US strikes Venezuela / Captures Maduro

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Gmonet said:
Wait what? There is no modern history of aggression from Japan to China? I agree they are likely no current threat but holy crap w/r/t the relative (and fairly recent) history of Japanese depredations towards the Chinese and that of, checks notes, Venezuela towards the US😆. Or Ukraine towards Russia for that matter.

This whole 'Maduro/Venezuela is a threat' is such total horseshit. The drug trade is irrelevant (and frankly who cares, it's nose candy to dilettantes, tell them to stop taking it). And they are sitting on a bunch of nasty tar - lots of it, granted - that can pretty much only be refined in the US. China might be able to do some, but then that would mean they buy less from Russia. Venezuela is meaningless in terms of national security.
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I don't consider WWII recent.

We just disagree on the drug trade being irrelevant. Drugs, while being illegal by itself, breeds other crime that seems to always find the US, and trump campaigned on going after the cartels, including using the military. But that isn't the threat to national security I'm referring to. I'm referring to the puppet state Ven was becoming due to its reliance on china / russia to prop it up and the invitation that gave to a china / russia presence 1300 miles from our border.
 
Callatoroy said:
Sorry, I thought my answer was implied in the part about nuance. Meaning this situation and the hypothetical situation were different and had much different variables.

No, I would not be OK. Japan, SK, and Taiwan pose no threat to china's national security. They are not bad actors, They are not propagating drugs / crime within china's borders. There is no modern history of aggression from them to china. They are all democracies with enough history to achieve stability. I don't think you can compare the two situations as a justification to oppose removing madura. Apples / oranges
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You can't even keep your story straight. Your prior posts talk about the US having a national security interest in keeping China and Russia from building influence in Venezuela and buying commodities from them. Now your answer here ignores that logic and says our justification was based on Venezuela "propagating drugs / crime" within our borders and somehow having a history of aggression towards us (when?) when you need to distinguish the situation from Russia or China attacking their neighbors to fight against the US influence there. Is the answer that it's OK to attack a neighboring country to reduce your adversaries' influence there, but only when that foreign country is also exporting drugs into your own country and doesn't have a sufficient history of democracy?

In trying to defend the admin's actions you're revealing the absurdity of the justifications. You can't focus on "it's about drugs and immigration and arresting a criminal" for purposes of the legal justification then switch to "it's about preventing Russia/China from having resources" when talking about the foreign polcy big-picture. This is the classic Trumpian messaging strategy where he just openly broadcasts different, contradictory messages because it is in his interests to have some people buy one explanation and some people buy another.
 
Callatoroy said:
But that isn't the threat to national security I'm referring to. I'm referring to the puppet state Ven was becoming due to its reliance on china / russia to prop it up and the invitation that gave to a china / russia presence 1300 miles from our border.
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Hey look, the goalposts have moved back again. How do you explain why the US has a valid, justifiable right to attack countries 1300 miles away from us to ensure that Russia/China don't have a "presence" there but China/Russia don't have a valid, justifiable right to attack countries much closer to them that have massive US military presences there?
 
Callatoroy said:
I don't consider WWII recent.

We just disagree on the drug trade being irrelevant. Drugs, while being illegal by itself, breeds other crime that seems to always find the US, and trump campaigned on going after the cartels, including using the military. But that isn't the threat to national security I'm referring to. I'm referring to the puppet state Ven was becoming due to its reliance on china / russia to prop it up and the invitation that gave to a china / russia presence 1300 miles from our border.
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There are people in China born from victims of Japanese rape after battle during WWII or descended from Chinese "comfort women" forced into Japanese brothels. That's just a fucking stupid opinion.
 
Callatoroy said:
I don't consider WWII recent.

We just disagree on the drug trade being irrelevant. Drugs, while being illegal by itself, breeds other crime that seems to always find the US, and trump campaigned on going after the cartels, including using the military. But that isn't the threat to national security I'm referring to. I'm referring to the puppet state Ven was becoming due to its reliance on china / russia to prop it up and the invitation that gave to a china / russia presence 1300 miles from our border.
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You're clearly not concerned with the harm done by crime to the USA.
 
rodoheel said:
I thought your position was that we merely arrested a criminal, pursuant to which we incidentally dropped some bombs and killed a few dozen people, not that we "forced regime change." Which is it?
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Well, we forced out the person impersonating the President to put the correct President into place. That's essentially a change from an illegitimate regime to the elected regime.
rodoheel said:
Perhaps a better question, then, would be: what gives us the right to enter Venezuela forcibly and "force regime change" in the first place? Is it your position that we can do that wherever we want, for whatever reason?
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I don't think all situations are the same, so I won't say all regime change is bad or good. Were we right to go into Iraq? Probably not. Were we more right to take Noriega? Probably.
 
ZenMode said:
Well, we forced out the person impersonating the President to put the correct President into place. That's essentially a change from an illegitimate regime to the elected regime.

I don't think all situations are the same, so I won't say all regime change is bad or good. Were we right to go into Iraq? Probably not. Were we more right to take Noriega? Probably.
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Delcy Rodriguez represents the elected regime?
 
