Imagine some other country kidnaps your country's President and he sends this message to you
But the main point remains the same. This is an act of terror every sane human should condemn
That's not how international geopolitics works. There are many means in which nation states pull levers to take on problems that exist in other countries. Sanctions, diplomacy, trade barriers, propaganda, military interventions, threats, etc. are all tools that are used by nation states around the world every day.
Why should they not be like that? Absolutist non-intervention is not a realistic strategy in a universe where nation states border each other and their actions affect each other.
Germany waged war on just about the whole world, the response to that was one of defense, not offense.
> Germany waged war on just about the whole world, the response to that was one of defense, not offense.
I find it useful to distinguish legality from morality of the move of capturing Maduro and his wife.
One way I approach it is to ask myself: if one could have Maduro returned to Venezuela today, would one? Perhaps the answer that most people would give is yes (i.e. everyone would be better off), but I'm not so sure.
I'm not sure who Trump is doing favors for here, but much like when it was Bush doing favors for Haliburton, we could end up with decades of pointless war which neither of the corrupt parties that started it take any responsibility for cleaning up.
Whether through politics or sabotage, its appropriate to intervene if somebody is about to stick you with the bill for something like this. We can't be all "boys will be boys" about it. The consequences are often too severe.
The EU doesn’t even recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela and he forced the democratically elected president into hiding!
Where is the right you're seeing?
Wait! Crap!
We can’t sanction Russia - if we do it might destabilize the Russian dictator and if he goes out a worse authoritarian regime might come to power!
> By that logic the US shouldn’t get involved in any other foreign entanglement or global police action because of unintended consequences.
Strawman. No-one is claiming that.
Isn't that good for the US? I mean at least it reads a lot better that totalitarian and terrorist regimes preinstalled.
Afghanistan failed miserably.
Bin Laden & Afghanistan same (though obviously he was not their head of state) but much worse. Afghanistan has been abused by so many people it is hard to reason about it without having to go back a century or more.
European Parliament resolutions and reports explicitly described the process as lacking transparency and integrity such as not publishing detailed polling station results, meaning the results could not be independently verified, and concluding the election was neither free nor fair.
You may recall María Corina Machado was barred from running shortly before the election itself.
For example “A few minutes after midnight, with 80% of the votes counted, the CNE declared Nicolas Maduro the winner, with 51.2% of the vote, followed by Edmundo González with 44.2%. The CNE did not publish the results by polling station, claiming - without providing evidence - that a cyberattack had made it impossible to upload the results to its website. However, the CNE did not release the results by any alternative method. The lack of detailed results prevented independent verification of the overall results announced by the CNE The CNE canceled three postelection audits that could have verified the alleged cyberattacks. This included a second citizen verification exercise. The integrity of the elections was damaged by the lack of transparent information. In a parallel effort, the opposition - through party representatives, observers, and citizens — collected and published online more than 80% of the results forms produced by the voting machines. According to these results, González received 67.1% of the vote, and Maduro received 30.4%. The Venezuelan government claimed - without providing evidence - that the results forms published by the opposition were forged. However, the result forms published were deemed legitimate by external auditors and academics. The Carter Center reviewed the data in the results forms and found it to be accurate.”
I've heard that American elections are rigged too. That still isn't an open invitation for an invasion by another nation to kidnap government officials on US soil. Even if Maduro had abandoned elections entirely and installed himself as king it wouldn't justify what the US has done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
IMO, the US doing piracy around it is way more concerning than kidnapping a dictator that sent the military against its people, architected a couple of famines, and forced a double-digts percentage of their population out of the country.
Still, this won't lead to anything good. Because the entire US Executive is composed of incompetent sadistic people right now. But it could be a good thing for Venezuela in different circumstances (but I imagine anybody capable of making good change there would refrain from doing so).
