Remember the 'Arab spring' and what came after.
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/the-united-states-hist...
edit: typo
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.
Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured in an unannounced/unnamed military operation by a superpower is wrong from a principled standpoint, and that it’s destabilising a country with 30+ million people if not the entire region.
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...
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.
Maduro is not good for Venezuela.
The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
The US is giving another clear message that it does not care about global order, just global control. We're back in the 70s.
There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, its a power play, if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes. Pinochet, The Brazilian regime are all here as testament to that.
I hope the power change turns out better for the Venezuelans. I hope this is a catalyst of change for a better government. Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do or if it will have negative implications in the future. I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
Having said that, international law is a myth. At the power level of nation states what we have is basically anarchy where interests is what matters. Not saying its right or wrong but it is what it is.
Ah ok, so this was about China. MAGA's fixation on China is certainly going to lead to more instability.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
Let's hope Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Russia follow soon.
Such self centric view that usually leads to dark places.
I'm surprised Maduro wasn't just killed, and wonder if he might somehow die in US custody. The US will have to make a case in court while the whole world watches. That will be embarrassing I expect.
--Chef Ramsay
The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election', 'protecting interests', 'restoring order'. The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.
The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable."
-Jose Mario
https://bsky.app/profile/cristianfarias.com/post/3mbjlwkmb6c...
No? Oh... just checking.
Or it's just banking oil to prepare a war with China.
Thank FSM some AI-first is going to create fusion any time soon to power the robots solving climate change.
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” ― George Orwell
Prof. Philips P Obrien's analysis is an interesting one, also highlighting Cuba's reliance on Venezuelan oil, which complicates the situation further.
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...
John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
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 ?
Congress practically matters when significant mobilization, boots on the ground, money, with high likelihood of many lives lost. Iraq. Not random one-off adventures.
Otherwise modern Presidents have done this thing for decades.
I think it’s more an effective argument to question this as a policy. As in “is there a plan for what comes next”. Congress should be holding hearings and performing oversight to understand whether theres actually a plan and to allow debate.
[0] https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8...
The Zen master replies, "We'll see".
The boy falls while riding the horse, breaks his leg. Villagers say, "How terrible!"
The master says, "We'll see".
War comes, all young men are drafted, but the boy is spared due to his leg. Villagers say, "How lucky!"
The master says, "We'll see".
As for the rest of the us, I suppose now we should sanction the US
I can only hope there's a plan for what happens in Venezuela now. But I'm certain that as long as it isn't a protracted war with millions dead, it is better for everyone than what's going on in Ukraine.
I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s, when the world felt like it was going towards a brighter age of peace and respect. Berlin wall falling, China opening, Apartheid ending in South Africa, even Palestine and Israel were moving towards a more peaceful future.
But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages.
General public not caring anymore about any tragedy, it's just news, general public being fine with their press freedom being eroded, journalists being spied and targeted, more and more conflicts all around.
I just don't see nor feel we're heading where we should considering how developed and rich we are.
We should boast in how well we raise our kids, how safe and healthy our cities are, but it's nothing but ego, ego, money and money.
This is all turning worse and worse.
1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night.
3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
5. There is still stability because most of the people in charge are still there. Only the illegitimate president is gone. Venezuela can have a real election now.
American anti human parasites are curse of this planet.
How do you run a country without invading it or at least having a puppet regime already in place?
1. Don't acknowledge the problem directly.
2. Take over Venezuela's GDP by benevolent force or whatever he is calling it.
3. Pay off the debt interest with new funding windfall.
4. Profit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. If you're looking for bias, he is neither American nor lives in the US.
US flexing its muscles and showing that it's in charge of its "backyard", just as it always has been.
Please don't insult our intelligence with comments about how this is about justice, drugs, or democracy. I've lived long enough to have seen this movie many times.
So we know what many Red-Hats are seeing right now.
The "president of peace," everybody!
What I'm seeing is a breakdown in the ability to hold consistent principles across contexts. The same people who condemned Russian actions in Ukraine are now making "realpolitik" arguments about Venezuela. The same people who claim to oppose foreign intervention are now calculating whether this was "done cleanly enough." Positions seem determined entirely by tribal affiliation rather than any coherent framework about sovereignty, international law, or the use of military force.
