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It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says,

It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same. For example I'm not american and mostly on the right, and I think it's doubtful if it's legally justified (how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition), but it makes a lot of sense, it aligns with realpolitik and it's morally good for several independent reasons. In particular it has a hugely disproportionate geopolitical impact, and less importantly it can bring a few million people from under a dictatorship. As an interesting aside, I recently did a quick research on the Grenada invasion, widely spoken of as an embarrassing moment. It went... very well. They came, remove a budding dictatorship right after a coup, left in two months, and Grenada had no ill effects in the years after (both by subjective reporting, and by GDP per capita comparable to neighboring countries). The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. The number of dictatorships that did well in recent history is exactly two, and neither was socialist (SK and Singapore).

aqme28 10mo ago
> how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition What? There's a process for initiating an offensive war in the US and they didn't follow it. Legally, Congress must authorize it. Though that hasn't been followed for quite a few wars now.
- flyinglizard 10mo ago
  The president is legally able to authorize an offensive action though. Maybe not an "all out war" like Vietnam but what's happening in Venezuela is entirely legal from the US standpoint.
  - jonway 10mo ago
    Maybe? I don’t know there is an Authorization of Use of Force, and we’ve been conducting turkey shoots on civilian craft for lik 3 months now. Seems on “Illegal” side of things, for whatever that matters in ‘26 huh?
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    Ah, US is doing a little special operation I suppose, inside another sovereign nation, and this of course shouldn't be considered an invasion.
- radu_floricica 10mo ago
  Isolated demand for rigor. When is the last time Congress did that?
  - UncleMeat 10mo ago
    They've largely all been illegal. But we did have an AUMF for the absolute disasters that were the afghanistan and iraq wars. Somebody who isn't american coming in and saying "whatever, fuck it, Trump just does what he wants" is terrifying to me. Trump would prefer it if I were killed. Should I be shot?
  - ahtihn 10mo ago
    Why isolated? There's people demanding it every single time it happened. Just because it's ignored every time doesn't make this time okay.
big-and-small 10mo ago
> The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. This. Your logic could at least make sense with other US president, but not wanna-be dictator one doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators in the world. Not a good fit to fight for democracy.
- radu_floricica 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - calgoo 10mo ago
    There is no left or right here. There is ultra right and right. Trump is a ultra right authoritarian ruler, and the Democratic party is just another right wing party. The left vs right is just a way for powerful people to have someone to blame. Please stop using these propaganda terms.
    - radu_floricica 10mo ago
      I don't like using these terms without qualifications, just like socialism means three different things in three different contexts. But saying the Democratic party, with AOC, Bernie Sanders and two decades of progressism is "right"... you might as well say the sky is green. That's just ignoring any meaning of the words, not trying to find a more precise one.
      - locopati 10mo ago
        the progressive wing of the Democratic party does not have much sway or power within the party tho. the party itself is centrist.
- lostlogin 10mo ago
  > doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators It’s more than lip service.
stavros 10mo ago
My country is not a fan of Trump, is it morally right to send a bunch of covert soldiers to capture him and throw him out of the country? We'd be saving the US from a dictatorship.
- radu_floricica 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - stavros 10mo ago
    I certainly didn't expect a "well if you can depose a country's president, feel free", especially combined with a "once it's a dictatorship" cop out, as if there's the Worldwide Department of Dictatorship Judgement to tell us if a country is a dictatorship or not.
    - radu_floricica 10mo ago
      Which is why you don't do it nilly willy. There are plenty of hard decision in the real world, with real consequences when you guess wrong. But as far as my personal opinion goes, I'd prefer a bit more intervention in the world. We actually created United Nations with this purpose, but it got hobbled by Russia and China's security vetos, and by the arab block making it a "resolution against Israel" machine. But we never decided as a planet to just leave Sudan-like atrocities to happen without taking action because "sovereignty". That's not a thing that happened, and I'm actually a bit puzzled everybody acts like we did.
      - stavros 10mo ago
        Yeah, I guess this was just pretty high on my "willy nilly" scale.
      - shaftoe 10mo ago
        I completely agree. It's worth remembering the UN fought in the Korean war and wasn't was always a place for authoritarian regimes to pass useless resolutions and make noise. The fact we, as humanity, have allowed so many genocides and slave nations to exist, and to treat them with a measure of equality, is a failing. And, to be clear, I'm not talking about people I disagree with politically. I'm talking about places and peoples like North Korea and Cambodia and Sudan. There's a ton of shades of gray, but some situations really require a special kind of blindness to pretend are gray.
foldr 10mo ago
> how does one legally justify a was anyways I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question. Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky. Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide. Some of the discussion of the legality of the US invasion of Panama is relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
amunozo 10mo ago
You say that as if the reason is that Venezuela is a dictatorship. I despise Maduro but this break of international rules is everything but morally good. It opens a world of brute force and lack of international rules. It is only "morally good" in the short term. In the medium-long, it's morally horrible and terrifying.
7952 10mo ago
War can only be justified after the fact as a result of good outcomes. The decision prior is always a roll of the dice that loads the thrower with infinite responsibility.
NalNezumi 10mo ago
>It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same. For example I'm not american and mostly on the right Ah a textbook case of outgroup homogeneity bias. [1] Your follow up comment about Bernie and AOC is icing on the cake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity

aqme28 10mo ago

> how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition What? There's a process for initiating an offensive war in the US and they didn't follow it. Legally, Congress must authorize it. Though that hasn't been followed for quite a few wars now.

