the promise that he would extricate the U.S. from foreign wars.
[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385521-trump-we-...
How on earth was this allowed?
Neither the republican nor democrat base wanted this. There wasn't even an attempt at justification, the drugs argument was a complete and utter joke. They could at least do a little false flag attack.
If voting does it solve it what does?
Maduro was captured by Trump
Hernàndez was captured by Biden. Trump pardoned him because Biden bad.
This world is a shitshow. Honestly, I am GenX and always read of wars and tensions as historical artefacts (there were wars, but localized and far away from France).
Now I am seriously wondering if this is going to end well for us over here. I do not work that much about myself, I had an interesting life, but rather about my children whom I now start to regret. I did not expect to hand them a world like this one.
I know, global warming was there but I was 30 and was looking my close surroundings. My bad. This said, if I know what the world would be today I wrote reconsider having them.
What's the desired strategic outcome here - to remove the incumbent president and his political party from power and replace it with one more favorable to US oil interests? And to do that without putting ground troops in to some Latin American Vietnam? Good luck with that.
Maria Machado? I thought independent observers mostly agreed she won the election?
It'll be the usual playbook: replace Maduro with a pet dictator. It won't go well for Venezuela and it's people, but since when did the USA give a damn about people?
Things can not get worse for Venezuelans than they were under maduro
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And yet droves and droves from south and Central America want to come here and live instead!
Also do these countries governments care for their own ppl? Seems like no as if they did ..they wouldn’t be corrupt 2nd to 3rd world countries & their citizens wouldn’t be fleeing to America in droves
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The USA are a blight on the Americas and the larger World. Their fanatic population will immediately jump in to justify a violent, naked attempt at stealing this country's mineral resources. This already happened dozens of times, always with terrible outcome, yet here we are again. The fall of the American empire can't happen fast enough.
Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."
Fantastic news. Hope Venezuelans are able to have their Democracy back.
It brings joy to my heart every time democracy is brought to an oil rich country, no matter what the price is.
Yeah, sure.
It is called "Mission Accomplished"[1], right?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
Venezuela's major crime is having natural and human resources that it won't allow multinational corporations to exploit.
Venezuela has had plenty of recent multinational support in recent years from China National Petroleum, Anhui Guangda Mining, Rosneft (Russia), and Iran.
Trump ballon d'or 2026
Those who rejoice today with the fall of Maduro may not rejoice when China or India or any other regional player decides to topple the government of another country and kidnap their leaders and then install a "friendly" regime in their place.
Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.
Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?
Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.
Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.
Imagine the terror felt by those in the capital as American warplanes flew overhead launching munitions.
"The oil must flow"
Boy is trying to outdo both Regan and Dubya. He didn't even try to sell it to us like they did with Iraq.
Venezuelans, I'm sorry my shithole country is about to inflict a fascist puppet state on you. Nobody here gives enough of a shit despite all the chest-thumping and "MUH LIBERTY TREE". We'd rather have drum circles and ask for permission to dissent.
My AI summary of these 4k comments
Yes—there are very clear, recurring *themes*, and what’s striking is how consistently people keep circling the same fault lines from different angles. I’d group them like this:
---
## 1. *Legality vs. Morality*
*Core tension:*
> Is overthrowing a dictator morally right even if it violates international law?
* One side argues law exists precisely to restrain power, not to reward virtue. * The other argues moral urgency overrides abstract legalism when human suffering is extreme. * This becomes a meta-question: Who decides when morality trumps law?
This is the philosophical backbone of the entire thread.
---
## 2. *Precedent Anxiety*
*“Today Maduro, tomorrow anything.”*
* Fear that once unilateral regime change is normalized, the justification becomes infinitely elastic:
* Libya and Iraq function as *cautionary archetypes*, not historical footnotes.
This is less about Venezuela than about *future permission structures*.
---
## 3. *Outcomes Over Intentions*
*Ends don’t redeem means if outcomes are catastrophic.*
* Even commenters who despise Maduro emphasize:
* Post-intervention chaos (ISIS, slave markets, fragmentation) is cited repeatedly. * There’s deep skepticism that this time will be different, even when facts are “better documented.”
This is pragmatic pessimism rather than ideological purity.
---
## 4. *American Power & Self-Deception*
*A recurring, uncomfortable self-indictment.*
* Several comments converge on the idea that:
* The line “Americans want this but don’t like knowing they want it” resonates strongly. * Counterpoint: lack of agency within political structures blunts individual responsibility.
This becomes a debate about *collective guilt vs. structural impotence*.
---
## 5. *Realpolitik vs. Institutionalism*
*Power acting directly vs. power constrained by process.*
* Appeals to ICC, UN, asylum frameworks represent belief in institutions. * Skeptics argue those institutions are deliberately weakened by the same powers invoking morality. * Others argue asylum and invasion are orthogonal issues—and conflating them is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Underlying question: Is global governance real, or decorative?
---
## 6. *Lived Experience vs. Abstract Judgment*
*Who gets moral authority?*
* “Those who’ve never lived under dictatorship say this.” * Counter: “Those who never lived through US intervention say that.” * Venezuelans in-thread complicate narratives of total collapse or total liberation. * Firsthand testimony destabilizes neat moral binaries.
This creates epistemic friction: *whose suffering counts as evidence?*
---
## 7. *Cynicism About Motives*
*Oil never disappears from the conversation.*
* Even when people argue it’s not literally about barrels of crude, they frame it as:
* What’s new is not cynicism—but how brazen the cynicism feels.
