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A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it. Maduro is not good for Venezuela. The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country. The pre

• QuadmasterXLII 9mo ago
  Conceptually, tariffs could help manufacturing. The policy Trump actually enacts, massive and unpredictable tariffs on manufacturing inputs, turns out to destroy manufacturing. Conceptually, removing Maduro might help the people of Venezuela…
• guax 9mo ago
  "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition" And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela" Never the US has been so honest around so many lies in the same speech. I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
  • _heimdall 9mo ago
    > I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime. I heard that as Trump doing his usual thing patting himself on the back while justifying the continued use of our military for domestic law enforcement.
    • Larrikin 9mo ago
      Why is this downvoted? He never misses a chance to say its a good thing that the military is being used on the American population. The recent ruling against the use of the National Guard comes at a time when Kavanaugh is just upset that his name is going down in history for the term Kavanaugh Stops
      • _heimdall 9mo ago
        I'm not sure. Either people are reading it as though I'm approving what Trump does (I'm not), or they are and don't like my description of it.
  • perihelions 9mo ago
    More quotes in that vein, > "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so." > "We're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have it" > "It's gonna make a lot of money" > "Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial" Reading @atrupar.com 's live transcriptions, https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com
    • XorNot 9mo ago
      The joke about joining the US military to protect a billionaires oil investments is now just publicly stated government policy apparently.
  • tootie 9mo ago
    He also indicated they will work directly with Maduro's second in command, not the putative winning candidate from the last election. This is purely about theft.
    • alephnerd 9mo ago
      In the eyes of the US, the expropriation of American assets in Venezuela [0] and then selling them to Russian [1], Chinese [2], and Indian [3] interests was theft. Russian-US relations are tense for the same reasons due to the saga of Sakhalin-I's nationalization from Exxon [4] following the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine and Russia's sale of Exxon's stake to Japanese [5] and Indian [6] interests. The previous administration also stopped Saudi and UAE from invading Qatar in 2017 [7] due to Rex Tillerson's personal interests with Exxon's stake in Qatar's energy infra [8] That said, assuming the US doesn't attempt a Venezuelan version of de-Baathification [9], this should be a fairly standard transfer of power - US-Venezuela relations only really tanked when Maduro came to power and hard pivoted Eastward, as even under Chavez American business operations continued and the relationship wasn't severely tense. And from the sounds of it, the faction backing Delcy Rodriguez chose to give Maduro up and (reading between the lines) roll back nationalization in return for staying in power. Almost everything in political science can be modeled using Tsebelis's Veto Player model, Mesquita's Selectorate Theory, Kuran's Revolutionary Threshold, and the Agency Problem. [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/may/02/oilandpetrol.venezuela https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/may/02/oilandpetro... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuela-approves-15-year-extension-russia-linked-oil-joint-ventures-2025-11-20/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuela-approves-1... [2] - https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/crude-oil/072524-venezuela-awards-two-chinese-companies-oil-production-jv-contracts https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... [3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-says-oil-an-option-recoup-600-mln-venezuela-dividend-2024-01-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-says-oil... [4] - https://www.upstreamonline.com/production/russia-takes-control-of-sakhalin-1-oil-and-gas-project/2-1-1331213?zephr_sso_ott=TCuyiF https://www.upstreamonline.com/production/russia-takes-contr... [5] - https://www.japex.co.jp/en/business/oilgas/sakhalin1/ https://www.japex.co.jp/en/business/oilgas/sakhalin1/ [6] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-moves-closer-keeping-20-stake-russias-sakhalin-1-project-sources-say-2025-12-05/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-moves-cl... [7] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/1/rex-tillerson-stopped-saudi-and-uae-from-attacking-qatar https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/1/rex-tillerson-stoppe... [8] - https://www.qatarenergylng.qa/english/AboutUs/Corporate-Structure https://www.qatarenergylng.qa/english/AboutUs/Corporate-Stru... [9] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification
  • xg15 9mo ago
    Yeah, I was mostly surprised about the brazenness of it all. So the plan is to take over the government, take over the oil industry, sell the oil and in infinite grace give the Venezuelans some part of it back (minus of course the "compensation" for the years in which US companies were kept out of the country) And all that as official doctrine, not even some secret strategy paper or covert ops campaign. Edit: I had to chuckle at his "reviewing" of the Monroe doctrine as DONroe doctrine. There is "on the nose" and there is "punching someone in the face"...
    • JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
      > the plan is There is no plan. Again. Machado is standing by. But she’s a woman so Trump has ruled her out.
      • JKCalhoun 9mo ago
        He's just said she's not being considered.
        • JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
          Correct. I spoke unclearly. I meant that we have a good option, our Endara to Noriega, but instead Trump is hard pivoting to the Baghdad model.
