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Air Strikes in Caracas

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EviLore said:
"International Law" as a concept is an extension of United States hegemony. People who believe otherwise are confused by the origins of the peace and stability the US has guaranteed in the post-WW2 era. It's not from a piece of paper.
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ICC, UN are the remnants of USSR vs USA era where those institutions were used against weak third world countries.
 
TylerD said:
I have a lot of respect for the men and women of our armed forces and it's impressive that this operation appeared to go so well. I have none and will continue to have none for Pete Hegseth who is pretty easily the least qualified Secretary of Defense in our countries history.
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Sure sure sure.

™
 
Topher said:
Venezuelans celebrating everywhere it seems. I'm really working my brain trying to figure out why folks are trying to spin this as a bad thing.
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Ideology? You have the same problem with the guy who unmasked a whole scam system of fraudulent daycare centers that have being leeching money from the goverment for years, yet there is a "divide" somehow when there shouldn't be

I see people saying this move will destabilize LATAM even more, guess who's been doing that since early 2000s? Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, he went out of his way briving with dirty money a lot of the presidents from that time from neighboring countries, trying to push this leftist block that bends over backwards to China, Russia and Cuba, because deep down all of them share the same dream of leading an autocracy
 
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SlimySnake said:
we are going in circles. i literally replied to you and said he was a dictator. this isnt about him or any other dictator. its about how this sets a dangerous precedent that will be used by anyone including our enemies to remove presidents everywhere around the world. its trump today but in 3 years it could be a democrat doing this to whoever he doesnt like. there is no shortage of dictators in this world. we cant have presidents going off on their own deciding who to arrest and who to bomb based on what side of the bed they woke up that morning.


again, this isnt about left or right. left staying silent on drone strikes back then doesnt mean we should allow our presidents to do whatever the fuck they want. we have to learn from our mistakes, not repeat them.
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No precedent was set today. We've had military operations killing terrorist leaders in other countries for decades such as the assassination of Obama Bin Laden ordered by Barack Obama. I could understand your point if the US had just arrested a democratically elected leader, but this is not the case. The guy was wanted and he was arrested. Now the people he ruled over are celebrating. Win/win
 
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Summary of this conference:

drama-there-will-be-blood.gif
 
Scary_Larry said:
Anyone that thinks this is about drugs, communism or immigration are fools. It's about oil, rare earth minerals and in this case, it always has been.
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That's such a room temp surface level talking point. Always has been.

It's a bonus part of it, spoils always have been, but it does a gross disservice to human intelligence and well-beings on a much larger geopolitical theater.
 
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Scary_Larry said:
Anyone that thinks this is about drugs, communism or immigration are fools. It's about oil, rare earth minerals and in this case, it always has been.
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Or it is about all of those things. Put oil number one on the list if you want, but it's still a list.
 
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Unknown Soldier said:


For a "Putin's Puppet" he sure is securing vast oil reserves which could threaten the Russian oil-based economy if oil prices were to suddenly drop when the Venezuelan fields start running again at high capacity
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Crazy. Google says Vene has 17% of the world's oil.

The country only has around 30M people. That country should be loaded with awesome economies, buildings, schools, infrastructure etc.. It literally should be South America's version of a rich mid east country where cities are loaded.

With so much money wasted away, it's amazing to imagine where all the billions and trillions of $$$ go. You'd think all the corrupt people's bank accounts could only get so big. But maybe all the corrupt leaders have Swiss bank accounts with $100B each in them.
 
Hypereides said:
I'm really not too thrilled about this, given it opens up a legitimate precedent for "other" countries to perform a genuine invasive attack on smaller nations.
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Lmao, please, the US have been doing shit like this for decades. Especially in South America. It'd be more worrisome if they tried to pull a Putin and annex Venezuela but if "all" they do is overthrow a government and then make them voluntarily give up their oil industry then it's just business as usual.
I'm not saying this is pretty or just but the precedent has been set long ago.
 
Topher said:
No precedent was set today. We've had military operations killing terrorist leaders in other countries for decades such as the assassination of Obama Bin Laden ordered by Barack Obama. I could understand your point if the US had just arrested a democratically elected leader, but this is not the case. The guy was wanted and he was arrested. Now the people he ruled over are celebrating. Win/win
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Hell the precedent for this was set back when we took Noriega. Same circumstance, but we used a fuck ton more personnel back then.
 
Madonis said:
What's wild and dishonest is taking that statement out of context, especially when Trump had been quite friendly towards plenty of dictators (Putin, Kim, etc) and didn't do anything about Maduro during his first term.
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But he did it anyway in his second term anyway.
 
So what. The cartel always wins. Venezuela and Colombia will always be narco states. The US don't care about drugs, they'll just steal the biggest oil reserves in the world.
 
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StreetsofBeige said:
Crazy. Google says Vene has 17% of the world's oil.

The country only has around 30M people. That country should be loaded with awesome economies, buildings, schools, infrastructure etc.. It literally should be South America's version of a rich mid east country where cities are loaded.