Several commenters note the lack of even performative moral cover.
---
## 8. *Democratic Exhaustion*
*A sense that democracy is no longer the brake it claims to be.*
* Rapid escalation vs. slow electoral correction * Legislatures perceived as compliant or irrelevant * No clear mechanism for popular restraint short of catastrophe
This feeds resignation rather than outrage.
---
## 9. *Historical Echoes & Decline Narratives*
*“We’ve seen this movie.”*
* Arab Spring * Iraq * Libya * Panama (Noriega)
History is invoked less as analogy and more as *warning fatigue*—people feel trapped in a loop.
---
## 10. *A Deeper Subtext: Loss of Moral Coherence*
Perhaps the most important theme:
> The argument isn’t about whether Maduro is bad. > It’s about whether the system judging him is still capable of moral credibility.
That’s why the thread feels less like debate and more like *collective unease*.
---
### If you zoom out:
This isn’t really a Venezuela thread. It’s a conversation about *power without trust*, *law without enforcement*, and *morality without consensus*—and whether any of those concepts still function in the current world order.
If you wanted to fictionalize this, it wouldn’t be a war story. It would be a story about *people arguing at the edge of legitimacy*, trying to decide whether the rules still mean anything once the strong stop pretending they do.
I honestly have little sympathy, and not because Maduro is a dictator or whatever label the US has given him. It's because he spent his country's resources on useless, incompetent staff that fell apart before any conflict even began. Say what you want about Iran, but at least they maintain a solid defensive posture.
Any country that doesn't invest in its own tech stack gets what it deserves. This is information superiority in action; made possible by the deep proliferation of American technology. The US is now leveraging information warfare for what used to require physical force. The difference is stark. We've seen it with the Hezbollah pager attacks, high-profile targeting in Iran, and now this.
Natural selection in progress.
It's time for you Americans to wake up. You're supporting the wrong things!
National sovereignty is a fundamental principle of international law and cannot be selectively applied according to the interests of global powers. Donald Trump’s threats and aggressive rhetoric toward Venezuela undermine this principle by treating a nation’s self-determination as negotiable. Criticizing this stance does not mean endorsing the Venezuelan government, but acknowledging that sanctions, intimidation, and external pressure rarely affect political elites and instead harm ordinary people, deepening humanitarian crises.
Latin American history reveals a recurring pattern of foreign interference framed as the defense of democracy. From a moral standpoint, collective punishment and imposed solutions are indefensible. If such actions would be unacceptable when directed at the United States, they cannot be justified against Venezuela. A responsible international approach requires multilateral dialogue, international mediation, and genuine respect for the sovereignty of nations.
Forget it, man. Gringos just don't give a shit. You're preaching to the wind.
Do you know what will work? Money.
We need to increase our trade with China.
Latin America needs to stop depending on the U.S. and China is a golden opportunity.
Sometimes the wind is smarter than some of them.
Project "don't talk about Epstein" is well under way.
The reaction on HN to what just happened in Venezuela is exhausting and revealing. People who have never lived under socialism, communism, dictatorship, or military rule speak with total confidence while dismissing those who have.
More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country, one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. They are celebrating. You are being critical. That alone should give pause.
Those condemning this action (and almost defending the oppressors) have never:
Latin America knows this story well. Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela have followed different paths with the same outcomes: repression, exile, fear, and destroyed civil society. Venezuela didn’t “fail suddenly.” It was dismantled over decades through nationalization, purges, censorship, and military collusion with organized crime.
If you claim to care about migrants, human rights, or the oppressed, you cannot only care after people escape. You cannot oppose every serious attempt to end regimes that jail, torture, and kill their own citizens while calling yourself humanitarian. That is not morality, it’s distance.
Is oil involved? Of course. Venezuela’s oil industry, built with foreign investment, was expropriated, looted, and mismanaged into ruin. But this is also about state-backed criminal networks, narcotrafficking, and regional destabilization that have killed hundreds of thousands beyond Venezuela’s borders.
If you had lived under these conditions, if your family had been broken by fear, disappearance, or exile, you would not be citing abstract “international law” to defend your oppressors. You would be hoping, every night, that someone powerful enough would intervene.
What’s missing here isn’t compassion. It is context.
Before defending dictators from the safety of a functioning democracy, have the self-awareness to ask whether you understand the reality you’re judging. Otherwise what comes through isn’t moral clarity, it’s ignorance dressed up as virtue.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=venezuelan+cele...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reacciones+de+v...
Had a few interactions in person over the holidays where the presence of discussion of certain narratives would cause an otherwise normal and talented adult person to almost immediately respond in a repulsive rage.
Yes, that's very much the type of brain virus we've been dealing with for around a decade. Social media did not help. Critical thinking went out the door completely. And the pandemic made is massively worse, driving people into deep dark holes characterized by ignorant resonance with a healthy dose of zero thought given to everything.
Right now you have entire news networks defending --actively defending-- a brutal dictator who exported death in the form of drugs, tortured, jailed and killed his own people. I almost feel like I am watching a primitive primate culture from space driven to rage without a clue or care of where reality lies.
I think this will pass eventually, but it might take another ten years.
yeah might is right. if you wanna bully citizens like dictators do - now they fear some big bully might come snatch them in the middle of the night like bully does to its citizens
Your comment is completely and utterly disconnected from reality. Venezuelans WANT THIS and have been wanting this for decades.
