Plus, the more of a splash, the more Epstein stays out of the news.
No doubt the regime will come up with a "special military operation" equivalent to avoid calling it what it is.
Or, he could acknowledge that their is a conflict, and pretend he didn't start it but Venezuela did. Like he could claim that Venezuela invaded the US first (oh, wait, he actually did that last March, using it as the pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.)
Even the ballot box isn't enough. We don't have an anti-war party in the US.
Our news media are largely captive to the military, with the embedded reporter system.
Congress has abdicated broad war powers to the president, and the courts won't intervene.
The global community can't do anything to the US. Sanctions are very unlikely.
When it's appeared to work, that has one of two causes: either the government didn't really care very much to begin with, or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face. (See civil rights)
This is nonsense.
> or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face
Violence isn't needed. Protest is designed to tip the balance of power.
We're three days out from 2025 and Nepal and Madagascar have already been forgotten?
Like, there is criticism of the 3.5% rule [1] for being too narrowly based. But the hot take that protest never works is genuinely one I haven't seen yet.
Are you confusing protest and terrorism?
Civil rights in the US has been, I agree, sanitized. No, civil rights didn't progress solely because the majority in power was touched that minorities demanded their rights so peacefully and insistently. There was a violent side too, that provided necessary pressure.
This is lazy and wrong. Simple answer is leadership is betting this won't lose them the Congress in the midterms because enough Americans won't care. Conceding ex ante the ballot box is literally proving that hypothesis.
Chomsky was smart and influential. But he was a linguist. Not a political scientist. The manufacturing-consent hypothesis sort of worked under mass media. But even then, it wasn't a testable hypothesis, more a story of history.
In today's world, unless you're willing to dilute the term to just persuasion in general, I'm not sure it applies.
Instead, the dominant force here is apathy. Most Americans historically haven't (and probably won't) risk life, liberty or material wealthy on a foreign-policy position. Not unless there is a draft. (I'm saying Americans, but this is true in most democracies.)
Chomsky, as a linguist, was probably better equipped to understand the implications of emergent behavior than more mainstream political scientists.
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/595299071/president-trump-con...
Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.
Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.
I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes, and the guilty parties were cooling their heels in a jail cell, then we probably wouldn't be seeing this action tonight.
and yeah who is gonna charge them ???? US have (arguably) strongest military on earth, who can put justice to them if not themselves ???? and themselves I mean US Gov. which is would never happen since every administration have "blood" in some form and another
Trump 45 could have come on board with a clean slate. Hell, Trump 47 started out without too much war-crimey cruft from his first term.
Dude went on a witch hunt and forgot to bring his pitchfork.
It must be us. It must be the American people.
This is (one of) the deepest moral failings of our voting public that we haven’t demanded it of our leadership.
You’re right that our leadership won’t do it unless the people absolutely demand it.
And… well, we haven’t demanded it.
So, the failure to bring them to justice belongs to me, and to every other American citizen that is eligible to cast a ballot.
- Iraq The U.S. officially ended combat operations in 2010 and fully withdrew troops in 2011, but returned with airstrikes and ground forces in 2014 in response to the rise of ISIL (Islamic State).
- Afghanistan Obama increased troop levels in 2009 as part of his strategy to focus military efforts there, maintaining a U.S. presence throughout his presidency.
- Libya In 2011, the U.S. participated in a NATO-led air campaign, authorized by a UN Security Council resolution, that resulted in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
- Syria Starting in 2014, the U.S. conducted airstrikes against ISIL targets and deployed special operations troops to assist local forces.
- Pakistan The U.S. conducted a significant number of drone strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, often without congressional approval.
- Yemen The administration ramped up the use of drone strikes against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and supported the Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in the country.
- Somalia U.S. forces conducted airstrikes and drone strikes targeting the al-Shabaab terrorist network.
Should that administration be brought before the Hague?
Yes.
You're trying to present criminality as a partisan affair. If you're for law and order, you should be for putting criminals in both parties in jail.
I'd venture to guess that GP is referring to this[0]. Or are you just incredulous that your past comments are being used to inform current ones?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=EnPissant[1]
[1] Not making any value judgement as to the content as I haven't reviewed your post history.
Other than that, whats the reverence of your whataboutism?
Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
To be clear, war crimes are illegal here. They can carry the death penalty.
I think there's a strong case to be made for Pete Hegseth to be executed for his crimes, according to US Law.
But you're right. There's no expectation that the Hague enforce international law without the consent of the US Government. Our government should either try our leaders in our courts, or hand them in manacles and chains to the ICC and The Hague.
But I agree, I don't expect the international community to be able to do this over our objections. It's something we must do.
Asking to learn: under what law?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441
---
There are also provisions in the UCMJ that are applicable to members of the military
---
(I also had a consequential typo in my earlier post, which I've now edited. I originally wrote they "carry the death penalty", but I meant to write "they can carry the death penalty", and it depends on the specific circumstances of the war crimes committed.)
Hmm. Filing this away for 2028 or 2032.
[1] ¶ (d)(1)(D)
This is very relevant to the second strike on the Venezuelan boat. I think the original strikes are also war crimes, but the second strike on the shipwrecked survivors is like… beyond all doubt a murder
The US previously never faced real pressure on this, a new administration would see it as an easy win.
The U.S. is not a signatory. (Most of the world's population isn't subject to ICC jurisdiction [1].)
> All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again
Nobody is treating the ICC seriously [2].
To be clear, this sucks. But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/world/middleeast/france-n...
Being a signatory is not required for being subject to ICC jurisdiction, though it is one route to being subject to it, and, in any case, not being a signatory is not an immutable condition. So the upthread suggestion that “All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again” is not rebutted by observing that the US is not currently a signatory of the Rome Statute.
> But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
No, the US despite rhetorically appealing to it when other countries are involved, has led, not followed, in rejecting the rules-based order when it comes to its own conduct.
And in the 21st century? not so much. It is a different world now.
Europe is powerful but the Royal Navy couldn't go today to Hong Kong and seize control of it for example.
And military power influences diplomacy.
Negatively. That has always been the problem of the US, it's the reason why they cannot act like the most of the rest of the world. The military has way too much influence on decision making.
Which is why they have been subverted and subjugated and all their will usurped.
Americans voted for a man who promised no foreign wars and, in his first term, was relatively peaceful [1].
[1][ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_first_Tr...
But America's armed populace and the stalwart vigilance of its militias are supposed to make that impossible.
Americans were more up in arms (literal and figurative) over Obamacare and Covid lockdowns than anything Trump has done, domestically or abroad. The only rational conclusion is that they're either complicit or else they simply don't care.
Those who could effectively field a real protest or uprising are either too busy trying to keep their credit cards from defaulting, or are living on the streets addicted to drugs. General strikes? Forget it, America doesn’t have the infrastructure in place (local food sources) to sustain such a thing…
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
Hegseth allegedly double tapping survivors is almost certainly against the Geneva Conventions [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-stri...
