How is that comparable? That seems like a deliberate misrepresentation of the situation.
US actions here almost certainly have the full backing of what they (probably rightfully) consider to be the legitimate Venezuelan government.
US actions here almost certainly have the full backing of what they (probably rightfully) consider to be the legitimate Venezuelan government.
If Putin came out in 2020 and said "I do not recognize Joe Biden as US president, he stole the election, Donald Trump was the real winner, so I am sanctioning America and seizing American LNG tankers" everyone would take that as a hostile action and even a casus belli.
Hardly true at this point.
>Will you also propose US seize Turkish or Russian freighters because Erdogan and Putin "won" elections under highly suspect circumstances?
Not sure why you're asking me this. I'm not proposing the US should seize Venezuelan freighters, I'm just saying they have a reasonable excuse if they choose to do so.
>If Putin came out in 2020 and said "I do not recognize Joe Biden as US president, he stole the election, Donald Trump was the real winner, so I am sanctioning America and seizing American LNG tankers" everyone would take that as a hostile action and even a casus belli.
Donald Trump probably wouldn't have, and perhaps many of his supporters :)
Countries not recognizing the current government of Venezuela as legitimate:
- US
- all 27 EU member countries
- UK, Canada, Australia
- Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay
- Israel, Japan, Morocco, South Korea
- Switzerland, Norway, Iceland
Bullshit that might have worked if Russia didn't proceed to claim de facto sovereignty over the rest of Ukraine.
It's also precisely the same logic the U.S. is using. Maduro is illegitimate. The legitimate, elected goverment in exile wants Maduro toppled. Herego, this shit.
Surely we're all old enough to know that's an obvious lie. The US government probably doesn't know or care if Maduro is a dictator, they're just here for the oil.
It would be ridiculous to argue that the current regime has any genuine concerns or interest about democracy, drug trafficking (even just pardoned one), or the legitimacy of Venezuela's government.
Yes, because it makes sense to trust what the Trump admin tells you.
Oil might be one of the many excuses they give, but it's obviously a lie because there is nobody else in the world capable of profitably extracting Venezuelan crude at any meaningful scale.
There are good reasons to believe that Edmundo González won the elections in Venezuela, there are no good reasons to believe anything similar about illegally occupied territories in Ukraine.