There's also a striking historical amnesia at work. The US has been running this exact playbook in Latin America for over a century. We have extensive data on how these interventions typically unfold, what the second and third-order effects tend to be, and how the initial justifications relate to the actual outcomes. Yet that entire body of evidence seems to have evaporated from the conversation. People are reasoning about this as if it's a novel situation requiring fresh analysis, rather than a well-worn pattern.
Most concerning is the casual normalization. We're discussing whether it's "justified" to invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader as if this is a routine policy question. The window of what's considered shocking has shifted so far that outright imperial aggression gets the same treatment as a zoning dispute. When someone points out we didn't even attempt to follow Constitutional requirements for declaring war, the response is essentially "yeah, we stopped doing that decades ago, so what?"
The nihilism is the most insidious part. "What are we supposed to do about it?" Well, at minimum, we could refuse to let the Overton window keep drifting. We could maintain some continuity of ethical standards. We could recognize power plays for what they are instead of generating elaborate post-hoc rationalizations about democracy and narcotics.
The question isn't whether Maduro is a dictator (he is) or whether this particular operation succeeded tactically (it apparently did). The question is whether we've collectively lost the capacity to see what we're actually doing and where this pattern of behavior leads.
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...
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?
One of my friends is my motorcycle mechanic, met him in 2015 when I bought my first KTM, still my mechanic to this day. A lot of the bike services I stayed with him talking while he worked, I listened to a lot of his stories from back in the day, why he had to run, why his family stayed, how he had to send money to them to eat and some other horror stories.
In the name of my friends, if you think what happened today is bad, you can respectfully go fuck yourself.
Venezuela has lots of oil and drugs. If different factions fight between themselves there's no reason you couldn't end up with a divided and dangerous country that in some ways could be worse for the people than Maduro.
The best way for "oppressed" people to be liberated is through some joint effort by parties that really want to help out and assume responsibility, or by supporting a revolution that naturally takes over. I don't think there's been any cases of success from this process of forcibly removing the dictator, and crossing your fingers that things will go well.
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.
With this USA is essentially saying that "see I can just walk into your home and no one will stop me, so better do as I say".
I will be surprised if USA tries to land ground troops into that country. Running the country, I suspect, will be extremely ugly for USA. OTOH, if they can just coerce the existing government into giving them exactly what they want, then it would certainly be mission accomplished.
It's all a huge gamble, and will depend on how obstinate the Venezuelan setup is.
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible. "
It will be interesting to observe how the aftermath unfolds. If the US succeeds in installing a gov't which gains some level of legitimacy, perhaps by stoking the economy, then this will be a significant win for the US. If not, it will be a strong "the US is the newish sick man" signal.
That said, it's one thing to pull this in Venezuela, another thing to annex Greenland.
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.
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6819579-Maduro-Indic...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
I’m not going to do that today. It’s sunny, and I want to spend time with family. Being naive about this topic doesn’t affect the core of things I want to be knowledgeable about. And the reality is, having a vote only gives me nominally more agency over US foreign policy than someone who can’t vote. I am mostly just observing.
The "narco-terrorism" charges are a legal fig leaf. The real drivers appear to be oil (Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves), geopolitical positioning (removing a Russian/Chinese/Iranian ally from the hemisphere), domestic politics (Trump wants a "win" and to appear strong), and what seems like a personal vendetta given how publicly Trump has obsessed about Maduro.
What's disturbing goes beyond the act itself. Trump literally said the U.S. will "run Venezuela"—not "support democracy," not "help transition"—run the country. That's colonial language with no euphemism.
There was no Congressional authorization. This violates the War Powers Act at minimum. If a president can unilaterally invade a country, kidnap its leader, and declare we're taking control, what's the limiting principle? Where does this stop?
The mask is completely off. Previous imperial adventures at least performed the ritual of justification, built coalitions, went through motions at the UN. This is naked power. Trump explicitly mentioned oil, saying American companies will "invest billions" to "refurbish" Venezuela's oil industry. He's just admitting it openly.
What we're witnessing is the final abandonment of even the performance of international norms. The question isn't whether this is legal or justified—it clearly isn't. The question is whether there are any remaining constraints on executive power when it comes to foreign military action.
Good times
And had a good laugh
Would anyone care to offer a genuinely held counter argument? Preferably based on legal expertise.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/is-there-any-l...
President DONALD J. TRUMP“
Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.
Right, Russia, who has been attacking Ukraine not just for one night, but for four years, is now going to lecture the US about violations of sovereignty. Their moral high ground, if they ever had any, is long gone.
