"It (Venezuela) currently exports (oil) about 900,000 barrels per day and China is by far its biggest buyer."
Ah ok, so this was about China. MAGA's fixation on China is certainly going to lead to more instability.
Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
421–430 of 1001 posts
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#422If it's to get access to the oil reserve, it is bad news for the shale oil industry in the USA : maybe "drill baby drill" is not feasible any more, and the only way to maintain the level of GDP is to get the oil from somewhere else.
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.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#423Two wrongs don’t make a right. 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.
Regardless of your opinion of maduro, you can still acknowledge that if the head of a sovereign state enacts policies that result in the mass emigration of 8M to neighboring countries, destabilizing all of them [1],[2] in the process, exporting criminal enterprises, any affected head of the affected government certainly has casus belli on said head of state.
The policy of no aggression applies. If a government, thru its actions (or inactions) causes massive aggression and hurt on your own people, then its your *duty* as elected official, to stop it and protect your citizens
Self-defense is literally the most important mandate a government can have.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/crime-migration-spect...
[2] https://www.cgdev.org/publication/data-against-fear-what-num...
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#424Is everyone sufficiently distracted yet?
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#425Yup. Venezuelans voted for the Bolivaran Revolution. This is it. We shouldn’t waste our time with it. Especially because every time we topple a regime like this it creates a refugee crisis and a huge influx of refugees to the U.S.
The refugee crisis was already ongoing precisely due to the dire situation of Venezuela. They stole the 2024 election as well, the opposition won BIG.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#426I think people are overindexed on the US's failures to turn Islamic theocracies into democracies. The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
I don't know if you remember that Hugo Chavez was voted into power, had a legitimate mandate to dismantle the democracy that elevated him, and then his voters defended him against a violent coup to restore that democracy.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#427It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day. That's not how these things work. This is like the first stone of an avalanche. It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is. Remember the 'Arab spring' and what came after.
[deleted]
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#428As a German I see a lot of history repeating.
The U.S. did perform a regime change in Germany too, not too long ago.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#429Somehow, I'm starting to agree with Russia's reason for launching the war because Ukraine wanted to join NATO.
[flagged]
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#430I almost feel bad for the people who instigated the War on Terror. They did not know how badly it would go - and they worked really hard and tirelessly to build and sell their illegitimate case to the American public. 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.
The first political memories i have are the aclu telling everyone who would listen and many who wouldn't that this is exactly the slippery slope invading afghanistan would lead to. Don't feel sorry for anyone who was allowed to do politics from that period