I think the strategy is more by creep. Desensitization. This will be just another inching forwardOr maybe not :(

It doesn’t make him look stupid, it makes him look like a criminal.Like Reagan. But they’ll find some guy, I don’t know, Bob South, who will take the fall.

No, not actually.  But the mods do remove political content, so this whole thread will be gone soon.

Prediction: it won&#x27;t. HN is very touchy about things that make the president look bad, as well as about bold statements, as well as about politics (except when it&#x27;s good for VC money, then it&#x27;s apolitical).

If any other country ran what they called a “special military operation” like this in the US, we’d call it an invasion.

Which is just a euphemism for a certain kind of invasion

I think the term is “humanitarian aid”

A Superb Military Operation, some even say it&#x27;s Super, one of the best military operations they&#x27;ve ever seen!

First US need to lose 220,000+ of military personnel dead there and then you can call it that. Otherwise comparison with Russia is kind a dull.

When did we stop calling them “police actions” when side-stepping Congressional approval?

It&#x27;s not an invasion, it is just a special military operation.

&gt; Prediction: this headline will be renamed &quot;US invades Venezuela&quot; very soonI&#x27;ll say I&#x27;m doubtful. I think we&#x27;ll bomb from afar and hope to pot Maduro.

If you think he cares about Americans? Let alone optics. I&#x27;ve got a bridge to sell you.

I try to stay humble when predicting the future. But there is just no way there will be a literal military invasion. Trump would never risk a bunch of american dying on the ground, it would be terrible optics.

There is a science fiction book &quot;The inhabited island&quot; (&quot;Prisoners of power&quot;?) by A. and B. Strugatsky. In one of episodes they try to describe the feeling of being in a very human-looking but also completely alien culture (a different planet with humanoid inhabitants). So they describe how a group of people works out a credentials&#x2F;paperwork situation (they need to move a prisoner from one place to another) but literally, as these actions are seen by the prisoner who does not understand the meaning. &quot;This one gave that one a yellow rectangle but that one refused to take it and said something in a raised voice.&quot;I always remember that episode as I see headlines like that.

It won’t, they will just quote whatever the Trump admin says

Prediction: this headline will be renamed &quot;US invades Venezuela&quot; very soon.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2026&#x2F;01&#x2F;03&#x2F;americas&#x2F;venezuela-explosions-intl-hnk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2026&#x2F;01&#x2F;03&#x2F;americas&#x2F;venezuela-explosions...</a>

MAGA: It&#x27;s not really a war if they can&#x27;t retaliate.No doubt the regime will come up with a &quot;special military operation&quot; equivalent to avoid calling it what it is.

&gt; Trump ran on &quot;no more wars&quot;. Manufacturing consent means admitting that he&#x27;s entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it&#x27;s not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.Or, he could acknowledge that their is a conflict, and pretend he didn&#x27;t start it but Venezuela did. Like he could claim that Venezuela invaded the US first (oh, wait, he actually did that last March, using it as the pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.)

Trump ran on &quot;no more wars&quot;. Manufacturing consent means admitting that he&#x27;s entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it&#x27;s not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.Plus, the more of a splash, the more Epstein stays out of the news.

Protest has never stopped a government from doing what it wanted. Not a single time in history.When it&#x27;s appeared to work, that has one of two causes: either the government didn&#x27;t really care very much to begin with, or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group&#x27;s demands while saving face. (See civil rights)

&gt; Even the ballot box isn&#x27;t enough. We don&#x27;t have an anti-war party in the USThis is lazy and wrong. Simple answer is leadership is betting this won&#x27;t lose them the Congress in the midterms because enough Americans won&#x27;t care. Conceding ex ante the ballot box is literally proving that hypothesis.

I mean they did it in US media, even used the same wording as they did for the Iraq war.

&gt; We don&#x27;t need to manufacture consent anymore.You can see it on every popular internet thread

We don&#x27;t need to manufacture consent anymore. The days of protest ending a war that the US is engaged in are long gone, if they were ever here.Even the ballot box isn&#x27;t enough. We don&#x27;t have an anti-war party in the US.Our news media are largely captive to the military, with the embedded reporter system.Congress has abdicated broad war powers to the president, and the courts won&#x27;t intervene.The global community can&#x27;t do anything to the US. Sanctions are very unlikely.

Unlikely to be ann invasion, they appear to be SOF Chinooks so probably a snatch or pinpoint raid.