So I don't think double tapping is a war crime, any more than bombing a car with terrorists in the first place and that doesn't seem to be regarded internationally as a war crime. However, they could have done better to highlight Venezuela actual involvement with terrorism (which is real but not enough for this) rather than magically declare them terrorists just to not go through Congress
There are some credible war crimes accusations (in fact, some pretty flagrant war crimes), but the most critical crime is actually not a war crime, but one precedent to their being a war at all, the crime of aggression.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
So now the question is how to do you capture this leadership without foreign intervention while they are still in power?
Talk is nice... but there is no real mechanism to impose what you are proposing besides this.
Genuine request for a source here.
(They said law and order, because they couldn't say anti black)
Law and order != rules-based international order.
Anybody who wants a rules based order is extremely anti-Trump, just as they are anti-Putin.
MAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they're doing it while criticising Trump.
In this case probably attitude is probably similar
Your comment is just bigotry.
Julian Assange actually filed a Swedish criminal complaint against Nobel Foundation officials, alleging misappropriation of Nobel endowment funds and facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, and it seeks immediate freezing of funds and a full investigation: https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
…that they invented from whole cloth this year just so they could award it to Trump, the most deserving president of a fake prize from one of the most corrupt organisations on Earth.
This is why the Nobel Peace Prize has become completely meaningless.
[0] https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
[1] https://inside.fifa.com/campaigns/football-unites-the-world/...
They can take bribes with impunity for another 2 years. That's better than 2015 [1] and probably everything they wanted from that trophy.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-...
Not Venezuelan helicopters...
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Yeah. Pettiness. The ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in the United States. We aren't a signatory to the Rome Statute. (Most of the world's population doesn't live under its jurisdiction.)
I think you genuinely hold this take and it's admirable. I'm not seeing any indication (a) our militarised allies are behaving particularly differently or (b) they're concerned about us bombing stuff in the Western Hemisphere. (Versus in their backyards, creating refugee crises.)
> fallout for this is going to be a lot larger than I think you suspect
Maybe. Hopefully. I doubt it. Russia, China, Israel, France and the UK are doing fine.
Great moral measuring stick...
We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about ideals like liberal democracy or allies, but is a warmongering corporatist autocracy.
You should've been keeping scores on US' wars and regime changes, you'd had lost faith long time ago.
We really do not. And if we want to keep it that way, blurring the lines with this term is something we absolutely should not do like this.
> We really do not. And if we want to keep it that way, blurring the lines with this term is something we absolutely should not do like this.
We really do, and if we want not to, we need to address it rather than denying it.
What are we doing that constitutes the mass expulsion and killing of an ethnic or religious group in America?
So removing non-white Hispanics from America would count? What if the goal isn't to render the area ethnically homogenous?
The Cold War was openly about changing governments.
Correct.
Cynically: maybe Venezuela will get a bit less sympathy because it's a somewhat shittier (see emigration numbers) and less democratic government than Ukraine's. And I suspect we have a more positive view of US troops than Russian troops, despite everything (Abu Ghraib is seen as an aberration and not as the normal way of working).
Let's see if some american company is granted all kinds of rights to Venezuelan oil in the end.
Which, if it happens, should really be treated as blood oil like blood diamonds are and then sanctioned by the world
No invasion (yet). Just bombing.
This is not a useful delineation for what constitutes a military invasion. Invasion means landing troops and controlling territory.
Based on what we're being told now, this was an extraction. (Slash detention. Slash kidnapping. In any case, requiring troop transport and extraction.)
If Russia was on the right, the people of Ukraine would have just hanged Zelenskyy and his gov, instead of sending their children to the meat grinder.
Let’s see if Venezuelans will put their lives on the line to protect the regime.
As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don't intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn't plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?
I dream that neither of these imperial powers - Russia or the US - will be allowed to inflict imperial violence, but I wouldn't be mistaken and assume that this military action will be any different than, say, JSOC in Iraq.
The conduct of VSRF in Ukraine could perhaps be compared to the US conduct in Vietnam but definitely not in Iraq.
Cynically it's different in that Trump hopefully will not going to kill 220,000+ and leave 500,000+ war invalids of US military personnel in process. Though you never know...
Hmmmm... indeed, hard to tell the difference!
Iran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????
what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??
We also have a crusade in Nigeria next on the docket for project 2026.
I'm admittedly somewhat ignorant of all the details but I don't see what the real benefit is
my only guess is that it's to disincentivize the Russians and Chinese from being more involved in South America but it feels like it could do the opposite and act as an annoying wedge
It will be a small miracle if it doesn't spark a refugee crisis.
I could foresee
* some US-backed pro-business president coming to power * GDP going up * still no completely liberal democracy but anyway better than Maduro * less emigration or maybe people start coming back
The main casualty is the notion that the US follows rules instead of doing whatever it wants. I'm not sure if I'd say democracy is a casualty as well, because (AFAIK with my non-leftist sources) Venezuela wasn't a real democracy.
All societies have such people. But civil societies prevent them from gaining significant power. Failing that, it's going to be expensive.
This society elected a known abuser. Of course this society will be abused. But also because of this society's global power, the world will also be abused.
Ironically, that prospect is approaching with each passing year
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2013/06/13/us-whites-fa...
Invading America would be like invading Afghanistan. If you wrestle a pig, expect they might even enjoy it. And yes I have fought in a civil war, I know what it's like, even without the advantage of American weapon, so no need to go down the road of me not understanding the implications. It would only embolden us, we wouldn't learn the lesson you're thinking.
(E: Honesty compels me to come back and say that it is looking somewhat likely I was wrong and will have to concede to the hawks.)
I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
It’s going to be bumpy if/when it happens, but does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice. Everything else is doom.
Nobody is going to be buying iPhones during a world war. Yes, Europeans will stop buying American stuff. It has already started to happen.
The petrodollar hypothesis is obsolete. It has been since America became an oil exporter.
The way you're presenting it, it's never been the case. Petrodollars let America finance a massive military. The military gives it power. We aren't sanctioning Venezuela into submission. We're bombing it.
Also, oil has been traded in non-dollars for ages. I've personaly done it at a bank trading desk in Connecticut.
I see it as the world starting to become very unwilling to trade anything at all with the US, and moving to other currencies and finance systems for trade and economic transfer.
Petrodollar recycling [1] backed by U.S. military might. It was a way, in the 1970s and 80s, for us to secure our oil supplies by e.g. guaranteeing the security of the House of Saud.
The point was securing oil. The dollar benefits were a side effect. The dollar is ascendant because we're massive consumers.
> I see it as the world starting to become very unwilling to trade anything at all with the US
This has nothing to do with the petrodollar!
> moving to other currencies and finance systems for trade and economic transfer
Sure. Folks talk about this. It has nothing to do with Venezuela. (Again, oil is traded in multiple currencies and has been for at least two decades.)
