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Comment by RivieraKid

4 days ago

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.

  • Fair point, it's not certain that this will be a win for Venezuelans. But I think it probably will be. Economically it can't get much worse.

  • Win-win: France, Germany, Korea...

    • > Win-win: France, Germany, Korea

      These countries don't well match those on the overthrowing-the-dictator list, which now includes Venezuela.

      For Germany we defeated it's government with a crap-ton of help, after Germany had declared war on us. For France we ousted an invading foreign power (again, with a crap ton of help). For the third we were effectively partitioning the country in prep for the proxy war with the Soviet Union.

    • Japan is also a good example. If the US is going to marshall aid (or the equivalent) Venezuela for the next many decades then I think it'll certainly be a win-win.

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  • given that the US again intends to attack and conquer panama, i dont think you could consider that a win

  • I mean this kinda implies that there's a chance it could fail but failure basically is no worse than doing nothing?

    Most of those examples were failed or problematic countries before and after US intervention. If there's a chance of sucess that's better than doing nothing no?

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.

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.

  • > Venezuela gets a democracy and the U.S. gets a stable strategic partner in an important part of its back yard.

    They wishes are, at best, one possible outcome from a long list of possible outcomes.

The most obvious example is a fantasy in your mind.

The most obvious counter-example is the entire history of unilateral regime change.

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.

> 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

  • > > So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...

    It will never happen because Kim has nukes. All these regime changes starting from the Afghaninstan, through Saddam, through Gaddafi....now Maduro they are just teaching strongmen to get nukes as the only way to be safe from U.S. (or others) regime change

Wouldn’t NK say the same against US? Are we the good guys? Or they are? Or nobody?

  • NK is a dictatorship with concentration camps, where a small group of people has 20 million hostages. The US is a democracy. (For the record, I'm not American and I wanted Harris to become the president.)

    • The definition of democracy usually includes the rule of law, that no longer exists in USA. Trump declared himself to be dictator, and his handlers are having him act that way. They take no account of USA law, nor of international law, nor ethics of any religious group AFAICT.

      Also, paying another country to run your concentration camps is no less evil.

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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?

  • I don't think Americans would celebrate on the streets but many would be secretly happy. How would I feel? Depends on what I think would be the consequences for the world.

    • You can know the consequences only in retrospect, not when its time to celebrate or not.