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Good move. Venezuela shipping oil to Cuba violates NO international law and America is committing an act of terrorism with their "blockade" (an act of war accor

Good move. Venezuela shipping oil to Cuba violates NO international law and America is committing an act of terrorism with their "blockade" (an act of war according to the UN). America can never win a war with Venezuela, seeing their humiliating defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam against much smaller and less developed nations. Godspeed to all Venezuelans resisting the ongoing American aggression.

foogazi 10mo ago
> America can never win a war with Venezuela, seeing their humiliating defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam Iraq’s Republican Guards rejoice!
- clanky 10mo ago
  Hard to comprehend the stunning levels of cope required to still view what happened in Iraq as some kind of decisive victory for anyone except Blackwater and Halliburton.
  - nradov 10mo ago
    Well in some ways Iran was also a winner.
pixl97 10mo ago
I mean technically US doesn't have to go to war in land, if they sink the navy(which would be accomplished in minutes) then all Venezuelan oil is trapped in country and they go bankrupt.
- bmandale 10mo ago
  If they go bankrupt, then they start using russian missiles to blow up US aircraft carriers. This is a war that neither side wants to win.
  - jmpman 10mo ago
    Once the US has air superiority, they don’t need their aircraft carriers anywhere close to Venezuela territory. The submarine fleet alone can enforce a blockade.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
    - bmandale 10mo ago
      Point is, a blockade in and of itself is an act of war, and will get the corresponding response. You cannot hope to just starve them out. You can go full ham if you'd like, but that will also get a corresponding response. If you just want "a bit" of war, then you need to leave them an out. All moot now, as anyone could have predicted, but it was fun to think about.
  - pixl97 10mo ago
    Lol, ya, that's not how air / naval superiority works. Any missile launch platforms get cooked quickly by US planes.
- Qem 10mo ago
  Could the buyers just send their own ships to retrieve oil from Venezuela? Say, China sends a oil tanker, I imagine it would be trickier for US Navy to just sink or steal it.
credit_guy 10mo ago
For the time being, the US did not declare any blockade. It is simply seizing vessels that are part of the "shadow fleet". The particular oil tanker that was seized recently was flying under a Guyanese flag. Guyana, by the way, is Venezuela's neighbor, and about a year ago Maduro was thinking of invading it. Guess what, Guyana said they have no idea why that tanker is flying their flag, so technically speaking the ship was flying a false flag, therefore under the UN Convention of the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) the vessel could be boarded, inspected and seized.
- woooooo 10mo ago
  Isn't it completely standard for international shipping to fly random flags? Ive never understood exactly why but I think its common?
  - daviddever23box 10mo ago
    Random to third parties, yet not random to the nation in question nor the crew of the ship....
  - amenhotep 10mo ago
    This is a bit like saying "isn't it completely standard for cars to have random meaningless characters on their number plates"?
    - vkou 10mo ago
      The rules for ships are a bit different for rules for cars. There's a number of countries (some of them land-locked) that sell flags of convenience, but in that particular case, it's possible that didn't happen.
  - foogazi 10mo ago
    Hint: they’re not random
  - throwup238 10mo ago
    They’re not random, they’re called “flags of convenience” since the ship is subject to the laws of the country where it is registered, including labor laws and safety standards. Panama and Liberia are common flags for merchant ships because they make it cheap to register, exempt the ship from some taxes, and hire foreign labor.
yakbarber 10mo ago
"America can never win a war with Venezuela" No, but they'll win all the battles.
- Qem 10mo ago
  There is a poor track record on war against jungle covered countries whose names start with V.
  - hirvi74 10mo ago
    What do you mean by poor track record? I can infer you are talking about the Vietnam War, and that is why I am curious. From a military point of view, the US did not lose a single battle of any significance during the entirety of a Vietnam War. How does a country lose a war without losing any major battles? On the homefront first.
  - jalapenos 10mo ago
    It's widely accepted that the US lost in Vietnam due not to military defeat, but from the clever Tet Offensive - where they successfully influenced US politics via US journalism, to cause them to simply cease fighting. Whether they should have bothered in the first place though, given how corrupt and dysfunctional the regime in the south was, is an open moral question.
    - clanky 10mo ago
      > It's widely accepted that the US lost in Vietnam due not to military defeat, but from the clever Tet Offensive - where they successfully influenced US politics via US journalism, to cause them to simply cease fighting. Yes, that's called "losing a war," and no serious strategist pretends that politics is not one of the key theaters (if not the key theater) of conflict.
      - deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
    - 10mo ago
clanky 10mo ago
I have to say I appreciate Maduro calling the U.S. empire's bluff at every turn. Whether it's the corrupt Nobel Peace Prize, trying to bribe his pilot to betray him, or now this, it's all just making it clear to anyone with eyes remotely open to see that U.S. foreign policy operates on shameless pretense and dishonesty.
stocksinsmocks 10mo ago
That the US cannot win a war is silly. The US could erase every population center within a few minutes. The core issue with US military policy is nobody can agree on what the goals are or what the appropriate level of force should be, and this is further confounded by an extremely large industry that benefits from no compete contracts and production practices that are optimized for low intensity conflict that lasts for decades. It’s sort of an elaborate jobs program, a lot like the TSA.
- deleted 10mo ago
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- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- clanky 10mo ago
  > That the US cannot win a war is silly. The US could erase every population center within a few minutes. Although the U.S. ruling class often likes to pretend it can operate with no regard for its domestic perceptions of legitimacy, the stunning amounts they expend on relentless psychological operations suggest otherwise. Killing millions in an aggressive nuclear strike would do nothing but reveal to many people (who are desperately trying to pretend otherwise) that they are controlled by a klatch of relentless psychopaths.
minebreaker 10mo ago
> America can never win a war with Venezuela, seeing their humiliating defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam against much smaller and less developed nations. I don't disagree, but it cost at least 400,000 civilian lives in Vietnam war. It's hard for me to say "good move." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties
jalapenos 10mo ago
Playing devil's advocate here, wouldn't Venezuela be massively better off from its "complete collapse of civilization" state and matching ruling class if it simply called up the US and said "hey, want to govern us?"
- PearlRiver 10mo ago
  The US would bomb a bunch of brown people, declare victory, get the hell out and leave it to a decades long civil war. Like they did with Mexico. Like seriously not even Trump can be stupid enough to actually want to GOVERN it. Can he?
  - jalapenos 10mo ago
    Well not out of the goodness of his heart, for "big beautiful oil fields" or whatever
matheusmoreira 10mo ago
America may not have won but they sure as hell didn't lose.
- orwin 10mo ago
  If your assumed goal is regime change from autocratic to democratic, they lost. If it was for stability in the middle east, the lost. If it was for oil and pressure on OPEC, I'd say they lost, but I would hear and understand an opposite argument (and change my mind).
  - matheusmoreira 10mo ago
    They did not lose. They failed to achieve certain long term strategic objectives. Their military still mopped the floor with all of their enemies, inflicting millions of casualties before finally retreating for whatever reason, and they're only getting better at it by constantly maximizing the casualties per dead US soldier ratio. It's not going to go well for Venezuela if the US attacks it, no matter the result of the war.
tim333 10mo ago
>America can never win a war with Venezuela One there could be a bit easier than Afghanistan etc. in that they have an alternative leader to bring in who seems to have won the last election. I don't think Maduro is very popular so much of the army could turn.

