Trump's Venezuela Vendetta

[HVC]

Knowing Trudeau he will be applying blackface disguise as we speak 

Finally after years of practice his one true skill is of use

[garbon]

I am not sure what's the plan, or if there is any plan beyond "kidnap Maduro...???...profit!" but I must admit I am impressed if it's true they have pulled this off.

I do not understand why they could not have done the bare minimum of preparing the ground by reminding everyone that Maduro was an illegitimate ruler. Instead the lead up was murdering people on boats allegedly transporting drugs...oh and stealing oil.

[Legbiter]

45 minute Special Military Operation.

[Razgovory]

What the fuck just happened?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Kidnapped the president of a foreign nation after bombing the capitol.  THe MAGA types are hailing it as a bold and decisive move against.... something...

[Syt]

Puppet government loyal to US government business interests in 5, 4, 3 ... ? the Nobel prize winning opposition lady said a while ago she would open the country to foreign companies if she was in charge.

[Syt]

Also, how stable is the country? Any risk of it falling into civil war?

[PJL]

Well, I was expecting sites to be bombed, but not a full-blown surgical strike on Maduro. Apparently, it was originally going to be done four days ago, but bad weather prevented it. So I would have been right had it gone as planned, and I had bet on my own prediction.

The lack of response from leaders globally is rather interesting, other for some South American politicians. Where is the response from Russia and China? I guess everyone else is stunned by this as we are.

[The Brain]

I hope the Swedish government has planned how they will respond when the US invades Canada. It seems they had no plans for this one.

[garbon]

Well, I was expecting sites to be bombed, but not a full-blown surgical strike on Maduro. Apparently, it was originally going to be done four days ago, but bad weather prevented it. So I would have been right had it gone as planned, and I had bet on my own prediction.

The lack of response from leaders globally is rather interesting, other for some South American politicians. Where is the response from Russia and China? I guess everyone else is stunned by this as we are.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5670812-russia-calls-un-venezuela-security/

Russia harshly criticizes US attack on Venezuela, capture of Maduro

Russia is offering stark criticism of the U.S. military attack on Venezuela, which resulted in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro.

In response, Russia called for a full meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

"This morning, the United States carried out an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. This causes deep concern and condemnation," Russia said in a statement from its Foreign Ministry.

"The pretexts cited to justify such actions are unfounded. Ideologized hostility has prevailed over practical pragmatism and over a willingness to build relations based on trust and predictability," Russian officials wrote, nearly five years into the nation's own war in Ukraine.

Russia, a key ally of the Maduro regime, said it was crucial to "prevent further escalation and to focus on finding a way out through dialogue."

"We proceed from the understanding that all parties who may have claims against one another should seek solutions through dialogue-based approaches. We are ready to support them in this," the ministry said.

"Latin America must remain a zone of peace, as it declared itself in 2014. Venezuela must be guaranteed the right to determine its own destiny without any destructive, especially military, interference from outside," it wrote. "We reaffirm our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and our support for the course of its Bolivarian leadership aimed at defending the country's national interests and sovereignty."

Russia said its embassy in Caracas, Venezuela's capital city, was operating normally and that it had no information about Russian citizens having been injured.

Attorney General Pam Bondi says Maduro has been charged with "Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machine guns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States".

"They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts," Bondi added in a post on social platform X.

Maduro had been in power in Venezuela since 2013. The Venezuelan communications ministry said in a statement that he had signed a declaration of emergency urging "all social and political forces" in the country to "activate mobilization plans and repudiate" the attack from the U.S.

The capture of Maduro came just days after the Venezuelan strongman said he was open to conducting negotiations with the U.S. regarding drug trafficking and oil. Maduro and Trump spoke over the phone in November.

The attack will almost certainly heighten tensions between the U.S. and Russia, two parties that have been working to find an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.

It has been taking place for more than a decade after Russia took over the Crimea and then launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Just this week, Trump held a meeting in Mar-a-Lago with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss a 20-point peace plan. He also spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has widely been seen as an obstacle to settling the war.

[Maladict]

Trump says US will be 'very strongly involved' in Venezuela oil industry

The United States is going to be "very strongly involved" in Venezuela's oil industry after the operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump told Fox News on Saturday.

He said:

We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it.

[The Brain]

The US invaded a country for oil?

Why is it always meme politics?

[OttoVonBismarck]

To put things in a little bit of context, this isn't crazily dissimilar from Operation Just Cause that removed Manuel Noriega from power.

Some of the similarities:

• Justified based on a U.S. arrest warrant for drug trafficking
• Done without any consultation or approval from the UN or other international bodies
• Done without any authorization by Congress

Now, there are differences:

• Due to the Canal Zone and its garrison, the U.S. had more de facto legitimacy in its involvement in Panamanian affairs
• Noriega was a creation of the CIA, and the Reagan and then Bush Administrations had been in negotiations with him to resign due to the various problems he was causing--again, showing the U.S. was more deeply entangled there vs Venezuela where we did not have any real prior direct association with their internal politics
• Noriega actually (stupidly) declared war on the U.S., and his security forces killed a U.S. Marine in Panama City, the declaration of war from Panama + the killing of our soldier arguably gave us casus belli

A few things about this surprise me. For one, that it was even attempted--since the failed U.S. special forces raid to rescue the Iran hostages under Carter, I think traditional thinking has been special forces raids like this are very high risk--a failure is basically a political nuclear bomb on an administration, making the President look weak--and the worst case scenario would be a failure in which some of the special forces survive the failure but become captives.

This suggests to me we probably had fairly strong intelligence showing Maduro's personal security wasn't that significant, and was open to this sort of thing. Most dictators we have ongoing beefs with typically have multiple approaches to security that make such a raid a bad idea--generally trying to conceal where they stay, regularly moving with decoys, keeping large numbers of soldiers in their direct proximity at all times etc.

Another reason I think this sort of thing isn't really done is because most of the dictatorships we have issues with, simply removing the dictator does very little.

Game out a scenario where we did this to the Ayatollah for example, where does that really leave us? The IRGC is still supreme, a new Ayatollah is named, and it doesn't seem likely this in any way resolves Iran's various bad behaviors.

Ditto if we had somehow gotten Saddam alone back in 2003-it would have left his sons, the top Ba'ath party officials and his top generals around to continue the same regime.

We already know this regime persists from the death or removal of the dictator--the regime continued on as before when Chavez died and Maduro took over. It's possible having Maduro puts the U.S. in a position where we may be able to bully various concessions from whichever general or politicians takes over for Maduro, but I question just how much that will be true. Whoever takes over is likely to not put his head out of a bunker and will probably be surrounded by enough guys that another raid like this isn't going to have a high chance of success.

[The Brain]

At least Operation Just Because had a cool name.

[The Minsky Moment]

I agree with pretty much everything Otto said above. And the conclusion: great op, great execution, now what?

That may extend to the criminal trial as well, when we tried Noriega we had cooperation from Panama and the ability to get key regime documents. Not sure what witnesses the US controls or what documentary evidence we have.