And the point is, the American consumer market means less and less to a world that is sick and tired of the suffering the American people bring to it.
>two decades
Yes, that’s the point, the world is moving off the US Dollar as a global currency, and this is why America needs more endless, endless war, and its why we have endless, endless war. The rest of the world sees this all too clearly now.
I doubt Europe’s fondness for self-flagellation goes that far.
All of the great powers are. So are most of the regional powers. It's basically the EU and Brazil hanging on to the old rules-based international order.
Not a coping mechanism and definitely not an excuse. Just a statement of reality. This doesn't make America special. America at least sometimes trying to uphold that system is what used to make it special. Now we're back to spheres-of-influence realpolitik.
On the plus side, nothing here is permanent, this guy is out in just over three years. How much more damage could he possibly do?
There's only one way he'll be out, and voting will not be part of that
I agree however that Trump is largely self centered and this is a risk. Oil should not be the goal here, it should be the freedom of the Venezuelans.
Now, it's also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.
The congress people who are military veterans recently put out a public service announcement reminding those in the military that they must refuse illegal orders, and Trump called that reminder of the law "treasonous" and said the veterans should be executed for reminding people of the law.
There should be military tribunals for all involved here to ensure that law and order is maintained. The US is losing its constitution, its rule of law. There is not country if we have two different sets of laws, one for normal people but zero laws for those following rhe president's wishes. That's a monarchy.
No. From an international-law perspective, Trump is stepping into the footprints left by Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Khamenei and his own predecessors in D.C.
From a domestic-law perspective, this is un-Constitutional.
Which one?
There is exactly one law (Public Law 93-148, originating in the 93rd Congress as H.J.Res. 542, and passed over Presidential veto on November 7, 1973) which has as its official title the “War Powers Resolution”. Since it’s passage, it is also frequently referred to by a less-official name as the “War Powers Act” to emphasize that it has completed the process to become an official Act of Congress. The reference, especially to the exact official name, is not at all ambiguous.
There will be a decrease in oil production, marginally boosting world prices. What's probably being taken out right now is the regime's ability to react in any meaningful way to the oil embargo.
It will also allow Maduro to throw his hands in the air and blame the US for all of VZLA's ills going forward. More poverty, more suffering, more migration.
The question is whether the Venezuelan situation is more like those two, or more like Vietnam / Iraq / Afghanistan.
When have we not heard this line? When has it even been true?
We always hear it, it's never true.
> you try to move the goalposts now
I do not agree. Long-term outcomes are what matter to the ordinary people in these countries, regardless of what scores points for internet posters today. Guessing outcomes today is very premature.
> I was spot on ... I'll take the high road.
What a smug and self-contradicting statement. This is no longer a serious conversation, have a good day.
The problems started after...
So it did not eventually "prove breezy".
For some reason we wisely keep the machineries of government in place in Japan and Germany post-war and threw that lesson out the window in Iraq. Always boggles my mind, how the CPA ran things immediately into the ground.
As you say, this check has been in the mail for a while, so how are vulernable helicopters flying over caracas without any resistance? One dude with a MANPADS could take them down.
Decapitation is also the only aparent strategic goal of this operation, so it's hardly far fetched to suggest they going for 'one and done'.
Anyway, beers on me if I'm wrong :)
Presumably there are SF and/or airborne units executing coordinated strikes on the ground right now. Most likely the 160th, as they were deployed there last I checked.
https://www.clarin.com/mundo/respuesta-nicolas-maduro-explos...
People here saying it's "unjustified" should go and talk to a displaced Venezuelan.
But a military invasion of another country to commit regime change is literally what Russia tried to do to Ukraine.
America has blood on it's hands yet again.
EDIT: If the reports are true that Maduro has been captured and the fighting stops, then that's the best resolution one could hope out of this horrible situation. I pray for the Venezuelan people.
Russia is trying to annex Ukraine. They took part of it in 2014, then came back for more, and then organized sham annexation referendums in the regions they did control. Whatever the US is trying to achieve in Venezuela, it's probably not that. All war is deplorable, but some lead to good outcomes and some to bad ones.
And to start with they were trying to achieve this through regime change via a "surgical" (by their standards) strike on the government and capital.
That failed.
America is doing this explicitly to take control of Venezuela's resources. It's no different.
Presumably we're only trying to annex their oil reserves
I know some sheltered academics on Epstein's list disagree with that but that's a hill I will die on
But afterwards, there's going to be a free-for-all struggle between ACTUAL cartels. That will be indistinguishable ftom a civil war.
* - Claims 2 years ago about the removal of Hamas; assassinations of militia leaders leading to peace
The purpose of the assassinations is security, not peace. Peace is a bilateral process and it does confer security, but if it's not on the table then you can't force the issue unilaterally.
Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech. Or really any kind of support except empty words.
Yes, because as we all know Russian military technology is completely on par with that of the United States.
The open question is rather, if the S-500 system can beat the F35 stealth capabilities (nobody know that as far as I know as it was never tried). Not that russians systems are useless against ordinary planes and helicopters.
And I suspect there were deals with parts of the venezuelan military as well. The weak reaction indicates as much.
And everything else potentially dangerous, active radar and anti air systems were destroyed in the first wave of attacks. Possible with the help of special forces.
SEAD was conducted by both ground and air assets, Israel only has about 30 F-35’s and Iran is massive.
The F-35 is “invisible” ;)
Iran’s air defenses were either obliterated or rendered useless, hence how Israel was flying slow ass drones at low altitude above their capital on day 3.
The US is even more capable when it comes to SEAD.
The gap between the west and everyone else when it comes to both military technology and doctrine is massive.
It's not just the west. China is likely on par. Russia was near par in terms of defense but it's now been attrited.
Isn't that a justification?!
Seriously though, even the imperial ambitions from the guy feels racist :)
I guess Turkey can stop worrying on thanksgiving days.
I have a lot of conflicting views with both the "left" and the "right" these days, but it seems the so-called "conservatives" are not that conservative in their ambitions, no?
A lot of Americans don't care. They either actually don't care. Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Like, this entire exercise is a leveraged wager by the Trump administration that this will not cost them the Senate in any of these states next year [1].
Of course being “nihilistic” is a different matter.
> Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Typical.
Doing anything about US foreign interventions is a very tall order in a country where the vast majority are politically disenfranchised (with income and wealth as a proxy). It’s difficult enough for domestic affairs, like getting universal healthcare. Much harder to fight the war machine.
Americans did put up a fight against the interventionism of the Reagan administration. But that didn’t stop the funding of the Contras. “All it did” was force the interventions to become clandestine. (A big contrast to this admin.)
But ordinary Americans do have the largest power in all of the world to fight the war machine of their own country. That ought to be encouraged. But as usual we see the active encouragement of nihilism from comments where A Lot Of X are deemed to be useless for this particular purpose. Ah what’s the point, People Are Saying that everyone around me are useless or politically katatonic. Typical.