        • joseda-hg 9mo ago
          Which makes total sense, the military has been Chavismo's strongest asset for as long as it's been a thing That won't change just because Maduro isn't there, whomever does take control, will need external protection, or the US acting as an unspoken enforcer (Unspoken because "No boots on the ground right now" but "prepared for a second wave")
          • terminalshort 9mo ago
            I suspect there is also consideration of strategy here. The regime's lack of democratic approval is actually a benefit. A client state that has democratic approval has much more leeway to go against its master. A client regime that is unpopular with its population has no other base of support than the powerful country that put it there. This maximizes leverage.
  • throw-the-towel 9mo ago
    Not taking sides here, just trying to steelman: some Venezuelans might be so done with Maduro, that they consider US getting the oil profits to be a fair price.
    • achenet 9mo ago
      On top of that, I don't think the common Venezuelan laborer was getting much benefit out of the Maduro regime capturing the oil wealth. From the point of view of the less fortunate, there isn't much difference between a Venezuelan elite enriching themselves off the local oil vs an American elite enriching themselves off the local oil.
      • svnt 9mo ago
        Right, that’s not the issue. The issue is national sovereignty. The US just started taking over South America.
        • solenoid0937 9mo ago
          Claims of sovereignty are meaningless, what happens is whether those claims hold up in real life, and in this case they clearly don't. A country is either powerful enough to enforce sovereignty, or it is not actually sovereign; so this hand-wringing about "Venezuela's sovereignty" is meaningless. It's already been proven false, to some extent. The US is free to do what it wants with Venezuela, or virtually any non-nuclear country in the world. Always has been, really. It simply doesn't exercise said power very often.
          • WaxProlix 9mo ago
            Is this then a call to assassinate local politicians you don't agree with? Some might makes right thing? We're all at least momentarily able to overpower or mortally harm one another, but often don't choose to. Why do you think that is?
            • 9mo ago
  • morshu9001 9mo ago
    I prefer this honesty over the unrealistic expectations the US set up in each Mid East country plus Afghanistan.
    • joering2 9mo ago
      How about not going there at all for whatever reason, under any circumstances. And there are bigger issues at stake, no amount of drugs "made in Venezuela" inhaled by Americans can kill them as much as one North Korean Nuke. I'm surprised no lesson the US learnt from similar overthrows in the past, but again this is Trump. The country can get so unstable that by the time Marco start giving out "legitimate" orders, there will be 30 different groups fighting and killing each other. True unchecked anarchy. So what's then? Boots on ground. Are we still in the spirit of sacrificing 150,000 American soldiers in the name of freedom, like we did in Iraq? When we kicked out Russians from Middle East we were not aware they kept islam jihadists at bay, then Al Quaida came to live and we all now how it ended.
      • lisbbb 9mo ago
        [dead]
        • the_af 9mo ago
          [flagged]
      • morshu9001 9mo ago
        I wasn't even thinking about the drugs. Is that a real thing? North Korean nuke isn't a real concern. Iraq had no goal. The stated reason was WMDs and 9/11, so bogus and unrelated. Stability wasn't our concern either, I mean we funded Saddam Hussein to begin with. US companies did set up oil drilling, but I really don't think the driving motivation was oil, otherwise we'd have gone to Venezuela first.
        • Forgeties79 9mo ago
          You think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was not related to oil?
  • belter 9mo ago
    >>"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and >>judicious transition"- And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go >> into Venezuela" The new President of Venezuela will be called Fulgencio Batista...
    • jacquesm 9mo ago
      Hehe. Ok. This is not a funny thread but that is funny.
  • asveikau 9mo ago
    The ironic thing is that nationalizing the oil was pretty much the most defensible part of Chávez's legacy. (To be clear I'm not a fan of Chávez or of Maduro.)
    • tim333 9mo ago
      Chavez actually did quite well in the early years. I'm not sure he nationalized oil but took greater amounts of the revenue in tax and used it for positive things for the people. It went downhill after a while with many of the problems common to communist policy though.
      • seanmcdirmid 9mo ago
        Chavez was corrupt but the people he replaced were also corrupt. Even when Venezuela was "rich", most of the people were poor and felt like they weren't benefiting from it. The US is probably going push Venezuela to that prior state, where the country is rich on paper but most people are struggling, setting up a call for another Chavez. That assumes the US can just waltz into the country and take complete control, which is probably not going to happen.
        • terminalshort 9mo ago
          Better some people are poor than everybody is poor, which tends to be the result of putting leftists in charge.
          • TheOtherHobbes 9mo ago
            How large is your ideal value of "some"?
            • jacquesm 9mo ago
              Typically this translates into everybody below me on the social ladder.