I'm not sad if Maduro's gone. I'm even less sad if this results in actual freedom for Venezuela after 20 years of nightmare.
But I am not happy about the president of the US, on his own authority, choosing to remove the head of other countries, on rather flimsy pretexts. (If he presents actual evidence that Maduro was actively and deliberately shipping drugs to the US, or worse, criminals, then I will change my opinion. But I need evidence, not just claims and bluster.)
I personally think this quote explains the Trump administration’s worldview far better than anything Trump himself would say.
I'm sorry but "possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
When did this happen exactly ??
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Now, it's also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.
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.
This is a horrifying way for any country to act, and millions of people will be hurt. Truly a travesty of the greatest order.
Pretty incredible
Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.
Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?
Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.
Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.
So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".
This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.
Not Venezuelan helicopters...
2. Reduce price of Gas in USA.
3. Everyone will celebrate
4. Next election. > 80% majority.
Similarly, how does picking on much weaker countries (some of whom are allies) seem tough to anyone? In my view it's ugly and shows weakness rather than strength.
Come back in 3 years and tell me if i was right.
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.
Thank you, I guess, for allowing the rest of us to talk about whatever we want.
should be
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US authoritarian government ..."
or (better, really)
"Venezuela has accused the US ..."
The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.
Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."
Can't we call a kidnapping what it is?
overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants
hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..
To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.
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.
Iran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????
what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??
Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!
The other takeaway: if you have oil, and no nukes, in due course, the US will come to steal it.
Any country that doesn't invest in its own tech stack gets what it deserves. This is information superiority in action; made possible by the deep proliferation of American technology. The US is now leveraging information warfare for what used to require physical force. The difference is stark. We've seen it with the Hezbollah pager attacks, high-profile targeting in Iran, and now this.
Natural selection in progress.
It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.
Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!
(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)
Will BP want “their” fields back?
I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.
But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.
Maduro is a dictator who stayed in power by force after losing an election. No one who believes in democracy should mourn his fall. Trump's pretexts and potential geopolitical deals especially w Russia deserve scrutiny, but the Venezuelan people deserve a chance at freedom.
As with everything Trump does, his motivations will be about personal power and enrichment. This does not contradict that Maduro was an illegitimate thug allied with others like him. However his removal was arranged (deal?) it shakes the global forces of dictatorship.
Condemning a nation's people to authoritarianism and repression because of potential bad outcomes after the fall of their dictator is a free world observer's luxury. Democracy and prosperity can never be guaranteed, but the opportunities for them should be promoted.
Seeing how various other cases have went (James Comey, Letitia James) in this administration run by loyalists, what are the chances that he's acquitted due to prosecutorial incompetence?
0: https://xcancel.com/AGPamBondi/status/2007428087143686611
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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-...
The latest US mass theft and aggression is far from surprising to anyone that studied south American history. Trump just drops the humanitarian pretexts, but the act itself is exactly in line with how US treats South America.
Good to know that possession of machine guns is finally being made illegal by the US!
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.
2. President for peace he never has (silly FIFA award aside).
3. They’re more interested in oil than any other stated goals.
4. This is straight out of the republican playbook of tanking the economy and using a war to distract from it and prop up defense contractors.
5. US regime changes are always a disaster.
He should have learned from the example of the ex Honduran president who was recently pardoned by Trump.
What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?
Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
Hopefully this act will also have a chilling effect on other vile left wing dictators like those in North Korea and Cuba
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
1. That previous justifications in the lead up to this event are now irrelevant or to be ignored or forgotten about ('narco-terrorism', 'it's our oil', 'sanctions busting', etc).
- These were all weak to begin with (but are still relevant because the truth is in there and stated almost explicitly - i.e. 'US interests').
2. That this attack on Venezuelan sovereignty was done for moral reasons ('bad regime').
- Even accepting that the government of Venezuela is a 'bad regime', this is insufficient - there are many arguably much worse governments in the world.
3. That might is right.
- Correct in some sense but morally bereft.
All in all a lot of post-facto nonsense on display.
I'm frankly appalled at the self-serving moral blindness on display here. I refuse to believe that people are arguing in good faith here. Disappointing to see from the otherwise thoughtful commenters on this site.
To anyone making the above arguments, let me ask you - what do you think of the saying "do unto others as you would have done unto you"?
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.
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
Best it be a puny helpless country, so nobody (important) gets killed. Just some brown folk from South America, nobody cares about them.
