I see the point you're trying to make, but I'm not fully convinced it's as black and white as you make it out to be. I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them? Election fraud? Etc. Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
> I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
The greater good of whom? Regardless, we have international organizations where action can be taken by a coalition is states, which provides not only legitimacy but also some level of judicial control.
This is so obviously an imperialist power play for the world's largest oil reserves. That some would portray this as acting for the greater good is beyond ridiculous.
Interesting to keep reading the narrative about the supposedly worthless Venezuelan oil here. So worthless that the US has to block sales with an embargo and is starting a war over it, apparently.
It's not a narrative, it's a fact you can easily verify by accessing the internet using the device in front of you.
The idea that oil in Venezuela is particularly attractive to anyone is patently absurd. Crude oil prices are already at uncomfortable levels for producers with significantly higher margins, and the situation isn't going to get any better.
>and is starting a war over it
Anyone who in 2025 still blindly believes what Donald Trump says is an idiot. And even if that were true, you'd still be an idiot for assuming that Trumps motivations are grounded in reality.
>Anyone who in 2025 still blindly believes what Donald Trump says is an idiot. And even if that were true, you'd still be an idiot for assuming that Trumps motivations are grounded in reality.
OK, but the other piece of international aggression in the news recently was yesterday, when Trump promised that the US would "come to the rescue" of protestors in Iran if the regime starts killing them. Possibly this and Venezuela are related, and oil is involved, but in a strategic way rather than any immediately rewarding treasure-seeking.
From your source: "Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day," Florida Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar said in a recent interview on Fox Business.
"American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipes, the whole oil rigs and everything that has to do with... oil and the derivatives."
Trump might seem open to such arguments.
He campaigned on the slogan "drill, baby, drill" and has generally called for expanding oil production, which he has tied to lower prices for Americans.
/quote
It then goes on to note that output could be more than doubled in two years. That alone would put them as the 11th largest oil producer and the third largest in the Americas. The decade timeline and budget was for creating maximalist infrastructure for fully exploiting the resources.
The strongest proof that the article has that trump isn’t interested in oil is his word that he isn’t interested in oil. How much faith do you put in Trump’s honesty?
The 2023 Trump quote is "We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil". But I think war-for-oil explanations are too pat, generally. Just because he shamelessly says the oil is a motivation doesn't mean it makes sense as a motivation.
He said it then, he said it now, everyone else in the know is saying it. Trump has openly declared his intent to go after numerous other country’s mineral and oil resources leveraging military force if necessary. (Ukraine, Canada, Denmark off the top of my head). Why should I think that a man who sees everything through the lens of power and money has not just made a power and money play after spending a year promising to do just that.
I don’t doubt that other motivations exist. I do not think that the US would have gone after them if they did not have oil. I do not think the US government would be crowing about all the money they will finally be able to make with oil, if that wasn’t a motivation.
All they have to do is keep power for ten years and keep renewables being illegal (Trump already banned offshore wind turbines because he can see some from one of his overseas golf courses)
To be fair we don’t know the atrocities the US would have committed in those regions if the UN didn’t exist. I’m not saying I know either obviously! But it’s not like the world seemed to be a better place before the UN.
I could go along with this to some degree if any country would be able to act the same way the USA is doing; then there would be a balance of power. But as it is, only a small number of powerful nations are able to act like this, without military repercussions.
So if Venezuela wanted to forcefully reverse a coup in the USA? Or Canada wanted to reverse election fraud in the USA?
They can’t. So the USA shouldn’t either.
Unless you can tolerate living by the whim of a more powerful bully.
Which I, as a non-us resident/citizen, am forced to tolerate now, but don’t like.
So no, I don’t think nations can justify interfering in sovereign nations by force for any reason.
The history of central and south America is littered with such events, committed by the US. I guess that's why those countries are all so safe and prosperous. Nicaragua and Haiti got it twice so they're doing fantastic right now!