          • 9mo ago
  • tim333 9mo ago
    >ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans I get the impression they are concerned at least a bit with the welfare of Venezuelans. Maybe a secondary consideration to drugs and oil but here's what Trump was saying: >We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. So, we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about. We want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela. (https://youtu.be/cQdRlS4uf0E?t=3784 https://youtu.be/cQdRlS4uf0E?t=3784)
    • blurbleblurble 9mo ago
      Then the hook is thoroughly in your cheek, if you haven't swallowed it
      • tim333 9mo ago
        I'm a bystander but mildly optimistic.
        • blurbleblurble 9mo ago
          You may as well be a bot
          • tim333 9mo ago
            Bots don't have much of an opinion on these things. I'm disappointed that everyone is so cynical. At least the Venezuelans seem cheerful even if some HN commenters are not and sound like they'd be happier if Venezuela had another twenty years of poverty and dictatorship.
            • pjc50 9mo ago
              People who remember Iraq and Libya understand the difference between stable dictatorship and unstable warlord era. Removing those dictators left the countries more deadly and poor than otherwise. Libya in particular created the European refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. I suspect one outcome of this will be even more Venezuelan refugees, including illegally in the US.
  • Sprotch 9mo ago
    How exactly will the US run the country? They have just one guy
    • thiagoharry 9mo ago
      It will not. Chavismo did not end with the death of Hugo Chávez. Nor will it end with the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro.
    • pjc50 9mo ago
      Every time the puppet president fails to meet targets, they are executed by missile strike?
    • khazhoux 9mo ago
      It should be one of the Trump kids to run it. Whichever one knows the most spanish. «¿Como hacer país muy bueno?» And Republicans won’t see a problem with that.
  • whatever1 9mo ago
    Oil companies already had contracts that Maduro violated.
  • BloodyIron 9mo ago
    > Washington being now safest and free of crime I'd make the case it depends on who's defining what is and is not a crime. Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal, and yet he not only has total freedom, he literally has the highest quality personal protection ecosystem on the planet, and so much more. So, who is the criminal here? Which are the crimes? And what is _actually_ going to happen?
    • lisbbb 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      • mortehu 9mo ago
        When you're talking about changed laws, are you referring to the civil case against E. Jean Carroll? And when you are talking about "charges that the banks said weren't even an issue" are you talking about the civil fraud case? No banks were victims in the hush money case, which is where the felonies are from.
        • terminalshort 9mo ago
          There was no victim in the hush money case which is why the prosecution was clearly political. Even Andrew Cuomo, Democrat and former NY DA, said that those charges never would have been filed against anyone other than Trump.
          • ben_w 9mo ago
            What made it a felony under New York law is the claim that the falsified records were intended to conceal another crime, specifically efforts to influence an election. To a decent approximation, if Trump had not been running for office when he did this, then it wouldn't have been a crime. But then, he wouldn't have cared to cover it up. Covering up that he got off with a porn star isn't the problem. Like Bill Clinton, it's the actual particulars of the coverup rather than generically that there was a desire to cover up an extramarital affair itself that's the problem.
  • deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  • SilverElfin 9mo ago
    I think it’s normalization. If they can ignore Congress, lie to them, break American law, ignore international law, what’s to stop them from violating the constitution? It’s how they will ultimately deport 100 million Americans, like they proposed a few days ago on the DHS Twitter account. Don’t fix things through the political process - just ignore them and use military force.
  • belter 9mo ago
    >> Never the US has been so honest around so many lies in the same speech. Its more this: https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1q34556/millions_of_e_files_still_pending_review/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1q34556/mill...
  • giancarlostoro 9mo ago
    > And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela" Venezuela is down to 1 million barrels per day, down from 3 million per day from the 2000s because of the sanctions after Hugo Chavez. They own the worlds largest reserve (about 300 billion barrels worth) and it was always my understanding that we worked with them before Hugo Chavez went the route he went and brought a great nation to shambles for a power trip. I think Venezuela will recover with our aid, but a lot of their old infrastructure is gone, they will need investors. They will also need to deal with their crime problem and hold real elections for once.
• vdupras 9mo ago
  Thank you for articulating this outside of the regular "HN myopia" lenses. This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is. Venezuela is very important strategically for them, they can't let it slide unless they're weak. Surely, they won't go as far as direct US confrontation, but if they don't make Venezuela into a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there, one can draw the conclusion that China isn't as strong as many make them (including me, I confess). But it wouldn't be that surprising if Venezuela turns out being a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there...
  • bigyabai 9mo ago
    > This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is. Chinese intervention in Venezuela is a suicide mission by every rule of warfare. You are surrounded, you have no supply line and you can't amass your material at the front since America is already there.
    • vdupras 9mo ago
      That is why I specifically wrote the words "they won't go as far as direct US confrontation". I refer to China-sponsored guerilla warfare.
      • bigyabai 9mo ago
        So, be specific. Do you think Chinese cargo planes are airdropping firearms and ammunition? Supporting the rear with food and water? Sending money is nice but Venezuela is blockaded.