I certainly don't, and I don't speak for the person you replied to but I figure most people commenting here don't think that either
> The Bolivarian regime came to power in a free and fair election
Hugo Chavez was elected president legitimately in 1998, so it's true that the Bolivarian regime came to power fairly. But just about nobody that's paying attention thinks Maduro won the presidential election in 2024. Elections were held, Maduro lost (by a huge margin), and he continued being president anyway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
Remains to be seen.
Personally I'm not. This is like kidnapping the CEO of Kroger because your eggs are too expensive, and then telling everyone you did it because he wasn't listening to his employees enough.
We can't undo this and this was a very big stick we used. I highly doubt this was done with the interests of the common American in mind.
It is spelled 'Venezuelan'.
I think Trump is hoping to get a short popularity boost the way George Bush did with the capture of Manuel Noriega, but people cared more about who controlled the Panama Canal in the 1990s than they care about who controls Venezuela today. And I don't know anybody who expects this to impact drugs coming from Venezuela or Latin America in general.
The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
Another comment was discussing how shocked they were with how brazen a move this was for oil, and that in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest. As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
The truth is Americans mostly don't like this, but have little means to do much due to the political structure of how our government works. Our legislature is silently approving and it is clearly costing the seats, even thought it is still 10 months before the next cycle of elections for those seats. But that's 10 months away, and while tensions were strong for months this happened in a single day. It's so much easier to tear down than to build up.
And the truth is that most of us aren't going to try and perform a violent upheaval against a trillion dollar military complex. We lack the skills, resources, and even geography for that. I can't even afford a plane ride to DC at the moment.
I'm not a particular fan of the "you critique society yet you participate in it" argument. This assumes a lot of agency in the individual that doesn't exist without collective bargaining.
>As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
Every country has inconvenient truths it tries to hide. It being brazen about the evils it commits is the truly surprising part. The whole point of propaganda is convincing your people that they are the good guys, and there was none of that pomp here.
If Venezuela descends into a state of anarchy, they can ask congress to approve a plan to restore order. We’re irrevocably involved in the situation now.
But I will be blunt, the problem is not just the current government. One of our political parties starts at least one large conflict every time they are in power. This has happened for 35 years now, if this continues my entire lifespan will have existed in a perpetual state of war.
GW's popularity steadily declined from the summer of '03 until the end of his presidency. If the election had been any later, he would've been below 50% and wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Meanwhile Democrats chose the least energizing presidential candidate I've seen in my entire adult life. (I've been voting since Bush v. Gore.) And when Kerry was nominated and the Swift Boat smear campaign started - a group whose claims have been since been discredited - Democrats did very little to fight back.
Even if we did "want this" back then, support for the invasion of Iraq plummeted during Bush's second term and has never recovered. Two-thirds of Americans, and almost that many veterans who actually fought in the war, said it wasn't worth fighting and still say so today.
So no, the majority of us don't want this.
More than 40% want this. You would condemn cultures around the world happily if significant percentage are like this. Why are you so special then?
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/only-33-americans-app...
I'm not so sure. Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori, I'm not sure Americans would think the exchange worthwhile.
Most people would probably eat less meat if they knew exactly what was happening to the animals in that process. We'd eat less chocolate if we really thought about the slavery in the chocolate supply chain. We'd not buy certain products because of the environmental impact and working conditions.
But instead we just mostly deliberately avoid learning and thinking about those things. And I count myself as well. The incentives all push Americans to be OK with this.
I'm asking about 218 elected representatives and 67 senators to do their job. This isn't a matter of "we (the people) need to start a civil war to show our disdain for these actions". At least, not yet. There's so many channels to address this that doesn't involve "sacrificing ourselves", but the channels are at best clogged and at worst compliant, despite what they were voted to do.
no being aware is the key here. For example just on NPR - 40% of American kids think bacon is a plant.
(Don't get me wrong - i intentionally immigrated to US and i like all those benefits of life here. Speaking about the costs of that to the rest of the world - back in Russia i worked for domestic employers as well as for a US based one, and being "exploited" by the US based employer were much nicer than by the domestics.)