The funniest part of DPRK is how we got bombed with propaganda about how the "supreme leader" was a madman that shouldn't be allowed to have nukes because he would immediately use them and then suddenly the propaganda stopped as soon as there was evidence that they had actual nukes. I suspect the same thing would have happened with Iran if they had gotten them.
> requires stronger justification, like active, extreme mass killing.
… which actually did happen under Maduro, btw.
> Protests following the announcement of the results of the presidential election in July were violently repressed with excessive use of force and possible extrajudicial executions. Thousands of arbitrary arrests were carried out against political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists; hundreds of children were among those detained. Detainees including women and children were allegedly tortured. Detention conditions continued to deteriorate. Impunity prevailed for human rights violations.[1]
Is your argument that his dictatorship wasn’t repressive or bloody enough to warrant that? I don’t think that argument has legs - I think it is reasonable for him to be ousted based on the repressive regime argument. Yes, there are bloodier regimes around the world, but that’s like a speeder complaining to a police officer, “why did you stop me? I was only doing 80, the guy in front of me must’ve been doing 90!”
To me, the strongest argument against overthrowing Maduro is geopolitical destabilization and the general, “don’t mess with other countries because it erodes the norms that keep peace around the world.”
I am unsure. It's certainly very good that he's gone. I don't know if it meets the threshold. There being bloodier regimes is I actually think a reasonable counter-argument: should we topple all them, too?
If polls show over 95% of Venezuelans are happy with this outcome after three months, I may shift my position a bit. In general though, I think it's a bad precedent for the world superpower to bomb countries and abduct rules because the ruler is bad. Plus, Trump's motives here are not remotely pure.
Now it’s not clear who is running the country. Maduro’s administration is saying they’re still in charge via their VP, but the opposition has said they are “prepared to assume power,” wherever that may mean.
I fear that there could be so much suffering as a result of this. Power vacuums and forced regime changes don’t seem to go well.
This reminds me a little of when the US toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq - initially there was celebration, which soon gave way to, “oh shit… now what?”
I think his removal has a lot more to do with his willingness to cooperate with the “bad guys“ in the Middle East. I think this also has a lot to do with why we suddenly care about Somali fraud rings that have been operating since the 1990s. The stage is getting set for another regime change in the Middle East. It’s pretty amazing what you can buy with a $250 million campaign donation.
Are asylum cases from Venezuela legitimate or not? One cannot support asylum claims while simultaneously believing Maduro didn't deserve to be arrested.
I absolutely believe that asylum claims from Venezuela are completely legitimate and that Maduro completely deserved to be arrested. I am just saying under international law and norms, the United States government did not have the legal or moral right to go in and abduct him to arrest him. And also, I am not necessarily sure if he deserved to be arrested to be charged with the odd charges the United States is saying they'll charge him with (drug-related offenses) as opposed to all the things related to human rights violations and being a despot. And double-also, Trump's motives here are almost entirely ulterior and impure, as opposed to a moral desire to bring a horrible dictator to justice and free a nation from his clutches.
If it was about peace and rebuilding their economy oil would have been mentioned as US companies move in to help them leverage their resources AT COST.
Instead, the joke about the US invading for oil proves true once again, and look at everyone fooled by the justification for it. Maduro a bad person? Yeah duh...so why US moving in to take profits from their oil as well as supporting politicians there who were allied with Maduro...
US are liars. And Venezuelans on here gonna act happy bc Maduro gone. But just you wait, 30 years will go by then Venezuelans will be crying about reparations for their natural resources being raped by the US.
I appreciate your world view and politico-science philosophical approach, but Venezuela has natural resources, is close to the USA, and decided to mingle with American competitors.
Venezuela was supported via economic trade with nations not aligned with US objectives in exchange for security guarantees that would supposedly prevent US intervention.