ZenMode said:
Well, we forced out the person impersonating the President to put the correct President into place. That's essentially a change from an illegitimate regime to the elected regime.
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Who is the correct president we put into place? Maduro's long-serving VP is currently the acting President. She is not any more legitimately elected than Maduro.
 
ZenMode said:
Well, we forced out the person impersonating the President to put the correct President into place. That's essentially a change from an illegitimate regime to the elected regime.
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WTF are you talking about? The new president is Maduro's VP, not the man who rightfully won the last election or the woman who would have if she wasn't in exile, because Trump doesn't think she's popular enough (and since she stole his prize).
 
rodoheel said:
This is highly debatable, and according to most reputable legal scholars likely wrong, and you are asserting it like it's absolutely true. But in any event, that clearly isn't all that we did, and Trump and his admin are not trying to hide it. If all that we did was snatch a criminal for a police action, there would be no need to be talking about "regime change" and "getting the oil" and 'running the country." If all we were doing was bringing Maduro to stand trial, there would be no need for us to do any of that. There would be no need for Trump to have consulted oil execs about the operation before he consulted Congress.

There are no hidden dots to connect here. Trump and Miller are out in the open stating exactly what they did. They are openly stating it is not just a "police action" (in the process revealing their justification that you parroted uncritically in your post as a pretext and a lie). And it's quite telling that your entire argument on this point - that there is some "system" restraining Trump and Miller and whoever they want - is premised on repeating an obvious lie about what the goal of this operation was.
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I clearly stated I acknowledged the semantics involved for the justification of acting without notifying congress. I think most of the talk about regime change was coming from the left. I haven't paid attention today but yesterday the path forward was through the VP from the existing regime, along with some agreed upon (or demanded / extorted ) concessions. I think it was recognized that regime change would cause a destabilization and chaos.

My argument isn't in any way predicated on any stated goal about any operation. I never stated that. My argument is based on the fact that the citizenry of the country, form of g'ment, freedom of the press, constitution, modern history, etc. prevent any president from doing whatever the hell they want. I know that isn't believed by this board but it is inevitably true despite what you guys tell each other and the hyperbole. My assumption is that the last comment will draw pushback and rebuttal and so we don't get sidetracked I will preemptively say we just disagree and there is no harm in that.
 
rodoheel said:
Who is the correct president we put into place? Maduro's long-serving VP is currently the acting President. She is not any more legitimately elected than Maduro.
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Rodríguez and Maduro are still more legitimate than any U.S.-installed figure. The only person with even a colorable claim to electoral legitimacy is González, and even that’s uncertain given that we don’t actually know the verified results of the 2024 election.

Zen had a couple of days to get his shit together before coming here to stir the pot, yet he still doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. Typical.
 
rodoheel said:
You can't even keep your story straight. Your prior posts talk about the US having a national security interest in keeping China and Russia from building influence in Venezuela and buying commodities from them. Now your answer here ignores that logic and says our justification was based on Venezuela "propagating drugs / crime" within our borders and somehow having a history of aggression towards us (when?) when you need to distinguish the situation from Russia or China attacking their neighbors to fight against the US influence there. Is the answer that it's OK to attack a neighboring country to reduce your adversaries' influence there, but only when that foreign country is also exporting drugs into your own country and doesn't have a sufficient history of democracy?

In trying to defend the admin's actions you're revealing the absurdity of the justifications. You can't focus on "it's about drugs and immigration and arresting a criminal" for purposes of the legal justification then switch to "it's about preventing Russia/China from having resources" when talking about the foreign polcy big-picture. This is the classic Trumpian messaging strategy where he just openly broadcasts different, contradictory messages because it is in his interests to have some people buy one explanation and some people buy another.
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Don't understand why you can't grasp that both situations are in play. It isn't one or the other. I have been consistent in that and stated that in other posts.
 
rodoheel said:
Hey look, the goalposts have moved back again. How do you explain why the US has a valid, justifiable right to attack countries 1300 miles away from us to ensure that Russia/China don't have a "presence" there but China/Russia don't have a valid, justifiable right to attack countries much closer to them that have massive US military presences there?
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Don't know what to say if you can't distinguish the variables and nuance in the differences between the two.
finesse said:
There are people in China born from victims of Japanese rape after battle during WWII or descended from Chinese "comfort women" forced into Japanese brothels. That's just a fucking stupid opinion.
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Hope you and your family had a merry Christmas.
 
Callatoroy said:
I clearly stated I acknowledged the semantics involved for the justification of acting without notifying congress. I think most of the talk about regime change was coming from the left. I haven't paid attention today but yesterday the path forward was through the VP from the existing regime, along with some agreed upon (or demanded / extorted ) concessions. I think it was recognized that regime change would cause a destabilization and chaos.
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The 'regime change" talk is coming from Trump and his admin's public statements. They are saying we did this to keep the oil and run the country and all that stuff. Whether Trump would be justified in a police action to seize a criminal on foreign soil - highly debatable - is irrelevant when trump and his admin are constantly saying that is not why they did it.
 
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