foogazi 10mo ago

> America can never win a war with Venezuela, seeing their humiliating defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam Iraq’s Republican Guards rejoice!

clanky 10mo ago
Hard to comprehend the stunning levels of cope required to still view what happened in Iraq as some kind of decisive victory for anyone except Blackwater and Halliburton.
- nradov 10mo ago
  Well in some ways Iran was also a winner.

pixl97 10mo ago

I mean technically US doesn't have to go to war in land, if they sink the navy(which would be accomplished in minutes) then all Venezuelan oil is trapped in country and they go bankrupt.

bmandale 10mo ago
If they go bankrupt, then they start using russian missiles to blow up US aircraft carriers. This is a war that neither side wants to win.
- jmpman 10mo ago
  Once the US has air superiority, they don’t need their aircraft carriers anywhere close to Venezuela territory. The submarine fleet alone can enforce a blockade.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - bmandale 10mo ago
    Point is, a blockade in and of itself is an act of war, and will get the corresponding response. You cannot hope to just starve them out. You can go full ham if you'd like, but that will also get a corresponding response. If you just want "a bit" of war, then you need to leave them an out. All moot now, as anyone could have predicted, but it was fun to think about.
- pixl97 10mo ago
  Lol, ya, that's not how air / naval superiority works. Any missile launch platforms get cooked quickly by US planes.
Qem 10mo ago
Could the buyers just send their own ships to retrieve oil from Venezuela? Say, China sends a oil tanker, I imagine it would be trickier for US Navy to just sink or steal it.

credit_guy 10mo ago

For the time being, the US did not declare any blockade. It is simply seizing vessels that are part of the "shadow fleet". The particular oil tanker that was seized recently was flying under a Guyanese flag. Guyana, by the way, is Venezuela's neighbor, and about a year ago Maduro was thinking of invading it. Guess what, Guyana said they have no idea why that tanker is flying their flag, so technically speaking the ship was flying a false flag, therefore under the UN Convention of the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) the vessel could be boarded, inspected and seized.