        • vdupras 9mo ago
          I don't know, I guess there's all kinds of tricks. It's not as if US presence made the territory magically impervious to everything. Last time, weather balloons fooled the US military good enough. I mean, the US can't even keep migrants from illegally crossing their borders with dangerous drugs. Are you really making the case that as soon as the US have boots on the ground, that Venezuela's borders are a 100% secure? America, fuck yeah!
• tootie 9mo ago
  Trump also did not even inform the armed services or foreign affairs committees. He spoke to FOX before he spoke to Congress. It is not clear if he's done or if we just declared war. His public statement that the US will now be majorly involved in Venezuelan oil is both very telling and very mysterious. How the hell are we going to assert power over their industry without foisting a new, friendlier government?
  • dpkirchner 9mo ago
    We definitely didn't declare war if Congress isn't in session or otherwise able to vote.
    • verzali 9mo ago
      On the contrary, kidnapping the defacto leader of a nation is very much an act of war.
    • balex 9mo ago
      Of course not. There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
• vlzathrow 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  • smotched 9mo ago
    I would advice them to get ready for what comes next, past experience says it will not be good.
    • smileson2 9mo ago
      yeah it feels like the sort of thing that will go sideways easily, I get the "optimistic" angle who doesn't love strong men being removed from power, but it seems more like a recipe for civil war that we're forced to be heavily involved in will all of the military and paramilitary forces there suddenly become to compliant? will other nations try to turn it into a proxy war to drag the us down possibly as payback for Ukraine? maybe everyone moves on I have no idea, I'd personally rather just not be involved
  • nsingh2 9mo ago
    Reasoning like this is part of the reason why history keep repeating itself. Completely ignoring how previous US led decapitations turned out, and just hoping this time will be different. It should not be contentious at this point, the US only cares about the geopolitical value of Venezuela, and if supporting another dictator helps towards this end, then that's what will happen.
    • isr 9mo ago
      Dude, theres not much point in arguing that. You see this kind of 5th column in the aftermath of most popular revolutions, from Iran to Chavez in Venezuela. A whole horde of folks who were part of the previous elites (or more likely, their functionaries) who decamp en masse to the US, where they proceed to spout unhinged propaganda ad infinitum. A tell tale is how they tend to completely overlook (to the point of pretending it isnt happening) the role of economic sanctions, blockades & other forms of coercive pressure on the economies of those countries. Instead, putting it all down to local actions by local actors. There won't be much mention of any of the social improvements & economic uplift which Chavez in particular was able to do, before the external economic pressures became overbearing. When you can control the narrative on both sides of the equation to this extent, kidnapping the leader of a sovereign (until today) country seems almost normal. Jeffery Sachs summed it up best a couple of hours ago. The US is not even pretending to be a constitutionally-governed state any more, and this is just 1 sign of that.
• rochav 9mo ago
  As a brazilian, could you clarify what you mean by "The Brazilian Regime"? Genuine question, the decades long dictatorship backed by the US military in 64 or the recent pressure Trump made to try and put Bolsonaro back into power despite his crimes?
• yes_really 9mo ago
  > The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country. As opposed to what? Who "should" be the decider? China? Russia? Maduro? The Venezuelan Military? The alternative is not that Venezuelans choose who stays in power democratically. The alternative, as we just saw until now, is that the Maduro dictatorship maintains power through force.
  • jwilber 9mo ago
    The Venezuelan people?
    • yes_really 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      • deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      • OtomotO 9mo ago
        You said "democratically", which is not necessary
        • yes_really 9mo ago
          The issue is that the "Venezuelan people" cannot decide because they are under a dictatorship.
          • OtomotO 9mo ago
            Of course they can. At any time they can decide they've had enough and overthrow their government. It happened in the past. Ever heard of the French Revolution?
  • esarbe 9mo ago
    As hard as it is to watch a people suffer a dictatorship; that's the Venezuelan's task, not the US's, not Russia's and not China's. International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership. We've seen this principle violated before, when the Ukrainian people took the streets for months to topple their leader in 2014. Russia to this day takes this as an excuse to question Ukrainian sovereignty, framing the events as a "US coup" to justify their violent invasion of Ukraine. The argument you make just plays in their hand. "There was a violent coup - we need to remove the coup government and bring back democracy to Ukraine", they say. Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized. What if the US decides that it will not recognize the government of Denmark as democratically elected and moves to liberate the people of Greenland from their despotic dictatorship? You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
• eweise 9mo ago
  Its all about the oil.
  • cogman10 9mo ago
    Yeah, Trump directly said it multiple times throughout his speech today.
    • FridayoLeary 9mo ago
      At least he's honest, even if it's more like he lacks an effective filter. "bannana republics" and "bigger gun diplomacy" don't quite describe Trumps approach to foreign policy. One thing i can say about the operation is that it's a lot cheaper and less bloody then a ground invasion. Someone should tell him Iran has loads of oil and China is getting it all...
