The dissonance between this comment and the one above is striking really :) . One user asks for non-China countries to intervene in China or the occupied territories, and another user is outraged that the same has actually happened in Venezuela, despite that the only person to suffer had been one of the top-10 worst alive humans in the world (per millions humans harmed directly).

Pray tell me, how exactly do you see international law intervening in Chinese crimes, so that it won't look like ops in Venezuela (at minimum)? Issuing a strongly worded letter and Xi would comply?

>the only person to suffer had been one of the top-10 worst alive humans in the world

That's just what they told you to justify taking their oil

What are you getting at here? That more people suffered in Venezuala? Or that Maduro is a swell fella?

That nothing really changed for the people of Venezuela

>taking their oil

That's what Trump told you to sound badass and edgy. His advisors might have a more complicated rationale that's harder to explain to the public than a single 3-letter word.

Foreign policy of the US has always been about orchestrating coups to create passive client states for US capitalists more efficiently extract natural resources, going back to 1953 in Iran. Only difference with Trump is he has done away with pretenses. He says the quiet part out loud. He says things like "we want the minerals in Ukraine", and then negotiates a mineral deal. He talks about conquering Panama, Greenland, Canada. He is an unabashed imperialist. It's been at least 70 years of this happening, catch up already. And it goes back even further, to the US controlling the Philippines in 1898, and the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.

Trump? The US has been doing it for over 100 years. Trump is just the latest figurehead, it was oil and other resources all along.

Pro tip: Try to get the facts straight before commenting.

"There was a lot of death on the other side, unfortunately. But a lot of Cubans were killed yesterday trying to protect him," Trump said.[0]

[0]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-officials-reveal-new-detail...

That's true. But the point still stands. People are outraged even for a small number of cartel criminals shot. Imagine what would happen if someone would try to liberate oppressed people in China. The count would be in millions.

>Imagine what would happen if someone would try to liberate oppressed people in China.

My original point is very much meant to counter absurd hypotheticals like these. No other sovereign nation on Earth at the current point in time would ever dare to "liberate" China, because this is no longer the 19th century, and so China is no longer weak.

Soft power may buy you hearts and minds; Japan and South Korea are good examples of that in Asia. But hard power is what truly matters at the end of the day when it comes to asserting your geopolitical interests, and that's clearly the philosophy China has decided to operate under.

The U.S. is clearly not oblivious to this reality either. Even if we grant your moral arguments that Maduro was a horrible dictator deserving his fate, the fact that Trump and his administration chose to act when it was geopolitically and domestically convenient strongly suggests that "taking out the big bad Latino dictator for the sake of humanity" was not the primary motivation.

You're misunderstanding the analogy. The US's operation in Venezuela was itself a violation of international law, which the international community widely condemned and many countries wish they could have stopped. But there's no button they can push to make the US return Maduro, just as there's no button anyone can push to make China free Jimmy Lai. The only options are a variety of escalatory steps which implicate the relationship between one's own country and China as a whole.

Which ratified treaty did the US's operation in Venezuela violate?

> Which ratified treaty did the US's operation in Venezuela violate?

Even if it hadn't violated a ratified treaty (it did violate several, starting with the UN Charter and OAS Charter), it would still violate international law; the US has recognized (among other places, in the London Charter of 1945 establishing the International Military Tribunal) that the crime of aggressive war exists independently of the crime of waging war in violation of international treaties.

And how are you supposed to act against states that openly violate international law? In Venezuela's case, law they explicitly agreed to uphold.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/v...

E.g. at least 2 children were executed by Maduro for protesting against him, along with at least hundreds of adults. Mass political arrests by masked men have been common since Chavez came to power, there have been executions of entire families. Torture of prisoners. It goes on and on and on and on, and all of it violates the core of international law: the Geneva convention.

Maduro's violations of international treaties include attacks on neighboring states (Maduro's "war on terror" (yes, really) included raids on Columbian territory, plus his promise to attack Guyana). Maduro's violations of international treaties includes, ironically, abducting foreign nationals.