Anything to serve the ego; absolutely no crime or moral outrage is off-limits. Long as it serves that endless pit that is ego.
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?
There is a war coming. A larger war.
Can Maduro just pay off Trump for a pardon, like Juan did?
Or is it really. Honduras doesn't have oil?
Venezuela is playing the usual card about America trying to seize oil; US playing usual card about narcotics. You can believe what you want, or buy into whatever mainstream narrative you want, I’m not here to judge, but I’ve seen these cards played out so many times in my lifetime.
Neither makes sense to me for this level of resistance and response from the US. I have a feeling this has to do far more with Iran, Russia, and China, than Venezuela/drugs.
For instance next-door, China is active around the Darien gap region, developing roads and highways. Allegedly this is for port infrastructure, but given Chinese history of low intensity conflicts and island building techniques in the South China sea, this could be a land version of that strategy.
I need to read up about Venezuelan and Iranian Russian connections and interactions. I think the most underrated piece of news is the seizure of tankers under embargo, with blowing up drug boats as the distraction.
One thing is for sure; even the most hard core right of uneasy to support Trump in a new war, and Trump has publicly lamented the expense (of all things) of war.
Myself: no thanks. No more wars please.
A) Maduro negotiated some deal for himself and his family.
B) His whole military leadership sold him out.
(A) Makes sense if you assume that he had no other exit strategies. If he could have fled to Russia, he'd already done that. I'm thinking that Trump pressed hard on Putin not to take him. With no strong allies left, there's no exit for him. At best he'd be exposed to full-scale invasion by the US, civil war, or other internal power struggles.
(B) Makes sense if you assume that someone simply took the bait, and were flown out of Venezuela with the US operatives. But from a military perspective, it wouldn't be easy - any serious country has contingency plans, and there are many moving parts. Obviously one (or many) generals could provide these things in great detail, but there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel that will stick to their procedures once shit hits the fan.
From what I've seen, some airstrikes took out AA systems. And there's been reported some fighting back.
I don't know. (A) sounds a bit more likely to me. By any measure, the man was backed into a corner. I think his hail marry was for Putin to offer to save him. But that never happened...a big clue will be how Russia, and the Russian disinformation campaigns react to this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
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.
When Trumpistan invades Venezuela it is also imperialism, regardless of its "reasons".
It seems that every 20 years the Americans forget the lessons from the wars 20 years ago.
I only hope a lot of Americans die, if that is the price to pay to avoid them to invading other countries and stop their imperialism.
I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.
Wag the Dog.
trump: drugs or something. but mainly we need the oil so if they won't give us the oil we'll just take the oil. who's gona stop us, canada? lol
This is an invasion for oil, nothing to do with drugs since they come from Mexico, and that propaganda is weak. And nothing to do with Maduro being a dictator or anything similar since each one of our politicians is objectively worse than him, I wish this was an exgeration, but when you look at the Epstein files, even the few unredacted things found there (and most of them are redacted) make it obvious that we are literally ruled by criminals.
Now you either look at it as it is, and accept that Santa isn't real, and that life is hard, and we are greedy, and we don't care about other people, and then you stop the moralizing when you do nothing about it, or you keep gobbling up the lie after lie, that Murica is the good guy, and everyone else is evil, and that all Murica's wars are moral and bringing freedom and liberating those third worlders.
TLDR: free your mind before you talk about freeing others (which is ironic because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm also writing this message for myself).
In normal parlance, this is an act of war.
r/venezuela is one placce to start. Very different tone there than the ill informed commenters here ( and I say that with detest for “that other site”)
Hopefully the Venezuelan people will have a fighting change to restore their country now.
Time will tell I suppose.
How are any of us better for this? How is this better than Facebook's engagement-bait?
Peace. Out.
Regardless of how retarded maduro was, "i felt like it" should not be justifiable reason to kidnap a president of a different country on their own turf.
Maybe i felt better about that if trump wasnt in bed with another dictator.
Neither the republican nor democrat base wanted this. There wasn't even an attempt at justification, the drugs argument was a complete and utter joke. They could at least do a little false flag attack.
If voting does it solve it what does?
2. Trump: (2018) We don't want to be the policemen of the world BY BRETT SAMUELS - 04/30/18 [0]
> President Trump on Monday said the U.S. should no longer serve as the “policemen of the world.”
> “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
> “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority,” he said.
> Trump ran on the promise that he would extricate the U.S. from foreign wars.
[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385521-trump-we-...
Hernàndez was captured by Biden. Trump pardoned him because Biden bad.
This world is a shitshow. Honestly, I am GenX and always read of wars and tensions as historical artefacts (there were wars, but localized and far away from France).
Now I am seriously wondering if this is going to end well for us over here. I do not work that much about myself, I had an interesting life, but rather about my children whom I now start to regret. I did not expect to hand them a world like this one.
I know, global warming was there but I was 30 and was looking my close surroundings. My bad. This said, if I know what the world would be today I wrote reconsider having them.
Venezuelans, I'm sorry my shithole country is about to inflict a fascist puppet state on you. Nobody here gives enough of a shit despite all the chest-thumping and "MUH LIBERTY TREE". We'd rather have drum circles and ask for permission to dissent.
National sovereignty is a fundamental principle of international law and cannot be selectively applied according to the interests of global powers. Donald Trump’s threats and aggressive rhetoric toward Venezuela undermine this principle by treating a nation’s self-determination as negotiable. Criticizing this stance does not mean endorsing the Venezuelan government, but acknowledging that sanctions, intimidation, and external pressure rarely affect political elites and instead harm ordinary people, deepening humanitarian crises.
Latin American history reveals a recurring pattern of foreign interference framed as the defense of democracy. From a moral standpoint, collective punishment and imposed solutions are indefensible. If such actions would be unacceptable when directed at the United States, they cannot be justified against Venezuela. A responsible international approach requires multilateral dialogue, international mediation, and genuine respect for the sovereignty of nations.
More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country, one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. They are celebrating. You are being critical. That alone should give pause.
Those condemning this action (and almost defending the oppressors) have never:
- Lived under a dictatorship where dissent leads to prison, torture, rape or disappearance
- Watched the military and police become criminal enterprises
- Seen private property and entire industries seized by the state, as happened under Chávez and Maduro
- Experienced the collapse that follows decades of corruption, repression, and ideological control
If you claim to care about migrants, human rights, or the oppressed, you cannot only care after people escape. You cannot oppose every serious attempt to end regimes that jail, torture, and kill their own citizens while calling yourself humanitarian. That is not morality, it’s distance.
Is oil involved? Of course. Venezuela’s oil industry, built with foreign investment, was expropriated, looted, and mismanaged into ruin. But this is also about state-backed criminal networks, narcotrafficking, and regional destabilization that have killed hundreds of thousands beyond Venezuela’s borders.
If you had lived under these conditions, if your family had been broken by fear, disappearance, or exile, you would not be citing abstract “international law” to defend your oppressors. You would be hoping, every night, that someone powerful enough would intervene.
What’s missing here isn’t compassion. It is context.
Before defending dictators from the safety of a functioning democracy, have the self-awareness to ask whether you understand the reality you’re judging. Otherwise what comes through isn’t moral clarity, it’s ignorance dressed up as virtue.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=venezuelan+cele...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reacciones+de+v...
Yes—there are very clear, recurring *themes*, and what’s striking is how consistently people keep circling the same fault lines from different angles. I’d group them like this:
---
## 1. *Legality vs. Morality*
*Core tension:*
> Is overthrowing a dictator morally right even if it violates international law?
* One side argues law exists precisely to restrain power, not to reward virtue. * The other argues moral urgency overrides abstract legalism when human suffering is extreme. * This becomes a meta-question: Who decides when morality trumps law?
This is the philosophical backbone of the entire thread.
---
## 2. *Precedent Anxiety*
*“Today Maduro, tomorrow anything.”*
* Fear that once unilateral regime change is normalized, the justification becomes infinitely elastic:
* “correcting elections”
* “restoring order”
* “protecting interests”This is less about Venezuela than about *future permission structures*.
---
## 3. *Outcomes Over Intentions*
*Ends don’t redeem means if outcomes are catastrophic.*
* Even commenters who despise Maduro emphasize:
* removing a dictator is easy
* building a functioning state is hardThis is pragmatic pessimism rather than ideological purity.
---
## 4. *American Power & Self-Deception*
*A recurring, uncomfortable self-indictment.*
* Several comments converge on the idea that:
* Americans benefit materially from interventionism
* but psychologically disavow responsibility for the costsThis becomes a debate about *collective guilt vs. structural impotence*.