I lived in Argentina at the time when the military were making people disappear by the thousands, never to be found again. Most commenters on HN have no clue what they are talking about and no context whatsoever.
Give it a few weeks. Maybe a few months, hard to say. You will see people joyfully demonstrating on every street in Venezuela flying both Venezuelan and American flags. Just hold your thoughts and opinions if you can for a a bit of time and you'll see. And, of course, don't get your news from leftist outfits who are angry about a socialist/communist/dictator losing power. You'll be able to watch news directly from Venezuela.
Important point: Venezuela is NOT Iraq or Afghanistan. I've seen people equate events. Again, ignorant. Venezuelans WANT democracy. Latin Americans are culturally and religiously aligned with the west. They want this and they want the socialist-dictatorial nightmare to be over.
As is always the case, most are not thinking past the headlines. Venezuela, once the transition to sanity, rule of law and democracy is completed, is likely to become a major player both in the region and globally.
How?
Well, most go for the obvious: Oil.
That's not it though. Expand beyond that: Energy.
And expand beyond that yet again: Manufacturing.
And yet one more time: AI data centers (which need energy, manufacturing and a stable environment).
Venezuela could become a magnet for investment and development we cannot possibly imagine. This one move by Trump, if executed well, will change the face of the American continent --for the better-- in ways that are hard to imagine today. This is a good moment in history. I hope other nations understand the reign of terror is over and join a coalition to truly make Latin America not only great again, but part of what could become the most powerful association in the world, a new, powerful, integrated and developed American continent. I hope to see this in my lifetime. It would be amazing.
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So, uh, anyone seeing any educated guesses as to what we're bombing?
It’s looking like very carefully selected military targets
until things go sideways, which they always do. We haven't won a war since WW2.
another country, without justification, again after we promised not to do that after the last dozen similar cases, duh.
and Trump said he want nobel peace prize, such a joke
Without justification?
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This will lead to a long drawn out guerilla war in the name of oil. Thousands or tens of thousands will die. And trump does. Not. Care. At. All. Neither their lives, or yours or mine, have any meaning to him and his cabinet. They simply do not care.
Maduro was a monstrous dictator who was guaranteed to kill more people than this US strike did. And there is an opposition party which has been suppressed by Maduro, but is otherwise ready to go. There is much hope to be had for this beautiful country and its people now.
Hopefully this act will also have a chilling effect on other vile left wing dictators like those in North Korea and Cuba
Next up: Greenland
Fuck these imperialists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Didn't Trump just pardon a narco-terrorist head of state (Juan Hernandez, Honduras). Now we go to war for a different one.
Can Maduro just pay off Trump for a pardon, like Juan did?
Or is it really. Honduras doesn't have oil?
Trump will do anything for his oil friends.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a new kind of crime committed by the US? We've been involved in a lot of regime change operations but I can't think of one where we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state and bring them to the US. I guess Saddam Hussein but that was after we caused the collapse?
Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
> I can't think of one where we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state and bring them to the US.
I believe Noriega was captured when the US invaded Panama in 1989. But yeah, this is wild (though maybe not unprecedented).
The US has historically captured and executed heads of states in wars, including Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2006 (executed by the US-administered Iraqi government), and Imperial Japan's Tojo in 1948.
The US extradited, convicted, and imprisoned Honduras' Juan Orlando Hernández, for drug trafficking crimes (though Trump, incongruously, pardoned him in 2025).
Another notable example, the UK arrested Chile's Pinochet in 1998 on a Spanish arrest warrant claiming universal jurisdiction, though no conviction followed from that.
edit: And US Marines captured Grenada's Hudson Austin in 1983, turning him over to Grenada's new government who sentenced him to death, commuted to prison.
edit²: Two other heads of state imprisoned in the US were Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala (extradited to and convicted in US courts in 2014), and Pavlo Lazarenko of Ukraine (fled willingly to the US, convicted in 2006).
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It has been presented as a law enforcement action to bring a wanted criminal to justice. What do you mean by “televised sham trial”? Are you suggesting the US manufactured evidence?
Have you considered this is part of a negotiated exit?
It's an illegal invasion and kidnapping of another head of state. Nothing else.
Nobody believes this bullshit about drugs. Just like nobody believed it when they committed war crimes by blowing up innocent guys fishing
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> we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state
Head of state according to whom?
>Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
Would they really need a sham trial?
Noriega in Panama, Milosevic in Kosovo/Serbia... it's been patterned. Question is... who's going to do anything about it?
It's so hard to talk about this from the perspective of a venezuelan.
Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. Their headquarters is El Helicoide, a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it is the largest torture center in Latin America.
On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and had to convince him to participate in the elections.
During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.
If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.
There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.
I couldn't disagree more with those statements.
I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does. Here in Venezuela, she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols. I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her.
Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.
It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.
Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world.
Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.
Word, the regime needs to go. That’s what most outside don’t understand.
8 million of us had to flee the country.
There's no more proof that any Venezuelan election's results has been tampered with than with any US election. The state of Venezuela's state is sad, and so is the fact that millions of people have felt forced to flee the country due to economic uncertainty. But this is probably a mix of culture, ingrained corruption and US blockage for decades.
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I just want to say, this is an outstanding comment, and it’s surprising and embarrassing that it’s ranked so low.