And before you say "but ICE". First, this started more than a decade before ICE, it is actually about far more people than ICE, and with ICE there is at least the allegation that those people violated US law (immigration law). So no, it is not the same. ICE comes disturbingly close, true, but this is still a LOT worse.

So what is your point? Obviously Venezuela since more than a decade did not respect international law. Is your point that since international law exists, Venezuela should have been attacked way sooner, in fact as soon as it became clear what Chavez was doing? Or do you argue that US/Trump's attack is fine since international law can be ignored anyway?

Including Maduro's abduction I think it's very easy to argue that the US behavior is much more in line with international law than Venezuela's. So what is your point?

I mean, what reasoning, exactly, leads to your conclusion that Venezuela/Maduro is the victim here? Or should I put it differently and state the obvious: that your reasoning only makes sense if it defends the idea that Maduro's regime is allowed to kill and attack, and the US is not.

I would hazard to say that most people are upset because a single person decided the fate of our country, and in a manner contrary to the outlines defined in the constitution. And your description of the events there really do clarify just how awful things here are as well - executions in broad daylight, masked men kidnapping people extrajudicially, allegations of laws being violated as a pretext to detail lawful citizens.

It's all horrible and shocking to say the least. And it makes people question whether our actions are justified or the outright thuggery of a wanna-be dictator.

International law is the victim.

Next time Putin will kidnap Zelenskyy with the exact same reasoning.

Don’t forget that the US don’t put him on trial for what he did to the people of Venezuela but some bogus crimes.

> Next time Putin will kidnap Zelenskyy with the exact same reasoning.

Putin DID do that. He ordered him kidnapped. And it wasn't international law stopping him, it was the Ukrainian army and apparently some regular Ukrainians.

Putin has tried to kidnap him at least twice, and sent out murder squads for him probably several dozen times now.

Putin did not face consequences for this, in fact a number of countries that profess to respect international law protected him against International law: South Africa, China, Mongolia, Belarus, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Azerbeidjan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and India.

Also, as I pointed out, "international law" didn't stop Maduro from committing warcrimes, he also sent out murder squads that even killed children, it didn't stop Putin from doing the same. Nothing at all changed for international law at all.

The only thing victimized is people's illusions about international law. Maduro is himself a war criminal! So using international law grounded arguments to protect him ... fuck that, even if you're technically right.

He obviously did not, he tried.

The point of international law isn’t protection but to distinguish wrong from right.

What do you think why even Putin made some bogus claims why his actions are justified?

In which war did Maduro commit war crimes?

> So using international law grounded arguments to protect him ... fuck that, even if you're technically right.

Law protects also criminals to a certain degree because the alternative is anarchy, chaos and global wars.

International war was a lesson learned from the world wars.

Seems like we need to learn again the hard way.

Tue right way of doing those things is rarely the glorious, it’s bureaucratic

How does any of this make sense? Other than your first sentence (sorry about that, of course you're right, he tried) every claim is bogus.

> The point of international law isn’t protection but to distinguish wrong from right.

It is actually explicitly stated in almost all international law (mostly except human rights/Geneva convention, which would be the one Maduro violated and Trump didn't) that the ONLY point of international law is international cooperation. International law is completely voluntary for states and consists of individual treaties you can join ... or not join. Don't join or decide to leave? That bit of international law doesn't apply to you anymore.

> What do you think why even Putin made some bogus claims why his actions are justified?

Because Putin always does that. Even decades back, when he was backing gangsters, he did that. I'm sure at one point it was necessary, and now the guy is 73. His habits won't change anymore. Besides, his idol, the Soviet Union, also did that.

> In which war did Maduro commit war crimes?