They also believe a fat man dressed in red zips around the earth one night to give everyone presents.
They’re children. They don’t need to know where bacon and hot dogs come from.
I doubt those children care about anything outside their bubble.
not sure about that. Around age 7 i saw a full butchering of a pig at my grandmother's farm, and i was still happily eating pork for the next 20+ years, and i don't remember anybody in my childhood not knowing where the bacon is coming from. I stopped eating beef and pork though about 20 years ago exactly for the reason where it comes from.
Btw, "They don’t need to know where ... come from" can be said by the powers-to-be about people of any age.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/us-will-look-tap-ven...
If they're lying... that's an awfully strange choice of lies. It makes them look rather thuggish. Usually you pick a lie that would make you look better, right?
They are telling you who they are. Believe them.
I'm 37, so I was young at the time of Afghanistan/Iraq, about 14. I recall thinking the adults who said it was "for the oil" were dangerously naive: neither had significant oil resources that would alter supply dramatically, gas prices weren't high, the administration had 0 to say on that front, and it wasn't even close to a focus once fighting settled.
This leaves me curious about conclusions drawn from that.
It's typically not an empirically based conviction.
I think you are correct that Bush had a very different ideology. I view him as more of a buffoon than a robber baron. (We spent $2-3T in Iraq -- if it was robbery, it was not effective.) I doubt it makes much difference to people whose lives were ruined. But it could be important in the broader context of predicting US behavior: Bush started the PEPFAR program which saved millions from AIDS in Africa; Trump wrecked it.
One very sad possibility is that Bush discredited the ideology of "compassionate conservatism" in the US through his bumbling, and that contributed to the relative popularity of Trump's "amoral conservatism".
The robbery was done against the American people. They are the ones who were robbed! Imagine in what shape the country would be if you would have gotten free higher education and free healthcare instead?
The other and with that the biggest victim were the causalities from the invasion, but they were not robbed but rather assaulted…
Remember Dick Chaney had huge conflicts of interest. It was also about oil but not only oil.
In reality, an administration with an ideological bent towards using military force reacted, with universal acclaim, to 9/11.
Future historians, it didn't used to be like this. Started getting really weird around 2018.
If I'm understanding correctly, I'm reminded of an old saw I think I made up:
You can lie (shade people's interpretations) by either using percentages, or gross amounts.
I'm sure that's a TON of oil, gross amount.
I'm also sure 8% is "not particularly huge".
For instance, if I could get you without this frame, and told you that you got a 92% on a test, you got an "absolutely bonkers amount" of questions wrong...you'd argue with me.
If you started crying when I told you that you got a 92% on the test, then told you that's a "not particularly huge" amount to get wrong, I think you'd agree, if not be consoled.
Now imagine if only one student out of a class of ~200 (~195 countries in the world) can get the right answer to each question (200 questions total) and once one person answers the question, no one else can get credit for it (if you burn oil, it's gone).
By default, each country should get 1 question or 0.5% (percent of oil) on the test. Now the teacher announces that the answer to 16 questions (8%) can be found in the library and the person who gets there first gets all those points.. Getting a hold of even ONE block of 8% probably puts you in the top 10 students in the class. If you can find such a block to add to your 3% (US), at 11%, you're likely to be in the top 5 students in the class. Add another 10% (Venezuela) and 6% (Canada), and at 27%, you're probably #1.
In general, hedonic adaption ends either with internal retrospection (shifting from pleasure to purpose) or an external disruption. In America's case, the former is extremely unlikely IMHO - the American people will not put their money where their mouth is because they enjoy the wealth generated this way. It will be upto external disruptors to check on Uncle Sam's endless thirst.
China is their only competitor, but so far people clearly prefer to chat with AI companies from USA.
And having been lucky in the last century+ that none of your neighbors did anything wild. Not having to fight an actual war in your own country helps a lot in getting ahead.