flyinglizard 10mo ago
The president is legally able to authorize an offensive action though. Maybe not an "all out war" like Vietnam but what's happening in Venezuela is entirely legal from the US standpoint.
- jonway 10mo ago
  Maybe? I don’t know there is an Authorization of Use of Force, and we’ve been conducting turkey shoots on civilian craft for lik 3 months now. Seems on “Illegal” side of things, for whatever that matters in ‘26 huh?
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  Ah, US is doing a little special operation I suppose, inside another sovereign nation, and this of course shouldn't be considered an invasion.
radu_floricica 10mo ago
Isolated demand for rigor. When is the last time Congress did that?
- UncleMeat 10mo ago
  They've largely all been illegal. But we did have an AUMF for the absolute disasters that were the afghanistan and iraq wars. Somebody who isn't american coming in and saying "whatever, fuck it, Trump just does what he wants" is terrifying to me. Trump would prefer it if I were killed. Should I be shot?
- ahtihn 10mo ago
  Why isolated? There's people demanding it every single time it happened. Just because it's ignored every time doesn't make this time okay.

big-and-small 10mo ago

> The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. This. Your logic could at least make sense with other US president, but not wanna-be dictator one doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators in the world. Not a good fit to fight for democracy.

radu_floricica 10mo ago
[flagged]
- calgoo 10mo ago
  There is no left or right here. There is ultra right and right. Trump is a ultra right authoritarian ruler, and the Democratic party is just another right wing party. The left vs right is just a way for powerful people to have someone to blame. Please stop using these propaganda terms.
  - radu_floricica 10mo ago
    I don't like using these terms without qualifications, just like socialism means three different things in three different contexts. But saying the Democratic party, with AOC, Bernie Sanders and two decades of progressism is "right"... you might as well say the sky is green. That's just ignoring any meaning of the words, not trying to find a more precise one.
    - locopati 10mo ago
      the progressive wing of the Democratic party does not have much sway or power within the party tho. the party itself is centrist.
lostlogin 10mo ago
> doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators It’s more than lip service.

stavros 10mo ago

My country is not a fan of Trump, is it morally right to send a bunch of covert soldiers to capture him and throw him out of the country? We'd be saving the US from a dictatorship.

radu_floricica 10mo ago
[flagged]
- stavros 10mo ago
  I certainly didn't expect a "well if you can depose a country's president, feel free", especially combined with a "once it's a dictatorship" cop out, as if there's the Worldwide Department of Dictatorship Judgement to tell us if a country is a dictatorship or not.
  - radu_floricica 10mo ago
    Which is why you don't do it nilly willy. There are plenty of hard decision in the real world, with real consequences when you guess wrong. But as far as my personal opinion goes, I'd prefer a bit more intervention in the world. We actually created United Nations with this purpose, but it got hobbled by Russia and China's security vetos, and by the arab block making it a "resolution against Israel" machine. But we never decided as a planet to just leave Sudan-like atrocities to happen without taking action because "sovereignty". That's not a thing that happened, and I'm actually a bit puzzled everybody acts like we did.
    - stavros 10mo ago
      Yeah, I guess this was just pretty high on my "willy nilly" scale.
    - shaftoe 10mo ago
      I completely agree. It's worth remembering the UN fought in the Korean war and wasn't was always a place for authoritarian regimes to pass useless resolutions and make noise. The fact we, as humanity, have allowed so many genocides and slave nations to exist, and to treat them with a measure of equality, is a failing. And, to be clear, I'm not talking about people I disagree with politically. I'm talking about places and peoples like North Korea and Cambodia and Sudan. There's a ton of shades of gray, but some situations really require a special kind of blindness to pretend are gray.

foldr 10mo ago

> how does one legally justify a was anyways I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question. Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky. Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide. Some of the discussion of the legality of the US invasion of Panama is relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...

amunozo 10mo ago

You say that as if the reason is that Venezuela is a dictatorship. I despise Maduro but this break of international rules is everything but morally good. It opens a world of brute force and lack of international rules. It is only "morally good" in the short term. In the medium-long, it's morally horrible and terrifying.

7952 10mo ago

War can only be justified after the fact as a result of good outcomes. The decision prior is always a roll of the dice that loads the thrower with infinite responsibility.

NalNezumi 10mo ago

>It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same. For example I'm not american and mostly on the right Ah a textbook case of outgroup homogeneity bias. [1] Your follow up comment about Bernie and AOC is icing on the cake. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity