I think this can be part of the story, but I have truly come to believe that the whims of Trump are often beyond any coherent motives, even coherent-but-wicked motives.
So why not attack Saudi Arabia or the Gulfie tyrannies?
Venezuela would be happy to sell all the oil they can pump. Far cheaper than attacking the country, and Libyan oil production has never recovered from 2011.
Why not attack Saudi Arabia? Are you serious? They're our allies. We don't need to attack them - they're already integrated into the Western financial system and sell us oil on our terms.
We already invaded Iraq and Libya for this exact playbook. Venezuela is next because they DON'T have a Western-controlled central bank and they WON'T play ball with our financial system.
The speedboat fentanyl smuggling story is complete bullshit. Speedboats can't make 1,200-mile ocean trips to smuggle drugs. Fentanyl comes from China through Mexico and Canada. This is a manufactured excuse - just like WMDs in Iraq.
Venezuela would sell oil, but that misses the entire point. We don't want to just BUY their oil. We want regime change so we can install a government that operates under Western central banking control.
Libya's oil production never recovered because chaos and control were always the goal, not stable production. This is the same exact pattern.
You have a childish understanding of geo-politics.
No government has made Venezuela more reliable on the US financial system than the current one. Namely by totally demolishing th currency and forcing a de facto dollarization.
If any, the US assumes Venezuela does not have the ability to revitalize their oil industry by themselves, but they’ve always relied on the US as a buyer.
As I pointed out, buying oil is cheaper than seizing it, if there's any oil left to seize. For that matter , "wise wolf" Iraq and Libya also would have been delighted to be able to sell oil freely for dollars. You may recall the "Oil For Food" program was intended to prevent Iraq from doing precisely that.
You seriously think 9/11 was orchestrated by Saudi Arabia? Seriously? So the Saudis also destroyed Building 7 which just happened to house the CIA and FBI's digital records? Ya know, the building that a plane didn't even hit? I guess the Saudis also layered thermite all over the buildings so "jet fuel" could melt structural steel. I bet the Saudis also took out the trillion dollar insurance policy a few months before it happened.
And you're STILL missing the point on Venezuela. Yes, buying oil is cheaper than seizing it - IF that's all you want. But we don't just want their oil. We want regime change to install a Western-controlled central banking system. You don't get that by signing trade deals.
Iraq and Libya would have "happily sold oil for dollars" - and they did, until they started trying to sell oil in OTHER currencies and operate outside Western financial control. That's when they got "liberated." Oil for Food wasn't about preventing Iraq from selling oil - it was about controlling HOW and to WHOM they sold it.
Venezuela is the same story. They're selling oil right now to Russia and China. The issue isn't access to oil. It's that they won't submit to Western financial control. The fake speedboat fentanyl story is just the excuse to manufacture consent for invasion.
Take your Fisher Price My First Political Guide mindset somewhere else.
"Dollarizing an economy" - congratulations, you just described installing a Western-controlled central bank in boomer terminology. That's literally what I've been saying this whole time, but apparently you need it translated into your 1968 high school civics class vocabulary to understand it.
Yes, forcing Venezuela into dollar-based trade through regime change is the entire fucking point. That's what happened to Iraq when they tried selling oil in euros. That's what happened to Libya when Gaddafi tried creating a gold-backed currency. And that's what's happening now to Venezuela because they're trading with Russia and China outside the dollar system.
But I'm the "conspiracy theorist" for pointing out the obvious pattern, while you're over here calling me crazy and still can't explain why Building 7 collapsed when no plane hit it.
As noted, Iraqi and Libyan oil production never recovered. So that doesn't make sense, either.
The point is to demonstrate to the rest of Latin America what happens to governments that think that they are in any wise sovereign. Argentina is obedient and gets carrot. Venezuela is not and gets stick.
From the perspective of oil companies, it's not all about the money today, it's about the asset stream 40 years in the future. That's why we have no problem crippling Venezuela's oil Business, because we know that will leave it for us to profit from later.
Oil companies, like any other publicly traded entities, are all about the next quarterly results, not 40 years from now when every human involved will have gone to their reward.
Have you heard of their dispute with Guyana over the offshore oil fields? You haven’t have you. How much you want to bet the Guyanese have asked us for help?
We didn't do that in Panama. We invaded. Anyway, why the kefeve about drugs or terrorism or Russia or whatever if this were really at heart a border dispute
all i know is you aren’t taking a speed boat 1200 miles to the coast of florida without it being ripped apart by the ocean. those ‘fentanyl smugglers’ are a psy op to excuse a war with venezuela. there’s two possibilities why: 1. oil 2. no rothschild controlled central banking system. likely both.
fentanyl comes from china and mexico not venezuela.