More concretely: Russia was supposedly supporting them through economic activity and arms trades. Russia is overextended in Ukraine which is providing an opening and a cautionary signal to any other state that has Russian support that, in fact, any Russian security guarantees aren’t backed by more than words. See Iran and Syria as well.
This is very transactional and a spheres of influence move. It’s also pressuring Russia to find an Ukraine deal fast. The longer they’re in Ukraine the more their global sphere of influence is being reduced due to their inability to fight multiple military fronts at once.
My thought is, China is seen as needing to be curtailed.
Syria curtailed Russia, as you said, they lost the capacity to support it. Iran was a show of force, and something that could be done. And, Iran was very much supporting Russia -- lots of support, such as Iranian drone tech.
But from the China perspective, China was buying a lot of oil from Iran. That was cut off. And I imagine Venezuela as well, has been selling a lot of sanctioned oil to China too.
China has no domestic oil supply of note, and needs to import a LOT of oil. This could be a message to both Russia and China.
You didn't even mention the whole proxy war that Russia is fighting with France across most of Africa (and Eastern Europe). With both mutually picking apart the other's sphere of influence in the respective regions.
Fair, most folks are completely clueless about this being an ongoing concern for nearly 5 years now.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer
I don’t think it’s that difficult to answer, and the answer is “no” for two main reasons:
1. I don’t think the US has the greater good of humanity in mind nor even of its citizens except a minority, when it’s policing around.
2. Even if we were to assume otherwise (that the US concerns itself with the greater good), “who will watch the watchmen?” Especially when its institutions are being undermined day by day…
> What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them?
Once upon a time, “forcefully” doing anything with any country for any reason was considered an act of war. I agree that bad people should be removed from power. But the consequences associated with doing so forcefully (i.e., engaging in acts of war) need to be fully acknowledged and dealt with. The U.S. (and others) have played this game of “military actions” for so long that we, the regular people, have taken up that language uncritically as well. Once force enters, it is an act of war. Period. A discussion about whether country A should declare a war to remove the leader of country B is a much more honest and accurate one than vaguely positing whether country A can “capture” the leader of country B.
You are 100% right in all your assertions, and still miss the point.
I'm in agreement with everything you said, but none of it applies.
The US (or any other country) should never intervene due to a "bad person" or "illegitimate" or "dictator"
Instead, US intervened because the policies of Maduro directly led to the flight of 8M causing harms to many countries in LATAM, and US.
If a dictator was not actively enforcing policies that made foreign innocent (bystanders!) neighbors hurt or destitute, then your argument would apply
It was not a war bullet that have killed random Chileans, or Ecuadoreans or Americans. But nevertheless, there have been hundreds of venezuelan bullets (and drugs) kiling everyday civilians. The act of aggression exists (exporting hardened criminals and economic destitutes abroad) .
That was the casus belli. The US just happened to respond in force, when other countries couldn't.
I’m not disputing the right of the U.S. to intervene. I’m saying that we should call this “intervention” what it is — an act of war. It doesn’t matter what the cause or impetus for the act is; we need to stop pretending that forceful, military-based aggression into sovereign land (regardless of who the leader of that land is) is anything other than an act of war.
I suppose my argument is then that war was already happening, and it was declared by Chavez/Maduron on most of LATAM and USA, the moment they decided to export their problems (drugs, criminals, destitutes), into LATAM and USA, hurting our citizens.
You could make a moral argument for it. But we should NOT support that. And i think the US framers were clear on this topic.
Personally, I would say no.
However, a country persecuting its citizens doesn't bode well for the neighbor's citizens own security or well being, which is usually why it often leads to some form of govt vs govt war.
A government should not act with force until its own citizens are suffering, meaning, if brazilians themselves were hurt because of US policy.