It's down here for a reason. Anything that even alludes to the fact that Trump's broken clock might accidently be right for some people twice a day can't surface. Thus the anti-regime Venezuelans get their comments pushed down into the shithole, because we can't outright say the very people we are white-knighting are wrong so we just ignore them.
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Where would you go to hear an honest account of what Venezuelans think?
Need to get this comment to the top.
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bush: theres uh, nuclear weapons.. we gotta stop him and free the country! also hes a jerk and i hate him
trump: drugs or something. but mainly we need the oil so if they won't give us the oil we'll just take the oil. who's gona stop us, canada? lol
Democracy incoming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
When Russia invaded Ukraine it was imperialism, regardless of their "reasons".
When Trumpistan invades Venezuela it is also imperialism, regardless of its "reasons".
It seems that every 20 years the Americans forget the lessons from the wars 20 years ago.
I only hope a lot of Americans die, if that is the price to pay to avoid them to invading other countries and stop their imperialism.
Thank God, Chavez turned the richest country in south america into the poorest and Maduro continued his legacy with the average person losing 17lbs in a year when the price of oil fell. Although I'm surprised Trump is getting involved in world affairs we're at least at a point where the situation can't get any worse. Hopefully Trump will end socialism and bring back democracy to Venezuela
> we're at least at a point where the situation can't get any worse.
That is incredibly optimistic and completely wrong. It can and probably will get worse. You just don’t create a power vacuum and hope for the best.
If countries are able to just fly in and kidnap criminal presidents now will someone be coming for Trump? For the rape and various other crimes.
This administration is lawless to an almost a comical degree. First murdering people with little more than the most obvious figleaf, now invading a country without Congressional approval. Clearly the US constitution is just a list of suggestions to Trump.
I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.
This takes the American Oligarchy to the next level. Trump is now enabling his billionaire friends plunder another country, no doubt Trump will get a cut of the profits.
Muhrica gonna muhrica. It's been like this since time immemorial, the "regime" changes but the modus operandi is the same. True for all other empires.
It's funny how all the comments are discussing it from a "was Maduro good or bad" point of view.
This is an invasion for oil, nothing to do with drugs since they come from Mexico, and that propaganda is weak. And nothing to do with Maduro being a dictator or anything similar since each one of our politicians is objectively worse than him, I wish this was an exgeration, but when you look at the Epstein files, even the few unredacted things found there (and most of them are redacted) make it obvious that we are literally ruled by criminals.
Now you either look at it as it is, and accept that Santa isn't real, and that life is hard, and we are greedy, and we don't care about other people, and then you stop the moralizing when you do nothing about it, or you keep gobbling up the lie after lie, that Murica is the good guy, and everyone else is evil, and that all Murica's wars are moral and bringing freedom and liberating those third worlders.
TLDR: free your mind before you talk about freeing others (which is ironic because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm also writing this message for myself).
Orange man is, in fact, bad.
Prediction: this headline will be renamed "US invades Venezuela" very soon.
It's not an invasion, it is just a special military operation.
First US need to lose 220,000+ of military personnel dead there and then you can call it that. Otherwise comparison with Russia is kind a dull.
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Which is just a euphemism for a certain kind of invasion
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A Superb Military Operation, some even say it's Super, one of the best military operations they've ever seen!
When did we stop calling them “police actions” when side-stepping Congressional approval?
If any other country ran what they called a “special military operation” like this in the US, we’d call it an invasion.
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I think the term is “humanitarian aid”
> Prediction: this headline will be renamed "US invades Venezuela" very soon
I'll say I'm doubtful. I think we'll bomb from afar and hope to pot Maduro.
There is a science fiction book "The inhabited island" ("Prisoners of power"?) by A. and B. Strugatsky. In one of episodes they try to describe the feeling of being in a very human-looking but also completely alien culture (a different planet with humanoid inhabitants). So they describe how a group of people works out a credentials/paperwork situation (they need to move a prisoner from one place to another) but literally, as these actions are seen by the prisoner who does not understand the meaning. "This one gave that one a yellow rectangle but that one refused to take it and said something in a raised voice."
I always remember that episode as I see headlines like that.
Prediction: it won't. HN is very touchy about things that make the president look bad, as well as about bold statements, as well as about politics (except when it's good for VC money, then it's apolitical).
It doesn’t make him look stupid, it makes him look like a criminal.
Like Reagan. But they’ll find some guy, I don’t know, Bob South, who will take the fall.
No, not actually. But the mods do remove political content, so this whole thread will be gone soon.
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It won’t, they will just quote whatever the Trump admin says
I try to stay humble when predicting the future. But there is just no way there will be a literal military invasion. Trump would never risk a bunch of american dying on the ground, it would be terrible optics.
If you think he cares about Americans? Let alone optics. I've got a bridge to sell you.
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I think the strategy is more by creep. Desensitization. This will be just another inching forward
Or maybe not :(
So many people in the comments arguing as if the U.S. government made a rational decision based on specified goals and policies.
Trump is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He admires dictators like Putin and wanted to emulate his invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Miller is pure evil, and Hegseth is a fool, so they came up with a pretext to attack Venezuela. All of this conveniently distracts from the Epstein files.
Nothing that's happened is justified, legal or rational. It's just the egos of idiots who should not be in power.
We need regime change in the U.S. immediately.
there are other people behind these decisions proposing them to trump as options, and its following the current US strategic plan about militarily dominating the americas.
its gonna be some other central and south american countries next like panama, the on to conquering greenland from the danes and greenlanders, then canada
there is a rationale, even if you dont like it
Did this thread get down-rated on HN due to too many comments? Please keep one main thread on this alive. Thanks.