With so much money wasted away, it's amazing to imagine where all the billions and trillions of $$$ go. You'd think all the corrupt people's bank accounts could only get so big. But maybe all the corrupt leaders have Swiss bank accounts with $100B each in them.
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Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the world. Then Hugo Chavez took power and was succeeded by Nicolas Maduro

That country could have been the Saudi Arabia of the Americas, if it wasn't destroyed by the worst kind of communist rule that South America has seen (and I'm saying a LOT here)

Unrelated:

 
MayauMiao said:
But he did it anyway in his second term anyway.
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True, but I don't think anyone could have predicted it years in advance. That said, it was always going to be a big issue for Marco Rubio in particular.

SolarFry said:
So what. The cartel always wins.
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Only way for the cartels to "lose" would be to end drug prohibition and just regulate everything, but few people want to have that discussion right now.
 
Scary_Larry said:
Anyone that thinks this is about drugs, communism or immigration are fools. It's about oil, rare earth minerals and in this case, it always has been.
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USA has real monetary power, not just weaponry, don't need to shoot one single bullet, corporations can do the "dirty work" for your imperialist boogeyman and get away with all the oil and minerals without shedding a single drop of blood and you know what? That's better if it means real infrastructure and jobs are created, helping those underdeveloped countries to thrive
 
GudOlRub said:
Lmao, please, the US have been doing shit like this for decades. Especially in South America. It'd be more worrisome if they tried to pull a Putin and annex Venezuela but if "all" they do is overthrow a government and then make them voluntarily give up their oil industry then it's just business as usual.
I'm not saying this is pretty or just but the precedent has been set long ago.
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I dunno, man. The current world order situation is getting increasingly more unstable. I don't see the "lmao" in this scenario. The current administration is unpredictable as is.

Also, historically, you're right in that this isn't the first time US has done an act like this. That said, is that somehow suppose to redeem it and make it seem more safe?

And let me re-affirm; I did not have a positive view of Maduro and his government.
 
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GudOlRub said:
Lmao, please, the US have been doing shit like this for decades. Especially in South America. It'd be more worrisome if they tried to pull a Putin and annex Venezuela but if "all" they do is overthrow a government and then make them voluntarily give up their oil industry then it's just business as usual.
I'm not saying this is pretty or just but the precedent has been set long ago.
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Idk Venezuela would be a pretty sick US territory.
 
Hypereides said:
I don't see the "lmao" in this scenario.
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These are events that are completely beyond my control whether I like them or not and a shithead dictator is going to meet his maker, how am I supposed to react? Cry? Bitch please, I'm going to enjoy this ride while it lasts.
Hypereides said:
That said, is that somehow suppose to redeem it and make it seem more safe?
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I never said any of that. All I said is that talking about setting a new precedent in this instance is absurd.
 
They said Maduro preferred Cuban security for protection because he didnt trust local Venezuelan's selling him out.

If the president doesnt even trust his own people like that, it goes to show what a shitshow the country is in. lol
 
BennyBlanco said:
If he had lost the "cooler heads" solution would be endless unvetted immigration as if everyone on earth is a good person who belongs in our society, so long as they vote dem.
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The cooler heads solution isn't the opposite extreme. We all know Biden deported and caged up illegals too anyway.

Trump ran literally on "No new wars" on his campaign.

And there's plenty of bad people right here in our country born and bred as is, same as anywhere else.

So no I dont think the end result had he lost would've been as you paint it, and the end results that have been brought about dont succeeded the drawbacks. His impulsiveness has deteriorated international relations and revere for the U.S. regime tenfold and that was before this Venezuela thing.
 
GudOlRub said:
These are events that are completely beyond my control whether I like them or not and a shithead dictator is going to meet his maker, how am I supposed to react? Cry? Bitch please, I'm going to enjoy this ride while it lasts.
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If you say so.

GudOlRub said:
I never said any of that. All I said is that talking about setting a new precedent in this instance is absurd.
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Absurd? Did you miss how China keeps openly talking about taking back Taiwan? Or, Russia aggressively claiming Ukrainian territory?

You think this doesn't send some kind of signal to those two about legitimacy in their rhetoric?
 
On one hand it's very good that Maduro finally is not going to be killing, torturing and jailing people. Venezuela was a great country till socialists took over.

On the other hand I am uncomfortable with US President opening a military campaign and declaring war without Congress. Not that my comfort means jack and shit, but there must be a separation of power.

Well, at least a terrible dictator is out of commission, let's see what happens next. Hopefully nation building will go better vs last several places where we tried this.

Also, Colombian terrible socialist president got to be nervous as well now and so is Bolivian one.
 
Tams said:
We had and it's already over. A one-hour SMO and it went exactly as planned and didn't kill the target.
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Yeah, at least we didn't get a 40 mile (or was it km) convoy stuck in the mud partially because the higher ups stole the funding for truck maintenance and used Chinese commercial tires vs military grade ones (and not to mention other shenanigans).

Or drop a paratrooper battalion or two right in the line of ready to go Ukrainian army.
 
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