Comment by toomanyrichies
3 days ago
"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.
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.
You're not going to stop Russia with rules unless you enforce them. Look at Ukraine. Same with China. They're not going to leave Taiwan in peace unless you are willing to back up your "concern" with _force_.
Maduro trafficked humans, colluded with terrible gangs, was working with Iran, and had so many opportunities to stop. He was given an olive branch by the current US government and ignored it. He fucked around, now he found out.
If you want Putin to stop harassing Ukraine, you either are willing to go to the FO stage, or your words are wind. Because Russia is. And now, luckily, so is the US, and my way of life as a Norwegian is _so much more_ aligned with the US way of life than China or Russia or a socialist dictatorship like Venezuela was under for decades. I _want_ my allies to be able to enforce my world view _if and when_ our opponents don't respect us.
Edit: The EU is a perfect example of an (unelected) ruling body that plays nice with everyone, diplomacy first, always concerned, never willing to back up anything by force. Your perfect utopia judging by your own words. They _never_ get _anything_ done, and nobody respects them. Especially not its enemies like Russia or China. Spineless bureaucrats that are so far removed from everyday human reality they don't even understand how laws _work_.
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> the world reverts to the law of the strongest.
insert "always has been" meme
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?
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.
Thanks, this is a more convincing argument than insisting that we must respect the sovereignty of a unelected dictator.
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I'm not sure why we're debating this as if the people had a say in this at all. This was clearly an operation led by Trump and the military, planned for months in secret, and carried out in a single day. There were no debates in congress or the senate. There was no vote to the people.
All we can do is try to figure out what the short, medium and long term conesquences of this might be, and consider how to pressure the government to limit the power of the executive branch to do things like this without oversight in the future.
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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.
> 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
And who decided that? American citizens certainly did not. Biden’s de facto open border policy was very unpopular with most American citizens, and all but guaranteed the reelection of Donald Trump. Besides that, only 60% of the Venezuelans who fled into the United States did so as asylum seekers. It’s estimated there are another ~500,000 here illegally. Who made that bed?
And this ignores the 7+ million people that other countries had to absorb. So even if the US secured its border and stopped providing asylum, we’re ignoring the actual human suffering of the millions of people who were compelled to flee from their lives and homes and families.
So it’s better to ignore the cause and let the problem continue indefinitely out of deference to international bureaucracy? Sorry, we are not Europe.
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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.
> 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.
It’s not a complicated answer, it’s just an arbitrary answer.
Did the citizens of those countries agree to take in the asylum seekers? What alternative would you suggest when 8 million people flee across the border? In the U.S., there are an estimated 600,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers, and another 400,000 to 500,000 undocumented immigrants. Who in America decided that was good? Was it Americans citizens? No, the Biden administration decided that unilaterally when they stripped the border patrol of the power to do its job. But he’s gone, his disastrous policies led to Trump regaining power, and who gets to decide what’s good now? And weren’t Maduro’s actions, which led 8 million Venezuelans to flee to neighboring countries, not directly impacting those other countries (if not encroaching on their own sovereignty)? If so, how did you get to decide that “sovereignty” gives a dictator impunity to act free of consequences?
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It is usually those who never experienced dictatorship complaining
And it's usually those who have never experienced the aftermath of US intervention defending it. Ask Iraqis how they feel about the intervention that killed hundreds of thousands and created ISIS. Ask Libyans enjoying their open-air slave markets. [1]
The people who lived through US regime change have plenty of complaints. We just don't center their voices when it's inconvenient.
1. https://humantraffickingsearch.org/resource/the-open-slave-m...
You should speak to a resident of Libya. The days of Gadaffi are now considered the golden days of paradise.
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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.