[mpalczewski]

> Maduro was president of a sovereign country.

It's funny how we accept the importance given to that statement. when he's just some dude who took control of a country and gave himself that title. As if the social construction means anything in this situation.

[nostrademons]

My read on the GP comment was that it's intentionally juxtaposing the weight and importance normally given to being president alongside the anarchy that goes along with kidnapping and murder to point out the irony. If you want to believe in things like sovereignty and government, you can't simultaneously say that these governments can kidnap, invade, and murder just because they can. It undermines the very legitimacy of the social contract. After all, it's not much of a contract if it can be broken at will.

I found it hard to figure out which side the GP came down on, but perhaps it's not taking a side and merely pointing out the irony and the death of legitimacy. Maybe there is no such thing as government anymore, and it all comes down to goons with guns.

[layla5alive]

I had the same interpretation - Maduro was a bad guy, but when the approach taken is akin to the "Wild West," its hard to claim moral superiority - it devolves to different factions of goons with guns stealing from each other and murdering with impunity, "might makes right."

This stands in contrast to the ideals of a society based on laws and rules, where corruption is a notable exception.

We stand on the precipice of abandoning what the world worked so hard for decades to build...

[hx8]

The idea of sovereignty is a cornerstone of how we organize our global society. This was an overt statement that the US controls South America, and that South America doesn't rule itself. Previously, we were relaying on covert methods for influence.

The relationship with SA has materially changed.

1. The United States is willing to violate South American sovereignty.

2. South America has offered little resistance to this incident.

[dnautics]

> The idea of sovereignty is a cornerstone of how we organize our global society.

It is, but it's kind of a thin lie.

How's sovereignty going for ukraine? Hong kong? Chechnya, South ossetia, and abkhazia? Puerto Rico? Western Sahara? Parts of Sudan? Border regions of bhutan? South american fisheries? People trying to set up micronations?

[watwut]

Ukraine is still sovereign nation. And willing to sacrifice a lot to remain one.

[libertine]

That's correct that sovereignty is a cornerstone, but since the founding of the UN that doesn't mean you have a blank check to do whatever you want within the sovereignty of a country.

Things like genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, violating other countries sovereignty with no strong justification, development of nuclear weapons, etc.

So there's a bunch of red lines that clearly some countries will step over the sovereignty line, thankfully so!

I'm not saying the US was right about what they did in Venezuela, but clearly Maduro wasn't recognized as the president of Venezuela by venezuelans and many countries.

[pjmorris]

If you're going to invoke the UN, you should show the UN resolution calling for action in Venezuela.

[libertine]

UN actions or shortcomings are beyond the point that there was a global understanding after WW2 about sovereignty red lines.

[themanualstates]

Only genocide has a 'duty to prevent and punish'; with UN Security Council approval of course.

Restrictions on building nuclear bombs are defined in the voluntary Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is not applicaple to non-parties (India, Israel, Pakistan, South Sudan).

Every foreign intervention done by US / NATO through-out has backfired, and worsened the problem it tried to solve.

Case in point: CIA covertly arms Afghan Mujahideen fighters to wage war against the Soviet Union by proxy in the 80s - 90s. But David Hasselhoff did a song, so the Soviet Union fell apart, and Afghan fighters pivoted to civil warfare as Taliban.

Sadam Hussein was a rogue US puppet-dictatorship gone wrong. But 'freeing' Iraq from Hussein entailed destroying their entire civilisation. Just the mayhem caused a million deaths through starvation, sectorial violence, collapsed healthcare, terrorists roaming the streets, etc.

We also destroyed Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Libya, Yemen, Guatemala, Chile, etc. (At least for a while)

[watwut]

Regular remainder: NATO acted exactly once, in afghanistant after USA was attacked. NATO as such was not doing "early interventions".

NATO member states are free to pursue interventions, but they then do not get NATO protection.

[libertine]

Somehow they forgot to include when a member of the Security Council is commiting genocide - like what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

The UN has a body that regulates nuclear energy, called IAEA, and they can definitely bring violations to the Security Council.