      • lostlogin 9mo ago
        [flagged]
• hshdhdhj4444 9mo ago
  > Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome. Lol this is already proven false. The put the Vice President in power who is now coincidentally supporting what the US is doing, including sending oil companies in to as Trump put it “sell oil to the Chinese”.
• ck2 9mo ago
  There's no power change, the core of your whole post is wrong All of Maduro's people are still in power and the president just said the woman who actually won the vote is not suitable to be in charge Good luck with the US running another country when we are cratering ourselves Impeach him and send him to the Hague for trial if this was so justified BTW they are now talking about Cuba, we are headed for WW3 by 2028
  • lemoncookiechip 9mo ago
    And Mexico, he just talked about it.
  • jonathanstrange 9mo ago
    Apparently, the Venezuelan vice president has sold out her country or is acting out of duress because she has allegedly offered full cooperation with the US. That could be a viable way to a US-led military/CIA dictatorship there, if the Venezuelan military and police around her allows it to happen. She seems to be in the line of succession. That seems to be the current "plan."
    • exceptione 9mo ago
      Yes, she has no democratic base since Maduro took power via election fraud. Watch the media to see if they just copy the feeds from the press agency, or that they will do the work they should actually be doing and put what-is-actually-going-on in focus. The fourth estate xor corporate media.
    • butler14 9mo ago
      source? all that is being reported is her asking for proof of life and him back
      • jonathanstrange 9mo ago
        That information is outdated by now. The assessment was based on Trump's claim that the US will work together directly with her instead of Machado, whom he considers unfit to be president right now. It was an attempt of giving a rational explanation of Trump's and Rubio's press conference. I assumed that in order for their statements to make sense there would have to be some backdoor deal with her. However, she has given a speech now condemning the attack and refuting the US narrative (although, leaving some door open for diplomacy). I can't edit the original comment any longer so I hope people read this one. In any case, the situation is still very fluid.
• jacquesm 9mo ago
  > if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes This is the key. Trump loves dictators, no matter how they got into power. As long as they give him what he wants or he's afraid of them.
  • chrisco255 9mo ago
    No, he just plays politics like you must in a complex world of 185 countries, many of which are run by dictators or dictator-like figures.
    • guax 9mo ago
      Must? its a choice. Even more of a choice when you're on top. Trump might not have a choice not because they don't exist, but because he is incapable of understanding them. He's clear on not believing in win/win scenarios.
    • kadoban 9mo ago
      Name a leader he has anything positive to say about who isn't brutal dictator.
      • oceanplexian 9mo ago
        Milei was democratically elected and he praises him all the time.
      • deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      • shric 9mo ago
        Anthony Albanese.
      • eternauta3k 9mo ago
        Orbán isn't brutal AFAIK.
      • threemux 9mo ago
• mytailorisrich 9mo ago
  Perhaps people forget that countries are sovereign and can do whatever they want. The "global order" has always been based on strength: the stronger do what they want and the weaker do what they can. What the US have just done is not something new because of Trump. We are told about "international law" and "norms" so much that we perhaps forget that this is mostly BS.
  • vaylian 9mo ago
    People commit crimes despite it being illegal. That doesn't make laws "BS". And yes, this is not something new. It is something old. It is something that we have left behind us and Donald Trump should therefore be condemned.
    • mytailorisrich 9mo ago
      You and I are subject to the law. This is not voluntary and it will be enforced against us by the state. On the other hand, countries are sovereign. They are not subject to "laws", and if they do it is on a voluntary basis. Ultimately it boils down to military and economic strength for a country to be able to stand its ground and do what it wants. We never left this behind, this has always been the case. From the replies it seems that commenters believe that countries are subject to "laws" the same way that they are...
      • nemomarx 9mo ago
        The goal of the rules based international order was to subject countries to laws, yes. Those laws could have been (and were various times in the past) enforced by larger organizations in the same way the state acts on citizens. Westphalian Sovereignty is not any more real than the rules based international order - clearly Venezuela's sovereignty did nothing for them here.
        • mytailorisrich 9mo ago
          There was never any "larger organizations", only the larger, more powerful countries that enforced the "international order" that suited them.
• jmyeet 9mo ago
  > A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it. Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro. Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take. There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple". Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2]. So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better. And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place. As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]: > “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?” > “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” [1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... [3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-madeleine-albright-as-who-she-really-was https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
• idontwantthis 9mo ago
  Given his 0/2 track record on targeted prosecutions I wonder what the chance is that Maduro wins in court. What the hell would happen then?
  • FridayoLeary 9mo ago
    Deportation to el salvador of course. You really need to keep up. A more important question is if he does get sentenced will Trump just pardon him https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
    • autoexec 9mo ago
      Does Maduro still have access to enough money to make the bribe? If not, he won't be getting a pardon.