Flags. It's still on /active [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/active
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Hacker News?
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As a European:
His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
In reality, he's building out Imperium Americanum, he is fighting wars without Congressional approval and proper casus bellis, he's not bringing the troops home and it is clear he represents the fucking Deep State even more than any of his predecessors since JFK. Shame on him for renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center. Which is absolutely disgusting given the reality of things!
Prime example: Invading Venezuela to steal their oil, just like his predecessors did with Syria (if you do not believe me, look where the US Army is located in Syria, and the prime locations of their oil fields).
Additionally: Trump's United States now has given Putin's Russia and Xi's China precedent to do whatever they fucking want to whoever or whatever. Because who fucking cares about international law if even the United States government, home of freedom and democracy and the rule of law, currently doesn't even give a fuck?
So now fucking what?
(And yes, as you might have noticed I AM FURIOUS AS HELL.)
> His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
A journalist asked him in the press conference just now how capturing Maduro and running the country in iterim is "America First". His simple answer is that a more stable set of countries in the region is good for America.
Just like outright stealing Greenland from Denmark "for national security" in his crazy narrative likely is.
And now I wonder what fucking insane manufactured casus belli he will create to invade and annex Canada.
So many people thought he was grand standing and just talking shit. But now it looks like he wasn't doing that at all, hasn't he?
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Right now the US have not invaded Venezuela but in effect attempted to precipitate a "coup". We shall see what happens now. Note, too that Maduro is not widely recognised as President by Western countries because of accusation of election rigging.
This is classic US action South of the border since the 19th century so I think the outrage is excessive. Perhaps people think, wrongly, that this is new becaude of Trump. What is new is that this seems actually aimed against China.
Regarding international law, it seems that it's been invoked so much in recent years that people have "drunk the Kool Aid" and actually believe that this is something carved in stone that must be obeyed, or even just actual "law"...
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Is everyone sufficiently distracted yet?
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Trump was arrested?
Na. He’s the good guy.
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Y'all never lived under a dictatorship, and it's felt.
"Fuck venezuelans, how can you capture a dictator, that violates a law no one gives a fuck about". You should be really happy how Trump treats putin, like a dear friend, not violating any law. I hope marines will raid kremlin next.
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You're obviously just trolling. The US is still a solid democracy - a country you disagree with, sure. In a couple years Trump will be out and life goes on. As for Maduro, he's a dictator - he needed to go. He works closely with Iran, Russia and with China doing very nefarious things.
I agree however that Trump is largely self centered and this is a risk. Oil should not be the goal here, it should be the freedom of the Venezuelans.
It is not a solid democracy if the only two political parties are largely aligned on most issues, leaving citizens helpless to change the way the uni party functions.
As for foreign policy, yes the United States is a terrorist state and has been for a long time.
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USA bombed iraq, killed thousands of civilians USA bombed libya, killed thousands of civilians USA funding israel, killing thousands of civilians USA bombed vietnam, killed thousands of civilians and the list goes on.
I am not trolling, USA is built on white supremacy by genocide of native americans and is sustained by war because military industrial complex needs to sell their weapons so some american can afford starbucks.
America is a terrorist state, far from democracy where avg citizen doesnt even know the crimes of their govt. Just few days ago their whole leadership was revealed to be sinister pedophiles and americans basically did nothing. Americans are the most propagandized people ever
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That's an excellent outcome to hope for. The odds are that we have already used up our "stopped clock is right every 12 hours" karma. Not that anyone should feel sorry for Maduro.
Unfortunately I believe an invasion of Greenland is more likely.
as far as Trump capitalizes on Europe's demise, this won't happen
The news of Europe's demise are greatly exaggerated. What's it going to do? Sink in the ocean like Atlantis?
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Nope, nukes will prevent that.
Episodes like these only serve to cement that Iran and North Korea are right to think that having nuclear deterrence is the only viable insurance policy.
(Delivery & effectiveness is another subject on its own but still)
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What we saw with Venezuela was something nukes wouldn't prevent. Doing the same with Putin is infinitely harder, but if it did occur, chances are whoever fills in the power vacuum in Russia would be pretty happy with their situation.
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Does fact that Congress, not the President, has the power to "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water" matter? Or is the constitution not what you voted for?
You are correct, but also it doesn't matter because the US has flaunted the constitution in precisely this way for every single war America has been in since WW2. Wars without congressional declaration are de facto legal and have been for as long as you and I have been alive.
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Look I agree this whole thing is wrong, but to say this instance of regime change, unprovoked attack, war, whatever you call it is UNIQUELY unconstitutional is obviously wrong.
Every US President since the end of WW2 has waged war without a formal declaration of war from Congress. And presidents from both parties will continue to do so.
This is not to say it's right or good. But there is surely widespread agreement that it is constitutional to do things like this, and there has been for nearly a century.
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I’m pretty sure he didn’t vote for the constitution.
> "Sovereign head of state" tortured, "disappeared", and murdered thousands, and rigged elections.
can't wait for someone to kidnap trump as well
Is what you describe Maduro specific? Or specific to the ruling party of Venezuela?
It’s not like the ruling party gives up power and dissolves in this situation. That level of regime change requires an invasion or coup.
> This is what I voted for. I am so fucking happy.