> Every foreign intervention done by US / NATO through-out has backfired, and worsened the problem it tried to solve.

That's quite a bold claim:

- first by focusing only in the US / NATO, and leaving out interventions of the UN. Why is that?

- would you say that the people in Kosovo are worse than they were before NATO intervention? Or South Korea with the intervention of the UN? Or even Ukraine today with the help of NATO?

- it's funny you blame the CIA for the consequences of the Afghanistan war, yet you don't blame the USSR who invaded Afghanistan in the first place!

It's like for you, the USSR losing the Afghanistan war was a bad thing, and the collapse of the USSR as well, and the CIA was to blame for all of that? What's going on there?

As for Saddam, he shouldn't have invaded Kuwait, let alone the other atrocities.

You seem to have a lot of grievances towards US / NATO, and very little against USSR and Russia "interventions".

Like what they did in Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and the other atrocities in Africa, and Asia with their neo-nazi paramilitary group.

Anyway, I don't defend everything the US / NATO / UN did - but one thing is sure (up until today), none of them expanded their borders and attempted to annex land.

[themanualstates]

I'm anti-authoritarianism, and consider the UN as the better alternative. Not into some deep conspiracy lol. I'm sorry I confused you.

[Calavar]

I know this is tangential to your overall point, but did really they murder everyone in the room? I was under the impression that a few Venezuelan generals kidnapped Maduro themselves, left him at a predetermined point for US forces to pick up, and had their soldiers fire some small arms into the air to make a token show of resistance. There's no way the US would have flown a slow-moving convoy of helicopters into a hostile city unless they knew a priori that Venezuelan air defense missile batteries would be ordered to stand down.

[notahacker]

I agree there was almost certainly some collaboration with some factions in Maduro's military standing down for the mission to go so smoothly, but its pretty well-established that a number of soldiers were killed, with some US soldiers coming back with the wounds to show for it. The entire bodyguard being killed is something the US and Cuba actually agree on!

[the_af]

Who knows what's true, but the official US narrative is that they entered his bunker, slaughtered the (mostly Cuban) security guards, and stopped Maduro just before he could hide behind a reinforced door. So the official narrative is indeed that US forces slaughtered a bunch of people and took Maduro.

Whether there was also cooperation from the Venezuelan military, failure to shoot down helicopters, etc, is a different matter.

[k12sosse]

> There's no way the US would have flown a slow-moving convoy of helicopters into a hostile city

Speaking like a man without access to a discombobulator.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ja0wzMtzw38

[ErneX]

They killed like 32 Cuban bodyguards.

[zardo]

I don't think there's any question that he legitimately won his first election. Which is more than we can say for US allies on the Arabian peninsula. When are we going to send the choppers for them?

[k12sosse]

2029 I would imagine, I mean think of the profits. These datacenters clearly aren't going to pay for themselves.

[Retric]

> and gave himself that title

Declaring yourself president means nothing. I’m the president of planet earth and nothing changes. Similarly he could go by grand pimp and it would be just as meaningful.

Legitimacy comes from all the people backing up his claim to control of the country. Further governments care about legitimacy because it’s way easier to assassinate leaders than win wars and leaders don’t want to be at risk. It’s pure self interest protecting each other.

[themanualstates]

The social construct at play is 'International Law' by agreeing on mutually binding agreements. More specifically the 'prohibition against the use of force'. This is slightly different from the 'rules-based international order' often used in the US, which isn't specifically defined and can thus be used for whatever.

Whether Maduro is a baddie or not, taking military action requires buy-in from the UN Security Council. Specifically: nine affirmative votes from the 15-member council, provided that none of the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, UK, US) cast a veto. And it's only allowed to 'maintain or enforce international peace and security'. The charter contrasts this to building

The US should've consider how their war-plans 'maintain or enforce international peace and security' before commencing. Or even fabricate' sexed up Dossiers' on weapons of mass destruction like when the US invaded Iraq.

Self-defence is the only valid excuse for using arms without prior security council approval and acting without a plan for peace and security.