• seshagiric 9mo ago
  we should not dilute the effect of what's been by saying Maduro was not good for Venezuela.
• OCASMv2 9mo ago
  > The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY Good thing then that Maduro isn't the president of Venezuela, but a narco-terrorist usurper. EDIT: Downvoting me will not change that fact, only hide it.
  • Rebelgecko 9mo ago
    Other than his country's oil, what's the difference between him and the Honduran president that Trump pardoned?
    • OCASMv2 9mo ago
      One surrendered, for starters.
• throwaw12 9mo ago
  > There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans 100x times this! US administration doesn't care about the welfare of most human beings in the world (including in the US). We saw it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Yemen and now Palestine. Having an assumption that this move was made for Venezuelans and now they're liberated from evil is wrong.
  • morshu9001 9mo ago
    All those Mid East operations were way more for Israel than for the US. At least that's not a factor here.
    • guerrilla 9mo ago
      What did Afghanistan have to do with Israel?
      • morshu9001 9mo ago
        Nothing, I wasn't including Afghanistan in "Mid East"
        • bawolff 9mo ago
          That's a little like saying "North America" and then clarifying you didn't mean the united states.
          • morshu9001 9mo ago
            Nobody considers Afghanistan part of the Middle East
            • esseph 9mo ago
              I bet 95% of the US does.
          • 9mo ago
• egberts1 9mo ago
  Looks like it: celebratory crowd https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2007464418565648690 https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2007464418565648690
  • nshoo 9mo ago
    I hate to break it to you, but that video’s from Chile, as it says in the chat. See for yourself: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BctQ7hV798imS4cF8?g_st=ipc https://maps.app.goo.gl/BctQ7hV798imS4cF8?g_st=ipc
• agumonkey 9mo ago
  greenland must be having difficult discussions right now
  • toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    I guess Europe has a new base of operations and colo for radar and signal intelligence. Welcome to the EU. Bullies are coming, prepare yourself.
    • agumonkey 9mo ago
      If Europe is able to ramp up to match US aggressiveness..
      • toomuchtodo 9mo ago
        They cannot afford not to. Issue the euro bonds and spin up the defense industry faster. (one could make the case euro bonds are a superior alternative to US treasuries based on governance trajectories)
        • agumonkey 9mo ago
          Hope so, so far reactions have been mild, maybe by design, maybe by incompetence ..
          • timeon 9mo ago
            Unfortunately there are not many options. EU is surrounded by hostile countries like Russia, USA and China.
            • agumonkey 9mo ago
              yeah, all I'm saying is that so far I don't see a strong enough response (or maybe things are moving but kept secret for valuable reasons)
          • deleted 9mo ago
• greekrich92 9mo ago
  [flagged]
• rib3ye 9mo ago
  You’re not wrong about the motives, but others are: The U.S. has all the oil it needs right now. The message from the U.S. to the world is: don’t nationalize our businesses infrastructure and then use it against our interests (even if they are on your sovereign territory) - we do not forgive and we do not forget.
  • tjpnz 9mo ago
    Like Russia did in 2022?
    • rib3ye 9mo ago
      I believe Russia signed over those rights voluntarily on Ukrainian independence.
  • rahkiin 9mo ago
    Which might signal to the EU to not build local cloud infrastructure?
    • XorNot 9mo ago
      Why would it signal that? The loud and clear message would be "do not let American companies get involved in your infrastructure, government or any other system where government requirements would come into open conflict with their profits".
  • clot27 9mo ago
    [flagged]
• imadierich 9mo ago
  [dead]
• deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
• clot27 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  • guax 9mo ago
    Very eloquent, thanks.
• lugu 9mo ago
  IMO this has nothing to do with Maduro. This is just the first step. It is about the US securing large reserves of oil. Don't get caught into the propaganda.
  • PantaloonFlames 9mo ago
    The US doesn’t need large reserves of oil. The US is an energy exporter. The country is limiting investment in solar and wind, ON PURPOSE. This is crony capitalism. This is Trump shoring up support from oil companies. Mr Trump has purposefully depressed the value of non-petroleum energy sources in the US, which props up the value of US oil Producers and processors. And now, This is a territory takeover by a mafia don, so he can hand favors to other rich guys. Maduro wasn’t doing the deal Trump wanted, so this is what Trump did. If solar and wind were thriving in the US (as they could be!) then this new oil territory would be worth less. That’s why Trump hates wind. He cannot convert clean energy into a benefit for himself. It’s not about drugs or fentanyl. It’s not about democracy or corrupt elections in VZ.
• rdiddly 9mo ago
  If it's fair game to do this in Venezuela, it's fair game here in the US.
  • petcat 9mo ago
    That's not really how power works
    • rdiddly 9mo ago
      Just sayin
    • 1718627440 9mo ago
      If that is you actual view of society, than you reject the concept of law itself. Just because people are able to act against the law (and get away with it) doesn't make law obsolete. In fact if they wouldn't act against it, there would be no reason to have a law.