This isn't over. There are so many ways how this can backfire. E.g. how long until a bunch of random Americans are kidnapped as a way to get him back?
Sure, that could happen if anyone actually liked Maduro. What we are seeing instead is widespread celebration.
> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
And Putin?
Mark another instance of ignoring the US Constitution down. Sounds a bit like America has their very own dictator.
Any nuclear-empowered nation is obviously off limits, but any nation without nuclear and with active hostilities towards the US is certainly thinking twice.
> This is what I voted for. I am so fucking happy.
Did you vote to pardon drug bosses too?
> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
Not at all. They will simply route a bit more money into Trump's pockets and celebrate their newfound ally.
Trump has spent the last year (decade actually) doing a disgraceful show of pleasing a dictator who invaded his neighbour. To say nothing of his own authoritarian projects at home. And let's not even get started about Netanyahu.
How can you talk about this as if it was a crusade for justice against dictators? Some people are just terminally gullible.
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> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
The irony of someone who (presumably, from statements) voted for Trump saying this while their own country tortures, disappears and in some cases murders thousands, plus potentially rigged elections...
I don't see any case of US citizens being tortured, murdered, and disappeared at scale. Source please?
Source on rigged elections? I didn't believe it when Trump cried wolf and I don't believe it when people think 2024 was rigged.
Edit: "But ICE!" - ICE is deporting (not torturing or murdering thousands of) non-citizens. They are doing a fantastic job (low false positive rate, maybe 10/300,000 with 0 permanent citizen deportations.) I am asking specifically about citizens.
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> This is what I voted for
You voted for brown people on flimsy boats to be blown up in extrajudicial killings and for regime change? I thought MAGAs were all about love and peace unlike the war monger, Barrack Obama.
> Brown people
hold up, I'm a "brown person."
Those people were trafficking drugs (as evidenced by the pallets of cocaine that fell out of their absurdly overpowered "fishing boat.")
I don't really care about extrajudicial killings of drug traffickers, as someone that has been impacted by them.
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Ah yes, inexplicably alluding to race makes every argument stronger. May as well throw in some inaninity about climate change while you're at it.
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They have probably already been working on this in the lead up to their forceful engagement. It is a pretty standard state department et. all tactic
I bet you they hand it over to the legally elected government. But look forward to a new friendship American military base coming soon to Venezuela.
Can we please report vapid personal attacks like this comment? This is a reddit-esque answer.
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> They're going to put in another dictator, except this one will be friendly to US interests
I don't believe you have any evidence that this is the plan - what if democratic elections are held again?
In any case, even if it does happen: Far better than a dictator unfriendly to our interests.
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I assume you’re completely ok with other countries doing the same for their own self interest?
I.e. 9/11
They already do. I don't understand?
Russia invaded Ukraine under a U.S. President that believed (and talked about often) in "international norms". Due to which international law violation did the Japanese attack pearl harbor? Do you think the reason China didn't attack Taiwan yet is because "well, America is acting moral, we can't go around disturbing the global order"
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Vigorous foreign policy?
You realize that this kind of vigorous foreign policy that you are a fan of is going to rebound massively? Or have the last 80 years worth of lessons learned passed you by?
Plundering Latin America is not just going to be unpopular with European HNers, it will be with the vast majority of the world. You are hoping for 'exciting times', you fail to realize that 'may you live in exciting times' is a curse, not a blessing.
Broadly speaking, you can shape the world, or decide to sit it out and let everyone else try.
We should absolutely do everything in our power to make the world a better place for us.
The last 80 years taught me we can take down the USSR if we try, we can build europe back up if we try etc. I don't know what lessons you've learned from the past but there were many who were anti fighting (not literally, but through proxies, economics - soft power) the USSR and they were wrong. It's possible to win! & yes, I'm happy we have that spirit again
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Ukraine has a democratically elected government and president who isn’t a dictator.
(I’m not trying to justify US action in Venezuela here. Just answering your question)
Ukraine hasn’t had an election in 6 years.
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Even though the military was involved, I think this was officially a law enforcement action, much like capturing Manuel Noriega and sentencing him to prison.
Nicolás Maduro was indicted for various crimes in 2020. I have a feeling the "possession of a machinegun" charge will be dropped, but the US does have a long track record of saying drug activity affects the US enough that it can arrest and prosecute almost anybody.
The invasion of Ukraine, on the other hand, is -- I believe -- a regular military exercise. Putin has claimed that he wants to achieve some unusual goals ("denazify the Ukraine special forces"), but even those goals aren't really law enforcement.
Main difference is that Russia is 1409 days into their 3 day "special operation" that has obviously become a war, while this looks like it was actually a special operation.
A "special operation" that makes hypocrites of every US official complaining that the EU is engaged in over-reach* and that EU has no sovereignty in the USA, but still it is success (at least with regard to the immediately stated objectives) that's the difference.
Long term, I expect this to be a colossal failure for the USA, the USA has a very poor record for pulling long term benefits out of this kind of action, and Trump is a sub-unity multiplier on that.
That said, if I was anyone in Mexico right now, I'd be worried by the rhetoric. There's things Mexico can do to prepare for this, that's not going to be any fun at all for the USA. I can see a big pile of dry tinder here waiting to ignite, but I don't want to suggest details because path dependency is a huge variable, e.g. consider that Trump himself could be impeached for all the Epstein stuff at fairly short notice by Republicans worried he's dragging them down in domestic polls.