It's also a criminal war of aggression to attack Venezuela to overthrow its sovereign government. Maybe Michael's too jaded to note that fundamental point, or that such a move, however it's carried out, will likely blow up on the Trump regime if he tries it.This is not Panama. American soldiers will come home horizontally and chaos will ensue. Are Trump and Pistol Petey that stupid? Probably.
Agreed on calling Trump's actions criminal, bc, they are. Every reporter should report this. MT is trying to play both sides, not easy making a living by writing. Wonder who he votes for in national elections, given that foreign policy is (correctly) his metric. Can't possibly be any of the Mafia State Duoploly sock-puppets, smile.
Michael Tracey said in a tweet he voted for Jack Ciattarelli over Mikie Sherrill because he thinks she’s insufferable. He’s more like an outlier right-winger.
With all respect, LIbya is not an apt analogy. Venezuela is a much larger country, with
a far bigger population, and despite decades of brutal sanctions, is not likely to be a pushover for the US, which does not have nearly the ground force necessary to invade. If they somehow pull off a coup, an insurgency may well ensue. Trump keeps inching closer in his Mafia capo way, today seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Why? because he can. But hubris is a dangerous drug as he may find out.
Panama provides a better blueprint. The reason I mentioned Libya is that the United States has figured out that nation building is expensive and hard..smashing things up and creating a failed state is cheap and easy.
Venezuela is 12 times bigger than Panama with 10 times the population. It has rugged forested mountains-part of a diverse and challenging topography to govern. I don't pretend to have a crystal ball but can say Trump will release chaos that he won't be able to control if he's stupid enough to try to overthrow Venezuela's government more directly than with his current pressure tactics, which have failed. A coup regime led by his Nobel Prize puppet as the solution is another step that will breed societal violence I think. She's calling for violence after all.
Trump 2.0 is a complete betrayal of what he ran on.
And the in our face money grift his entire family is engaged in is disgraceful. Hunter Biden had nothing on Don Dr.
I’m betting Trumo gets more than 10 percent.
And Jared? What the F!
Also, Ivanka is back in the whitehouse. Why?
And why is Tiffany’s father in law Trump’s chief adviser? Technically a foreigner..
and why would Amazon pay Melania to produce her own life story about her so called rise in the fashion industry. Will she include Epstein and the underbelly of the world she used to belong to before being rescued by Trump.
And is it legal or normal for the First Lady to have her hand out, demanding millions. Seems like a payoff to me.
Well Big Mike, another lousy article, zero context, just some red meat to throw to your rage junkies on a slow rage week. So glad I shitcanned my subscription.
Maybe you may want to examine how good the fishing is off the Venezuelan coast so that the poor fishermen there can afford triple 250 outboard motors to the tune of 150k
Newsflash haters…… the minute those boats cast off, the U S military knows exactly what’s on board , who’s on board, what the cargo is , and who’s bankrolling it.
How about you do a little reporting on how many drug deaths occur in this country due to the drug trade.
How about a mention of the cartels rerouting of drugs thru Venezuelan ports, since Trump shut down the border and semi trucks with “Drugs are Us” plastered on the sides were just waved thru Uncle Joes pretend border.
So to all your readers and Rachel Maddow circle jerkers, maybe someday there will be a Democrat with the balls that Trump has….. but I wouldn’t go to the two dollar window with that bet
That's an ice cold take in this space, sir. The drug cartels are most decidedly in Mexico, not Venezuela. The point of MT's article is also about rule of law, which requires a degree of moral courage not seen from any president in my 41 years on Earth (let's root for another 100... cross fingers).
"Trump has now even explicitly endorsed the concept of “nation-building,”.......after first having installed himself as the new supreme ruler of the demolished territory." ===> could be more accurately rephrased to "the diminished demolished territory" as recently israel has proclaimed that anything outside of their unilaterally declared yellow line is now also, israel.
Regime change is unpopular for the median voter and popular among decision-makers because most voters do not acknowledge the complex implications of foreign policy inaction. This is the number one challenge of international issues when you’re the world hegemon, and when you decide to be inert—like most American administrations since Bush Jr.—you will also face repercussions whether you like it or not. This is an historically hard-to-swallow truth for Americans, and you assert it correctly, an inherent resposibility to no vote blood-thirsty hawks to avoid catasthropic and ill-conceived interventionism, but also to intervene when righteous and pertinent, as history has exhibited well, there are quite a few cases.