While yes, Congress authorized the "War on Terror", there is very obviously no possible justification for applying that to the case of Venezuela.
People keep saying that, and it bears no relation to the actual post-WW2 US military history. How many declared wars have there been since then?
That’s… just not true.
George Washington himself authorized the US Navy to attack French vessels in the Caribbean in 1798 - with no declaration of war.
> To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
> To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
> To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
> To provide and maintain a Navy;
> To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
> To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
My point is that —- regardless of appropriateness —- this is about as far from “unprecedented” as can be imagined.
Congress didn’t declare ware on Syria, or Iraq, or Yemen, or Somalia, or any number of other African countries when the US attacked them during the Biden administration.
But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
- Lysander SpoonerYou always needed a populace that respected life, liberty, and property above all in order to have a prayer of it working out; that is long gone if it ever existed.
War Powers Act of '73.
1. The Western countries (basically meaning USA makes the decision) may attack any country.
2. Other countries may not defend themselves nor attack any country.
Iraq, Iraq (several separate agressions on Iraq, that is not a typo), Afghanistan, Cuba, Serbia, Libya, Sirya, Venezuela... the list goes on, Venezuela is of no particular significance here.
It is not like citizens of Iran decide to attack Israel or like sponsoring terrorist orgs attacking Israel. I am not sure if Russians freely vote in referendum to attack Ukraine. These decisions are made by despots ruling these countries and then their citizens suffer. Either they die in trenches or suffer economic misery. What for? China too can live without Taiwan. Chinese people do not need to have another island belonging to their country. Only despots wants to have statues raised after them, or write their names in history books, because all other things: Power, Money, Sex they already have.
Hungary, Chechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan, Ichkeria, Ukraine, Syria... The list goes on
It's all about Crimea and the black sea fleet and pipelines. Every time the same conflict, as Orwell put it: We've always been at war with Eurasia.
Expectations are higher, competition is stiffer, and the gap between bottom and top end has grown, but by and large (especially in the US), the middle class quality of life has gone up.
Obviously specific regions that failed to transition out of low value-add manufacturing and agriculture have suffered, but the vast majority of Americans live in cities doing or supporting high value work.
As long as you don't try to buy a house.
I see kids, right out of college, making more than I ever made, at the peak of my career, unable to afford a house.
It's kind of a quality of life degradation, but it's a bit more complex than just "an attainable item is no longer attainable." It has never been normal to buy a 2600 sqft, 4 bedroom home at the start of a career.
IMHO the main problem nowadays, especially facing young people, is housing.
Otherwise there is probably never been a greater time to be alive, generally speaking, than right now. If you believe there is, can you outline the year(s) in question and how they were better?
As for inflation, using Bank of Canada numbers (since I'm in CA), $100 of goods/services from 1975-2000 increased by 220% to $320.93, while $100 of goods/services from 2000-2025 increased by 71% to $171.22.
In a 2014 article, CPI from 1914 to 2014:
* https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62-604-x/62-604-x2015001...
From 1955 to 2021:
* https://economics.td.com/ca-inflation-new-vintage
1971-76 and 1977-83 had double the CPI of ~2021.
While unpleasant, and higher than that of what many young(er) people have experienced, it is hardly at a crazy level. The lack of people's experience of higher rates is simply more evidence as to how stable things have generally been:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moderation
Tom Nichols argues that it is boredeom that's the problem: people want some excitement and are willing to stir the pot to get it:
* https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/08/19/donald-tru...
What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off. They don't even pretend to give a plausible reason anymore because noone will ever buy it so why bother. "All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." That is what we are witnessing now.
The mask has been off since the ICC came into existence (at the latest). The reason why the U.S. don’t recognize the ICC is because they know they’d be defendants there one second after.
And that’s so why there is a lack of effort to justify it. The right has been compromised and will support anything the party does - deporting citizens, invading countries, making things unaffordable with tariffs.
Is it?
I knew many conservatives in my country, for some reason it was always them that would fail to random fake news, that would be unapologetic racists, that lived their lifes in hatred to minority groups and so on.
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_public_opinion_o...
[b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...
[c] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-venezuela-u-s-military-act...
I can however not find any good public opinion for that war.
Afghanistan had the context of 9/11. All Americans knew about 9/11, and most cared strongly about it.
I doubt most Americans know anything about Yemen or know anything about any US involvement there, nor do they care.
Military strikes in Yemen aren't seen as the same war. Afghanistan and Iraq were boots on the ground, building up military bases, hearing about the occasional death of US personnel, etc. It's also decades apart.
When it comes to Yemen, the average American is probably entirely unaware of it, and the ones that do know about it are definitely going to place it in the Palestine/Israel context (which has huge mindshare circulation here, All things considered - we usually just ignore things outside of US borders and this is ultra politicized here). Maybe without that element, there would be more truth to what you were saying, but it's definitely in the Israel/Hamas war bucket as of now.
On the plus side, that's probably good for the odds of success.
On the minus side, they're not paying the bill.
Second, when the US did have Venezuela's oil things were going a lot better in Venezuela for the whole population. So would that really be such a bad thing?
Third, Chavez made things so bad in Venezuela it's tough to imagine this making it worse. Oh and then he died and Maduro came ... and made things worse.
Panama and Granada in the 80s weren't that fundamentally different. And before that US had a very long history of invading or intervening in Latin American countries due to various often dubious reasons.
If anything the last few decades might have been the exception.
Your comment was chemically and biologically decomposed by microorganisms and fungi, which extracted energy from it and returned the remaining nutrients to the surrounding soil, providing a fertile ground for the growth of plants?
Wag the Dog.
If Trump had just globalised the seizure of shadow tankers, he could have dealt a serious blow to Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...
Once a puppet regime has been established, you can bet Trump-related companies will get contracts to extract this stuff.
It's multi-faceted. Venezuela is a hive of Russian, Chinese and Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere. That is–long run–a problem for America.
Venezuela is also a brutal dictatorship that is oppressing its people and producing waves of migrants.
Finally, Venezuela is rich in underdeveloped mineral and energy resources. (Caveat: Exxon currently pumps those wells.)
Venezuela is also not Epstein, so, idk, there's that.
Hmm, the Ukraine is a hive of American, British and German activity near Russian border. That is–long run–a problem for Russia. How does that sound?
Like a bad reason to go to war. Same here.
I'm not justifying the war. I'm just saying the reasons are–or at least reasonably can be–more complicated than one dimension.
A problem for American ideology or dominance? Sure. But a valid reason for war? No. Right now America is breaking international law. Stealing oil tankers is literal piracy. Bombing a country is imperialism. These things should be done with a process that involves other countries and seeks consensus.
> Venezuela is also a brutal dictatorship that is oppressing its people and producing waves of migrants.
Agree.
> Finally, Venezuela is rich in underdeveloped mineral and energy resources. (Caveat: Exxon currently pumps those wells.)