Right, and in theory that all sounds very thoughtful and morally calibrated—until you remember that U.S. foreign policy decision-making has roughly the transparency of a raccoon operating a shredder at midnight. There is no clear, open process where the U.S. earnestly weighs “dictator versus coup versus fraudulent election” on some ethical flowchart labeled For the Greater Good. Instead, it’s often more like: Is there oil? A lot of oil? Like, cartoonishly large amounts of oil? Because if there is, suddenly democracy becomes very important, very quickly.
And yes, we’re told—solemnly—that every intervention is about democracy, human rights, and justice, which is fascinating because those principles have an uncanny habit of aligning perfectly with strategic interests. Venezuela is a great example, where the rhetoric about freedom somehow managed to coexist with very unsubtle comments about wanting “all that oil.” At that point, the moral argument starts to feel less like a difficult philosophical dilemma and more like a PowerPoint slide hastily slapped over a resource grab labeled “Don’t Look Behind This.”
So while you’re absolutely right that the question of global policing isn’t black and white, the problem is that U.S. interventions often aren’t shades of gray either—they’re shades of green. And once that’s the pattern, claims about benevolent intent stop sounding like hard ethical reasoning and start sounding like a press release written by someone who assumes the audience has the memory of a goldfish.
Maduro is obviously authoritarian. But if the US want to make the world a more democratic place by going to war I could think of a long list of countries they could attack before Venezuela.
To me, the current UK administration, silencing "bad things" and telling you which opinions are right and which are wrong is closer to fascism than the US administration.
>Now, I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
>Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years, we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values.
>Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy, but when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say "ourselves" because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.
>Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not, and thank God they lost the Cold War.
>They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build.
Veeeery selective choices, arent there? The cancelled Romanian elections he talks about were cancelled and rerun for a good reasons. This was literally defending democracy against meddling.
The churches were not closed by some hostile state forces. People stopped being christians out of their own choices.
> We must do more than talk about democratic values.
This is dishonest to the maximum. Vance does not believe in democracy. Not in the USA and not in the Europe. He is trying to dismantle it and replace it with authoritarian fascism. He does not care about laws either, he cares about making his own thugs unreachable by law.
The Romania stuff is a complete farse. The campaign for Georgescu wasn't funded by Russia. It was funded by a member of the same ruling coalition whose judges cancelled the vote. [1] They launched a PR campaign that horribly backfired as they were skirting bounds of campaign law, so they couldn't actively name a candidate. The influencers followed their script, but didn't exactly have the same candidate in mind. It's like an equal but opposite of Bud Light hiring Dylan Mulvaney for PR.
Imagine in Hungary if a sort of pro-establishment (NATO/EU/Ukraine/etc) type won, and then they cancelled the election, banned this candidate, and reran it after making some mostly unprovable (and ultimately false) claims of foreign meddling. Can you imagine how you would feel about this? Can you imagine how the unelected EU bureaucrats would act, or what they would be calling it? For people on the other side of the political aisle, you just had an act carried out that would more than justify all the rather hyperbolic rhetoric you're using about the US. And when it's reality, and not just rhetoric, this ends up shaping the views of people for decades.
There's nothing Vance said in the speech which was literal defense of fascism, as alleged. It's a case of two competing narratives of what "democracy" means.
there's a lot of assumptions here, but granting it's a difficult question: this is why the legislature holds the responsibility to decide, not the executive.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
I would argue that it should be the UN that does something like this, if it's done at all. I would like to see a world in which there was a top-level body that would arrest a dictator, the same way the US government would arrest someone who tried to become dictator of an American state.
But it wouldn't be up to the governor of one of the other states to do it without the agreement of the rest of the country. That would be chaos.
oh, its not that scary or offensive. Maduro was an illegitimate dictator, just like all of Trumps other friends. but he just wouldn't play along. ultimately thats why the US is so intent on supporting corrupt governments. your son-in-law gets a big contract from the US, and my LLC gets a lease to do mining operations and we're all happy now right? Trump gave Maduro a deal he couldn't refuse, and he .. refused! what's a Don supposed to do, if Maduro can refuse than everybody else is going to get ideas.
