but why put yourself in a false dichotomy?

There isn't one, the third option was to do nothing. But there wasn't a fourth option.

You can actually “prefer” none of what’s happening.

Being honest about doing bad things doesn’t make them less bad. Doing bad things covertly is still bad.

I'm not convinced that this is a good or bad thing yet

You’re not convinced that the US invading other countries and deposing presidents is bad? In a world where nuclear weapons exist?

It's an objectively fantastic thing when those presidents are doing things not in our interests.

We obviously haven't and won't do this to a nuclear-armed country.

> We obviously haven't and won't do this to a nuclear-armed country.

Right... which means that every regime knows they have to become a nuclear-armed country.

Absolutely, this has been clear for a long time. Countries are only truly sovereign if they have a reliable nuclear capability, otherwise they are always at the whim of another country with a sufficiently powerful military.

They need the military either way. There's no country that just has nukes and nothing else, except for North Korea, see how that's going for them.

What the fuck do you think China is going to do next time the US does an “exercise” in the china sea?

What the fuck do you think Iran is going to do next time Israel acts up and the US supports it?

> What the fuck do you think China is going to do next time the US does an “exercise” in the china sea?

They will continue to blow hot air but ignore it, unless they truly and sincerely believe it is a real military action worth starting a war over (and destroying both economies over.)

> What the fuck do you think Iran is going to do next time Israel acts up and the US supports it?

They will continue developing their weapons program thinking they can do it in secret, and it will continue to get compromised and/or blown up.

The brazen callousness with which you advocate for the spread of nuclear weapons and the subjugation of other nations’ sovereignty is disgusting.

You’re probably one of the worst people I’ve ever interacted with.

I don't really care what you think of me, but please adhere to the HN guidelines[1] for civil discussion, this sort of fulminating and personal attack simply has no place here (though there are other websites for that, if you so desire.)

Re. nuclear weapons, sovereignty - I am not "advocating" for anything. I am simply describing the factual reality of international relations, and "political realism," the school of thought that governs international relations between superpowers in the current day and throughout most of human history.

That you are ascribing to this description some sort of moral stance on my part is a judgement error on yours.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> It's an objectively fantastic thing when those presidents are doing things not in our interests

Why wouldn't China do the same in another country whose president is not acting in China's national interest? If you were Iran[1], would abandoning your nuclear weapons program for sanctions relief still be an option?

1. Or Saudi Arabia

Of course each of these countries are ignoring international law in various respects and doing things in their self interest.

Anything as brazen as capturing a president? Not yet. But I can absolutely see them doing this if they deem the cost/benefit great enough.

I wouldn't be surprised if China goes further and launches a full-scale invasion of Taiwan in the next decade, they've certainly been preparing for it according to our intel.

What's the implication here, we're supposed to threaten to nuke them instead? It only works if you're willing to follow through.

Instead of strawmanning and presenting yet another false dichotomy, try answering their question.

I'm not the one who brought up nukes and legit don't understand what they meant by that. To answer the other question, yeah I can generally see some valid reasons to remove a foreign leader from power. Not sure about Maduro.

Who’s we? I’m guessing you’re not a general in the US military, so I don’t know why you’re inserting yourself into this decision.

Do you think a nuclear war would be good for you? Obviously not, so you shouldn’t want your government to threaten to start one. And you shouldn’t support your government when they signal to the world that the only way to be safe from interventionism is to develop nuclear weapons. Or when they signal to other superpowers that they don’t respect international treaties, or the sovereignty of other nations.

Nuclear war with who?

Does it matter?

If the answer is "nobody" then yeah. Venezuela doesn't have nukes. North Korea or Russia aren't going to nuclear war over a country they don't even have a security agreement with, or even if they did. The US has already attacked Iran, Iraq, and Syria (under Assad).

Then your understanding of US foreign policy and what’s currently happening is too shallow.

So are you an expert on Venezuelan politics? I'm not.

No, but I am one with regard to US foreign policy.

Since you’re not (by your own admission), spend more time reading the globalist (1950s - present) reasons why the US meddles with foreign governments and what forcibly creating a power vacuum does for the local populace.

Then you’ll be better equipped to have a conversation with knowledgeable people about the topic at hand, instead of blithely wondering “hmm, is it actually bad when we extra-judiciously remove a head of state because we want oil?”

You don't know me. I know for sure that an actual US foreign policy expert wouldn't be so arrogant.

Yeah, and no true Scotsman would put sugar in their porridge.

Read a book. Brinkley's Rise to Globalism is a good start.

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.

> I'm surprised no lesson the US learnt from similar overthrows in the past, but again this is Trump.

Its not Trump, its the US.

Someone always comes along trying to attack/occupy a country. Making big promises. Years later when nothing is achieved. Someone else will come along talking about how much US is spending, taxpayers dollars being lost, failures etc.

In recent example, Afghanistan and Trump come to mind. Everyone talked about how Afghanistan was a waste of taxpayer dollars. But now here we are.

The only thing which I can say specifically about Trump is that I wouldn't be surprised if the flip towards "Venezuela was a waste of taxpayer money" happens during his administration and he comes out saying "I have never heard of Maduro".

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.

You think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was not related to oil?

Afghanistan has no oil. Iraq does, but the US showed no interest in taking it for decades. It was most likely pushed by our "greatest ally" there who also has no oil.

The Kurds are our greatest ally in Iraq and they most definitely have lots of oil in addition to letting US operate on their territory in exchange for protecting the oil interests. I suppose you could say that's not us taking the oil but we still get value like we had taken the oil and provided fair market rate to host bases in exchange.

Saddam was already selling the oil at fair market rate.

I said fair market rate to host bases. Saddam was definitely not leasing us military at fair market rate in Iraq (or Syria for that matter, where Kurds also host US base).

I see that now. Sorry for my sloppy reading.

I highly suggest you look into the Afghan pipeline project.

I know about this one, it's eh. There are pipelines everywhere and no smoking gun.

The point is that there are certainly oil interests in Afghanistan. To act like there aren’t is inaccurate.

Ok, to put it this way, we'd have gone into Afghanistan with or without the possibility of a pipeline.

Oh also they didn't even set up that pipeline during all the time we were there

Let's not sacrifice anymore Americans in the name of freedom, but the number was substantially fewer than 10,000, not anywhere close to 150,000. Perhaps that many Iraqis died, or maybe even more.

“ How about not going there at all for whatever reason, under any circumstances.”

What moral and ethical system brings you this supposition?

>Are we still in the spirit of sacrificing 150,000 American soldiers in the name of freedom, like we did in Iraq?

What are you talking about? Even Vietnam only had a third of that many casualties. Who told you this bullshit? ChatGPT?

> Cuba is a disaster and it has so much untapped real estate and vacation potential.

Is this sarcasm, or are you just a horrible human being?

> then fix Mexico

Do you mean kidnap the president, stage a coup, bomb it, impose a blockade, or did you have something else in mind?

> 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.

I thought the US was well aware of this, since the US was funding the Mujahideen at the time?