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Since the US is currently trying to invade Venezuela under the guise of the fight against drugs trafficking I understand Venezuelans being more strict with thei

Since the US is currently trying to invade Venezuela under the guise of the fight against drugs trafficking I understand Venezuelans being more strict with their borders and would not diacard it being a setup.

analognoise 7y ago
If the US wanted to invade, apparently we could do it with a handful of cruise ships. Why send carriers when Carnival will do?
- sudoaza 7y ago
  Not what I meant. Could be there as an excuse loaded with drugs so the navy then can move in. Iraq was invaded under the false pretence of the weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist and UN observers proved so 1 week before Invasion. Panama was invaded under the excuse of drug war. Planting drugs to justify the invasion wouldn't be much of a stretch. Pretty bad luck that 1 of 3 reinforced cruise just drifts towards Venezuela during this escalation period. As the covid crisis worsens in US and a distraction is needed we'll see what happens, let's check back in a month.
  - duxup 7y ago
    Except in your examples nobody needed to stage something like a cruise ship stuffed with drugs, they just made their case and did whatever. There is no need for staging anything, nobody would need a cruise ship full of drugs to think that drugs are coming out of Venezuela... Staging an event with a cruise ship as an excuse when they could just do the thing anyway seems like an overly complicated conspiracy theory.
    - sudoaza 7y ago
      There were staged news, like newspaper articles showing in astonishing detail Saddam's biological and chemical weapons, which oops didn't exist. Also check where the La Tortuga island is located, It's right next to the coast, surrounded by other island, pretty dangerous location to just be drifting without paying attention to where you are. I'm not saying, that's definitely the reason they are there, I'm saying it's pretty weird and odd timing to suspect ulterior motives.
      - duxup 7y ago
        That's my point, someone could just lie on TV...no need to stage something with a cruise ship.
      - clort 7y ago
        I didn't read anything about 'drifting without paying attention to where you are' in the article Drifting is a common tactic for vessels which don't need to be anywhere specific, and 13 miles offshore is not an unsafe place to be drifting. In this location the wind and current will be mostly from the east, so the vessel will be moving to the west at a low speed. You can see what is in the way and 'oh we will hit an island in 12 hours unless we do something' is not an emergency.
- pensatoio 7y ago
  This is the comedy gold I was looking for.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  The US could not want to invade, instead opting to arm and assist an insurgency in Venezuela. A cruise liner that is supposed to be arrested in Buenos Aires would make for an excellent way to smuggle in supplies and mercenaries. Or they want a civil war that they can then assist with. We have done similar things in the past, in Syria and a host of Latin American countries. Even in Venezuela, the US aid Maduro forbid was very likely being used for some kind of smuggling. There is a standard international practice for providing aid that the US completely ignored, earning condemnation from international agencies.
  - totalZero 7y ago
    Look at the Latin American countries where the US propped up dictatorships in defense against the spread of Communism. Compare those places to nations like Nicaragua and Cuba. Which are the places where people starve, and which are the places where people thrive? The problem with decrying US participation in domestic political affairs in Latin America during the Cold War is that the US was successful in fending off the spread of Communism, so we will never really know just how much poverty and kleptocracy would have been established if the spread of Communism in Latin America had been successful. Today, the only observable counterfactual is a handful of paranoid, illiberal, dirt-poor nations where the government rules with an iron fist, which is certainly the case in Venezuela.
    - boomboomsubban 7y ago
      >Today, the only observable counterfactual is a handful of paranoid, illiberal, dirt-poor nations where the government rules with an iron fist, which is certainly the case in Venezuela. Right, the rest of Latin America is doing far better than the country under decades of US economic attacks. That's why there's no immigrant problem of overly poor people from countries like Uruguay, basking in that glorious US assisted regime change.
      - totalZero 7y ago