Given how the Trump family is using every single means to become rich through their power, I imagine this is their main motivation.
> Venezuela is also not Epstein, so, idk, there's that.
I view this Venezuela war and the Somalian daycare fraud as ways the administration distracts from inconvenient issues like Epstein and affordability.
They have been assisting Russia, operating a shadow fleet of oil tankers that routinely disable transponders to evade international sanctions against each other. They've also been helping Iran to manufacture UAVs.
They are also a narco-state. The cartel there has at least partially captured the government.
Installing a more palatable leader and administration would perhaps allow the sanctions to be lifted, oil to be sold on the global market, and aid to flow in. The brain drain from the country might partly reverse.
Or, it could devolve into a civil war, insurgency, mass refugee exodus, etc.
All the above describes many countries, more or less. Why the US is targeting Venezuela in particular likely has to do with oil, geopolitical principle (Monroe doctrine) and advantage (weaken Iran and Russia), Venezuelan immigration to the U.S., distraction from Trump's failing health, personal & political scandals, "red meat" for the base and war-hawks, and the political security afforded to a "war time" president.
This deserves far more than the two little sidenotes you've dropped in here.
POTUS demonstrably does not give a fuck about countries "assisting Russia", "being repressive", "stealing elections" or "having economic/food/health problems".
These decisions require a pretty broad coalition to get a workable plan in front of Trump for him to activate for attention. So there is never 1 single reason, but my 2cents are that:
- Most of the oil export goes to China. Especially with the recent metals kerfuffle, this is a quick way to improve the US' negotiation position.
- The hawks in the army are getting restless and are clamoring for real-world modern drone warfare experience - especially if Taiwan turns hot. Getting a trial run in your backyard in similar terrain is good practice. (Assuming they'll send in an occupying force, and it's contested by china backed insurgents).
Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?
The worst-case outcome for the US is that it gets pulled into another unpopular, long-term conflict that undermines its international standing and allows assorted rogues to advance their goals (Ukraine, Taiwan, who knows what else).
The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran. How you assess the likelihood of these outcomes sort of depends on your priors.
I would say, however, that the recent history of US military interventions doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Venezuela is nowhere near being the cluster---- that we've dealt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc, but who knows.
There are 2 differences that stand out.
Intelligence seems more capable nowadays compared to 2003, probably due to better cyber/SIGINT. It took 3 years for the coalition to find Saddam despite a large ground presence. I wouldn't give Maduro more than a month if the US was intent on taking him out, after the capabilities that we saw in Iran and South Lebanon the last two years that simply did not exist 2 decades ago. For the first time, war has been inverted, and it's the regime that dies first instead of the soldiers.
Second difference is the absence of political Islamism as a dominant ideology in the culture. This makes it more comparable to regime change wars against Japan and Germany in WW2 than recent wars in MENA.
Historically, fascism and authoritarianism communism have been temporary secular hysterias that come and go. Ukraine post-Maidan, for example, embraced democracy because they tried communism already and learned that it sucks.
Islamism seems more potent and durable and always rears its head in instability like in Bangladesh most recently, or the Arab Spring before. My explanation for this durability is that it is tied in with religion and is believed to be divinely ordained, rather than just a human made system that sucks.
This is unlike Christianity which is structurally secular by doctrine ('render unto Caesar').
That's historical crackpottery. Christianity went through two centuries of religious warfare starting in the early 1500s, with the German population suffering a per-capita death toll higher than WW2. Before that, it launched centuries-long crusades into the Middle East - at some point wiping out the non-Christian people of the city of Jerusalem, which was, and eventually returned to being, a multi-religious city under Muslim rule.
Radical Islamism has only existed since 1979 because of the Iranian revolution. It looks like it's on the decline now. It might have only emerged because of failed efforts at modernising. Europe and the West might have only lapped MENA because they were geographically well-placed to pillage the Americas - not because of any cultural superiority.
[EDIT: I've just read over this, and I'd like to clarify that I like Christianity and Christians in many respects, even though I'm not a Christian myself. I also like the modern West. I just hate lying, hypocritical, cowardly, proud and murderous xenophobes like you]
> I could say the same thing about radical fascism in Germany and Japan, and yet.
Germany and Japan stopped being fascist because nobody was going to let them go back to gassing people.
And would you look at that, Maduro has already been captured after 3 hours. This is why it categorically not like Iraq 2003.
Possibly dragging supply down, with no net effect at best.
This is going to hurt China economically, and in a way that isn’t going to be seen as targeted at China or unfair by international community.
Russia’s production and refining capacity has been seeing attrition from Ukraine’s efforts. They’re producing less oil, selling it for less, and for rubles that each buy less.
I’ve said before on HN that I thought Venezuela was intended to soak up Russian resources - this is just the next step.
Actually, thinking about it more, this makes little sense. There's very little upside (and it's far off), while there's plenty of short and long-term downside. Great geopolitical strategizing out there.
That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per default", leaving only Oceania ? Should Australians brace themselves ?
Edit, for the benefit of all: /s
Australians are currently paying him billions for 2nd hand nuclear submarines (which are not likely to ever be delivered), so that they can protect themselves from their biggest trading partner.
The deal is admittedly shakey, but so is most things the US is involved in these days.
Comedy is becoming reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgspkxfkS4k
But hey, if making up a bogus threat is what it takes to sell guns…
I actually believe the majority of children who need to study geography would prefer Greenland (which has a lot of ice) to be called Iceland, and Iceland (which doesn't have a lot of ice) to be called Greenland.
I think a majority consensus would be easily achieved.
Language is defined by how people use it, not decreed top down. It would just be convenient if the very apogee of power (despite the deep state) concurred with and recognized the wisdom of the least represented in the world: children.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Venezuela accuses US of attacking Caracas as explosions rock capital
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/explosions-rep...
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
I don't think any latin american country can withstand the US for any amount of time, unless it turns into a guerilla war.
Let me put it as a simple question: how are the people in America doing nothing to stop this any different from Russians doing the exact same?
If anything, Russians face a lot more resistance to protest, no?
So come on, stop silently downvoting me from your cozy AC'd homes while your leaders are warmongering for oil and Epstein distractions, and answer that simple question please, instead of making utterly transparent strawman arguments. It's a very simple question.
[Silent downvoting intensifies, because of course it does.]
Repeat after me: individuals are not systems.
sigh Nevermind, it's obviously way too much to ask for a simple answer to a simple question after being strawmanned.
Nor is "US carries out murder campaign in Latin American country for unclear reasons"
> The president became aware of the consultations and warned his wife to be careful because it might look odd if it came out, Nancy Reagan wrote in her book.
> Nancy Reagan began consulting Quigley after the 1981 assassination attempt on her husband. She wanted to keep him from getting shot again, Nancy Reagan wrote in her 1989 memoir, "My Turn." "If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it," she quoted the president as saying.