  • rendang 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    • deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    • badosu 9mo ago
      Isn't that the case though? Where's the separation of powers or the rule of law in the US? To be clear, I'm not favoring any kind of such action, just holding the honesty of the statement.
    • alluro2 9mo ago
      Socialism = tyranny? Wow. I guess you prefer the freedom of being bankrupted if you get injured, and getting taken by masked men from an unmarked van if you got some tan on your vacation, and then dropped to El Salvador.
• rayiner 9mo ago
  > There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelan Depending on how cynical you are, you could say that all American administrations are like that. (I don’t think that’s quite true—I think Reagan/Bush had a genuine ideological vision of using foreign policy to promote democracy and capitalism around the work. But it’s certainly a common criticism.)
• barbazoo 9mo ago
  Why couldn’t this be resolved using the international institutions we already have? What needs to change?
  • Sprotch 9mo ago
    The institutions work if all countries abide by their rulings. The US doing this sort for things is destroying the institutions we have, chief of all the UN and the ICJ, put in place at the end of World War 2 to avoid a repeat. We have not learned.
    • aebtebeten 9mo ago
      JFK tried to build up international institutions on the basis that "Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside", but then both he and NSK got cancelled...
      • Sprotch 9mo ago
        This has nothing to do with JFK - it was put in place in 1945
        • aebtebeten 9mo ago
          Yes, the UN was founded in 1945, and the Geneva Conventions originated all the way back in 1864, but some US administrations have tried to bolster international institutions, and some to tear them down. JFK, having said, "If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved" was among the former. In 1962, he and NSK managed to arrive at a diplomatic cooperation; the reward for both of them was being cancelled.
  • JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
    > Why couldn’t this be resolved using the international institutions we already have? They’re dead and have been for decades. The reason is they had no enforcement arm.
• megous 9mo ago
  Easiest path from here on for the US is to cooperate with existing power structures in the resources grab/"sharing" + forcing some concessions, like increased efforts to fight against drug trafficking.
• orochimaaru 9mo ago
  I think a coup was forming regardless. Fort Tiuna where Maduro was is not near the coast. So basically no one heard/saw/detected the US forces coming that far inland. Also, most importantly, no one stopped them from leaving with their president. The whole "we got him" is a bit fishy. I think the Venezuelan military (and the current vice president) wanted Maduro out. A coup would have been messy. So the US comes in and does them a favor.
  • xh-dude 9mo ago
    One can look at the shadow of drug boat strikes and reasonably conjecture that there are some undisclosed collaborative relationships.
  • Sabinus 9mo ago
    Part of the function of the fleet sitting off the coast for the past month would have been first intimidating then cultivating relationships with collaborators. Collaborators are far easier to find if there's a credible chance that things are about to change.
• darkmarmot 9mo ago
  Alas, we're back to 1989. Bush did the same to Noriega in Panama when he stopped playing ball with the CIA.
  • amelius 9mo ago
    Yes it is similar. And note that Congress was also not consulted back then.
• JumpCrisscross 9mo ago
  > We're back in the 70s To be fair we did almost exactly this in 1989 in Panama [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
  • bell-cot 9mo ago
    On the relative upside, Panama was a 10X smaller country. The US had some long-term skin in the game with the Canal. And Bush Sr. was in the Oval Office - making it not-too-hard to imagine that sane grown-ups were in charge. Vs. "70s" sounds far more like Vietnam. And a whole load of other bigger/uglier/longer conflicts, under Presidents whose moral and military leadership seemed rather lacking.
• IncreasePosts 9mo ago
  Maduro stole the election and no one in Venezuela could do anything about it. How exactly was Venezuela going to take care of it themselves? Ultimately it's going to be outside actors, and no matter who it was, even the UN, Venezuela could just say we don't recognize your authority and nothing would happen
• SilverElfin 9mo ago
  Forget Venezuela, this is a major problem for America. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth lied to Congress a couple weeks ago when they explicitly said that this is not about regime change. Entering an illegal war, committing acts of international piracy, and pledging to take over another country’s resources is completely illegal and a violation of American laws as well as international laws. And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts. Spineless Republican senators and legislators are staying quiet as they allow this horrific dictatorial action to go on without any criticism. And meanwhile, tech billionaires like Elon Musk are continuously tweeting sycophantic support for this illegal act of state terrorism. How will America recover? Its political system is broken. And its international reputation is shattered.
  • dragonwriter 9mo ago
    > And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts. Well, they said they wanted that. But maybe Trump wasn’t lying to them as much as lying alongside them.
  • jacquesm 9mo ago
    You should read how the international press received this. They're openly wondering if Trump has gone insane.