woooooo 10mo ago
Isn't it completely standard for international shipping to fly random flags? Ive never understood exactly why but I think its common?
- daviddever23box 10mo ago
  Random to third parties, yet not random to the nation in question nor the crew of the ship....
- amenhotep 10mo ago
  This is a bit like saying "isn't it completely standard for cars to have random meaningless characters on their number plates"?
  - vkou 10mo ago
    The rules for ships are a bit different for rules for cars. There's a number of countries (some of them land-locked) that sell flags of convenience, but in that particular case, it's possible that didn't happen.
- foogazi 10mo ago
  Hint: they’re not random
- throwup238 10mo ago
  They’re not random, they’re called “flags of convenience” since the ship is subject to the laws of the country where it is registered, including labor laws and safety standards. Panama and Liberia are common flags for merchant ships because they make it cheap to register, exempt the ship from some taxes, and hire foreign labor.

yakbarber 10mo ago

"America can never win a war with Venezuela" No, but they'll win all the battles.

Qem 10mo ago
There is a poor track record on war against jungle covered countries whose names start with V.
- hirvi74 10mo ago
  What do you mean by poor track record? I can infer you are talking about the Vietnam War, and that is why I am curious. From a military point of view, the US did not lose a single battle of any significance during the entirety of a Vietnam War. How does a country lose a war without losing any major battles? On the homefront first.
- jalapenos 10mo ago
  It's widely accepted that the US lost in Vietnam due not to military defeat, but from the clever Tet Offensive - where they successfully influenced US politics via US journalism, to cause them to simply cease fighting. Whether they should have bothered in the first place though, given how corrupt and dysfunctional the regime in the south was, is an open moral question.
  - clanky 10mo ago
    > It's widely accepted that the US lost in Vietnam due not to military defeat, but from the clever Tet Offensive - where they successfully influenced US politics via US journalism, to cause them to simply cease fighting. Yes, that's called "losing a war," and no serious strategist pretends that politics is not one of the key theaters (if not the key theater) of conflict.
    - deleted 10mo ago
      [deleted]
  - 10mo ago

clanky 10mo ago

I have to say I appreciate Maduro calling the U.S. empire's bluff at every turn. Whether it's the corrupt Nobel Peace Prize, trying to bribe his pilot to betray him, or now this, it's all just making it clear to anyone with eyes remotely open to see that U.S. foreign policy operates on shameless pretense and dishonesty.

stocksinsmocks 10mo ago

That the US cannot win a war is silly. The US could erase every population center within a few minutes. The core issue with US military policy is nobody can agree on what the goals are or what the appropriate level of force should be, and this is further confounded by an extremely large industry that benefits from no compete contracts and production practices that are optimized for low intensity conflict that lasts for decades. It’s sort of an elaborate jobs program, a lot like the TSA.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
clanky 10mo ago
> That the US cannot win a war is silly. The US could erase every population center within a few minutes. Although the U.S. ruling class often likes to pretend it can operate with no regard for its domestic perceptions of legitimacy, the stunning amounts they expend on relentless psychological operations suggest otherwise. Killing millions in an aggressive nuclear strike would do nothing but reveal to many people (who are desperately trying to pretend otherwise) that they are controlled by a klatch of relentless psychopaths.

minebreaker 10mo ago

> America can never win a war with Venezuela, seeing their humiliating defeats in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam against much smaller and less developed nations. I don't disagree, but it cost at least 400,000 civilian lives in Vietnam war. It's hard for me to say "good move." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties

jalapenos 10mo ago

Playing devil's advocate here, wouldn't Venezuela be massively better off from its "complete collapse of civilization" state and matching ruling class if it simply called up the US and said "hey, want to govern us?"

PearlRiver 10mo ago
The US would bomb a bunch of brown people, declare victory, get the hell out and leave it to a decades long civil war. Like they did with Mexico. Like seriously not even Trump can be stupid enough to actually want to GOVERN it. Can he?
- jalapenos 10mo ago
  Well not out of the goodness of his heart, for "big beautiful oil fields" or whatever

matheusmoreira 10mo ago

America may not have won but they sure as hell didn't lose.

orwin 10mo ago
If your assumed goal is regime change from autocratic to democratic, they lost. If it was for stability in the middle east, the lost. If it was for oil and pressure on OPEC, I'd say they lost, but I would hear and understand an opposite argument (and change my mind).
- matheusmoreira 10mo ago
  They did not lose. They failed to achieve certain long term strategic objectives. Their military still mopped the floor with all of their enemies, inflicting millions of casualties before finally retreating for whatever reason, and they're only getting better at it by constantly maximizing the casualties per dead US soldier ratio. It's not going to go well for Venezuela if the US attacks it, no matter the result of the war.

tim333 10mo ago

>America can never win a war with Venezuela One there could be a bit easier than Afghanistan etc. in that they have an alternative leader to bring in who seems to have won the last election. I don't think Maduro is very popular so much of the army could turn.