I’d not undermine Maduro’s threat to regional stability. You’re right that the framing pushed by Trump and Rubio—which positions Maduro as the most infamous narco in the planet—is false, and there is no record of fentanyl being shipped from Venezuelan shores. That said, and while this is an immoral lie, as well as the bombing of speedboat, it is true that if Trump and Rubio were to explain the American public why they should really intervene, the American public would rebuke any meddling. What is true though, is that Maduro is involved to different degrees in drug-trafficking; he is an illegitimate tyrant who persecutes, kills and tortures dissidents; and he is giving away his country’s national resources to non-democratic global opponents that plan to use these resources for non-democratic purposes. Maduro’s regime has propitiated the exodus of well over 7 million people. There’s no modern parallel in the world for a country that is not embroiled in some sort of armed conflict.
Now, you’re right that much of this schemes are fruit of ideological convictions. If Trump and Rubio were to be fully pragmatic, they could simply curb all potential threats from Venezuela by simply negotiating with Maduro. Maduro would be relieved to kick out Russian, Iranian, and Chinese interests, cede oil, gas, and mining prospects that are not already under US control, (because, something many people don’t know, Chevron is already extracting Venezuelan oil!!), convince Maduro to take in as many deportees as Trump wishes, and halt all drug-trafficking in his jurisdiction, in exchange to stay in power. If that negotiation were to take place, and could, indeed, still happen as far as we know, that’d be in the best interest of the American people. The American people would not be impacted by Maduro’s authoritarianism, and they’d enjoy all the commercial gains of this good relation, like they already do with other immoral governments like Saudi Arabia. This is the rational course of action in the best interest of the American people. And there’s a more benevolent, in my opinion, rightous one. Certainly, a gambit, as you call it. That dares to overthrow a military regime in the sake of replacing it for a civilian-led government that would, surely, be in even better terms with the US, but would also be democratically-elected.
Many point out that interventionism is very unpredictable and could lead to undesireable outcomes for the Venezuelan people. True, and I know these people speak in good faith. There are risks. But societies who are under extreme situations are often given very few, very risky, and very bad options to decide, and not whether to vote for one party or another every four years, which is, still and thanks God, the case of the US. And for many Venezuelan’s, this is a bet that is quite worthy.
So, yes. Trump’s motivations are obscure, and arguably totally self-driven. But the fact that the Administration is seemingly opting for a more idealistic path, and not a purely transactional one, is, in my opinion, more a virtue than a sign of malice.
I disagree. And I'm not sure what's your notion of independence.
Venezuela was a solid US ally in the region before Chavez. Under Chavez, our foreign policy distanced heavily from the Western sphere of influence. Chavez was close to Putin, to the Iranian theocracy, to Gaddafi, and China. He was a staunch critic of Bush and Israel. All this estranged Venezuela from the US order and had diplomatic repercussions, but did not severe commercial ties and Chavismo was overall unchecked and allowed to continue gripping on Venezuelan institutions and reshaping the country accordingly to their idea of a "socialist revolution". So did other neighboring countries around this time, namely Ecuador under Correa, Argentina under Kirchnerismo, Bolivia under Evo. Some of these countries were in regular or straight up bad terms with the US, but none of them faced a military escalation even remotely comparable to what we are seeing in the Caribbean right now.
What's happening in the Caribbean is explained by two things. 1) the fact that the White House is currently occupied by a coalition that is willing, unlike predecessors, to openly bully the hemisphere and beyond 2) 26 years. I repeat, 26 years. Of uninterrupted Chavismo that has by far and for a long time eroded everything that at some point comprised the Venezuelan state and economy. And more importantly, Venezuela is more reliable on it's non-Western allies now, than what it was on the US when it was a Western-friendly nation.
Not quite. It is true that the US is not happy when their influence over the hemisphere is undermined. But that doesn't mean they're going to embark in such lenghts as we see now in Venezuela simply because they despise the way these countries handle their foreign policy, mainly because this involves quite a bit of risk and there's always pushback against interventionism. Precisely, my point is that there are many cases of countries distancing themselves heavily from the US and yet not facing this treatment. Venezuela did for at least two decades and got away with it. What's happening now it's more complicated. The US not only doesn't consider Venezuela an ally, they see it as a enemy, and I'm guessing they assume the current regime is disposable.