> The consultations were revealed to great embarrassment for the White House in a 1988 book by former White House chief of staff Donald Regan, who blamed the first lady for his ouster a year earlier. Regan said almost every major move and decision the Reagans made during his time as chief of staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes. He did not know her identity.
> The woman was in fact Joan Quigley, an heiress and Republican political activist. Quigley told The Associated Press in 1988 after her identity was revealed that she was a "serious, scientific astrologer."
A "serious, scientific astrologer", but no such thing exists, does she understand formulating null hypothesis and hypothesis testing statistics? probably not, so not scientific, any scientist actually applying the scientific method to astrology will quickly distance herself from astrology at all.
Amen to that. Now let's also do the same for all social "sciences".
Of course he now denies this so that never happened, he also said that 'doing so would not have been wrong'. Ever the lawyer. My client didn't do it, and if he did it wasn't wrong.
Nor did he ever claim that 'God influenced his deliberations'...
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right, and I think it's doubtful if it's legally justified (how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition), but it makes a lot of sense, it aligns with realpolitik and it's morally good for several independent reasons. In particular it has a hugely disproportionate geopolitical impact, and less importantly it can bring a few million people from under a dictatorship.
As an interesting aside, I recently did a quick research on the Grenada invasion, widely spoken of as an embarrassing moment. It went... very well. They came, remove a budding dictatorship right after a coup, left in two months, and Grenada had no ill effects in the years after (both by subjective reporting, and by GDP per capita comparable to neighboring countries). The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. The number of dictatorships that did well in recent history is exactly two, and neither was socialist (SK and Singapore).
What? There's a process for initiating an offensive war in the US and they didn't follow it. Legally, Congress must authorize it. Though that hasn't been followed for quite a few wars now.
Seems on “Illegal” side of things, for whatever that matters in ‘26 huh?
But we did have an AUMF for the absolute disasters that were the afghanistan and iraq wars. Somebody who isn't american coming in and saying "whatever, fuck it, Trump just does what he wants" is terrifying to me.
Trump would prefer it if I were killed. Should I be shot?
This. Your logic could at least make sense with other US president, but not wanna-be dictator one doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators in the world. Not a good fit to fight for democracy.
But saying the Democratic party, with AOC, Bernie Sanders and two decades of progressism is "right"... you might as well say the sky is green. That's just ignoring any meaning of the words, not trying to find a more precise one.
It’s more than lip service.
Not sure what you expected with this, other than a low effort jab.
But as far as my personal opinion goes, I'd prefer a bit more intervention in the world. We actually created United Nations with this purpose, but it got hobbled by Russia and China's security vetos, and by the arab block making it a "resolution against Israel" machine.
But we never decided as a planet to just leave Sudan-like atrocities to happen without taking action because "sovereignty". That's not a thing that happened, and I'm actually a bit puzzled everybody acts like we did.
It's worth remembering the UN fought in the Korean war and wasn't was always a place for authoritarian regimes to pass useless resolutions and make noise.
The fact we, as humanity, have allowed so many genocides and slave nations to exist, and to treat them with a measure of equality, is a failing.
And, to be clear, I'm not talking about people I disagree with politically. I'm talking about places and peoples like North Korea and Cambodia and Sudan. There's a ton of shades of gray, but some situations really require a special kind of blindness to pretend are gray.
I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question.
Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky.
Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide.
Some of the discussion of the legality of the US invasion of Panama is relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
Folks there's nothing new or insane here. Countries attacked other countries all throughout human history. The surprise is when they don't.
Now it's not super hard to understand why Trump is fixated on Venezuela in terms of geopolitics. There's a decision by this admin to bolster US in the western hemisphere, possibly in preparation to coming to terms with a bipolar world split between US and China. So the US is now meddling with Canada and Greenland. Now with the shift towards the right in Latam (Milei in Argentina, Bukele in El Salvador, Kast in Chile) Trump is just pushing a few more bricks to create a more uniform American-led sphere. Plus, Venezuela was very close with the Iranians and Russians, so removing this regime surely serves some strategic goals.
"Justified" in the sense of "went to congress for a declaration of war". You know, that thing Presidents stopped doing in the early 2000s.
Examples of bombings/ground invasions using WPR without congressional AUMF:
Invasion of Grenada (1983) (7,300 US troops, 19 KIA)
Invasion of Panama (1989) (27,000 troops, 23 KIA)
Airstrikes on Libya (1986) (and 2011) [Obama administration argued they did not need Congressional authorization because the operations did not constitute "hostilities" as defined by the War Powers Resolution. Therefore, they argued, the 60-day clock never started.]
Kosovo Air Campaign (1999) [The bombing campaign lasted 78 days in violation of the 60-day limit]
The Mayaguez Incident (1975)
Syria Missile Strikes (2017 & 2018)
Assassination of Qasem Soleimani (2020)
Trump commuted the sentence of a fentanyl trafficker and his crime is their whole justification.
There is the Dixie Mafia and the President all over again
The concept of "international law" here is pretty confusing because to begin with you'd need to choose who decides what counts as a violation of Venezuelas sovereignty. Presumably the people backed by the US are okay with this, and team Maduro isn't.
Presumably, if you were to agree that Maduro wasn't in fact the legitimate leader of Venezuela, you'd just consider this an internal issue with US helping in local law enforcement matters.
If you disagree and consider Maduro to be the legitimate president, presumably no amount of justification will help you see it differently. But then, I'm not sure anyone particularly cares about your opinion either.
They're talking about Venuzela stealing their oil (it's not) and of transporting drugs to the US (while pardoning drug king pins).
The reality is that there a lot of people across the political divide at very high levels of government who deeply dislike Maduro for a variety of reasons, some perhaps more pure-hearted than others.
Oil and drugs are obviously not even how they're justifying this to themselves. The oil in Venezuela isn't that interesting because it's really only US and some Canadian oil companies that are capable of extracting it. The US is always going to control oil production in Venezuela, no matter what.
But yeah, instead of focusing on all the silly statements the admin puts out you might as well just guess at the eventual steelmanned argument they'll present in writing at a later date.
> Also, shouldn't he then be doing this in many other places in the world?
No, I don't see how that would follow. I can choose to give money to a charity, but that does not mean I have to choose to give my money to all the charities in the world.
Were they? And is that the justification the US has cited? If not, you're writing fan fiction and that's not really interesting.
I'm not a supporter of totalitarian regimes including Maduro's, but the US has a track record of producing very poor outcomes for people in South America when they topple one leader in favor of a more--shall we say--"market friendly" character waiting in the wings.
As for international law, it is extremely clear, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. International law recognizes only two clear exceptions: self defense or a US Security Councul resolution.
This is all necessarily speculative, we might never have sufficient visibility to know all the facts.
I'm merely attempting to provide the strongest reply the administration could provide if they cared to try. I believe it's reasonably grounded in facts.