And no, pearl harbor doesn't count, as bad as that was it's nothing compared to the destruction of 2 world wars that set Europe back a century
For myself, I could not disagree more. I don't want this. And if you know of a lever I can pull to make it stop, I'm all ears - as long as it's not voting, calling my reps, or holding a sign. I've been doing those things for over 25 years and they haven't done squat.
I don't think Oil is the sole reason for this, I think that the influences of Iran, China, Russia and Cuba in Venezuela as well as the drug trafficking coming through them is the larger issue... getting back the Oil trade in the end is just icing on the proverbial cake. I also think it could be better for the people of Venezuela in the long run vs the authoritarian and communist influences they've had over the past half century.
Trump is funny, dishonest as hell when it comes to his ego, but more honest than any other politician I've ever even heard of at the same time.
Well allowing Iran unlimited access to global markets would certainly help that.
Same for Venesuela, lifting sanctions and making it easier for them to develop their infrastructure would have lowered the global price of oil.
Governments in both countries are more than happy to sell more oil if anyone allowed them to.
It's not like US politically controlling a large oil producing country makes oil cheaper for Americans. They still have to buy it at the same price as everyone else.
Profits of American oil companies is quite a different matter, though.
Having moved to Europe from Mexico, I sometimes get asked if Spain is regarded as "having brought civilization" to Mexico; the first time I heard the question, it took me a while to collect my jaw from the floor: I could not believe someone was that accidentally uninformed... seems like it had been a deliberate choice to not teach about the race systems that their ancestors had imposed (i.e. inventors of apartheid, in a way), the raping, the slavery, nor systematic complicity of the church, as well [1]:
> In 1512, the Laws of Burgos forced the conquistadores to respect the rights and freedom of Indigenous peoples. This was followed formally by the papal bull, Sublimus Dei of 1537 which declared Native Americans were no longer to be considered “dumb brutes created for our service” but were “truly men” capable of thinking, acting, and deciding their own destiny, control their own properties, and enjoy liberty. It proceeded to formally prohibit the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, one year later, this was nullified (Pope Paul III, 1537).
And that's not even covering the destruction of written history and books [2].
So, I think you may be right... this entire world may be filled with selfish monsters that do not want to know --- really know --- how much they are benefiting from other people's suffering.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9xlQrcbx0
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/spanish...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa#Suppression_of_...
As someone from central Europe: lol
There is a tiny portion that makes the GDP look nice, but as someone who knows average Americans outside of tech, it's an absolute joke. Especially when you look at necessities you basically cannot get around (medical costs, taxes, etc.).
Sure if you are on HN chances are you might not notice, but I know people that effectively live in somewhat close to slavery because they need to work every working hour simply to live and has been caught in a nice web where they don't even have time to reconsider life. Something the employer clearly set up that way, including things like being the landlord.
That's why there can be an elite and a "middle class" that lives off these people.
The homeless problem not just in SF but all the way to the midwest is ridiculous and how these homeless people are dealt with - basically like a pest is outrageous.
People here get severely upset about how bad people have it here, when they do have it much nicer. Meanwhile people in the US seem to largely turn a blind eye.
All that while taking the hit of refugees that have (largely) been caused by US politics.
I am sorry, but things don't work despite meddling with any country that has natural resources.
And I mean that as it is. I know it's not easy to come out of it. But the thing is starting a war every now and then doesn't seem to help a lot of fixing actual problems. Despite all the benefits it clearly has for the US.
Or, is reducing it to “dictator bad; gone good” unobvious, and something that slipped by everyone?
To wit: we’re in a thread for the top comment for a 3844 comment post, and that comment is noting that when there’s a power vacuum, things usually* get worse for the citizenry.
* nigh universally
https://chatgpt.com/share/695a2613-97e8-800e-b2e4-28fc7707f2...
No, it was a terrible outcome. US stold gold and oil while the rest of the world had to cope with the aftermath.
US and Izrael are notoriously breaking international laws, both countries are ruled by criminals.