* with regard to the EU telling Big Tech that certain content is not welcome within the EU. I mean, imagine if any EU nation did this to forcibly extradite Musk. Or if the UK did it for 4chan. I wouldn't cry over either, but I would definitely be shocked. And neither Musk nor 4chan's staff have diplomatic immunity.
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Drugs? No. War?! No, words have meanings and that's not what "war" means.
Ignoring diplomacy? Are you accusing the US of ignoring diplomacy, because that's the only half ways reasonable interpretation.
This is weak and pathetic misinformation. I guess it will take a few days before the propaganda machine gets going to try to justify this gigantic waste of taxpayer money and pointless destruction. Hopefully the pros get involved because this is just sad.
You can watch even CBS explain why this was done. Maduro was letting the cartel use private planes under diplomatic immunity to traffic drugs and weapons. EVEN CBS. Don't close your eyes and ears now.
Trump gave one of the biggest drug dealers ever a pardon as well as the Silk Road guy. Time to sanitise where you get your news, you seem to be eating all the propaganda.
They are likely a troll/AI etc given the name, I suspect most of those posts here are nowadays, and this thread is almost entirely such.
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and from my little corner of the world: tusk, kaczyński, czarzasty, michnik, lis and their whole gangs
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You - and Venezuela - should solve your own internal problems at your own time table. Foreign intervention more often than not translates into puppet regime installation.
> should solve your own internal problems at your own time table
That's not how international geopolitics works. There are many means in which nation states pull levers to take on problems that exist in other countries. Sanctions, diplomacy, trade barriers, propaganda, military interventions, threats, etc. are all tools that are used by nation states around the world every day.
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Beyond this, if you are from Venezuela it's difficult to stay in the middle beyond the outcomes, it is completely different when prople talk without living or being an expat.
You’re right. We should stop screwing around in foreign conflicts. Why are we spending money helping Ukraine? Who cares if Israel bombs Gaza? If Maduro wants to starve his people to death under a police state to emulate North Korea. Not my problem!
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Iraq worked out quite ok after 20 years if my contacts there are to believed.
Afghanistan failed miserably.
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The US only exists due to the foreign intervention of France, and the at-the-time foreign intervention of a few Indian tribes, to help overthrow the crown regime. You might note the domestic efforts were also a dominating force, but I have no reason to believe anti-Maduro domestic efforts were not an instrumental force in making such a smooth operation possible for the US.
> translates into puppet regime installation.
Isn't that good for the US? I mean at least it reads a lot better that totalitarian and terrorist regimes preinstalled.
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> As an American, I’m glad to see an authoritarian dictator removed
Personally I'm not. This is like kidnapping the CEO of Kroger because your eggs are too expensive, and then telling everyone you did it because he wasn't listening to his employees enough.
We can't undo this and this was a very big stick we used. I highly doubt this was done with the interests of the common American in mind.
> I highly doubt this was done with the interests of the common American in mind.
It is spelled 'Venezuelan'.
You think it’s a good idea for foreign countries to overturn domestic elections? The Bolivarian regime came to power in a free and fair election.
> You think it’s a good idea for foreign countries to overturn domestic elections?
I certainly don't, and I don't speak for the person you replied to but I figure most people commenting here don't think that either
> The Bolivarian regime came to power in a free and fair election
Hugo Chavez was elected president legitimately in 1998, so it's true that the Bolivarian regime came to power fairly. But just about nobody that's paying attention thinks Maduro won the presidential election in 2024. Elections were held, Maduro lost (by a huge margin), and he continued being president anyway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections… The official results reported Maduro winning with about 51 % of the vote.
European Parliament resolutions and reports explicitly described the process as lacking transparency and integrity such as not publishing detailed polling station results, meaning the results could not be independently verified, and concluding the election was neither free nor fair.
You may recall María Corina Machado was barred from running shortly before the election itself.
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If you look at the Wikipedia article on the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, it seems to be unlikely that the outcome of that election was that Maduro won.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
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Venezuela haven't had any free and fair election since the dictator in power was Chaves.
IMO, the US doing piracy around it is way more concerning than kidnapping a dictator that sent the military against its people, architected a couple of famines, and forced a double-digts percentage of their population out of the country.
Still, this won't lead to anything good. Because the entire US Executive is composed of incompetent sadistic people right now. But it could be a good thing for Venezuela in different circumstances (but I imagine anybody capable of making good change there would refrain from doing so).
So once elected more than 25 years ago they are allowed to stay and perpetuity and stage sham election just because they won a legitimate one a generation ago?
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Maduro's regime? The election results were so tainted the entire world was laughing - even the number of votes placed altogether exceed 100%.
Not according to the nobel prize committee
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Well, technically, it is also Charles III last term as king.
why would you think that?
> This is Trump's last term.
Remains to be seen.
As an American, you're biased.
Telling someone they're biased must be the most low-effort comment there is. Everyone is biased about any subject where they have even a nuanced self interest in. And in your case, you didn't even specify which part of their comment was allegedly being affected by bias. Nor did you acknowledge your own bias.
Aren't we all?
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This is a completely unacceptable comment on HN, and we have to ban accounts that post abusive comments repeatedly. HN is for people who have higher standards than this in what they think is appropriate to post online. Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to keep participating here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This is a crime to the Venezuelans, the US citizens, and the whole of South America.
Most Venezuelans will make a very loud point to disagree with you.
Source?
