Live data from Hacker News

US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

cnn.com

591–600 of 816 posts

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#591
post #563

Corruption means something legitimate is happening that can be corrupted. Maduro was president of a sovereign country. A bunch of kidnappers and murderers invaded the building he was in in Caracas, murdered everyone in the room, then kidnapped him and his wife. What's the "mission"? To pop up in some room and slaughter everyone in it, then kidnap his wife and him? In order to help steal the resources, billions of dol…

You're apply the oppressor–oppressed framework. Basically Madura and his regime, along with Gaza, West Bank and others are the victims because they're less powerful and therefore above reproach? However US and Israel are currently powerful and therefore they are the only ones worthy of criticism and scorn? Gaza, for instance, is famously anti kidnapping.

I think it's more a case of allies and enemies.

Second the west likes to take the moral high ground. That involves holding them to a higher standard.

Third, in cases such as Gaza, and the west bank, they don't have stable governments because of actions by Israel. You can't expect them to behave like a nation state in those circumstances, so yes I do expect more of Israel.

Fwiw I'm British, I remember the troubles on Northern Ireland. I don't condone what the IRA did, but I would still expect my govt to behave better, even though I agree with them.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#592
post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sentiment is not that this man shouldn't be prosecuted it is that the blatant double standard and growing endemic societal cancer that is corruption is being allowed to blossom while leaders target scape goats for the same behavior. What this administration is trying to signal with going after this guy is that the problem is not with them, it's someone else, that they're on the up and up. It is why scapegoating i…

it's a blatant double standard if you have evidence of people "doing it and getting away with it", but you don't, you just suspect it. and it's scapegoating if blame is centered on a person or group to explain away the totality of a widespread (or made up) problem, and that is also not happening here, instead "a person did something" and got arrested.

[deleted]

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#593

Many people here are talking about how more powerful people are also corrupt and are getting away with it. All corruption is bad. This soldier put the life of everyone on the mission in danger by doing this.

*He's a terrorist that put the life of other terrorists in danger.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#594
post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowadays in authoritarian societies it looks like it's mostly matter of time before military takes the lead. See, e.g., Iran's IGRC. Counterexamples: China, Russia — and the U.S.?

A military coup in the U.S. is imaginable, which probably explains some of the top brass purges (until recently, where it's probably an attempt to deflect blame for the massive Iran fuck up). Putin did it better; he kept the military weak and aggressively managed the risk via the FSB.

I think, despite all the furor whipped up and attempts by high-ranking officials to foment a coup, the military is actually very unlikely to disobey Presidential orders; this is based on my frequent interactions with military officers over the last ten years. Do you perceive some other, more likely, coup scenario?

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#595
post #224

What’s the point of prediction markets? They are just ordinary gambling unless you allow insider trading and manipulation, because that’s the only way the market can acquire and represent novel useful information. But if you allow those things, you run into a host of well-documented problems which are the reason why those things are forbidden in other markets. As it stands, prediction markets seem like a tech-aligned…

Why does the market need to acquire and represent novel/useful information?

It's ordinary gambling, but more in line with poker than with roulette. Theoretically there could be some skill that comes into play in predicting it, but there is also a large element of luck. This is just an entertainment product.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#596
post #521

Corruption means something legitimate is happening that can be corrupted. Maduro was president of a sovereign country. A bunch of kidnappers and murderers invaded the building he was in in Caracas, murdered everyone in the room, then kidnapped him and his wife. What's the "mission"? To pop up in some room and slaughter everyone in it, then kidnap his wife and him? In order to help steal the resources, billions of dol…

If you think Hamas, the Islamic Republic, and Maduro are/were peace-loving good guys, I have a bridge to sell you. Whatever you think about the US, anyone who isn’t drowning in propaganda must know that those guys are at best no better, and they don’t have even a facade of a justice system that people wronged by those governments can turn to for relief. For instance, the moment the Gaza ceasefire allowed Hamas to con…

The moment the allies liberated France, the collaborators were stripped, shaved, and hung from a lamp post.

Yes hamas is a messed up organisation, but that's come about as a result of Israeli actions. You can the lack of law and order as a reason to continue preventing that law and order, just the same as you can't use what the french did as an argument for giving France back to the Nazis.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#597
post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: Would you feel similarly if the shoe were on the other foot? If we had a hostile presidential takeover and another country, for reasons completely unrelated to that , showed up at the WH and executed this kind of “mission”? Maduro was a piece of…let’s keep this polite and say “work.” Everyone agrees. Does that mean what the US did was acceptable? There’s a lot of nuance and context being glossed over…

> Does that mean what the US did was acceptable? The longer I am alive the more I realize that power is all that matters, and that rules are nice but only for the peons. "Acceptable" in this case means pretty much nothing and is a word that is philosophic in its meaning. You can yell into the clouds that something is unacceptable or unfair and it may be true in some ethical/moral sense, but it matters none. Power wil…

I am not a fan of "well what can ya do?" That's not how we got the 40 hour work week or civil rights legislation. That's not how women got the right to vote. You have to fight and fight and fight for a better world. I mean that.

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#598
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maduro was president of a sovereign country. It's funny how we accept the importance given to that statement. when he's just some dude who took control of a country and gave himself that title. As if the social construction means anything in this situation.

The idea of sovereignty is a cornerstone of how we organize our global society. This was an overt statement that the US controls South America, and that South America doesn't rule itself. Previously, we were relaying on covert methods for influence. The relationship with SA has materially changed. 1. The United States is willing to violate South American sovereignty. 2. South America has offered little resistance to…

> The idea of sovereignty is a cornerstone of how we organize our global society.

It is, but it's kind of a thin lie.

How's sovereignty going for ukraine? Hong kong? Chechnya, South ossetia, and abkhazia? Puerto Rico? Western Sahara? Parts of Sudan? Border regions of bhutan? South american fisheries? People trying to set up micronations?

Re: US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid

#600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maduro was president of a sovereign country. It's funny how we accept the importance given to that statement. when he's just some dude who took control of a country and gave himself that title. As if the social construction means anything in this situation.

I know this is tangential to your overall point, but did really they murder everyone in the room? I was under the impression that a few Venezuelan generals kidnapped Maduro themselves, left him at a predetermined point for US forces to pick up, and had their soldiers fire some small arms into the air to make a token show of resistance. There's no way the US would have flown a slow-moving convoy of helicopters into a…

They killed like 32 Cuban bodyguards.
Post reply on HN