US STRIKES VENEZUELA / CAPTURES MADURO

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I have fundamentally failed as a citizen to protect the country my father and grandfathers repeatedly risked their lives to preserve. We are just another tinpot dictatorship aimlessly bouncing around the world, lead by a senile old fool who should be in the dementia ward of a long term care facility. People like Trump have existed since mankind emerged from the plains of East Africa. It is only my generation that put him into a position where he can destroy humanity. On the Last Day when I stand before God awaiting Judgment, I will be asked what I did to oppose Trump and all I will be able to do is hang my head in shame and mumble, "Not enough."
 
PandemicBlue said:
I'll just say this, the Democrat party has become a group of some of the most miserable, intolerable people I have ever seen. I can't speak for anyone else but it became unbearable for me, a lifelong Democrat, to remain a part of this new Democrat party. Obama went around blowing up people with drones, American citizen included, and y'all want to question whether Trump had the authority to capture Maduro? You want to cry about boats full of narcotics being blown up? No wonder, you defend any and everything opposed to Donald Trump even if it is not in your best interest to do so. Just imagine how different your opinion would be if it were Biden or Obama carrying out these operations.

The man is a narco terrorist. His country is directly involved in the trafficking of drugs into the US. He was indicted by the Biden Administration for these crimes. We have 100s of thousands of deaths within the US directly attributed to illegal drug use. He has massive oil reserves he uses to fund his illegal operations. He perpetuates the influence of our enemies in our own backyard. He sent many of the most dangerous and undesirable people he had in his country into the US when Biden opened the border to whomever wanted to come, and people want to bitch about him being arrested? I guess a foreign leader can commit whatever crimes they want against the US but as long as they stay within their own country there is nothing that can be done about it short of going to war? Wrong.

And all this has gone on year after year after year, among many other things, while a bunch of do-nothing politicians sit back a watch while massive damage is committed against the US...all the while being re-elected by supports who have been convinced to hate the other party more that the incompetence of the politicians within their own.

Unless you feel it is good for narco terrorists to control countries while pumping their drugs into the US killing citizen after citizen. Unless you feel it is good for there to exist an open border between us and them...then why don't you get on the right side of things? Why don't you stop defending people who deserve no such defense such as narco terrorists, Somali fraudsters, career criminals who roam our streets, or incompetent at best, corrupt at worst, US politicians? How about quit letting party affiliation dictate what is good and what is bad, what needs be supported and what doesn't?

If you know you would support an action carried out by the party you support and oppose the exact same action if carried out by the party you don't, then you need to get your priorities straight. And that goes in both directions, Democrats and Republicans.
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Sorry to lose another lifelong Democrat.
 
SnoopRob said:
Let me be clear by what I meant, as I obviously didn't spend any actual space defining it.

Maduro was almost certainly in power illegally as the 2024 election was almost certainly not legitimate. For that reason, the US (along with lots of other countries) has some interest in seeing Maduro removed from power and legitimate elections held in Venezuela with the actual results respected by all.

Nothing in that supports the US taking any sort of military or other direct action toward regime change in the country. The US's role - along with many others - should be supporting legitimate elections and legitimate transitions of power based on those elections without concern for the particulars of who wins those elections and then holds those offices.
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I get what you’re saying. The issue is, in practice, “supporting legitimate elections” hasn’t really meant neutrality or non-intervention. Instead, it has meant recognizing a parallel government, freezing Venezuelan state assets, imposing crippling sanctions, openly backing one faction of the opposition, and declaring in advance which outcomes are acceptable. That is, in essence, regime change. It just happens through coercion rather than open invasion.

I’m not denying that the 2024 election was fraudulent. The point is that an illegitimate election does not transfer sovereignty to Washington; it creates a crisis of legitimacy that Venezuelans have to resolve internally. After all, we’ve seen “support for democracy” invoked time and time again by the U.S. to justify the removal of leaders who challenge U.S. economic and political dominance in Latin America, with devastating consequences for the societies involved. Given that history, skepticism toward U.S.-managed “transitions” is more than justified.