1. US government openly does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate head of state of Venezuela
2. US government does recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as the president-elect.
3. Venezuelan opposition has been heavily lobbying in an effort to get foreign governments to intervene in Venezuela
All of these things are verifiable facts, I think they can be distilled into my perfectly reasonable suggestion as to how the US could fend off such criticism.
It's really really difficult to paint this as inherently bad, it's hard to see how the conclusion here doesn't entirely depend on how you feel about the results of the previous Venezuelan elections.
From the perspective that regime change often goes horribly wrong? Absolutely.
From the point of view that Maduro was effectively in charge of a coup that the real elected candidates were desperately seeking foreign support to stop? Harder to see the intervention as bad, as it is probably the only way to rectify the situation.
There's no doubt that this heavily depends on one's personal views, so there's no obvious answers. At least the concern about regime change is fact-based and pretty much universal, regardless of personal beliefs. The concern about whether or not it's right or wrong for the US to go and arrest Maduro depends largely on how one views the recent Venezuelan election results, and therefore inherently relies on some major assumptions on matters where we're unlikely to ever see conclusive proof.
Of course, there are also pretty good technical reasons to believe the electoral receipts published by the Venezuelan opposition. I believe they would have been pretty much impossible to fake. That topic and others related to it have been pretty much endlessly discussed on HN already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123155
Again, no it doesn’t. It’s the unilateral extraterritorial interventionism that’s the problem. I have no time for Maduro or his administration.
And if you think this intervention is about protecting democracy I have a bridge to sell you.
>And if you think this intervention is about protecting democracy I have a bridge to sell you.
No, I certainly don't think that. I'd suspect it's mostly about personal grievances and Trumps desire to make a show. But still I think it makes more sense to focus on the best-case justifications than trying to guess at the real reasons behind why this administration does what it does.
The actual motivations matter because they dictate the outcome. In this case the actual motivations have been stated publicly by Trump a few years ago, they want the oil back. They will happily support whoever ends up in power so long as they hand back the oil rights.
>In this case the actual motivations have been stated publicly by Trump a few years ago, they want the oil back. They will happily support whoever ends up in power so long as they hand back the oil rights.
That's obviously not credible, you can't profitably extract Venezuelan crude without US involvement. There's simply nobody else with the capabilities to do so. Venezuelan oil is particularly difficult to get out of the ground, it's tremendously difficult to extract profitably.
Ah, but when it's the US it's fine. They're the champions of democracy, aren't they?
Not at all arguing that it somehow leads to justification for an illegal invasion.
In this specific case the claim comes down to assertions of a sham election. If this was indeed the case (with the lens of an international survey obviously the US view is suspect considering the attack), then the Venezuelan people themselves do not view him as a legitimate leader, which simplifies the situation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/politics/venezuela-uni...
U.S. foreign policy is bipartisan. The big plan was to keep the Russians tied up in Ukraine, get Syria (achieved under Biden) and now get China and Russia out of Venezuela.
It could work with bribing officers like in Syria, in which case there will be minimal resistance and then probably the Nobel War Prize recipient Machado will be installed.
It is possible that all of this was discussed with Russia (you get things in your backyard, we in ours).
Uh? Bush failed to assemble a coalition by providing dubious and faked proofs of supposed WMDs and chemical weapons. The Europeans and especially the French didn't fall for it. The only one who did was Tony Blair and he's still paying the price both domestically in the UK and abroad. AFAIK, Trump isn't planning to send troops in Venezuela on the scale Bush did in Iraq.
(edit: I was wrong. Italy, UK, Spain, Poland, Turkey among others.) Anyway, the point is that there was some sort of coalition.
"You forgot Poland."
https://www.state.gov/nicolas-maduro-moros/
[edit] Maduro remained under US federal indictment on narco‑terrorism and related cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges throughout the Biden administration.
I don't like how Trump has unilaterly decided this extreme of an action, but at the moment I am glad that this didn't fail like it did in Ukraine. I am still worried about what the aftermath will lead to. I don't think peace and democracy is having a particularly winning record at the moment.
These things are messy.
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental , nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink” —Orwell
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/venezuela-us-military-s...
The clear fly-out with rotary wing craft seemingly without a concern in the world tells me they absolutely decapitated Venezuela's air defenses.
Their intelligence must have been flawless to have this level of confidence.
This wasn't just a raid, it was an extremely visible one meant to send a message.
Edit: Bloomberg is reporting they captured and extracted Maduro
https://archive.is/2026.01.03-094534/https://www.bloomberg.c...
If you're going to flaunt nerd speak then just say JSOC.
Additionally, might it be that every dictatorship is hated by most expatriates? I think that that was the case for the 2 (or 3) countries that the neo-cons invaded, and I don't remember any of those invasions turning out well. Reckless.
Plus the opposition won the 2024 election by a landslide, but it was stolen by Maduro.
The overwhelming majority wants the regime to end.
Obviously this isn’t hard intelligence — correlation isn’t causation — but when combined with more grounded indicators (verified reports, diplomatic channels, satellite data) it can be a piece of the broader picture. Just a fun example of how people try to find patterns in publicly available data.
I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.
Wikipedia [1]:
> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."
PBS [2]:
> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_invasio...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-want-it-back-...
Also do these countries governments care for their own ppl? Seems like no as if they did ..they wouldn’t be corrupt 2nd to 3rd world countries & their citizens wouldn’t be fleeing to America in droves
As for the rest of the us, I suppose now we should sanction the US
He didn't give Trump a gold CD to invade Venezuela.
He gave Trump a gold CD so you didn't have to pay a 30-50% tariff on iPhones, and it worked.
should be
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US authoritarian government ..."
or (better, really)
"Venezuela has accused the US ..."
Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. Their headquarters is El Helicoide, a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it is the largest torture center in Latin America.
On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and had to convince him to participate in the elections.
During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.
If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.
There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.
I couldn't disagree more with those statements.
I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does. Here in Venezuela, she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols. I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her.
Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.
It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.
Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world.
Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.
8 million of us had to flee the country.
Law-wise I agree and it has set an awful precedent.
But in the other hand Venezuelans all over the world (certainly the Venezuelans here that I know) are celebrating. I myself am in some way relieved. This is a dictator that did unspeakable things to their own population, set proxy criminal organizations, sent hitmen to kill dissidents in my country, highly decreasing our perceived safety.
So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Because that's what has actually happened here.
It's not like there will be peaceful and organized elections now. The template from US actions in Latin America in the past is: A puppet regime will be installed and it will be involved in heavy domestic oppression of its own.
Votes suggest otherwise.
[0]: https://usapolling.substack.com/p/america-marches-into-anoth...
But they do.
I hate it when everyone says "Nazi Germany" instead of just "Germany".
Trump won the electoral vote.
Trump asked why the US can't nuke other countries when it has so many nukes. Trump loves war ("department of war") loves bombing other countries - always has. That he is so eager to use nukes should frighten everyone.
Same Guy: "If Europe doesn't buy more weapons from us, Russia should invade Europe, torture, plunder and kill people and do their worst."