Don't get me wrong, the US has a record of nefarious foreign policy in Latin America. But to say that Venezuela has got in this hassle simply because they diverged from the American influence doesn't have a historic basis.
No historical basis? So tell us how the United States didn't invade Panama or Grenada, sponsor coups in Honduras, Brazil and elsewhere and prop up repressive regimes all over the hemisphere.
But let's pretend - if the people of Venezuela prefer Russia and Iran, is that not their right? Or is all that pious talk coming out of Americans and their european catamites concerning Ukraine so much hypocritical horseshit?
They invaded/intervened in these countries when 1) They threatened their interests. 2) in the context of the Cold War, they feared a Domino Effect and/or Soviet interference.
But you cannot compare the reality of Plan Cóndor to what Chavismo had. The fact that Chavismo continued to be a commercial partner with the US throughout much of these last two decades despite its hostility and proximity to some top-US enemies, proves that the America they faced was different to the Cold War interventionist America. How come they did not remove Chavez? Correa? Evo? They had a political leeway that would've been probably curbed if the president was Reagan, Nixon, Johnson... and not Obama.
Also, there are overwhelming grounds to say that the people of Venezuela do not prefer Russia and China as allies. If that was the case I'd agree with you that it was legitimate. Again, Chavismo was free to depart from the American sphere in part because they had popular support for years. But that's not the case anymore. These partnerships, which are not transparent, are forged at expenses of the people and democratic liberties. Maduro is not popular and he stole the last elections. Similarly, Ukrainians may not be happy with US's exploitative and transactional support, but they still valued them as more benevolent than Russia.
Makes predictions about the future...hard. Will the Pentagon agree to illegally bomb, invade, etc. Venezuela? My hope is YES. It will turn into disaster and eventually overthow of US fascists, R&D. Trump and most of US Congress are incarcerated, sentenced to life- long community service. Magically NO ONE gets killed or injured, apart from the 80+ already murdered by the US murderous military in boats, so far. Fun stuff.
Don't kid yourself. I heard the overall wealth of oil (and other minerals) in Venezuela would be in the neighborhood of $19 TRILLION, which is roughly half of our national debt. This might be more of an edict from Brussels than it is Washington. What better way to get yourself out of inconceivable debt than chopping off 50% of it? All you gotta do is go overthrow a sovereign nation, rule of law be damned. Young military men and women in body bags, be damned.
Your journalism is stellar so long as you stay away from discrediting women who fell victim to powerful men. Perhaps you should look into why and when the former Southcom commander announced his retirement, and why exactly CIA Democrats have suddenly rediscovered the unlawful orders clause of the UCMJ.
The Navy is closer to mutiny than it has ever been and I don't see anyone looking into that.
Why is he fixated on Venezuela?
I will give you a hint, it rhymes with 'boil'.
I think this can be part of the story, but I have truly come to believe that the whims of Trump are often beyond any coherent motives, even coherent-but-wicked motives.
So why not attack Saudi Arabia or the Gulfie tyrannies?
Venezuela would be happy to sell all the oil they can pump. Far cheaper than attacking the country, and Libyan oil production has never recovered from 2011.
Why not attack Saudi Arabia? Are you serious? They're our allies. We don't need to attack them - they're already integrated into the Western financial system and sell us oil on our terms.
We already invaded Iraq and Libya for this exact playbook. Venezuela is next because they DON'T have a Western-controlled central bank and they WON'T play ball with our financial system.
The speedboat fentanyl smuggling story is complete bullshit. Speedboats can't make 1,200-mile ocean trips to smuggle drugs. Fentanyl comes from China through Mexico and Canada. This is a manufactured excuse - just like WMDs in Iraq.
Venezuela would sell oil, but that misses the entire point. We don't want to just BUY their oil. We want regime change so we can install a government that operates under Western central banking control.
Libya's oil production never recovered because chaos and control were always the goal, not stable production. This is the same exact pattern.
You have a childish understanding of geo-politics.
No government has made Venezuela more reliable on the US financial system than the current one. Namely by totally demolishing th currency and forcing a de facto dollarization.
If any, the US assumes Venezuela does not have the ability to revitalize their oil industry by themselves, but they’ve always relied on the US as a buyer.
The same allies that brought us 9/11..
As I pointed out, buying oil is cheaper than seizing it, if there's any oil left to seize. For that matter , "wise wolf" Iraq and Libya also would have been delighted to be able to sell oil freely for dollars. You may recall the "Oil For Food" program was intended to prevent Iraq from doing precisely that.