If sovereignty means anything, then Venezuelans must decide legitimacy, timing, and outcomes themselves. Fraud doesn’t justify sanctions that punish the population, asset seizures that pre-decide the future government’s constraints, or “recognition” games that collapse politics into a single U.S.-approved path. Otherwise “supporting democracy” just becomes a euphemism for enforcing outcomes the U.S. prefers and calling the result legitimate after the fact.
 
Ramrouser said:
Why cant y’all simply celebrate this “win” for the USA? This hurts China and may be the final nail in the coffin for the dictatorships in Iran and Cuba?

Plus, the Venezuelans sure seem happy today.
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Lol. This sort of simpleton view is precisely why 70 million of you morons put the most dangerous president in U.S. history in office. Twice.
 
Paine said:
I get what you’re saying. The issue is, in practice, “supporting legitimate elections” hasn’t really meant neutrality or non-intervention. Instead, it has meant recognizing a parallel government, freezing Venezuelan state assets, imposing crippling sanctions, openly backing one faction of the opposition, and declaring in advance which outcomes are acceptable. That is, in essence, regime change. It just happens through coercion rather than open invasion.

I’m not denying that the 2024 election was fraudulent. The point is that an illegitimate election does not transfer sovereignty to Washington; it creates a crisis of legitimacy that Venezuelans have to resolve internally. After all, we’ve seen “support for democracy” invoked time and time again by the U.S. to justify the removal of leaders who challenge U.S. economic and political dominance in Latin America, with devastating consequences for the societies involved. Given that history, skepticism toward U.S.-managed “transitions” is more than justified.

If sovereignty means anything, then Venezuelans must decide legitimacy, timing, and outcomes themselves. Fraud doesn’t justify sanctions that punish the population, asset seizures that pre-decide the future government’s constraints, or “recognition” games that collapse politics into a single U.S.-approved path. Otherwise “supporting democracy” just becomes a euphemism for enforcing outcomes the U.S. prefers and calling the result legitimate after the fact.
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I understand your perspective on the issue.

I would state that the US and others have an interest in ensuring fair/free elections everywhere in the world and setting repercussions when fair/free elections do not happen. Of course, as you note, the challenge is often supporting fair/free elections without putting a thumb on scale (or worse) in terms of outcomes (while also holding all countries to a baseline of standards regarding their domestic and international actions).

Beyond that description, I have less than 0 interest in the discussion you're pushing here and won't be engaging in it.
 
Paine said:
I get what you’re saying. The issue is, in practice, “supporting legitimate elections” hasn’t really meant neutrality or non-intervention. Instead, it has meant recognizing a parallel government, freezing Venezuelan state assets, imposing crippling sanctions, openly backing one faction of the opposition, and declaring in advance which outcomes are acceptable. That is, in essence, regime change. It just happens through coercion rather than open invasion.

If sovereignty means anything, then Venezuelans must decide legitimacy, timing, and outcomes themselves. Fraud doesn’t justify sanctions that punish the population, asset seizures that pre-decide the future government’s constraints, or “recognition” games that collapse politics into a single U.S.-approved path. Otherwise “supporting democracy” just becomes a euphemism for enforcing outcomes the U.S. prefers and calling the result legitimate after the fact.
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I 99% agree with you when it comes to the history of US intervention in Latin America. One honest question though - would you say the same about US sanctions/coercion that have been used against Putin in Russia for many years? In other words, are you saying that sanctions (which inevitably affect the population) and other coercive measures meant to put pressure on illegitimate/tyrannical governments are never appropriate? Or just that US justification for using those measures in Latin American has historically been particularly weak/contrived (which I don't necessarily disagree with)?
 
1moretimeagain said:
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That also looks exactly like the President George W. Bush administration plan for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Lots of planning for the invasion and conquest, and practically zero planning for the longer-term consequences or what to do after Iraq was occupied. And we all saw what a cluster**** that quickly turned into.
 
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