Most of Manufacturing Consent is about ideological alignment in media and government being an emergent property, not the product of deliberate conspiring. People seek out jobs with people&#x2F;organizations they already agree with. People hire people they already agree with. People are more likely to get promoted if their boss thinks they have good opinions, etc. It&#x27;s not a conspiracy, at least there doesn&#x27;t need to be a conspiracy, because Manufacturing Consent describes an anti-conspiracy. All of this obviously still happens today, there hasn&#x27;t been any fundamental change in human behavior, people still have special affinity for people they agree with. Always have, and always will.Chomsky, as a linguist, was probably better equipped to understand the implications of emergent behavior than more mainstream political scientists.

&gt; They didn&#x27;t even try very hard to manufacture consentChomsky was smart and influential. But he was a linguist. Not a political scientist. The manufacturing-consent hypothesis sort of worked under mass media. But even then, it wasn&#x27;t a testable hypothesis, more a story of history.In today&#x27;s world, unless you&#x27;re willing to dilute the term to just persuasion in general, I&#x27;m not sure it applies.Instead, the dominant force here is apathy. Most Americans historically haven&#x27;t (and probably won&#x27;t) risk life, liberty or material wealthy on a foreign-policy position. Not unless there is a draft. (I&#x27;m saying Americans, but this is true in most democracies.)

Of course Trump is very much against election fraud in other country unless it&#x27;s his buddy Putin:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;20&#x2F;595299071&#x2F;president-trump-congratulates-putin-on-re-election" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;20&#x2F;595299071&#x2F;president-trump-con...</a>

Is that really necessary? Venezuela recently held an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power. Very few US citizens will find this particularly odious.

Footage is quickly spreading, looks like strikes on military bases as well as a bunch of low-flying helicopters, so a strike + a ground invasion? They didn&#x27;t even  try very hard to manufacture consent for a war against Venezuela. Wonderful.

Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya&#x27;s leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS &#x2F; &quot;JV team&quot; terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that &quot;rules based order&quot;?I think you&#x27;ve been had with the whole &quot;rules based order thing&quot;. You can keep winding the clock back and it&#x27;s the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged &quot;rules based order&quot; was great?

It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq&#x2F;Ukraine&#x2F;Libya&#x2F;Afghan&#x2F;Syria&#x2F;Yugoslav&#x2F;... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.

&gt; I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the HagueSimpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government&#x27;s consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.

This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.

you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it&#x27;s legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough

I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don&#x27;t really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are &quot;ruled&quot; and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don&#x27;t always apply.And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of &quot;let the dictators dictate&quot;, while &quot;westerners&quot; not.But I think this current case (and Trump&#x27;s presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed &quot;democracy&quot;.I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information&#x2F;missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don&#x27;t happen anymore. People can&#x27;t anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.Well... We as people lost and losing the means to &quot;control&quot; our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn&#x27;t matter.

To be fair that applies to Maduro to if you count crimes against humanity in general. Certainly applied to Sadam.So now the question is how to do you capture this leadership without foreign intervention while they are still in power?Talk is nice... but there is no real mechanism to impose what you are proposing besides this.

On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government.What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?

As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague.Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.

His defenders kept, and keep, using it as an excuse.

I don&#x27;t think Trump ever cared about rules based order.

They have the same respect for domestic laws as they do for international ones

The UK, for example, stopped intelligence sharing in the Caribbean so as to not be party to war crimes.

MAGA at its core is a rejection of the lower classes having wealth.

&gt; all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about &quot;rules based order&quot; pretend nothing is happening or to justify itMAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they&#x27;re doing it while criticising Trump.

No idea what you&#x27;re going on about. Those in the West who stand for a rules-based international order certainly didn&#x27;t ask for this war, and Trump, who did start this war, never gave a shit about rules or norms, international or otherwise.

matched by the hegsdeth signal chat that the US bombed the houthis on europe&#x27;s behalf

Going back 7 months: Germany’s Merz says Israel is doing the ‘dirty work for all of us’ by countering IranIn this case probably attitude is probably similar

Some certainly will, but not many I think. There are very few westerners outside of the US, who want to have anything to do with what the US are doing now.

Trump hardly is a representative for &quot;westerners&quot;, actually the majority of them think he&#x27;s a lawless looney. No one outside of his administration or party is justifying his actions.Your comment is just bigotry.