        Venezuela has damaged its own economy, and poor countries in Latin America are usually poor from under-development, not from external suppression of existing industry. Venezuela was a prosperous and stable country in the mid- to late- 20th century. Declining oil revenues, authoritarian dictatorship, cronyism in PDVSA, expropriation of private assets, unfettered corruption, and narco-capitalism have brought the country to where it is today. Sanctions are a response to the festering illness that has infected the Venezuelan government -- they are not the cause. Nicaragua is an extremely poor country run by paranoid anti-American leadership that openly welcomes relationships with Russia and China, but Russia is not exactly an economic powerhouse, and China only seeks natural resources and the creation of a second canal via the destruction of Lake Managua (environment be damned). Cuba is so destitute that its government has had to forbid its citizens from boarding boats. (Have you ever been to Uruguay? Have you ever had a conversation with a Uruguayan person?) It is impossible to understand Latin America without considering the effect of American imperialism. But it is also impossible to understand Latin America without considering the effect of American investment. Additionally, it is impossible to understand the mid-20th-century dictatorships that dominated the region without considering them against the backdrop of a Soviet (and then Russian) effort to challenge the interests of the US in its own hemisphere. So, when you insinuate that the US is the cause of all poverty in Latin America, it demonstrates a one-dimensional interpretation that could never capture the complexity of the full picture. There are immigrants from all over Latin America living in the United States, from the richest country to the poorest. They want to come to the US because of its economic opportunity, physical security, and greater freedom. I don't understand your point about Uruguay.
MrMorden 7y ago
What does a Portuguese ship have to do with the US? And what are you smoking to think that a fifth-rate piratical force that managed to start a fight with an unarmed, civilian ship and lose spectacularly would do any better against an actual military? You can tell that the Venezuelan navy is not currently deterring a contemplated invasion by observing that their ships (bar one) are still floating.
totalZero 7y ago
The US ought to invade Venezuela. It makes a whole lot more sense than invading Iraq or Syria. Venezuelans are hungry and destitute due to the regime, and the country's domestic turmoil has been spilling over into other nations where Venezuelan emigrants endure so much hardship in their travels that many of them turn to crime and panhandling just to be able to eat and have a place to sleep. It's truly disgusting the kind of inhumanity that Russia and Cuba have propped up in Venezuela.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > The US ought to invade Venezuela. Interesting coming from someone who claims to feel for the hardships of venezuelans. > Venezuelans are hungry and destitute due to the regime They are hungry because of crippling economic sanctions. > and the country's domestic turmoil Started by foreign desire for regime change. > It's truly disgusting the kind of inhumanity that Russia and Cuba have propped up in Venezuela. They are propping up a democratically elected government? Isn't it more disgusting that we are trying to overthrow a democratically elected government in venezuela, like we did in bolivia? Shouldn't you be praising russia and cuba for protecting a democracy? What's with the ridiculous anti-venezuelan propaganda all of a sudden everywhere on social media? The nytimes op-ed/propaganda by the youtuber daughter of the ousted "venezuelan" central banker wasn't enough? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/opinion/contributors/venezuela-us-hands-off-joanna-hausmann.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/opinion/contributors/vene... Wonder how the nytimes found this small unknown youtuber to write an op-ed/propaganda about this complex international matter. Also, why does the nytimes, which professes to love democracy, support regime change? I know the nytimes was created by a banker, but does that mean it must peddle bankers' interests even if it means millions of innocent people suffer?
  - zelltech 7y ago
    Only a small part of the economic issues are caused by sanctions: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/03/no-u-s-sanctions-are-not-killing-venezuela-maduro-is/#6d7fe3354343 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/03/no-u-s-san... Cuba went through the same but didn't turn out like that. Looking at your post history you appear to support the genocide of millions of Muslim Uyghurs in China + Chinese colonization of Africa, maybe try being less of a tankie and look more into the facts.