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This lot of Venezuelans don't seem too worried https://www.nbcnews.com/video/venezuelan-community-in-miami-...
Didn't most Latin Americans living in Florida move there to escape their generally left-leaning countries? Makes sense they would celebrate.
If someone murdered Obama while in office you could have filmed a video just like this in America, crazy that you’d post this
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Venezuelans are cheering.
And what are they going to to do against the militias and military that are loyal to Maduros political party?
I'll tell you. Nothing. They are going to do nothing. Because they can't.
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It’s also a crime against the US constitution and the international legal order. By condoning “might is right” Trump has given an excuse to every tinpot dictator, from Putin to Kim, to invade and kill whoever they want
And the voters who elected Trump because he promised to stop with "nation building".
But with Venezuela's +300bn oil barrels at Trump's disposal now, I bet the gas prices will plummeted. I wonder how the MAGA fanbase will react (probably will be happy to let just this one "nation building" project to slip through their ethics).
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The US casually eliminating a nasty despot is likely to have a chilling effect on the other nasty despots.
Putin and Kim will -not- be emboldened by this act - quite the opposite.
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It's really not a crime against the US constitution. And "International Law" isn't really law, because there is no enforcer.
International politics is anarchy. Rules are enforced by the hegemon.
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Just wait a few years for Trump to pardon you as he did for the jailed former Honduran president recently, same charges even. The hubris of this administration is off the charts.
Maduro had it coming, although I'm not surprised the bleeding hearts on HN can't see that. The guy was a dictator. Fuck him. Well done USA and happy new year.
Wow, the chief idiot just said on Fox News that Maduro is on the Iwo Jima.
Like, holy classified military secrets Batman!
Bolivian here - no tears will be shed over this scumbag. Check tiktok live and people are celebrating in the streets. Believe venezolanos, and neighbors, and not redditors lol.
I really don't understand one thing: is there a single american who still think this has been done to liberate a country from a dictator in the name of freedom? Seriously? This has been done for economical and power interests and USA is the most destabilizing power in the world and a source of war and desperation and death: they supports israel to get political power in middle east, they invaded countries as done in Iraq, they push Nato to the border of Russia and provoke war (not to say Putin had right to invade Ukraine but what would have done usa if mexico Canada or Cuba had russian weapons and support? Oh yes, we knew about Cuba). And the president Trump: he’s just a ridicolous bully like the ones you can find at high schools.
Please US citizens, grow up. There had been a time when you were admired and respected, now your country is killing the world.
> they push Nato to the border of Russia
No, former Soviet satellite states begged and pleaded for NATO membership. And their immediate Western neighbors advocates for it.
They didn't do that because the US asked them to. They were motivated by other concerns.
The US does bad things, yes, but the death toll is nothing like Stalin or Mao.
And the US don't tend to stick around occupying a country for half a decade.
I wouldn't dare to justify this. But it's not the same as Russia or China.
I’m not saying former soviet countries lived better under soviet imposition, but no one can be so naive to think US did that to help and free people.
When a mobster comes to you and free you from your previous mobster, it’s not because he is a good man and wants you to live freely: he does it to impose you his will and power exactly as US have always done.
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So crazy how all of this is highly probably due to the Epstein files. Has anything like this ever happened in history?
Anyone arguing that we cannot legally capture Putin may reconsidered their stance.
Yay more political posts on the techie news site. Closing the tab for the weekend this time.
The world is complex... It is a fact that Chavez and Maduro have completely ruined Venezuela.
That doesn't mean things can't get worse.
I pray the majority of Venezuelans really have had enough of socialist dictatorships and can find a way to govern themselves. The US should not govern Venezuela - but neither should Maduro or his cronies.
God bless America and God bless President Trump!
This can only be good news for the Venezuelans, having lived in such poor conditions for so long. Soon they will be able to go to McDonald's, drink Starbucks, and maybe one day if they really prove themselves to have that special drive and spirit that only Americans have, apply for US citizenship!
What does this have to do with technology?
All in all, probably a good thing.
Wishing the new cold war will be equally bloodless all along
It is definitely not Russia unprovokenly and illegibly attacking its neighbor, so why even care?
Alright So I'm fully expecting that companies like Visa and Mastercard to promptly exit US market, for the EU to stop issuing visas to US citizens and harsh sanctions on the US economy by the EU.
Right? Right?
The world is not a 30 line program
“The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela” seriously https://x.com/kajakallas/status/2007405051896123707
"Officials from the United States and other countries have questioned the legality of the strikes."
Look, this is getting tiring. You have no idea what the people in this country went through and they might as well see it as a "good thing". I think the same applies to Iran, an intervention by the US could be the best thing that ever happened in these countries, so the "legality" issue doesn't quite sound warranted in my opinion.
Im not sure we want the president to be going around bypassing congress in regards to the military. I would prefer a congress that took back its power from the executive.
I'm not well informed on how this came to be, but to consider this with regard to US's own interests, I think it is simply a problem to be dealt with sooner than later. You definitely don't want to ignore it until it's a "real problem".
edit: I'd also add that this was also a message to the Supreme Leader -- he seems to be oblivious to the consequences of the threats for his own people and, quite frankly, counts on the percentage of people who disagree. The sheer volume of the lies that is going around is astonishing and you have to live it to know.
a chinese intervention to overthrow trump i think would also be quite welcomed, but still not the best thing to do
Ends justify the means is bad policy in any context.