Rules based order has always only applied to small and medium countries. The UN Security Council does whatever the hell they want

If the last 2 years of Gaza genocide didn&#x27;t do that, I&#x27;m n not sure why this would. They&#x27;ll spend the first 20 minutes talking about how bad Maduro is and the next 5 minutes saying this is &quot;misguided&quot; and didn&#x27;t go through the proper channels.

Rapist presidents have no authority to defend &#x27;rules based order&#x27;. Were you also ok with him defending &#x27;rules based order&#x27; by arming Israel as they committed genocide? Or when he committed war crimes by blowing up the boats over the last few months?

Well, &#x27;western&#x27; &#x27;rules based order&#x27; involves democratic elections and being in 166th place for government transparency isn&#x27;t a good sign. Appointing your successor isn&#x27;t exactly democratic, in fact it&#x27;s very much the sign of most countries that end in dictatorship:&quot;Chavez was elected to a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in due to medical complications; he died in March 2013.[95] Nicolás Maduro was picked by Chavez as his successor, appointing him vice president in 2013.&quot;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Venezuela#Bolivarian_government_under_Ch%C3%A1vez:_1999%E2%80%932013" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Venezuela#Bolivarian_governmen...</a>

&quot;rules based order&quot; means putting people with dark skin in handcuffs on TV

It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about &quot;rules based order&quot; pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.

Can&#x27;t reply to the comment, but no idea why this was flagged.

Always remember the role of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in preparing this unprovoked and illegal (under international law) attack on Venezuela by awarding the prize to María Corina Machado.Julian Assange actually filed a Swedish criminal complaint against Nobel Foundation officials, alleging misappropriation of Nobel endowment funds and facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, and it seeks immediate freezing of funds and a full investigation: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;just-international.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;assanges-criminal-complaint-against-nobel-peace-committee&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;just-international.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;assanges-criminal-co...</a>

Their peace prize……that they invented from whole cloth this year just so they could award it to Trump, the most deserving president of a fake prize from one of the most corrupt organisations on Earth.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inside.fifa.com&#x2F;campaigns&#x2F;football-unites-the-world&#x2F;news&#x2F;president-trump-peace-prize-football-unites-the-world" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inside.fifa.com&#x2F;campaigns&#x2F;football-unites-the-world&#x2F;...</a>

&quot;The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was presented with the inaugural &#x27;FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World&#x27; by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ at the iconic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC&quot; [1].[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inside.fifa.com&#x2F;campaigns&#x2F;football-unites-the-world&#x2F;news&#x2F;president-trump-peace-prize-football-unites-the-world" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;inside.fifa.com&#x2F;campaigns&#x2F;football-unites-the-world&#x2F;...</a>

FIFA Peace Prize laureate is the person responsible for giving the order to attack, assuming that those are caused by the US military.

Not just FIFA, also the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

&gt; FIFA looking awful silly right nowThey can take bribes with impunity for another 2 years. That&#x27;s better than 2015 [1] and probably everything they wanted from that trophy.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;archives&#x2F;opa&#x2F;pr&#x2F;nine-fifa-officials-and-five-corporate-executives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;archives&#x2F;opa&#x2F;pr&#x2F;nine-fifa-officials-...</a>

Yes, it&#x27;s more peaceful than war. Especially when the &quot;illegitimately&quot; part is determined by US-aligned and sponsored organizations for the purpose of manufacturing consent for regime change.

Is it more “peaceful” to rule over people illegitimately?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vxtwitter.com&#x2F;FaytuksNetwork&#x2F;status&#x2F;2007338956241985774" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vxtwitter.com&#x2F;FaytuksNetwork&#x2F;status&#x2F;2007338956241985...</a>Not Venezuelan helicopters...

last unredacted copy of epstein files &#x2F;s

The largest oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela

They&#x27;re American aircraft. It sure seems like after repeatedly threatening to invade Venezuela, Trump is now invading Venezuela. For what though?

Don&#x27;t know why, this link gives me:Access DeniedOur apologies, the content you requested cannot be accessed.

&gt; a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnelYeah. Pettiness. The ICC doesn&#x27;t have jurisdiction in the United States. We aren&#x27;t a signatory to the Rome Statute. (Most of the world&#x27;s population doesn&#x27;t live under its jurisdiction.)

There&#x27;s a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel, disallowing them access to things like Microsoft software and unbanking them:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Executive_Order_14203" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Executive_Order_14203</a>

Translation: &quot;Name a Zionist-holocaust-of-babies-supporting-pedophile-rapist-infested-government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention&quot;Great moral measuring stick...

