Comment by Arainach
5 days ago
This is all irrelevant - it's completely unacceptable for the US President to send the military into another without Congressional approval, and to kidnap a leader at all (especially without a declaration or war or UN authorization).
The War Powers Act actually does allow this. Congress has to be back filled within 48 hours after the action (and they were). He can also station troops up to 60 days without congressional approval.
As Jonathan Turley reports https://jonathanturley.org/2026/01/03/the-united-states-capt... this operation will be justified as executing the criminal warrant (issued by the Biden DOJ and outstanding since 2029) and responding to an international drug cartel, a very similar legal framework to the one used against Noriega in 1989 - which was tested in multiple US courts. So like it or not there is longstanding court affirmed precedent supporting that earlier operation, which will now be used to defend the actions in Venezuela.
Does this mean trump will be pardoning Maduro on receipt of a sufficiently large bribe? That seems like the only explanation for recent pardon of former Honduran president Juan Hernandez.
I assume that's rhetorical question?
Even before Trump v. United States, Maduro would have enjoyed immunity as a head of state. They still need him as a source of info on the generals. And if the drug smuggling explanation works, cartel details justifying maneuvers in Mexico.
So a thought experiment: If China were to put out a warrant for Trump's (the most unpopular president in US History, someone the majority of Americans disapprove of, a convicted criminal, and a pedophile who raped young people and has not been brought to account for these crimes as of yet) under the pretense that some of his victims were Chinese nationals and then invaded the Whitehouse to forcibly remove him to China, would that also be legal and justified ? What would you expect the reaction in the US to be ?
To be very clear I do not support this -- out leaders should be held to account to their people, not foreign invaders deciding for us. Even if it seems unlikely that they ever will be, it's our process and people.
This argument doesn't really hold water because the jurisdiction of a nation isn't the whole world.
If we have a warrant for a Sovereign or someone else with Diplomatic Immunity we -- at the very least -- should not invade their territory to carry it out. That's not how the civilized society works, and that's not how we want it to work as evidenced by the thought experiment above.
If we are at war with a nation or people, and reject the premise of their fundamental sovereign or diplomatic nature of course it's a different story since we are talking about a fundamental disagreement of reality. There's a separate process for that weighty decision by the US people's representatives.
well, there are ICC warrants. They do ignore diplomatic immunity. And opinion of many people that, for example, Netanyahu should be at least arrested if he lands in Europe and at most "somebody" should send extraction team to kidnap him
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"This paper we wrote shows the legal justification for the kidnapping, so the kidnapping we performed is completely legal."
Well, in this case, yes. This is the trouble with growing executive power, they can indeed give themselves permission.
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Every arrest is a kidnapping.
That is how any legal system works, just to be clear.
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Unfortunately thats how the politics and economics of violence work when you are the most powerful country in the world (n.b. I am not American and think this situation is deplorable, but the legal facts and construction support Trump’s actions)
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The USA does not have jurisdiction outside the US borders. Shocking, I know.
But it doesn't, so the charges of "possession of machineguns" [0] is an utter bullshit. Talk about kangaroo courts...
[0] https://xcancel.com/AGPamBondi/status/2007428087143686611
“ it's completely unacceptable”
How do you reach this conclusion that you can’t help suffering?
You act as if they don't have loopholes for this or that there will be consequences when the military industrial complex is behind things. Were there any consequences for Iraq WMD BS
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Why? It's not a war they were just capturing someone to face charges. In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama
Don't think we (Americans) would be happy if another country invaded and started capturing people to face trial in their country.
This is naive. No other country would dare do this to the US because the US would simply rain literal hellfire upon them.
Your mistake is in equating the US to other countries. You cannot. It is a superpower.
When other countries act hostile to the US, it can simply ignore their sovereignty at a whim, and this is a huge benefit to living in US.
Is it unfair? Sure. Who cares?
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Israel did that in Argentina with Adolf Eichmann, and the US celebrated it.
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That other country will quickly learn why America doesn't have free healthcare ;)
If Trump successfully stole the election in 2021, I'm sure there would have been many Americans who would be happy for Canada or England or France to capture him and put him on trial..
Osama Bin Laden wasn't the leader of Pakistan, he was just hiding there.
Capturing the de facto leader (elected or dictator) of a country is an act of war.
You could argue the war is justified, or that this dictator was bad for both his country and the US, but it's still an act of war.
How come the US can engage in acts of war without legally declaring it? Shouldn't congress be involved?
We all mocked Putin's "special military operation", why are we not accusing the US of doing the same thing?
That will really be up to the new Venezuelan regime to decide whether it was an act of war or not. I don't think Maduro will have much ability to declare it as such.
Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?
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> It's not a war they were just capturing someone to face charges.
Invading a foreign country with military force is a war even if the purpose is to effect an arrest. And when the President claims that the intent is also that the US will run the country afterwards, its even more clearly a war.
> In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama
Congress had already exercised its power to declare war with an open-ended declaration almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, which covered the operation direct against the head of al-Qaeda.
https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
charges for what? he is a Venezuelan in Venezuela. You can't say "he broke our laws" and take him to fucking New York.
I have yet to see it in this thread, but the WSJ reported that the "crime" they "extradited" him for is running a drug cartel and dumping tons of cocaine into the US.
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That said some people in the US ought to catch international charges for human rights violations of all sorts
Sure you can. Why do you think we could go into Pakistan and assassinate someone there?
Bombing a capital city and kidnapping its political leader and hijacking its oil tankers is not the same thing at all. Not to mention Pakistan was and is officially an ally of America, and despite them harboring terrorists, officially Osama was a criminal there too.
Still waiting for the shoes to drop on Osama and Saddam.
Who is "we"?
America
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