You seriously think 9/11 was orchestrated by Saudi Arabia? Seriously? So the Saudis also destroyed Building 7 which just happened to house the CIA and FBI's digital records? Ya know, the building that a plane didn't even hit? I guess the Saudis also layered thermite all over the buildings so "jet fuel" could melt structural steel. I bet the Saudis also took out the trillion dollar insurance policy a few months before it happened.
And you're STILL missing the point on Venezuela. Yes, buying oil is cheaper than seizing it - IF that's all you want. But we don't just want their oil. We want regime change to install a Western-controlled central banking system. You don't get that by signing trade deals.
Iraq and Libya would have "happily sold oil for dollars" - and they did, until they started trying to sell oil in OTHER currencies and operate outside Western financial control. That's when they got "liberated." Oil for Food wasn't about preventing Iraq from selling oil - it was about controlling HOW and to WHOM they sold it.
Venezuela is the same story. They're selling oil right now to Russia and China. The issue isn't access to oil. It's that they won't submit to Western financial control. The fake speedboat fentanyl story is just the excuse to manufacture consent for invasion.
Take your Fisher Price My First Political Guide mindset somewhere else.
Leaving your conspiracy theories aside, what do you think dollarizing an economy accomplishes?
"Dollarizing an economy" - congratulations, you just described installing a Western-controlled central bank in boomer terminology. That's literally what I've been saying this whole time, but apparently you need it translated into your 1968 high school civics class vocabulary to understand it.
Yes, forcing Venezuela into dollar-based trade through regime change is the entire fucking point. That's what happened to Iraq when they tried selling oil in euros. That's what happened to Libya when Gaddafi tried creating a gold-backed currency. And that's what's happening now to Venezuela because they're trading with Russia and China outside the dollar system.
But I'm the "conspiracy theorist" for pointing out the obvious pattern, while you're over here calling me crazy and still can't explain why Building 7 collapsed when no plane hit it.
Wake up.
It is about giving control of the oil to ones cronies. They then provide some feedback.
As noted, Iraqi and Libyan oil production never recovered. So that doesn't make sense, either.
The point is to demonstrate to the rest of Latin America what happens to governments that think that they are in any wise sovereign. Argentina is obedient and gets carrot. Venezuela is not and gets stick.
If the government give me half of the previous production I am in and give Trump or Jared his cut.
Is this Henry Kissinger?
'allies' as in 'more rothschild controlled freemasonic banker cannibal wizards' not actual allies.
Yes. It’s about drug cartel money and who controls it.
If that were the case, Mexico and Colombia would be in sharper focus. Venezuela doesn't really produce much and is at most a transit.
From the perspective of oil companies, it's not all about the money today, it's about the asset stream 40 years in the future. That's why we have no problem crippling Venezuela's oil Business, because we know that will leave it for us to profit from later.
Oil companies, like any other publicly traded entities, are all about the next quarterly results, not 40 years from now when every human involved will have gone to their reward.
Have you heard of their dispute with Guyana over the offshore oil fields? You haven’t have you. How much you want to bet the Guyanese have asked us for help?
I have, but it's not as if the only options are "invade and install the old regime at gunpoint" and "do nothing".
Look at Panama. America is the master of the regime decapitation strike.
We didn't do that in Panama. We invaded. Anyway, why the kefeve about drugs or terrorism or Russia or whatever if this were really at heart a border dispute
It’s both.
Who’s “invading”?
Oil for the biillionaire cronies.
or it's a diversionary tactic...
all i know is you aren’t taking a speed boat 1200 miles to the coast of florida without it being ripped apart by the ocean. those ‘fentanyl smugglers’ are a psy op to excuse a war with venezuela. there’s two possibilities why: 1. oil 2. no rothschild controlled central banking system. likely both.
fentanyl comes from china and mexico not venezuela.
Nope
It's also a criminal war of aggression to attack Venezuela to overthrow its sovereign government. Maybe Michael's too jaded to note that fundamental point, or that such a move, however it's carried out, will likely blow up on the Trump regime if he tries it.This is not Panama. American soldiers will come home horizontally and chaos will ensue. Are Trump and Pistol Petey that stupid? Probably.
Agreed on calling Trump's actions criminal, bc, they are. Every reporter should report this. MT is trying to play both sides, not easy making a living by writing. Wonder who he votes for in national elections, given that foreign policy is (correctly) his metric. Can't possibly be any of the Mafia State Duoploly sock-puppets, smile.
In this very article, I quote and link to where I explained my personal voting rationale for the 2024 election https://www.mtracey.net/p/why-i-wont-vote-for-donald-trump
Michael reportedly did not vote in the last election.