I don't find this argument convincing. You could make the same argument when you see a parent physically hitting their child, that it's not anybody else's business, but most of the civilized world agrees that you should intervene, either directly or by contacting the authorities. The child is helpless to defend themselves. The same applies in many countries worldwide today. Even if the majority of the population wants a change of regime, coordinated military power held by a handful of individuals is more than enough to suppress any hope of that.
Using your analogy you are not someone who's seen anybody hitting their child, you're someone who's fine with a random neighbour doing justice because he tells you he was bad.
If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow, is Xi allowed to invade and capture him? Or is it reserved only for small and weak countries while the big ones can do whatever they want?
Can he round up the goons in the CIA and FBI while he’s at it? Is being a tributary vassal state of China materially worse than being a tributary vassal state of foreign power? I’d like sovereignty, but that’s not really an option.
Both countries involved are currently dictatorships. Consider the role reversal: Would it be good if Maduro invaded the USA and kidnapped Trump? Why or why not?
It's very black and white. It's an internal affair, and no one elected the USA to be the police of the world.
We could also argue that even internally in the US, the current president was not democratically elected. Maybe you agree that another state should go there and remove him, just because.
I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country. You seem to support this logic
>>I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country.
What would you do with 100s of millions of Americans who are not decedent from native Americans? I'm even more curious how far back in history would you go to start returning countries to their native populations?
How about the country doing the capturing stays the fuck out of the business of all the other countries instead ?
Escalations like this push the doomsday clock closer and closer to midnight, no matter how well intentioned, and I can't say I think Trump has good intentions anyway. America is just privateering, these days.
So we can justify, say, deposing the king of Saudi Arabia? Or Zelenskyy on the pretext that he hasn’t held a timely election? Or the president of Taiwan on the basis of illegitimacy of the election? Regardless of Maduro’s sins, this is a massively destabilizing action and I expect we will see unpleasant downstream effects even if, in a vacuum, the action was justifiable and legal.
It's of course very difficult to justify, but in your example, Zelenskyy has the approval of the Ukrainians for now, while Maduro only had the approval of the military and a low percent of civilians.
The approval of the people is irrelevant if Putin cites Zelenskyy’s democratic illegitimacy as a reason to remove him (which, arguably, they have) or Trump as a reason to withhold support.
> I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about ${WHATABOUTISM}?
I think a regime that is hell-bent on kidnapping foreign leaders at the whim of it's glorious leader by circumventing any of it's checks and balances, such as congress approval, is clearly and by far the worst problem.
And calling the US under the Trump administration "democratic" is a hell of a stretch, even as a thought experiment.
Edit: in case my comment doesn't make sense, the parent comment originally asked why the US doesn't try to topple Russia. Parent edited comment after my reply.
It is, along with NATO. The invasion of Ukraine is being managed in a way that bleeds Russias economic and war fighting power without escalation of the conflict to other states.
Ukraine is being spoon-fed arms and support just enough to keep them able to attrit Russia without ending the conflict until Russia is exhausted. Once Putin stuck his foot in the bear trap, there is no way he can turn back and retain power/life. I’m sure he’d love to have backed out in the first few weeks while it was still possible at this point.
It’s great for the region and for NATO, but it trades Ukrainian blood for NATO interests. Obviously Zelenskyy knows the play by now, but he and the Ukrainian people are between a rock and a hard place. It’s tragic for them, but there is a little hope at least of having earned a seat at the table if they survive. My heart (and donations) goes out to the Ukrainian people.
> My heart (and donations) goes out to the Ukrainian people
your donations go straight into the pockets of the elites. You need to be an idiot to think you are helping by sending money, unless you are sending it to your relatives.
Idk, I’ve bought some gear for a couple of the units, stuff like that. I don’t see it going to the pockets of the elites, though I suppose it might be an elaborate scam to resell the gear they are asking for. Doesn’t seem like it though.
