The politics are baffling. There hasn't even been a case made that one could disagree with. Why are we killing Venezuelans and kidnapping their president? If this is for the greater good, where is that argument?
2. Maduro wasn't even the president. He was someone who took the country illegally with cartel people.
3. Why? Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations. And I guess there must be geopolitical reasons. You want China and Russia be there? And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades. You want millions of refugees?
Second off, only #3b above (geopolitics) could possibly count at all. We support dozens of dictators, don't give a darn about their people as long as it's geopolitically useful. So I've been conditioned to assume it's bullshit when someone says "we're doing it for the people there".
Third, and to your #3.. it's Venezuela. No disrespect to the people there but it's not exactly the lynchpin of international relations. Is this really worth it? For some crude which is really high in sulfur and not even that important given fracking? Even if I'm a Henry Kissinger psychopath, this still doesn't make sense.
I am saying that a wide majority of Venezolans are totally happy about this and most people here aren't concerned about this at all. They just want to talk about their pet political point.
About what are the reasons behind this I (and most people commenting here) can only have educated guess, but I wouldn't discard so easily to weaken cartels as a reason. It is the third (Cuba and Nicaragua the others) Country they got to totally control and the most important and they are powerful and organized enough to keep spreading, and they are supported by China.
Will this engagement deepen Latin American trust and respect for the US or the opposite? China makes it very clear that they do not give a shit about politics and just want to do good business, they're deepening ties that way. What's our plan? Invade random countries and tell them they better not cross us? How long does that work?
About trust and respect, I don't see any change. Leftist will keep their mantra and Normal people will mind their business.
About the 'master plan'. No one commenting here really knows. As I mentioned to avoid criminal cartels controlling three countries and spreading it is not something I would discard. Imagine if they get nukes. Or they can start to systematicallly buy politicians in USA, as they do in Mexico.
How do you know that?
What I know anecdotically from other persons from latin america is, they are happy for Maduro to be gone, but fear of venezuela becoming a US colony.
But check the news, the web, talk to people objectively.I can be wrong, but I think the evidence is overwhelming, statistically speaking.Check for yourself.
At this point, it's hard to imagine that you are actually arguing in good faith.
That is what OP is saying: HN users, in order to promote their personal politics, are being concerned for a people that don't want and actively reject your concern because they are happy with the outcome.
HN is doing the equivalent of (a) denying Venezuelans appreciate this, and when that fails (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
> (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
Well, this isn't surprising at all. At least these two points also apply to the right within the US, the HN bubble doesn't even try to understand their actual views either.
It’s very dangerous to do the “right thing” for the wrong reasons in a complex situation. This is step 1. Does anyone have faith that the Trump admin will properly execute steps 2..N?
I would have some respect if the administration announced that it would support a provisional government led by the apparent winner of the last election in Venezuela. As such it seems to be that the administration has left the existing power structure in place and established a client/patron relationship with the leadership. This is revolting.
Venezuelans do not care for this train of thought. No one else was going to do it, and their equivalent of Hitler has just been ousted.
Far better, from their perspective, to have the evil guy removed than endless do-nothing hand-wringing from the international community that shares your train of thought.
Democratically held elections will be run again in the country.
The "wrong reasons" can still be mutually beneficial. The US gets its oil and Venezuela gets its dictator disappeared.
As for drugs, if Trump cared about drugs, he wouldn't pardon so many drug kingpins.
Some say this has to do with asserting control over China's oil imports, but according to https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/fi... and other sources, Venezuela barely makes it into the list of China's top 10 suppliers. So while China is indeed Venezuela's best customer, this argument doesn't seem persuasive unless I'm missing something. Venezuela's next-highest volume customer is the US itself.
My guess is drugs, not because Trump cares, but because they had become too powerful, controlling Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, as well as a wide net of politicians.
The US doesn't need their oil. It's about stopping China from getting it.
Russia is funding its war in Ukraine with profits on thier oil production. All else being equal, this makes it harder for them to keep doing that. They reportedly spent $6 billion on air defense systems in Venezuela, not for no reason.
Lower oil prices also reduce China’s dependence on Russia for energy. Reducing the incentive for those two countries two cooperate would be in US interests.
Energy is fungible and lower oil prices will help reduce the cost to operate AI data centers. On the margin it will improve their profitability and reduce public backlash about rising electricity prices in the US.
A large portion of the migrant crisis in the US has been driven by Venezuelan refugees fleeing Maduro’s gross mismanagement of the country. If the subsequent government can bring prosperity back to the country it also reduces illegal immigration in the US, something the current US administration clearly supports.
Lots of positive things could result here and you don’t have to be a “Kissinger psychopath” to imagine them and hope they materialize.
I’m sympathetic to your sentiment but that train left the station likely before you were born.
It's possible they have tried to justify, but via Fox News and Truth Social. Neither of which you and I read, I presume.
Based on what? There's a poll already about the US bombing Venezuela and kidnapping Maduro? There's a big difference between removing a leader through a legitimate domestic process and this.
Hey, we had a guy who tried to do that too! Thank goodness it didn't work out.
Maybe, who knows! Let's send a commando raid into the US, send Trump to DF to be indicted. Then we'll find out.
