Comment by jacquesm
3 days ago
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.
Best of luck to you and yours in the coming days, here's to hoping that it all lands on its feet.
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What’s the general mood in your social circles? Are people mad at America or happy to be free of Maduro?
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Sorry we (the U.S.) are like this. Many of us have been furious for decades but don't know what to do.
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They haven’t removed the government. They removed Maduro. Very different.
While it's true that so far they only removed Maduro, removing a sitting president and his wife is a show of power, it's a "we do whatever we want". What is stopping the US to remove the next person, and continue doing so until as they find someone that they like? Or to organize an up-rising or a coup? The writing is on the wall.
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And it appears they did so with assistance from within the government, at least with assistance from the military. That's why the operation went so smoothly. It seems like it was unusually easy, precisely because it was.
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Update from Reuters: ‘"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump told reporters. […] "We can't take a chance at somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. We've had decades of that. We're not going to let that happen."’
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"Trump says US will ‘run’ Venezuela until ‘judicious transition’ following capture of Maduro"
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/venezuela-explosions-car...
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Equating a person with the government or the nation is a common trait among autocrats. L'État, c'est moi.
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Not yet. Once the anger metastasizes into a new wholly anti-american government, new targets will emerge.
Trump is far from universally loved, but just imagine what the US would become if an outside nation swooped in and captured him. 100% of the american people would be screaming for blood.
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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.
not quite
The oil production there is completely decimated. They have huge reserves but production is low and falling because the regime doesn't do any maintenance or support of anything in the oil production and supply chain. It is very much the meme of "living in the ruins of a once great society".
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>Venezuela vice president Rodriguez in Russia, four sources say
>Her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the national assembly, is in Caracas, three sources with knowledge of his whereabouts said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-vice-presid...
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You may be wrong about the oil industry, Trumps already saying it in between the lies/pretense about drugs.
"Trump says that the US is going to be "strongly involved" in Venezuela's oil industry moving forward." [0]
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
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I think the next in line is her brother, who is the president of the National Assembly (Congress).
Venezuela is rich in mineral resources as well. Whatever it is the Trump admin is after, it's not democracy, it's some form of self-enrichment.
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> Vice President Delcy Rodriguez is in charge
Today. She's still part of the same regime and party. It's not obvious Trump will let her stay in charge. Also the control the government had over the criminal gangs/syndicates/cartels was seemingly very weak anyway. Even if the current decapitated regime is allowed to stay it won't be very strong.
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> Venezuela being a narco-state.
That is an insane take
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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?
> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Any student of history would be skeptical. The US record after interference in a country is abysmal. Relatively recent failures: Iraq, Afghanistan. Less recent failures: Nicaragua and throughout Central America.
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I conclude that you cannot apply consequentialism when the outcome is unknown, so the US has done something immoral and illegal, end of story.
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> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Because they failed doing that in Iraq and Afghanistan, both cases where they did try, and there is also Libya (where they did not try all that much, if at all, I'll give you that). I mean, they did put some of their puppets in both Kabul and Bagdad, but the puppets in Kabul eventually got swept by the Talibans, while the puppets in Bagdad switched over to Iran's side by 2015-ish.
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As far as I can ascertain, there is no invasion. Just a special ops kidnapping.
It is unclear what will happen next, but likely the regime or large elements of it will survive. Perhaps a more moderate faction will take control? That would be the best case scenario.
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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.
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It's also a threefold solution to Trump's current problems -
1. it takes the Epstien files completely out of media discourse, which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
3. it allows Trump to control the narrative, and makes the media forget about the drugs that were supposedly being exported from venezuela. truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela. i saw a deep explainer on reddit (yes, it could entirely be bullshit) that basically said that venezula produces between 0.02 to 0.08% of all illicit drugs entering the USA per year. No idea how that is calculated, but it makes sense in the context that Houndouras' president was effectively pardoned by Trump, and Hondouras by its very location is balls deep in the drug trade
Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
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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.
it is so funny to hear when nobel "peace" prize winner is working so hard to overthrow a government.
I am little confused about the meaning of "peace"
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As always, she's preferred because she intends to welcome US oil companies. Winning a prize is a red herring.
She is going to be a disaster for Venezuela, but a big win for Israel.
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Fond memories of when it emerged that the chair of the Nobel committee had been (at least) wined & dined by Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates.
> 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.
Wonder where that trial would be considering US doesn't recognize ICC
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Law of unintended consequences weighs heavy…
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No. It couldn't be. Not even a remote chance.
