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They don’t need to justify it because Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
by ch2026 10mo ago
They don’t need to justify it because Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
- pixelpoet 10mo agoI don't see how they're any less complicit than the Russians living nice and chilled in Moscow.
- notTooFarGone 10mo agoSo the bar is now at least we are as bad as Russia?
- madaxe_again 10mo agosquints at cold war
- pixelpoet 10mo ago[flagged]
- orbital-decay 10mo agoSomeday it will be your country and yourself, and nobody will be outraged anymore, because everybody is the same. Stop this cycle and organize, instead of separating like-minded people with useless lines, standing aside and shouting about how things should be, in your opinion, and how everyone else should do... something, because you know better than insiders. Repeat after me: individuals are not systems.
- pixelpoet 10mo agoThanks for answering my question and imploring me to drone some mantra (I counter with: everything is a system, my dog is a system), and I'll guess I have to wait for New Zealand to do some invading. sigh Nevermind, it's obviously way too much to ask for a simple answer to a simple question after being strawmanned.
- int_19h 10mo agoOrganize for what? Protests? And the administration would care about it why, exactly?
- throw310822 10mo agoYou know that justification in support of access to firearms in the US- "we need to be armed in case our government goes rogue". I always thought it was BS, but in case it's not, maybe this is the time.
- int_19h 10mo agoThe problem is that there's no "we". Tens of millions of Americans support the Trump regime and its actions in Venezuela. Coincidentally, they are also the ones who have most of those firearms.
- sejje 10mo agoThe specific Americans you speak of mostly care about domestic issues and trend isolationist. They'll perhaps be slightly peeved anytime we intervene overseas, but they'll certainly overlook it while they get what they want at home. I doubt they care (or know) about Venezuela. Also I think the number is hundreds of millions, not tens.
- int_19h 10mo agoI'm referring specifically to the people who support the military action in Venezuela, which is a subset of those who voted for Trump. Like you say, most of them care mainly about domestic issues. However there is a crowd that is all in on Trump and supports whatever he does - you can see them cheering even here in the comments - those are the tens of millions that I'm speaking of. It's still way too many, unfortunately.
- throwaway85825 10mo agoTomorrow the Venezuelans are going to work and the Ukrainians are going to hide in a bomb shelter. It's not really the same.
- throw310822 10mo agoThen maybe we should provide a lot of weapons to Venezuelans so that they can fight back- this will make sure that they won't go to work tomorrow.
- DecoySalamander 10mo agoFight back whom? US is already out with "no further action" planned according to Rubio.
- pixelpoet 10mo agoLiterally anything except answering the single, simple question... so we've had strawmanning, now whataboutism, which logical fallacy is next?
- Ray20 10mo agoDo you understand that the difference in the Ukrainian case is literally caused by the actions of Western countries? Venezuelans are going to work tomorrow because no one has provided their corrupt dictatorial government with hundreds of billions of dollars in military and financial aid?
- RealityVoid 10mo agoYeah, sure, if they did not get support they would have dies already and look what peaceful place this graveyard is. Slight hiperbole, not everyone would be dead, but a lot, for sure, and the rest, too scared they would be next to do anything else.
- Ray20 10mo agoI think they would have lost long ago and would have had many times fewer losses in dead and wounded.
- kolinko 10mo agoI have a friend from Venezuela (living in EU), and I remember how sad he was that Maduro was „elected”. Unlike Ukraine, Maduro wasn’t elected democratically, so „unelecting” him through force is not as terrible.
- anonymars 10mo ago> Silent downvoting intensifies, because of course it does I downvoted specifically because of this
- RobotToaster 10mo agoAmerica has invaded a lot more countries than Russia in the last 30 years...
- AnonymousPlanet 10mo agoHow many countries did the US invade to make them part of the US?
- sheikhnbake 10mo agoInvade, none. Continue to occupy to this day? Several. Edit: Although we did take a small chunk of Syria without asking.
- sph 10mo agoIt's only because of geography that they haven't done it.
- libertine 10mo agoThat's just an opinion, the fact is they haven't. Russia in the last 30 years invaded and occupied Moldova, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria - not to mention the atrocities committed in Africa. But with the exception of Syria, Russia always had genocidal intent - deny cultures, erase them, and make those countries as unstable as possible while remaining occupied. I'm not saying what the US did was good, or right, but there's a big difference. The US never denied the existence of cultures, languages, etc.
