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.
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.
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.