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Let’s do the same for Trump. Same base idea, right?
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He used “I feel” language. He didn’t say it is or isn’t. Every small change, like a butterfly flapping its wings, can have profound negative effects in the future. Inaction too can have profound effects. It’s not a useful question imo other than to notice that radical changes are typically favored by progressives, while no change is favored by conservatives. Here we have an inversion of that, which to me is interesting.
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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.
How many are clear references to Bush's premature declaration of success?
I'd expect some of those to be made of astroturf, though ...
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> "He [Rubio] anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody," says Senator Lee
Yes, he has to telegraph that to the world to try to minimize fears that the US _desires_ a prolonged intervention, regardless of what happens, and regardless of what he actually believes.
Statements made by politician need not be taken as truthful.
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Notably trustworthy individual Marco Rubio
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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.
Reagan something very similar twice and it worked out reasonably(ish) fine.
Of course Venesuela isn't that similar to Panama or Granada in various ways. Given the massive amounts of internal issues, and insanely high levels of crime/murder removing the government and washing your hands might turn it into something like Haiti...
Fundamentally on the moral level removing oppressive tyrants like Sadam, Maduro, Gaddafi etc. is the right thing to do. Of course nobody ever figured out how to prevent the situation from getting even worse in the aftermath..
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MIGA?
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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.
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
If you don’t think Europe shares our values, I’m curious who you think does?
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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.
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.
yeah, it seems there's a race for autocrats to establish dominance, they're all somehow power hungry and rules/gloves are off.
>> 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
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.
My point was to highlight the double standards of this kind of after-the-fact reporting and discussions. I'm cynical enough to know that "might makes right" is a part of life to various degrees.
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.
Iran was well on that path anyway. The US strike absolutely did turn Iran from a peaceful actor with no interest in nuclear weapons into a regime bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
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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.
Or when there is an early sunrise somewhere in the Middle East.
I've been hearing "Iran is weeks away from a nuke" since the 1980's.
It's almost like that dude who keeps saying, "FSD in my EVs is just months away."
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I cant wait for the Monday press conference where the Epstein files are not even brought up again.
They did not capture the Iranian leadership, though.
"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.
> legitimately elected or not
Let's just focus on the not-legitimately-elected ones. Venezuela was a functioning democracy until Maduro took control through force and fraud. Shed not one tear for him.
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>All of the reasons you list apply to many world leaders, legitimately elected or not.
That's correct. One at a time, I'd say. :)
"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.
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.
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.
President Trump was elected democratically by the people of the US, by majority in both the electoral and popular vote.
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Plus, the stalemate on Taiwan right now is US strategic ambiguity. Maybe Trump “visiting” China to offer his strategic brilliance during their expansion will finally get him a bigger peace prize.
Good do Putin next then.
I reckon this was an agreement between Putin and Trump. Ukraine for Venezuela. I can be wrong, of course.
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> 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.
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?
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.
>> 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.
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.
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
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.
As we saw in Iraq, Americans do not care. It creates opportunities for them anyway while someone else is going to bear consequences.
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.
Watching BBC news earlier, two interviewees were acolytes of Venuzuelan politician and exile Maria Corina Machado, who recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Juan Guaidó, the former American-backed coup (or whatever you want to call it) leader. They were adamantly pro-Maduro getting helicoptered away, but somewhat neutral on bombings on their own capital city. I think the consent factory is still making porkie pies.
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Yeah it’s surprising how little justification there’s been for this. As a well-read US citizen, I don’t actually know why we did this.
Was it for oil? Socialism bad? To stop drugs? I think you latter is the narrative I’m most familiar with.
Immigration would be the most logical, since this administration and political base care a lot about that, but I don’t think they’ve drawn a clear line between economic success and emigration. Logic isn’t exactly a cornerstone for these idiots.
I’m guessing we did it to flex and distract from our own economy, but usually there is at least some pushed narrative for why America did the thing?
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The media has been branding maduro a narco-terrorist for a while now. And trump has declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction and exclusively blamed venezuela for it. The establishment has a playbook and they stick to it. Let's not forget the nobel committee gave a "peace prize" to a woman advocating for war against venezuela.
> Or did a very lousy job of it.
It's more obvious than lousy.
You have to remember Trump is an adjudicated rapist. It makes sense he wouldn't consider consent important.