- FpUser 10mo ago[flagged]
- libertine 10mo agoIf you want to be blunt, yes. But if you want to go that path, some of those countries tried and were willing to do the same - or suddenly we forgot what Saddam's Iraq did? But remind me, what did Ukraine do? They surrendered their nukes and we're a threat to no one.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 10mo agoThat bar was one the ground with the patriot act and never left it since.
- miroljub 10mo agoNo, you are worse. You need to let Russia attack at least 30 countries in next 30 years while you sit and watch. Then let’s recalculate who is worse.
- throw-the-towel 10mo agoPoor little $countryName exceptionalists, having to endure being compared to le bad country. (This isn't specific to Americans in any way BTW.)
- guerrilla 10mo agoYou're way worse than that. You invade everyone all the time and all of it is illegal and wrong. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
- lbrito 10mo agoThe US has a much longer list of invasions and foreign interference than Russia. Its not even comparable.
- qwytw 10mo agoRegardless of anything else equating Maduro's Venezuela and Ukraine and the military side-effects of both invasions/"operations" isn't exactly fair. The Venezuelan government is/was both illegitimate and very oppressive. Not that I'm implying that Trump did what he did on Humanitarian grounds...
- jonway 10mo agoAny ideas? All ears.
- __patchbit__ 10mo agoDJT 2.0 did a `Charlie Kirk' flex and acted out of MAGA base self interest before the Who you know. Stocking up on fuel will put more cards in the hand for next moves in China or Iran.
- jonway 10mo agowhat? I'm reading this as: "We're gonna need oil for fuel when we go to war with china" But south America is easily blockaded in times of war the oil (if we needed it) would be ours regardless. Second, we don't need it, we've been a net exporter for like over a decade now right? Its been a few days. It turns out this was a simply capricious and erratic act on the part of Donald Trump, and we stand to essentially benefit not one iota as a country from it!
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- blurbleblurble 10mo agoThey're too busy worrying about making rent and defending their neighbors from getting abducted by masked adult boys
- miroljub 10mo ago> getting abducted by masked adult boys Which boys?
- cogman10 10mo agoICE
- miroljub 10mo agoThey now employ minors? Besides, how realistic is a fear that a law abiding citizen would be endangered by the ICE?
- cogman10 10mo agoIf you are brown, pretty realistic given the number of brown citizens ICE has deported. [1] [1] https://nipnlg.org/news/press-releases/ice-deports-man-claiming-us-citizenship-laos-despite-federal-court-order https://nipnlg.org/news/press-releases/ice-deports-man-claim...
- sejje 10mo agoHow many is it? Your link gets us to 1, and it's from months ago. I expected you to link the number since you're claiming it's high. Supposedly there's been 500k deportations, and 2.5m "self-deportations" in 2025, so what would be high here? Edit: I also googled that man's name. A quick read of nbcs article suggests it's not clear he's a citizen. The judge said he "had a substantial claim to citizenship," which means nothing either way. He was born in Thailand. "In his Nov. 3 brief, [a lawyer] contends Souvannarath stayed in the United States for 19 years after his removal order without challenging it or seeking proof of citizenship."
- SecretDreams 10mo ago> Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable. Any attempt at holding the admin accountable would make it look a bit more like Venezuela. NA is rightfully too soft to want to ever go that route. They'll peacefully protest and that'll be it. Anything more than that would be the individuals throwing their lives away unless the whole country did it in unison.
- cornholio 10mo agoTrump was extraordinarily lucky here, the Maduro regime was wholly unprepared and he was immediately extracted from the county; he can claim "mission accomplished", parade Maduro in front of the world media and watch from afar the PSUV leadership tear themselves appart. But the dice Trump rolled could have easily fell onto a well prepared Maduro regime, which could have downed a few Blackhawks, torpedoed the ship from which they launched, captured and killed a few dozens to a few hundreds US service men, paraded them in the streets of Caracas and used them as human shields protecting the main military targets etc. I.e, Trump could have easily committed US to a long term war and a ground invasion, without Congress authorization or allied support, and with Iraq or worse long term results.
- tantalor 10mo agoSimpler explanation: the army stood down and Maduro went peacefully. It's actually quite an impressive feat of negotiation.
- cornholio 10mo agoWhile I strongly doubt this is true, it still doesn't change the fundamental gamble Trump took: it's impossible to predict how a regime change attempt will go, who will betray and who will rally around the flag. Especially in a resource rich country.