[Forgeties79]

Honest question: Would you feel similarly if the shoe were on the other foot? If we had a hostile presidential takeover and another country, for reasons completely unrelated to that, showed up at the WH and executed this kind of “mission”?

Maduro was a piece of…let’s keep this polite and say “work.” Everyone agrees. Does that mean what the US did was acceptable? There’s a lot of nuance and context being glossed over here.

It’s like with Iran. “Their government was horrible.” Ok, but that’s not why we attacked them. The Trump admin has explicitly said that wasn’t the motivation, but they randomly bring it up whenever they need to shift tactics. It’s a moral appeal supporters use to paper over the political realities and actual motivations.

Edit: toned down the intensity a bit.

[volkk]

> Does that mean what the US did was acceptable?

The longer I am alive the more I realize that power is all that matters, and that rules are nice but only for the peons. "Acceptable" in this case means pretty much nothing and is a word that is philosophic in its meaning. You can yell into the clouds that something is unacceptable or unfair and it may be true in some ethical/moral sense, but it matters none. Power will always win out and if someone came to the WH and did the same thing, then there would only be one reason for it -- that there is somebody more powerful than the US and is able to get away with things like this. The masses would scream, cry and maybe some would be happy, but it wouldn't matter whatsoever. Maduro might have been bad (a great excuse for the masses to avoid revolts) but ultimately, the government made a decision to do it and that's that.

[Forgeties79]

I am not a fan of "well what can ya do?" That's not how we got the 40 hour work week or civil rights legislation. That's not how women got the right to vote. You have to fight and fight and fight for a better world. I mean that.

[mpalczewski]

It's literally how you got those things. Without leverage to get them, they would have just been complaints. You ask what you can do, and then you do it.

[Forgeties79]

I meant more in the sarcastic/defeatist sense. A linguistic shrug not to be taken in the literal sense. That's on me though, I should've picked better wording.

[watwut]

> Maduro was a piece of…let’s keep this polite and say “work.” Everyone agrees. Does that mean what the US did was acceptable?

Maduro was replaced by his equally unelected second. It is not as if Venezuela became democracy or something. Instead, a bunch of leaders got promotion including the main torturer.

I find it mind boggling that it is called regime change. Regime remained in place.

[saltcured]

I thought that already happened in the US and that's how we ended up with this current mess..?

[Forgeties79]

I dislike Trump with a passion that is very hard to over emphasize. However, he did win the 2016 and 2024 elections. Maduro stole his seat.

[k12sosse]

2024 is up for debate, last I checked, not that anyone would challenge it.

[Forgeties79]

It's not up for debate. Don't play Trump's games. It legitimizes his nonsense take on 2020.

Trump lost in 2020. Harris lost in 2024. We have all sorts of external influence and nonsense happening in our social/political lives and yes many states are messing with people's ability to actually vote, but when it comes to what happens in the voting booth, US elections are incredibly secure and fraud/ballot tampering is so rare that calling it "rare" doesn't properly emphasize reality.

The vote count was accurate, Trump won, and we are all paying a horrible price for the self-inflicted chaos and regression that has ensued.

>Not that anyone would challenge it

If there were legitimate grounds to question it there is no way we wouldn't see action on it

[cestith]

In this scenario, is the person in the Oval Office a rapist, child molester, serial fraudster, corruptly manipulating stock markets, steering government money to his children’s own weapons companies, assassinating other world leaders, committing the war crime of declaring no quarter, committing the war crime of threatening to destroy all significant civilian infrastructure in another sovereign nation, committing the war crime of threatening genocide, and threatening the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive military action?

[k12sosse]

Don't forget his incontinence, and that whole literal bulldozing of your democratic institutions.

[Forgeties79]

Incontinence can happen to anyone. No need to pick on things that people can’t control. Especially when he has so many legitimate targets to hit.

[b00ty4breakfast]

How much a particular head of state fits into the modern, western conception of liberalism and democracy should have no bearing on the matter; Kidnapping that head of state and putting him on trial in a different country for crimes he is, at best, peripherally involved in is untenable. Especially when the very obvious motivation is self-enrichment rather than bringing any of that liberal democracy to the populace.