Michael Tracey said in a tweet he voted for Jack Ciattarelli over Mikie Sherrill because he thinks she’s insufferable. He’s more like an outlier right-winger.
Look at Libya. This worked exactly as the United States intended, and American casualties were minimal.
With all respect, LIbya is not an apt analogy. Venezuela is a much larger country, with
a far bigger population, and despite decades of brutal sanctions, is not likely to be a pushover for the US, which does not have nearly the ground force necessary to invade. If they somehow pull off a coup, an insurgency may well ensue. Trump keeps inching closer in his Mafia capo way, today seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Why? because he can. But hubris is a dangerous drug as he may find out.
Every country is different. That said, you are fooling yourself if you think Venezuela will be able to resist in any meaningful way.
We will see. It's Trump who is fooling himself. It's a long tradition-LBJ and Nixon ring a bell?
Panama provides a better blueprint. The reason I mentioned Libya is that the United States has figured out that nation building is expensive and hard..smashing things up and creating a failed state is cheap and easy.
Venezuela is 12 times bigger than Panama with 10 times the population. It has rugged forested mountains-part of a diverse and challenging topography to govern. I don't pretend to have a crystal ball but can say Trump will release chaos that he won't be able to control if he's stupid enough to try to overthrow Venezuela's government more directly than with his current pressure tactics, which have failed. A coup regime led by his Nobel Prize puppet as the solution is another step that will breed societal violence I think. She's calling for violence after all.
It was criminal.
Yup, and nobody was punished. Instead, the United States did it again to Syria.
Trump 2.0 is a complete betrayal of what he ran on.
And the in our face money grift his entire family is engaged in is disgraceful. Hunter Biden had nothing on Don Dr.
I’m betting Trumo gets more than 10 percent.
And Jared? What the F!
Also, Ivanka is back in the whitehouse. Why?
And why is Tiffany’s father in law Trump’s chief adviser? Technically a foreigner..
and why would Amazon pay Melania to produce her own life story about her so called rise in the fashion industry. Will she include Epstein and the underbelly of the world she used to belong to before being rescued by Trump.
And is it legal or normal for the First Lady to have her hand out, demanding millions. Seems like a payoff to me.
Spot on about the "regime change" talking points!
Puppet Trump is merely following orders. US coups of Venezuela flopped in 2002,…2015,…2019,…and 2020....Sickest, 8/22/2019, Trump banned MLB players from playing in Venezuela winter leagues......https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27442220/mlb-bans-playing-venezuela-amid-trump-order......4/21/2002, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela.....2/24/2015, https://www.voltairenet.org/article186879.html#nb3.....7/2/2019, https://www.voltairenet.org/article206898.html.....4/6/2020, https://www.voltairenet.org/article209630.html
Well Big Mike, another lousy article, zero context, just some red meat to throw to your rage junkies on a slow rage week. So glad I shitcanned my subscription.
Maybe you may want to examine how good the fishing is off the Venezuelan coast so that the poor fishermen there can afford triple 250 outboard motors to the tune of 150k
Newsflash haters…… the minute those boats cast off, the U S military knows exactly what’s on board , who’s on board, what the cargo is , and who’s bankrolling it.
How about you do a little reporting on how many drug deaths occur in this country due to the drug trade.
How about a mention of the cartels rerouting of drugs thru Venezuelan ports, since Trump shut down the border and semi trucks with “Drugs are Us” plastered on the sides were just waved thru Uncle Joes pretend border.
So to all your readers and Rachel Maddow circle jerkers, maybe someday there will be a Democrat with the balls that Trump has….. but I wouldn’t go to the two dollar window with that bet
Cheers
That's an ice cold take in this space, sir. The drug cartels are most decidedly in Mexico, not Venezuela. The point of MT's article is also about rule of law, which requires a degree of moral courage not seen from any president in my 41 years on Earth (let's root for another 100... cross fingers).
You're a Trump-stroking Nidiot.
Does it have to be Rachel Maddow in the circle jerk? Seems counter productive.
Hey, even a lez might enjoy a strap-on... let's not discriminate based on sexual preferences.
Wrong NATO shill
Hey, f*ck you Arthur, and your imagined knowledge and "balls" on that pathetic excuse of a whore, Trump. And Rachel Maddow, too.
How can you characterize this article as having "zero context"?
There was plenty of context.
I am completely repulsed by the idea of regime changing. Your breakdown of this subject is terrific albeit very disturbing. Thank you.