analognoise 7y ago

If the US wanted to invade, apparently we could do it with a handful of cruise ships. Why send carriers when Carnival will do?

sudoaza 7y ago
Not what I meant. Could be there as an excuse loaded with drugs so the navy then can move in. Iraq was invaded under the false pretence of the weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist and UN observers proved so 1 week before Invasion. Panama was invaded under the excuse of drug war. Planting drugs to justify the invasion wouldn't be much of a stretch. Pretty bad luck that 1 of 3 reinforced cruise just drifts towards Venezuela during this escalation period. As the covid crisis worsens in US and a distraction is needed we'll see what happens, let's check back in a month.
- duxup 7y ago
  Except in your examples nobody needed to stage something like a cruise ship stuffed with drugs, they just made their case and did whatever. There is no need for staging anything, nobody would need a cruise ship full of drugs to think that drugs are coming out of Venezuela... Staging an event with a cruise ship as an excuse when they could just do the thing anyway seems like an overly complicated conspiracy theory.
  - sudoaza 7y ago
    There were staged news, like newspaper articles showing in astonishing detail Saddam's biological and chemical weapons, which oops didn't exist. Also check where the La Tortuga island is located, It's right next to the coast, surrounded by other island, pretty dangerous location to just be drifting without paying attention to where you are. I'm not saying, that's definitely the reason they are there, I'm saying it's pretty weird and odd timing to suspect ulterior motives.
    - duxup 7y ago
      That's my point, someone could just lie on TV...no need to stage something with a cruise ship.
    - clort 7y ago
      I didn't read anything about 'drifting without paying attention to where you are' in the article Drifting is a common tactic for vessels which don't need to be anywhere specific, and 13 miles offshore is not an unsafe place to be drifting. In this location the wind and current will be mostly from the east, so the vessel will be moving to the west at a low speed. You can see what is in the way and 'oh we will hit an island in 12 hours unless we do something' is not an emergency.
pensatoio 7y ago
This is the comedy gold I was looking for.
boomboomsubban 7y ago
The US could not want to invade, instead opting to arm and assist an insurgency in Venezuela. A cruise liner that is supposed to be arrested in Buenos Aires would make for an excellent way to smuggle in supplies and mercenaries. Or they want a civil war that they can then assist with. We have done similar things in the past, in Syria and a host of Latin American countries. Even in Venezuela, the US aid Maduro forbid was very likely being used for some kind of smuggling. There is a standard international practice for providing aid that the US completely ignored, earning condemnation from international agencies.
- totalZero 7y ago
  Look at the Latin American countries where the US propped up dictatorships in defense against the spread of Communism. Compare those places to nations like Nicaragua and Cuba. Which are the places where people starve, and which are the places where people thrive? The problem with decrying US participation in domestic political affairs in Latin America during the Cold War is that the US was successful in fending off the spread of Communism, so we will never really know just how much poverty and kleptocracy would have been established if the spread of Communism in Latin America had been successful. Today, the only observable counterfactual is a handful of paranoid, illiberal, dirt-poor nations where the government rules with an iron fist, which is certainly the case in Venezuela.
  - boomboomsubban 7y ago
    >Today, the only observable counterfactual is a handful of paranoid, illiberal, dirt-poor nations where the government rules with an iron fist, which is certainly the case in Venezuela. Right, the rest of Latin America is doing far better than the country under decades of US economic attacks. That's why there's no immigrant problem of overly poor people from countries like Uruguay, basking in that glorious US assisted regime change.
    - totalZero 7y ago
      Venezuela has damaged its own economy, and poor countries in Latin America are usually poor from under-development, not from external suppression of existing industry. Venezuela was a prosperous and stable country in the mid- to late- 20th century. Declining oil revenues, authoritarian dictatorship, cronyism in PDVSA, expropriation of private assets, unfettered corruption, and narco-capitalism have brought the country to where it is today. Sanctions are a response to the festering illness that has infected the Venezuelan government -- they are not the cause. Nicaragua is an extremely poor country run by paranoid anti-American leadership that openly welcomes relationships with Russia and China, but Russia is not exactly an economic powerhouse, and China only seeks natural resources and the creation of a second canal via the destruction of Lake Managua (environment be damned). Cuba is so destitute that its government has had to forbid its citizens from boarding boats. (Have you ever been to Uruguay? Have you ever had a conversation with a Uruguayan person?) It is impossible to understand Latin America without considering the effect of American imperialism. But it is also impossible to understand Latin America without considering the effect of American investment. Additionally, it is impossible to understand the mid-20th-century dictatorships that dominated the region without considering them against the backdrop of a Soviet (and then Russian) effort to challenge the interests of the US in its own hemisphere. So, when you insinuate that the US is the cause of all poverty in Latin America, it demonstrates a one-dimensional interpretation that could never capture the complexity of the full picture. There are immigrants from all over Latin America living in the United States, from the richest country to the poorest. They want to come to the US because of its economic opportunity, physical security, and greater freedom. I don't understand your point about Uruguay.

MrMorden 7y ago

What does a Portuguese ship have to do with the US? And what are you smoking to think that a fifth-rate piratical force that managed to start a fight with an unarmed, civilian ship and lose spectacularly would do any better against an actual military? You can tell that the Venezuelan navy is not currently deterring a contemplated invasion by observing that their ships (bar one) are still floating.

totalZero 7y ago

The US ought to invade Venezuela. It makes a whole lot more sense than invading Iraq or Syria. Venezuelans are hungry and destitute due to the regime, and the country's domestic turmoil has been spilling over into other nations where Venezuelan emigrants endure so much hardship in their travels that many of them turn to crime and panhandling just to be able to eat and have a place to sleep. It's truly disgusting the kind of inhumanity that Russia and Cuba have propped up in Venezuela.

dntbnmpls 7y ago
> The US ought to invade Venezuela. Interesting coming from someone who claims to feel for the hardships of venezuelans. > Venezuelans are hungry and destitute due to the regime They are hungry because of crippling economic sanctions. > and the country's domestic turmoil Started by foreign desire for regime change. > It's truly disgusting the kind of inhumanity that Russia and Cuba have propped up in Venezuela. They are propping up a democratically elected government? Isn't it more disgusting that we are trying to overthrow a democratically elected government in venezuela, like we did in bolivia? Shouldn't you be praising russia and cuba for protecting a democracy? What's with the ridiculous anti-venezuelan propaganda all of a sudden everywhere on social media? The nytimes op-ed/propaganda by the youtuber daughter of the ousted "venezuelan" central banker wasn't enough? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/opinion/contributors/venezuela-us-hands-off-joanna-hausmann.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/opinion/contributors/vene... Wonder how the nytimes found this small unknown youtuber to write an op-ed/propaganda about this complex international matter. Also, why does the nytimes, which professes to love democracy, support regime change? I know the nytimes was created by a banker, but does that mean it must peddle bankers' interests even if it means millions of innocent people suffer?
- zelltech 7y ago
  Only a small part of the economic issues are caused by sanctions: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/03/no-u-s-sanctions-are-not-killing-venezuela-maduro-is/#6d7fe3354343 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/03/no-u-s-san... Cuba went through the same but didn't turn out like that. Looking at your post history you appear to support the genocide of millions of Muslim Uyghurs in China + Chinese colonization of Africa, maybe try being less of a tankie and look more into the facts.