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.
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.
> 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.
And some of them are levers that we should not tolerate.
I'm not sure who Trump is doing favors for here, but much like when it was Bush doing favors for Haliburton, we could end up with decades of pointless war which neither of the corrupt parties that started it take any responsibility for cleaning up.
Whether through politics or sabotage, its appropriate to intervene if somebody is about to stick you with the bill for something like this. We can't be all "boys will be boys" about it. The consequences are often too severe.
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.
Sadam was there because of the US (1959), and he was removed by the US, and not because he was a ruthless dictator.
Bin Laden & Afghanistan same (though obviously he was not their head of state) but much worse. Afghanistan has been abused by so many people it is hard to reason about it without having to go back a century or more.
We live in a world where even regional nuclear war will trigger a nuclear winter that starves people across the earth. Nationalist isolationism makes no sense in the modern world.
That's a very, very bad take and I'm really surprised that you can't see the difference between helping people defend themselves vs interfering in a foreign country because their leadership does not want to give you access to their natural resources on a pretext.
Meh. The US has a history of installing totalitarian or terrorist governments. The middle-east is a lovely example; the US was responsible for the likes of Osama Bin Laden (CIA asset), for the installation of Saddam Hussein, and many many more.
> 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.
Maduro was reported winning with 5,150,092 votes, or 51.20000% of the vote, and the main opposition had 44.20000% of the vote. These are considered suspiciously round percentages.
> I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections…
I've heard that American elections are rigged too. That still isn't an open invitation for an invasion by another nation to kidnap government officials on US soil. Even if Maduro had abandoned elections entirely and installed himself as king it wouldn't justify what the US has done.
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.
The opposition boycotted the election and told their supporters not to vote, then cried foul when they lost. It may not have been a representative election, but the incumbent party had no need to rig it.
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?
Venezuelans didn’t just vote for a candidate. They voted to re-found the country under a new constitution and ideology. They’re enjoying the consequences of the ideology they voted for.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
The post you replied to didn’t say things are not like that. He said things should not be like that.
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And some of them are levers that we should not tolerate.
I'm not sure who Trump is doing favors for here, but much like when it was Bush doing favors for Haliburton, we could end up with decades of pointless war which neither of the corrupt parties that started it take any responsibility for cleaning up.
Whether through politics or sabotage, its appropriate to intervene if somebody is about to stick you with the bill for something like this. We can't be all "boys will be boys" about it. The consequences are often too severe.
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.
Iraq worked out quite ok after 20 years if my contacts there are to believed.
Afghanistan failed miserably.
Sadam was there because of the US (1959), and he was removed by the US, and not because he was a ruthless dictator.
Bin Laden & Afghanistan same (though obviously he was not their head of state) but much worse. Afghanistan has been abused by so many people it is hard to reason about it without having to go back a century or more.
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We live in a world where even regional nuclear war will trigger a nuclear winter that starves people across the earth. Nationalist isolationism makes no sense in the modern world.
2 replies →
That's a very, very bad take and I'm really surprised that you can't see the difference between helping people defend themselves vs interfering in a foreign country because their leadership does not want to give you access to their natural resources on a pretext.
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> 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.
Meh. The US has a history of installing totalitarian or terrorist governments. The middle-east is a lovely example; the US was responsible for the likes of Osama Bin Laden (CIA asset), for the installation of Saddam Hussein, and many many more.
> 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.
Maduro was reported winning with 5,150,092 votes, or 51.20000% of the vote, and the main opposition had 44.20000% of the vote. These are considered suspiciously round percentages.
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> I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections…
I've heard that American elections are rigged too. That still isn't an open invitation for an invasion by another nation to kidnap government officials on US soil. Even if Maduro had abandoned elections entirely and installed himself as king it wouldn't justify what the US has done.
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...
The opposition boycotted the election and told their supporters not to vote, then cried foul when they lost. It may not have been a representative election, but the incumbent party had no need to rig it.
1 reply →
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).
Maduro's regime? The election results were so tainted the entire world was laughing - even the number of votes placed altogether exceed 100%.
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?
Venezuelans didn’t just vote for a candidate. They voted to re-found the country under a new constitution and ideology. They’re enjoying the consequences of the ideology they voted for.
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?