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I think there may have been some deliberate misdirection. I'm writing this after the US announced they have captured Maduro. If they had said they were going to
by tim333 10mo ago
I think there may have been some deliberate misdirection. I'm writing this after the US announced they have captured Maduro. If they had said they were going to do that he probably would have taken precautions. The subsequent justification may be that María Machado won the election, is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Maduro's removal with US assistance. Though who knows?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- chronos00 10mo agoThat justification feels weak because of how much it could parallel with Putin's special military operation, where Zelensky is an illegitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Zelenksy's removal with Russian assistance. I don't like how Trump has unilaterly decided this extreme of an action, but at the moment I am glad that this didn't fail like it did in Ukraine. I am still worried about what the aftermath will lead to. I don't think peace and democracy is having a particularly winning record at the moment.
- tim333 10mo agoYeah but if you take an honest look Zelensky was elected with 73% of the vote so probably a legitimate ruler. The Venezuela election seems to have been about "Maduro had in fact won just 30% of the vote, compared with 67% for González" so González, the proxy for Machado should have been the winner. (source https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/10/gonzalez-proof-win-venezuela-election-vote-tally-maduro https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/10/gonzal...) These things are messy.
- int_19h 10mo agoAnd why does US have to be involved in any of that? If we really want to "promote democracy" so badly, let's start with Saudi Arabia.
- tonyedgecombe 10mo agoAre you proposing the US invades Saudi Arabia?
- int_19h 10mo agoI'm proposing that we don't invade anything. But if we're going to invade some country on the grounds of making it into a democracy, one does have to wonder why we don't start with the countries that are very proudly and openly not democracies.
- stoneforger 10mo agoThese are the bad non-democracies. There are good non-democracies too. Are you being critical of good non-democracies? Maybe you are living in a bad non-democracy and can't tell the difference, you might get invaded and enlightened any time soon.
- tim333 10mo agoWell, there's the these things are messy issues. No doubt the US invading Venezuela and not Saudi are somewhat oil related.
- chronos00 10mo agoI agree Zelensky is a legitmate ruler. But the Russian narrative would be that Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by the Ukraine Parliament in 2014 in what Putin described as a "coup". So Moscow will allege that any president from a future election is illegimate. Just listened to the Trump press conference, it seems Machado won't be involved in the US-led transition government. He said she is deeply unpopular in Venezuela and it wouldn't work. Conversations are developing between Sec.State Rubio and Venezuela VP Delcy Rodriguez who is Acting President. This situation feels messier by the minute.
- vintermann 10mo agoHe might have. Or he might well have come willingly, ordered his bodyguards not to shoot etc. figuring that he'll have a better chance being an alive headache for the US, than as an Allende being found dead by his own hand (supposedly), or as Saddam being found hiding in a pigsty somewhere 50 days later.