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Venezuela has been linked to the fentanyl crisis. "The Trump administration has described strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific as attacks against terrorists attempting to bring fentanyl and cocaine to the US.
However, fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border."
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The Arab spring was a mass uprising, this was the removal of one person - it's really not the same.
Think of it this way - Maduro could had died from choking on a turkey bone over Christmas - would there inevitability be a civil war?
What matters is whether there is a fight for political power as a result - and particularly what the generals think. ie any fight is much more likely to start from the top rather than the bottom.
My guess, and it's just a guess, is that the smoothness of the extraction mission strongly suggests serious inside info/cooperation. ie somebody did a deal with the US - involving giving up Maduro in exchange for removal of the sanctions ( particularly oil which the US has escalated with tanker seizures ) which was crippling the country.
So my prediction is an internal smooth transition of power, cooperation around oil, with neither the US nor the new leader being keen on quick elections as that will interfere with the execution of the deal.
All the Trump cares about is the public 'win' and the oil and minerals flowing. The Venezuelan leadership will want to end the US sanctions and get the countries economy working again - if this happens they will think election prospects will improve - can't see Trump caring that much about Venezuelan internal politics as long as he get's the win and a positive flow of oil revenue and strategic access to minerals.
Remember that historically oil was 90% of export revenues and 25% of GDP.
The real knee-on-the-neck was the US blockade/piracy of oil tankers and associated sanctions.
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.
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.
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
Right on. We haven’t even tried to win the hearts and minds yet. Not to mention a surge or two.
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.
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.
> 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?
Both of them were more moderate than ISIS lol.
But yeah, Egypt is more moderate than the Muslim brotherhood. Jordan is moderate. The non-Hezbollah part of Lebanon. UAE, Qatar, Oman all quite moderate. The Saudis are even secularizing a tad to try calming down fundamentalist sentiment. All these states actively suppress Islamism and generally are pro-west.
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I think what was meant was moderate ideologically and religiously. Still extreme in their disregard for human life and their determination to maintain power.
> 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.
> 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.
Who is already seeing this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day?
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.
> 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
Stranger things have happened. After a chat with the capo di tutti capi he may come to new insights.
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.
? 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.
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.
Or Afghanistan
What?!? Not end in one day? Nonsense!
Soon you will be telling me the Taliban still run Kabul.
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.
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?
It impeded the Iranian colonial project considerably. Influence of Iran sponsored militias in Iraq have declined. It limped in Syria as well, which allowed for the fall of Assad regime a year ago.
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"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.
Exactly. Delivering freedom to Venezuela will get the splintering aspects of his tribe focused on the message and away from Epstein.
The people he needs at home are pretty simple. This type of thing makes it easier for his loyal propagandists to do their thing.
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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.
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.
I’m not saying the U.S. overtly toppled Bangladesh’s government. I’m agreeing with the part about “be careful what you wish for.” What follows a revolution is usually worse.
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Unfortunately, the action is perpetrated by the least capable amaerican government so theres slim chance ultimate good comes out.
> 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.
> Admitting that you don't know is often the most intellectual mature position to take.
It's actually more like grandstanding to satify oneself emotionally. It's "I am right" esque type of answer because "anything can happen" is always true.
The statement can be omitted because it literally adds nothing to any discussion.
> but anybody telling you they have a crystal ball is lying.
Then, we can add to a discussion saying which part might not be true, which assumption is incorrect, and etc.
Nobody would predict anything with 100% confidence. You make that up and state "anything can happen"-type of statement to satisfy yourself emotionally.
If those people were that sure about their predictions, they would bet on polymarket and become a billionaire already.
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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
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.
Is it really illegal is nobody has the power to apply that designation?
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There's no such thing as a sovereign dictatorship, that's a contradiction in terms.
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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.
And look what happened when Eisenhower did it in Iran.
> 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
Why would people who don't want Trump doing it want an Eisenhower doing it? He helped overthrow democratically elected Árbenz in Guatemala with even weaker justifications than Trump overthrowing Maduro (Maduro at least seems to lack popular support and probably cheated in elections).
Eisenhower:
Overthrow of Árbenz to protect fruit company profits > series of military dictators > 30+ years of civil war where the US-backed government committed a genocide against Maya people
I've met Ron Paul.
You, sir, are no Ron Paul.
That way lies madness.
If anyone else is like me and unfamiliar with Ron Paul’s views, they are listed in his wiki.
He sounds insufferable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
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.
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.
I don't think that's likely. The current president is Maduro's VP.
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
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.