Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum. The reality is that there's a fierce competition between superpowers to broaden their spheres of influence and ultimately control the world. There's no future in which a relatively small, resource-rich, and politically dysfunctional country is left to its own devices. The choice is between Russia, China, and the US. Venezuela was more or less one of the Russian client states, and that status quo was maintained through undemocratic means, including mass murder of political opponents using the military gear provided by RU. Now, the US is going to try its hand, probably in a far less brutal way.
The interests of the US imperialists and the Venezuelan people therefore could not be more diametrically opposed.
I though they (the US?) were aiming to be better. Like, the "great" in MAGA wasn't like in "great empire". /s
In other words, the point is that the hypothetical good choice is not actually on the menu.
I will note a similarity to the US political situation with respect to people who, rather than choose the lesser of two evils, opt not to vote entirely.
Nevertheless, that doesn't mean humanity shouldn't strive for better.
this is a change to how russia wants the world to work
You clearly did, US is acting out of pure self interest and pretending otherwise.
> Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum
Invading a foreign nation, stealing their resources and imprisoning thier leader is a malicious act, no matter how you slice it.
Just because there are other competitors or good "may" come out of it (so you say), doesn't justify it.
The mental gymnastics by Americans to position themselves as "liberators", while bombing other countries and stealing their territory / resources is stunning.
In principle, it's morally good to overthrow a dictator in some circumstances. The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
Bold statement considering the history.
win-win: Panama, Grenada.
not win-win: Brazil, El Salvador, Bolivia, Iran, Nicaragua, Chile, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya.
These countries don't well match those on the overthrowing-the-dictator list, which now includes Venezuela.
For Germany we defeated it's government with a crap-ton of help, after Germany had declared war on us. For France we ousted an invading foreign power (again, with a crap ton of help). For the third we were effectively partitioning the country in prep for the proxy war with the Soviet Union.
Most of those examples were failed or problematic countries before and after US intervention. If there's a chance of sucess that's better than doing nothing no?
They wishes are, at best, one possible outcome from a long list of possible outcomes.
So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...
Now you have a country where every living being from their birth has been trained that US is bad and their leader is like God on earth.
Your 'little risk of something going wrong' is wishful thinking or naive
It will never happen because Kim has nukes. All these regime changes starting from the Afghaninstan, through Saddam, through Gaddafi....now Maduro they are just teaching strongmen to get nukes as the only way to be safe from U.S. (or others) regime change
It's too early to say it's a win-win situation.
There we backed the overthrow of Allende's government and installed Pinochet.
I can't tell if this is a question or an assertion.
If it's a question, Pinochet utilized Nazis to torture people (ex:Colonia Dignidad) and had lots of leftists tortured and disappeared (too many to list here).
If it's an assertion, yeah.
1: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2N77mwUI0pDOBOP6gIknkU?si=9...
And I went through a year or two of binging from the beginning and caught up to present day a year or two ago, but took a break for Jamie Loftus stuff and Knowledge Fight, as well as Some More News and Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff to help balance the bummer lol
Maybe you'll like the Blowback podcast.
There is a _lot_ of KF there, I started that from the beginning and I’m close to episode 300…I shudder to think how much of my last two years has been Alex Jones content…but it’s fascinating. And frustrating that his whole shtick seems so transparent yet too complex to get through to people already wrapped up in it
Killing the dictator is the easy part.
Overthrowing a dictator most often gets either a new dictator or years of brutal violence and turmoil
Were you in favor of the Iraq war?
The most obvious counter-example is the entire history of unilateral regime change.
Also, paying another country to run your concentration camps is no less evil.
Ice could easily start rounding up citizens soon… I mean “domestic terrorists” which is how anyone opposing Trump could be labeled soon
USA military should be taking heed of their own country's laws before pretending to be enforcing laws in other countries in order to further enrich their oligarchy.
Sure, remove the NK dictator that USA is partly responsible for being put in to power ... but only with international agreement and a plan for rapid move to have open elections. USA is in no place to do this given the lack of democracy there.
Do you really believe the story about freeing Venezuelan's? You're in for a surprise then when USA rapes them for their oil.
I’m sure a lot of Americans will be celebrating it on the streets. Will that be a win win too?
Oh would you look at that
In this case, the people of Venezuela are desperate to get rid of their socialist government. It has, predictably and inevitably, led them directly to poverty, starvation, and violent repression.
I have a lot of reservations about the way in which Trump is operating and in this case, the legality of every aspect of how he is doing this operation in Venezuela. Despite all those reservations, this is a rare situation where this action benefits everyone and the world.
There's also rampant mismanagement, poor infrastructure, and sanctions affecting the output and outcomes. See also: "resource curse"
Mossadegh Arbenz Allende Goulart Lumunba And Maduro was elected as well though you can go on with it being corrupt if you want.
These are just the ones we directly overthrew who were elected. There are 20 more or so we’ve done so indirectly.
The large majority of what I'm seeing is from the other side of the aisle.