People: "I guess I vote for that guy!"
Guy randomly bombs Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, Somalia and Syria - people "Huh? I didn't vote for this".
It is already a stretch to call it a democracy - which is required to insist on democratic reasoning.
Regardless, If allowed intellectual hoolahop, then most systems of governance can be argued to be democratic.
Just a post ago you identified that Mr. "Why do we have nukes if we don't use them?" was the best available option. That doesn't mean he's a good option, it means there were two choices and the other one was generally seen as the same or worse than Trump. Which given all the stuff that got thrown at Trump is an impressive level of failure.
Yes, 5 year olds didn't vote for Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
He did not win the popular vote.
Let's hope Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Russia follow soon.
This usually (never) goes well for the USA. (Source: pick a regime change war.)
I suppose South Korea is doing fine as well, so let’s just hope Chinese troops do not flow over their land border with Venezuela.
If we need a more recent and perhaps more relevant comparison point, Operation Just Cause had a successful outcome.
I know it’s trendy and important to mock Iraq and Vietnam but it’s not all a failures.
The fascists are also advocating for an end to foreign aid. Gonna be hard to repeat post war rebuilding efforts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1240540.shtml
But you're the good guys and do that to deliver freedom and democracy so it's OK. I think you're under estimating how the world is rapidly updating their views on the US, and the lasting damage to your soft power.
This administration is making the same mistakes - but in living memory of the first, with a less noble prize, and with complete derision of Congress and Americans' intelligence.
Trump got reelected with slogans like "no new war" and in less than a year he started at least one (arguably I'd say two with the 12 days wars as Israel knew ut couldn't win this one without American bombers) also makes me think none if this is a "mistake", just a long term plan to keep power.
--Chef Ramsay
Considering the general incompetence of this administration, this level of success with such a surgical operation seems completely out of character.
Incredibly impressive operation, whether or not you agree with it. Although the ability to operate helos over Caracas with such impunity may very well suggest high-level collaborators in the local military.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_strikes_in_...
While I agree that "hypocrisy" isn't the right word here, I see where OP is coming from.
At least in American media, the use of passive voice (or as I've heard it called sometimes "exonerative voice") often obfuscates or otherwise provides cover for authorities. For example, "Tower collapses after missile strike" and "Man dies after being struck by bullet during arrest" are both technically true and yet also leave out important context (the country who fired the missile, the person who fired the gun and why).
Even if this headline is appropriate for now, it's not surprising that there should be questions over how it's worded.
President DONALD J. TRUMP“
Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
I believe Noriega was captured when the US invaded Panama in 1989. But yeah, this is wild (though maybe not unprecedented).
The US extradited, convicted, and imprisoned Honduras' Juan Orlando Hernández, for drug trafficking crimes (though Trump, incongruously, pardoned him in 2025).
Another notable example, the UK arrested Chile's Pinochet in 1998 on a Spanish arrest warrant claiming universal jurisdiction, though no conviction followed from that.
edit: And US Marines captured Grenada's Hudson Austin in 1983, turning him over to Grenada's new government who sentenced him to death, commuted to prison.
edit²: Two other heads of state imprisoned in the US were Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala (extradited to and convicted in US courts in 2014), and Pavlo Lazarenko of Ukraine (fled willingly to the US, convicted in 2006).
Head of state according to whom?
>Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
Would they really need a sham trial?
Have you considered this is part of a negotiated exit?
Nobody believes this bullshit about drugs. Just like nobody believed it when they committed war crimes by blowing up innocent guys fishing
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
In a Truth Social post shared only moments ago, Trump wrote:
The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify this report."
I just woke up to this madness, and have heard nothing about it prior to today. Has this come as a surprise to everyone in the USA too, or were there murmurings leading up to it? What was the reason given? I'm presuming there was _something_, even if it was clearly nonsense?
What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?
My guess: he will be imprisoned in a 3rd country, he can't be allowed to move back to Venezuela
I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win, especially where Maduro has been considered being more and more authoritarian, rejecting democracy, and probably would've been willing to sacrifice thousands of lives in a ground war if this increasing threat was handled less finely.
Add to this the fact that Venezuela has crazy amounts of oil BUT a totally mismanaged and badly exploited extraction operation and the economy is in the toilet. Unless this somehow leads in to a Libya situation, everyone could benefit from this, compared to the hopelessness of the past.
What threat? There is no threat to the US from Venezuela. This is another Banana war.
Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.
It's the new world order preached by Russia and supported by the BRICS.
The difference is that the US has the resources to play this game ruthlessly and effectively for the most part.
The coherent BRICS reply should be "we pray there's peace".
This is scary stuff.
Now, even the USA invades foreign countries!
Although it is 'heavy' oil, the 'brown coal' of liquid fossil reserves (i.e. low quality).
The fact that such a fuss is being made about low-grade oil is a concern in itself.
The state sponsored drug smuggling is symbolic of a country not paying sufficient fealty to its master, but is secondary to the larger strategic issues in play.
No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
It doesn't work.
It is very unlikely this will be met with anything like a coordinated condemnation from the Europeans given Maduro's closeness to Russia. Hence giving Trump some degree of international political cover for the move.
Also, some people seems to miss the fact that South America military power is very weak, and we, culturally, are way less proned to fight and die than people in middle east.
Yeah, we know this is all about oil, and I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge. But the fact is we don't have a, undeniable, dictator as neighbor, and my friends can see their families again.
"War for oil" is always the easy go-to to criticize any American military action, even in countries that don't have oil.
And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
America has more oil than it knows what to do with, and because of that, prices are so low that there are lots of newspaper articles about how American oil companies have dramatically slowed exploration and production. Plus, even under the current administration, America is using more and more renewable energy sources (some states now get more than 50% of their energy from wind/solar).
With the whole Chevron situation, I'm willing to think that oil may play a role here, but again the "war for oil" seems like nothing more than a convenient slogan for a high schooler's protest sign.
underdeserver•6h ago
richardatlarge•6h ago
Or maybe not :(
immibis•5h ago
madaxe_again•5h ago
Like Reagan. But they’ll find some guy, I don’t know, Bob South, who will take the fall.
khazhoux•5h ago
tguvot•5h ago
it will keep discussion alive
well_actulily•5h ago
verzali•4h ago
stevekemp•5h ago
ModernMech•5h ago
JumpCrisscross•4h ago
It's a reference to "the official term used by the Russian government to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine" [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_military_operation
teiferer•4h ago
dragonwriter•4h ago
aqme28•4h ago
ubiquitysc•4h ago
madaxe_again•4h ago
logicchains•4h ago
big-and-small•4h ago
lawn•3h ago
JumpCrisscross•4h ago
I'll say I'm doubtful. I think we'll bomb from afar and hope to pot Maduro.
pgsandstrom•4h ago
Mikhail_Edoshin•4h ago
I always remember that episode as I see headlines like that.
dgellow•10m ago