At this moment in time, the President has bombed Caracas (presumably under the War Powers Act [1]) and claims to have captured Maduro.
From here, there are paths that wind up marginally good and many that end up somewhat catastrophically. Few wind up great. Few wind up as total shitshows (the risk in this being a Venezuelan civil war).
Seeing that there are positive possible outcomes isn't an expression of naive hope. It's identifying possible futures. I have no clue, personally, how to prevent a civil war in Venezuela–I'm neither hopeful nor on the edge of my seat.
And again, none of this justifies the actions. A gambler may win big betting his house. That doesn’t make it a good call, even if we can recognise that the outcome wound up favourably.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Provisio...
Never said that. I said this could wind up being net good if that's the outcome. Doesn't make the way we would have gotten there okay. And it doesn't mean that was a primary or even proximate goal for the people who called the shots.
American living in America who knows Venzeulans in America, most of whom didn't want this.
But. All of whom would want their country to democratise. Whether blowing up the capital and kidnapping their dictator causes that to happen is questionable. But Venezuela has cultural memory of democracy. (On the other hand, there seems to be zero effort–again!–towards an after-the-bombs plan. I'll also note that this administration isn't exactly a fan, itself, of free and fair elections.)
Should have stopped there...
Where are you getting your information?
Honestly, I was hoping for an actual war against the drug gangs. Had he gone to war and won, he would have taken care of a huge problem for us. I for one would have been extremely grateful. Now it looks like he's going to get his oil without any fighting whatsoever.
They can't have free and fair elections when the US is literally holding their president hostage. And dictatorships like Saudi Arabia are just fine apparently.
You are ok with Trump invading a neighbour country, kidnapping a person while accepting some civilian casualties?
I wonder what you would think if Canada would invade the USA and kidnapping Trump and other criminals.
This strike was not sanctioned by Venezuela. They are sovereign and they have the right to deal with their affairs in their own way. The USA -- as so often in history -- are playing judge, jury and executioner in foreign countries. They violated international law. The fact that you want to celebrate this says a lot about your attitude towards sovereignty , due process and human life.
Nope. But I’m saying this could potentially turn out okay.
Probably not. We probably get a civil war or like Cuba moonshotting for nukes. But there are avenues from this point on where it could wind up okay. (I would not have expected we’d have nabbed Maduro so quickly twelve hours ago.)
> They violated international law
I mean, this is dead. China, Russia and America have explicitly called it dead. Iran, Israel, India and France, too. It’s basically Brussels and Brazil still respecting it, and neither is a military power.
Poland, Taiwan and Ukraine should try to get nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, so should Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Iran.
Poland is gonna get them in 2026 in a roundabout way because I fully expect Macron to actually extend the French nuclear umbrella to the EU as he has hinted he wants to do.
The other 2 countries won't happen ever. The moment you start a nuclear program you are a rogue state for the US and those 2 countries rely too much on the US, especially Taiwan.
>Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E and Iran Well Iran is working on theirs. The other 2 don't have state capacity to develop their own nuclear program so unless Putin sells them nukes I really don't know how they would do it.
(Adding my comment since there's a good amount of pushback, most of which I roughly agree with, but I think it's important to say thanks for maintaining a civil dialogue and discussion where we don't see 100% eye-to-eye. This also goes for all those who are replying to you as well. It's great to have civil discourse.)
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/01/maybe-russ...
The caveat is what happens next. If a stable government emerges, that's okay. If a stable government emerges that holds free and fair elections, that's brilliant. If, on the other hand, the power vacuum prompts a civil war and refugee crisis because nobody–again–planned for what happens after regime decapitation, well fuck.
(We really need to repeal the War Powers Act [1].)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution