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.
Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
> 3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
Concern:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.(
* https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/2007450814097305734#m
A more direct comparison would be if Mexico decided Trump's lies about the 2020 US election were correct and kidnapped Joe Biden and his wife.
You cant condone these actions and also claim to believe in the rule of law...
With enough guns, anything is possible.
1. Trump lies more than he tells the truth. What that means is that when this administration makes a claim, we must assume it is a lie, and then try to prove it's not a lie. Yes, this is the opposite of how it usually is and no, there is no other reasonable way to go about it.
2. Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world.
3. The oil Venezuela has is crude oil, which the US is adept at extracting.
4. There has been past tension between Venezuela and US oil companies, so I think we can all see where this is going.
5. Most US-backed coups are done for reasons outside of official statements. Usually economic and political control reasons.
6. Therefore, the most reasonable answer is that this was done for economic (oil) and political control reasons.
Assuming the US wants and will allow that. Which isn’t at all clear, given the desire to get a hold of Venezuelan oil.
they have already signaled that this is not what will be allowed to happen
The US goal is deprive China of access to Venezuelan oil. China is ~80% of all Venezuelan oil exports (legal or illegal). Venezuela represents a very large potential supply of oil for China, for the next 30-50 years (a time after which oil probably won't matter very much to China).
Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil. China & India mostly have got that output. The US spent trillions of dollars, used its super power military to fully invade and occupy Iraq, and then did not take its oil. Read that again if anybody still feels brainwashed from the false campaign that endlessly proclaimed the US invasion of Iraq was to Steal The Oil.
Iraq was about the great power conflict with Russia across the Middle East (see: Syria, Libya, etc).
Venezuela is about the great power conflict with China and controlling what the US considers its backyard.
First, our oil tends to be better for making gasoline but worse did asphalt or diesel, so there is a market for Venezuelan oil replacing Alberta’s.
Second, this is what the man himself has been talking about. He spent weeks going on about the nationalization in the 70s–and note how much of his worldview is stuck half a century ago when he was young—and in the first interview today he said this: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave.”
There are reasonable arguments about how much this is really worth but one thing we’ve learned is that he doesn’t do subterfuge or misdirection well. If he’s talking about making the world safe for Exxon, I’d bet that he believes it.
Actually it's just the exact opposite. The US might be the biggest oil producer, but it still imports 60% of its oil that it uses from Canada. Why is that? Apparently because US infrastructure was built for heavy oil, not the light version the US produces.
Well, well, well ... It just so happens that Venezuela sits on the worlds largest repository of heavy oil.
> Trump also said he believes that American companies will be “heavily involved” in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
Considering this was one of his first statements on what happened, I think it’s a clear signal for what his priorities are.
We are straight back to the Reagan years of toppling regimes for our own resource interests. There is no way we did this out of the kindness of our hearts or because we believe in open, free elections. We have clear material interests and he’s not even trying to hide it.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy (/s obviously) but let’s not pretend this was some sort of magnanimous gesture or that it shouldn’t be deeply concerning to their neighbors that the US has no problem attacking a sovereign nation’s capital city and making off with a country’s leader + family when we’re not even at war.
Again I am not losing sleep for Maduro specifically but the way this was handled is not something that should be simply glossed over because of who he was and how he came to power, and we should definitely not pretend “the US has no use for Venezuelan oil.”
Sure, can you extend that idea to China v Taiwan?
"Taiwan is about the great power conflict with US and controlling what the China considers its backyard."
Venezuela owes those companies several billion in 1976 dollars, money they have not repaid. The US will now likely use their oil as collateral to force them to pay. No I am not dumb enough to think they will stop only there or do this in a justifiable way, but I would assert, when someone steals something from you, you have the right to use force to get it back, even if the method just used is not the right one.
Someone should tell Trump that because he’s not been remotely subtle about his thought process.
> Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil
That doesn’t mean there was no desire to take that oil. And there very transparently was. Looking at the end result and working backwards is faulty thinking. The US disastrously mismanaged Iraq. They certainly didn’t intend to.
Never in the past 60 years has it been more clear from observing the current US administration in its international "relations" and its domestic abuses that there is no charitable interpretation.
None of that matters.
There was no declaration of war powers from Congress, this entire operation is a flagrant violation of US and international law.
And, to point 1, this operation was carried out by a US President who attempted to violently overthrow the US government to avoid ceding power, which really puts a damper on point 1 I think.
The Venezuelan people voted for regime change. Maduro is the one who acted unilaterally by stealing power.
Fox News: What do you see as the future of Venezuela’s oil industry?
Trump: Well, I see that we’re going to be very strongly involved in it. That’s all I can 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.
Only if the right candidate wins.
What's the point of this? Surely there's no deniability if the bases were abandoned?
We're powerless. Trump isn't.
The discussion should be about accountability of his actions first. When he can actually be made accountable then steelmanning and debating his actions in general can come into play because then it will actually mean something.
Also, raise hell at your law makers who thought it was a good idea for Congress to give sweeping powers to the executive in the first place.
But why? Why not stick with the most probable explanation? The idea that Trump's primary goal is to restore democracy in Venezuela is beyond absurd.
I don't doubt that there were people in the Venezuelan govt who want Maduro gone and would be happy for a US-backed coup and collaborated with the US (i.e., provided intel, etc.)
But it's still a foreign coup and military-backed regime change, no matter how you or Trump spin it.
The lesson to the world continues to be: if you're big and powerful, you can do whatever the f you want in other countries to ensure they are "on your side" and to gain access to their natural resources.
EDIT: Instead of just downvoting, tell me how I'm wrong.