"Trump has now even explicitly endorsed the concept of “nation-building,”.......after first having installed himself as the new supreme ruler of the demolished territory." ===> could be more accurately rephrased to "the diminished demolished territory" as recently israel has proclaimed that anything outside of their unilaterally declared yellow line is now also, israel.
Regime change is unpopular for the median voter and popular among decision-makers because most voters do not acknowledge the complex implications of foreign policy inaction. This is the number one challenge of international issues when you’re the world hegemon, and when you decide to be inert—like most American administrations since Bush Jr.—you will also face repercussions whether you like it or not. This is an historically hard-to-swallow truth for Americans, and you assert it correctly, an inherent resposibility to no vote blood-thirsty hawks to avoid catasthropic and ill-conceived interventionism, but also to intervene when righteous and pertinent, as history has exhibited well, there are quite a few cases.
I’d not undermine Maduro’s threat to regional stability. You’re right that the framing pushed by Trump and Rubio—which positions Maduro as the most infamous narco in the planet—is false, and there is no record of fentanyl being shipped from Venezuelan shores. That said, and while this is an immoral lie, as well as the bombing of speedboat, it is true that if Trump and Rubio were to explain the American public why they should really intervene, the American public would rebuke any meddling. What is true though, is that Maduro is involved to different degrees in drug-trafficking; he is an illegitimate tyrant who persecutes, kills and tortures dissidents; and he is giving away his country’s national resources to non-democratic global opponents that plan to use these resources for non-democratic purposes. Maduro’s regime has propitiated the exodus of well over 7 million people. There’s no modern parallel in the world for a country that is not embroiled in some sort of armed conflict.
Now, you’re right that much of this schemes are fruit of ideological convictions. If Trump and Rubio were to be fully pragmatic, they could simply curb all potential threats from Venezuela by simply negotiating with Maduro. Maduro would be relieved to kick out Russian, Iranian, and Chinese interests, cede oil, gas, and mining prospects that are not already under US control, (because, something many people don’t know, Chevron is already extracting Venezuelan oil!!), convince Maduro to take in as many deportees as Trump wishes, and halt all drug-trafficking in his jurisdiction, in exchange to stay in power. If that negotiation were to take place, and could, indeed, still happen as far as we know, that’d be in the best interest of the American people. The American people would not be impacted by Maduro’s authoritarianism, and they’d enjoy all the commercial gains of this good relation, like they already do with other immoral governments like Saudi Arabia. This is the rational course of action in the best interest of the American people. And there’s a more benevolent, in my opinion, rightous one. Certainly, a gambit, as you call it. That dares to overthrow a military regime in the sake of replacing it for a civilian-led government that would, surely, be in even better terms with the US, but would also be democratically-elected.
Many point out that interventionism is very unpredictable and could lead to undesireable outcomes for the Venezuelan people. True, and I know these people speak in good faith. There are risks. But societies who are under extreme situations are often given very few, very risky, and very bad options to decide, and not whether to vote for one party or another every four years, which is, still and thanks God, the case of the US. And for many Venezuelan’s, this is a bet that is quite worthy.
So, yes. Trump’s motivations are obscure, and arguably totally self-driven. But the fact that the Administration is seemingly opting for a more idealistic path, and not a purely transactional one, is, in my opinion, more a virtue than a sign of malice.
The point is to demonstrate to the rest of Latin America what happens to countries that get ideas of independence.
Argentina is a slavish US puppet and they get bailouts.
Venezuela seeks independence and they get attacked.
I disagree. And I'm not sure what's your notion of independence.
Venezuela was a solid US ally in the region before Chavez. Under Chavez, our foreign policy distanced heavily from the Western sphere of influence. Chavez was close to Putin, to the Iranian theocracy, to Gaddafi, and China. He was a staunch critic of Bush and Israel. All this estranged Venezuela from the US order and had diplomatic repercussions, but did not severe commercial ties and Chavismo was overall unchecked and allowed to continue gripping on Venezuelan institutions and reshaping the country accordingly to their idea of a "socialist revolution". So did other neighboring countries around this time, namely Ecuador under Correa, Argentina under Kirchnerismo, Bolivia under Evo. Some of these countries were in regular or straight up bad terms with the US, but none of them faced a military escalation even remotely comparable to what we are seeing in the Caribbean right now.