---
## 5. *Realpolitik vs. Institutionalism*
*Power acting directly vs. power constrained by process.*
* Appeals to ICC, UN, asylum frameworks represent belief in institutions. * Skeptics argue those institutions are deliberately weakened by the same powers invoking morality. * Others argue asylum and invasion are orthogonal issues—and conflating them is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Underlying question: Is global governance real, or decorative?
---
## 6. *Lived Experience vs. Abstract Judgment*
*Who gets moral authority?*
* “Those who’ve never lived under dictatorship say this.” * Counter: “Those who never lived through US intervention say that.” * Venezuelans in-thread complicate narratives of total collapse or total liberation. * Firsthand testimony destabilizes neat moral binaries.
This creates epistemic friction: *whose suffering counts as evidence?*
---
## 7. *Cynicism About Motives*
*Oil never disappears from the conversation.*
* Even when people argue it’s not literally about barrels of crude, they frame it as:
* control
* leverage
* profit flows
* contractor ecosystemsSeveral commenters note the lack of even performative moral cover.
---
## 8. *Democratic Exhaustion*
*A sense that democracy is no longer the brake it claims to be.*
* Rapid escalation vs. slow electoral correction * Legislatures perceived as compliant or irrelevant * No clear mechanism for popular restraint short of catastrophe
This feeds resignation rather than outrage.
---
## 9. *Historical Echoes & Decline Narratives*
*“We’ve seen this movie.”*
* Arab Spring * Iraq * Libya * Panama (Noriega)
History is invoked less as analogy and more as *warning fatigue*—people feel trapped in a loop.
---
## 10. *A Deeper Subtext: Loss of Moral Coherence*
Perhaps the most important theme:
> The argument isn’t about whether Maduro is bad. > It’s about whether the system judging him is still capable of moral credibility.
That’s why the thread feels less like debate and more like *collective unease*.
---
### If you zoom out:
This isn’t really a Venezuela thread. It’s a conversation about *power without trust*, *law without enforcement*, and *morality without consensus*—and whether any of those concepts still function in the current world order.
If you wanted to fictionalize this, it wouldn’t be a war story. It would be a story about *people arguing at the edge of legitimacy*, trying to decide whether the rules still mean anything once the strong stop pretending they do.
Trump is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He admires dictators like Putin and wanted to emulate his invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Miller is pure evil, and Hegseth is a fool, so they came up with a pretext to attack Venezuela. All of this conveniently distracts from the Epstein files.
Nothing that's happened is justified, legal or rational. It's just the egos of idiots who should not be in power.
We need regime change in the U.S. immediately.
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.
His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
In reality, he's building out Imperium Americanum, he is fighting wars without Congressional approval and proper casus bellis, he's not bringing the troops home and it is clear he represents the fucking Deep State even more than any of his predecessors since JFK. Shame on him for renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center. Which is absolutely disgusting given the reality of things!
Prime example: Invading Venezuela to steal their oil, just like his predecessors did with Syria (if you do not believe me, look where the US Army is located in Syria, and the prime locations of their oil fields).
Additionally: Trump's United States now has given Putin's Russia and Xi's China precedent to do whatever they fucking want to whoever or whatever. Because who fucking cares about international law if even the United States government, home of freedom and democracy and the rule of law, currently doesn't even give a fuck?
So now fucking what?
(And yes, as you might have noticed I AM FURIOUS AS HELL.)
"Fuck venezuelans, how can you capture a dictator, that violates a law no one gives a fuck about". You should be really happy how Trump treats putin, like a dear friend, not violating any law. I hope marines will raid kremlin next.
Please US citizens, grow up. There had been a time when you were admired and respected, now your country is killing the world.
Like, holy classified military secrets Batman!
That doesn't mean things can't get worse.
I pray the majority of Venezuelans really have had enough of socialist dictatorships and can find a way to govern themselves. The US should not govern Venezuela - but neither should Maduro or his cronies.
This can only be good news for the Venezuelans, having lived in such poor conditions for so long. Soon they will be able to go to McDonald's, drink Starbucks, and maybe one day if they really prove themselves to have that special drive and spirit that only Americans have, apply for US citizenship!
Wishing the new cold war will be equally bloodless all along
Right? Right?
Look, this is getting tiring. You have no idea what the people in this country went through and they might as well see it as a "good thing". I think the same applies to Iran, an intervention by the US could be the best thing that ever happened in these countries, so the "legality" issue doesn't quite sound warranted in my opinion.