This won't happen simply because Mexico is an ant and the US is a bear, and so Mexico cannot pull this off. Also, Mexico isn't out of their minds.
If the administration had evidence, it would be in its best interest to have shared it already. Instead they keep on pushing points they can barely articulate and that conflict with known information.
They are already backtracking on the "Cartel de los Soles" accusation, after finally realizing there's no such organization, but it was always a slang frase about corruption in the military. Maduro cannot possibly lead an organization that doesn't exist. Source: NYT.
The indictment removed almost all of the mentions of this cartel, now phrasing the accusation in much broader, vague terms.
It wouldn't surprise me if at some stage they changed tack entirely and tried a different angle than drug trafficking, since, let's face it:
It's about oil. Trump is not shy about this.
That by itself does not demonstrate that the majority have been exiled, even if we want to expand the definition of "exile" to be inclusive of those who were not actually forced to leave, but felt it was necessary to leave due to political persecution.
The majority of Venezuelans will never have a legal option to reside in the United States. This incentivizes Venezuelans to make asylum claims in order to gain entry. Similar abuses of the asylum process are seen at far smaller scales in Canada and the European Union.
What sort of persecution are these people claiming to have experienced, and more specifically, what rights are they alleging to have been deprived of by the Maduro regime?
Well the videos of ~200,000 Venezuelan people partying in the capitol of Argentina is a start. As well as many other pictures and videos of gatherings wherever there is significant Venezuelan refugees.
The invasion is meant to orient the US to fight China. We are cutting away the Middle East war baggage, trying to end the Ukraine war baggage so we can focus on China. Russia would be a nice ally against China.
China was moving around Lat Am and we are removing the communists from the hemisphere.
China likes oil. Loves oil but can’t get enough oil which is why it’s building solar and nuclear so quickly. The US can clamp down on the oil if Venezuela is an ally. So the US wants a strong Venezuela that can’t be used against us.
It’s hard to conduct war without oil.
The US has a strong incentive to make sure Venezuela comes out strong, and the Chinese have a strong incentive to not let that happen.
tldr: it’s all about china
He wasn't the president. My educated guess is that with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, together with China support cartel become too powerful. They systematicallly buy politicians in México, Spain, Colombia, probably Brazil and Argentina. They expanded too much. But again, it is just speculation.
Maduro was not fairly elected, it was a fraud, but he was the de facto head of state of Venezuela.
The whole cartel excuse is just a sham in my opinion, it is all about power, sending the example and getting the oil. Maduro, and Chavez before him, challenged the US grip on SA, and actively fought american interest in the region.
Venezuela was not a sovereign state, it wasn't people's will at all to have Maduro as head of state, rather the opposite is true.
As I have mentioned, we can only guess the real motivation behind this.
As I'm not a historian, I can only note that it hasn't gone well recently even when multiple successive presidents want it to
In Venezuela, it appears they are simply moving the gun to the head of Maduro's replacement.
That's an allegation. We are from a nation of laws where this behavior within it's borders would be in violation of the constitution.
> Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA
Shall we talk about what the CIA has been doing in Venezuela for decades?
> You want China and Russia be there?
The worst form of whataboutism.
> And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades.
Is that because they hate Maduro or because they need money?
> You want millions of refugees?
We already have them. Can we /please/ talk about WHY without getting distracted by nonsense drug dealing claims?
If difference exist between two people then the quickest way to resolve them is to reveal them. It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference. I did not believe this was part of the "hacker ethic."
You aren't asking questions in good faith, you're trying to score points.
> It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference.
You're doing it here, implying that I'm a deferential coward instead of stating it outright. I would urge you to review the site guidelines. The only reason this site is worth visiting in the first place is because it isn't ordinarily full of the sort of Reddit-style commentary you're engaging in right now.
We should all agree with each other and sing along how lucky Venezuelans are that US, the self proclaimed world police, came to steal their oil and bomb their capital (terrorism/war crime)?
Is there any evidence of this?
Calling exilees "abusive shitbags"[2] and "shitty people" is not the kind of discourse we accept here.
What evidence is there of that?
It's always slightly odd that a country with the largest oil reserves in the world doesn't manage to stock up its supermarkets.
I don't want to excuse corruption and cronyism, but surely, the US sanctions at least deserve a mention?
What are you talking about? The war on drugs is just a bad excuse. Trump keeps claiming that Venezuela is responsible for the fentanyl crisis, which is demonstrably wrong.
And if the US administration was so worried about drugs, why did Trump pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, ex-president of Honduras, who had been sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
It's not important at all. I've seen this exact line repeated all over the Internet today, almost like it's not a real sentiment and instead a pre seeded talking point to muddy the waters.
It is amusing to see the consent factory so efficiently spit this shit out though.
3) Trump pardoned the Honduras president. The drug smuggling excuse is moot. This is a power grab, as usual. And it came from Trump's mouth. We're no better than Russia if we choose to go with this narrative.
Do you have sources for this not including the official White House position?
Let’s be real, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even place Venezuela on a map.
The default state for humans isn’t caring about everything and everyone, nobody has the mental capacity or resources to do that.
We only care about something when we are incentivized to by actual self interest, familial bond, or emotional stories that align this 3rd party with our familial instincts via empathy.