What's happening in the Caribbean is explained by two things. 1) the fact that the White House is currently occupied by a coalition that is willing, unlike predecessors, to openly bully the hemisphere and beyond 2) 26 years. I repeat, 26 years. Of uninterrupted Chavismo that has by far and for a long time eroded everything that at some point comprised the Venezuelan state and economy. And more importantly, Venezuela is more reliable on it's non-Western allies now, than what it was on the US when it was a Western-friendly nation.
So Venezuela can decide its own foreign policy, as long as that policy coincides with that of Washington. Is that what you're trying to say?
Not quite. It is true that the US is not happy when their influence over the hemisphere is undermined. But that doesn't mean they're going to embark in such lenghts as we see now in Venezuela simply because they despise the way these countries handle their foreign policy, mainly because this involves quite a bit of risk and there's always pushback against interventionism. Precisely, my point is that there are many cases of countries distancing themselves heavily from the US and yet not facing this treatment. Venezuela did for at least two decades and got away with it. What's happening now it's more complicated. The US not only doesn't consider Venezuela an ally, they see it as a enemy, and I'm guessing they assume the current regime is disposable.
Don't get me wrong, the US has a record of nefarious foreign policy in Latin America. But to say that Venezuela has got in this hassle simply because they diverged from the American influence doesn't have a historic basis.
No historical basis? So tell us how the United States didn't invade Panama or Grenada, sponsor coups in Honduras, Brazil and elsewhere and prop up repressive regimes all over the hemisphere.
But let's pretend - if the people of Venezuela prefer Russia and Iran, is that not their right? Or is all that pious talk coming out of Americans and their european catamites concerning Ukraine so much hypocritical horseshit?
They invaded/intervened in these countries when 1) They threatened their interests. 2) in the context of the Cold War, they feared a Domino Effect and/or Soviet interference.
But you cannot compare the reality of Plan Cóndor to what Chavismo had. The fact that Chavismo continued to be a commercial partner with the US throughout much of these last two decades despite its hostility and proximity to some top-US enemies, proves that the America they faced was different to the Cold War interventionist America. How come they did not remove Chavez? Correa? Evo? They had a political leeway that would've been probably curbed if the president was Reagan, Nixon, Johnson... and not Obama.
Also, there are overwhelming grounds to say that the people of Venezuela do not prefer Russia and China as allies. If that was the case I'd agree with you that it was legitimate. Again, Chavismo was free to depart from the American sphere in part because they had popular support for years. But that's not the case anymore. These partnerships, which are not transparent, are forged at expenses of the people and democratic liberties. Maduro is not popular and he stole the last elections. Similarly, Ukrainians may not be happy with US's exploitative and transactional support, but they still valued them as more benevolent than Russia.
Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. He agrees with whatever the last person to talk to him on a given issue says.
In this case, those someones are Rubio, Abrams and crew.
Makes predictions about the future...hard. Will the Pentagon agree to illegally bomb, invade, etc. Venezuela? My hope is YES. It will turn into disaster and eventually overthow of US fascists, R&D. Trump and most of US Congress are incarcerated, sentenced to life- long community service. Magically NO ONE gets killed or injured, apart from the 80+ already murdered by the US murderous military in boats, so far. Fun stuff.
The Americans will demonstrate their ruthlessness.
I guess we can dream.
Don't kid yourself. I heard the overall wealth of oil (and other minerals) in Venezuela would be in the neighborhood of $19 TRILLION, which is roughly half of our national debt. This might be more of an edict from Brussels than it is Washington. What better way to get yourself out of inconceivable debt than chopping off 50% of it? All you gotta do is go overthrow a sovereign nation, rule of law be damned. Young military men and women in body bags, be damned.
Except they won't get away with it.
We can dream to sleep. The closing of Venezuelan airspace gives me the fear of carnage.
Excellent article. Thanks Michael!
Follow the money. Trump also found a small state that he can bully and the rest of the world doesn’t seem to care about.
French version : https://faustotounsi.substack.com/p/pourquoi-trump-est-il-tellement-obsede
French version : https://faustotounsi.substack.com/p/pourquoi-trump-est-il-tellement-obsede
French version : https://faustotounsi.substack.com/p/pourquoi-trump-est-il-tellement-obsede
Your journalism is stellar so long as you stay away from discrediting women who fell victim to powerful men. Perhaps you should look into why and when the former Southcom commander announced his retirement, and why exactly CIA Democrats have suddenly rediscovered the unlawful orders clause of the UCMJ.
The Navy is closer to mutiny than it has ever been and I don't see anyone looking into that.
"The Navy is closer to mutiny than it has ever been and I don't see anyone looking into that."
Evidence?