No war required for that. Besides what even is a war? One of the older "international law" treaties which nobody remembers that a war is only a war when declared by at least one state. Very few declared wars in the last decades. Israel-Palestine? Not declared (according to hamas that's just how things are forever and Israel just defended I guess). Sudan? Not declared. The 123818th conflict between India and Pakistan? Not declared. Iran-Israel? Iran-Syria? Iran-Lebanon? (more like Iran-everyone) Turkey-Kurdistan? You get the picture. The only war that was declared was Russia attacking Ukraine.

> Law protects also criminals to a certain degree because the alternative is anarchy, chaos and global wars.

Unless you mean an extremely minimal degree law does not protect criminals against the state. And any amount of force that is required to get a criminal to stop is legally justified essentially everywhere. In fact, in the countries most humans alive live in, no law protects you against the state, criminal or innocent.

> International war was a lesson learned from the world wars.

Actually the history goes back quite a bit further than that. And if you consider international law is just treaties between countries/factions then ... The most famous bit of international law, the convention of Geneva, was a lesson learned in the holocaust.

> Seems like we need to learn again the hard way.

Why? "We"? Venezuela was not respecting international law before this happened. Neither was Russia. Neither was ...

> Tue right way of doing those things is rarely the glorious, it’s bureaucratic

I doubt Ukraine, or any other actual victims of war crimes will agree on that one. For instance, international law is clear that hamas must surrender to Israel. Could you explain how this can be achieved in a bureaucratic way?

Putin doesn't need the US providing precedent to do that (and even if he was, there was plenty of that before Maduro), killing or capturing Zelenskyy in a decapitation strike was attempted more than once near the beginning of the 2022 escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war. He wasn’t stopped by international law.

The UN Charter is a rather unambiguous one.

The US agreed in Article 2 of the UN Charter, which they ratified on July 1945, that they would refrain from the use of force against the political independence of any state.

The reason you've never seen anyone cite this is that it's pointless to cite, because the US foreign policy establishment does not care and will not be swayed by persuasive arguments about their treaty obligations.

> operation

Putin has one too.

>"despite that the only person to suffer "

Actually they killed whole bunch of people. And according to POTUS they're currently running the country so cut the bullshit please.

Who "they"? If you want to say that this operation was completely botched and there was no quality improvement for the regular Venezuela citizens, then yes, i would agree completely. and international law also suffered as a result. At the same time it is also true that Maduro deserved to be smuggled out, tried and shot. By any possible law or moral standard of any country in the world. He is a horrible criminal even by known public facts. So these things are true at the same time. Same with China, if anyone would decide to intervene there, it would be good and bad simultaneously. There is no easy clear answer to that.

> it would be good and bad simultaneously. There is no easy clear answer to that.

Clearly, a weasel take on the "two wrongs make a right" doctrine. According to that new take two wrongs can be good and bad simultaneously, there is no easy clear answer, so any additional wrongs mustn't be called "wrongs", they must be called "maybe-rights".

Very clever.../s

Interesting, previous comment downvoted with no explanation. A sitting president can depict a former president and his wife as apes, but comments on HN are held to a much higher standard.

Homework assignment:

What is going to happen if Nazi-like propaganda (for example) can use colorful language but its detractors are only allowed to voice polite disagreement? What would the result of that be?

One thing that never ceases to amuse is how people like yourself always inject moralistic prescriptions into what were meant to be purely descriptive commentaries.

My comment on U.S. actions against Venezuela was not a condemnation, but rather just a factual example. Russia's military actions against Ukraine is no different. Nor China's actions towards Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.

Venezuela was heavily sanctioned for years before kidnapping Maduro, how about starting there in regards to China/HK? I'm not saying it's realistic or likely but your comparison is flawed. Nothing at all was done for Hong Kong

I think the main issue people have with this comment is the word "recent" and to a lesser degree "U.S.". All countries have done anything to further their goals regardless of any common point of agreement, some times framing within that framework, sometimes not. This is not a recent or US-only phenomenon, it's the definition of geopolitics.

I'm all for an alien invasion uniting us but not sure when that will happen.