    • SilverElfin 9mo ago
      I’m wondering if the entire right wing has gone insane. Watching Elon Musk tweet a bunch of racist stuff for several days, followed by weird pro white ethnicity posts, followed by several fawning posts about how this attack was a good thing, is pretty shocking. But also the open hypocrisy of all of these everyday people in social media who have been saying they have not voted for more wars, now turn around completely and say that this war is OK is pretty shocking. And all of the other Republican politicians are either silent or basically claiming that the president has the full authority to do whatever he wants, is also pretty shocking. I’m sure it is easy to say that this is what everyone should have expected, but I feel like the conduct has gone well past what people expected. The scary thing is I don’t think it will be easy to do something about this. Half the country thinks everything that is happening is completely justified and completely legal. And in practice that means it is effectively legal. So are there any remaining checks and balances that are functioning?
• outside1234 9mo ago
  It is so crazy that he is not turning around and putting the World Peace Prize winner in place. Everyone can get behind that and it is probably the fastest way to getting oil companies in there anyway.
• wetpaws 9mo ago
  [dead]
• ls-a 9mo ago
  Don't celebrate early. It's all a Hollywood plot, just like 911. Only the innocent suffer
• lr4444lr 9mo ago
  It's debatable - to put it mildly - whether Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela.
• tedggh 9mo ago
  Cuban forces with the help of Russia, Iran and China took control of Venezuela over 25 years ago, effectively looting that nation, and no one bitched about it.
• yibg 9mo ago
  I see a lot of people posting about a lot of Venezuelans being happy that Maduro is out, and many using that as providing moral justification for the action. But this seems murky to me. If say the majority of the US population would be happy if trump is gone, does that justify some other country coming in and kidnapping him (leave aside the ability and consequence of this)? It doesn't seem like it.
  • terminalshort 9mo ago
    They may not be happy with him now, but they did vote for him. Can't say the same about Maduro.
    • scarecrowbob 9mo ago
      My vote had absolutely zero impact on the election, and I haven't been able to vote for a person I actually liked, supported, and believed represented my interests in any national US election. I'm mostly wouldn't like an external coup because it'd activate all my neighbors and we see a whole lot of violence in that struggle. I imagine I'd feel the same way if I lived in another country and some 3rd party deposed my government for arbitrary reasons.
      • kulahan 9mo ago
        “I don’t like my political candidate” is nothing even remotely similar to “I can’t vote”
        • scarecrowbob 9mo ago
          Yes, blue is different than red, that is true enough. I mean, functionally I have zero representation, but theoretically anything is possible.
          • kulahan 9mo ago
            That's explicitly not true. The vast majority of your life is managed by much more local politicians where your vote matters a lot more. Not to mention, if the only time you vote is once it's "red vs. blue", you've missed the primaries, which is your chance to say which red or blue you want to see up there.
• cm2187 9mo ago
  So the US did the right thing for the wrong reasons and therefore it is bad? (not that I even agree with your premise). Also I presume that it is not OK for the US to have its say on who stays in power in Venezuela, but it's OK for Cuba or Russia to do so?
  • aldanor 9mo ago
    Right and wrong here are all subjective. In this case it's like, abducting another man's wife from their house and saying it's right for their kids
  • guax 9mo ago
    First line: My whole point was the opposite, not sure how you had that reading. Wrong thing, might "maybe" and hopefully turn out good for Venezuelans. The only good outcome trump seems to care is his ego and oil interests. Second line: You presumed that out of feeling? I did not write anything hinting at that.
• mensetmanusman 9mo ago
  “ The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.” This is a new opinion. What is your basis for not believing might makes right in an anarchic system?
  • terminalshort 9mo ago
    Because might makes right in all systems
• nodesocket 9mo ago
  > The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it". "I really want it" is not the reason. Come on! Maduro is indicted in the Southern District of New York. Both charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US. The military operation was merely to lead the operation to allow FBI to arrest. Now, the oil issue certainly can be argued as the real reason for the strike and capture, but frankly they were OUR oil fields (funded by US companies) before Maduro seized them and nationalized them.
• tooltalk 9mo ago
  >> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, I don't think this was a humanitarian mission. I'm speculating from Trump's perspective, Maduro was a major de-stabilizing factor. The Western world also seems to tacitly agree that the man had to go -- I don't think Maria Machado's recent Nobel Peace Prize was coincidence.
  • crooked-v 9mo ago
    Maduro was a figurehead. The rest of the inner circle of that government is still running things.
• enbugger 9mo ago
  >ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans Neither was doing that with other countries they ransacked. The other was pouring enough propaganda at you so that you think it is somehow different.
• humanfromearth9 9mo ago
  Whether Maduro was the legitimate president of Venezuela remains to be proved.
  • layer8 9mo ago
    Everyone knows he wasn't. That's not the issue here.
• worldsavior 9mo ago
  They brought a lot of drugs into the US, don't ignore that. The drugs are destroying the US teens.