Denmark?
They already condemned it, and are also repeatedly threatened by the schoolyard bullies

Most European governments have already, in their own (weak) way expressed that this intervention isn&#x27;t legitimate according to international law.

Name a government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention

Venezuela is in process of leaving ICC and USA is not party to ICC.

This administration is just a continuation of the last administration. Same policies on anything important. But it is possible you missed the Gaza Genocide?

I think something like The Hague is the moderate position with this administration.

It is definitely not Russia unprovokenly and illegibly attacking its neighbor, so why even care?

Now you did ?You should&#x27;ve been keeping scores on US&#x27; wars and regime changes, you&#x27;d had lost faith long time ago.

It’s not any different. I have totally lost my faith in America as an American.

&quot;This isn&#x27;t about conquering Ukraine, it&#x27;s about coal and removing Nazi Żeleński from power&quot;

&quot;This is more about oil and deposing Maduro.&quot;
Scary how overt these &#x27;operations&#x27; are these days. 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this. Someone said &#x27;lack of shame&#x27; is very concerning with governments of today. Wonder if this is a reflection of where we as a humanity are heading.

&gt; This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.Correct.

We won&#x27;t know for a while but I don&#x27;t imagine there will be mass civilian graves, abducted children, or the intent to annex the country. This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.

&gt; How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?Cynically: maybe Venezuela will get a bit less sympathy because it&#x27;s a somewhat shittier (see emigration numbers) and less democratic government than Ukraine&#x27;s. And I suspect we have a more positive view of US troops than Russian troops, despite everything (Abu Ghraib is seen as an aberration and not as the normal way of working).

do you think that a pro US replacement regime in Venezuela will get US backing and support for it’s claims to eastern Guyana?

It doesn&#x27;t care about regions. There&#x27;s a lot of precedent for annexing resources though.Let&#x27;s see if some american company is granted all kinds of rights to Venezuelan oil in the end.Which, if it happens, should really be treated as blood oil like blood diamonds are and then sanctioned by the world

FWIW Russia was initially quite happy with &quot;independent&quot; Ukraine provided that their guy Yanukovich was in charge. It was only when he was ousted that they switched to open invasion tactics.So from that perspective, I don&#x27;t think US is really much different, just better at keeping its own puppets in power.

Emphasizing that I’m not defending this war at all, but one key difference I’m extremely confident in is that the US will not attempt to annex its favorite regions of Venezuela.

Seems like a thin reason to invade a country

Yep. They just ousted the elected president without the votes their constitution mandates.

That&#x27;s just one of the fake reasons Russia likes to point at, with useful idiots like yourself aiding the effort.

Ukraine didn’t hold an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power

Military police are forcefully abducting people on the streets by now. Fighting the power of the state is not something that just happens.

For one the whole country of Ukraine is fighting like hell for almost 4 years following the orders of their elected government to defend their country.If Russia was on the right, the people of Ukraine would have just hanged Zelenskyy and his gov, instead of sending their children to the meat grinder.Let’s see if Venezuelans will put their lives on the line to protect the regime.

See: Panama, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

&gt; How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don&#x27;t intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn&#x27;t plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?

&gt; How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?Cynically it&#x27;s different in that Trump hopefully will not going to kill 220,000+ and leave 500,000+ war invalids of US military personnel in process. Though you never know...

Another difference that has not been mentioned in other comments is that: The US is not completely delusional about its military capabilities and could actually complete this invasion in three days. In fact, it may already be over, as Maduro have been captured.

A surgical strike that was over before the news broke out vs. a 4-year campaign of plundering with literal criminals, press-ganged foreigners, and chechen blocking detachments, featuring mass rape, executed civilians, abduction and forced reeducation of thousands of children, gross mistreatment of PoW, etc.Hmmmm... indeed, hard to tell the difference!

It does differ, in ways that many others listed below. That doesn&#x27;t make it any legitimate, though.

Russia&#x27;s goal is to destroy Ukraine as nation and a country, because there&#x27;s no &quot;Ukrainians&quot;, there&#x27;s no &quot;Ukrainian language&quot;, and every country that speaks Russian should be controlled by Russian tsar. That&#x27;s why they don&#x27;t care and demolish (&quot;liberate&quot;) Ukraine, town after town.Do US do&#x2F;want the same for Venezuela?

&quot;We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about &lt;thing USA has never cared about&gt;, but is a &lt;things USA has always been&gt;&quot;

How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about ideals like liberal democracy or allies, but is a warmongering corporatist autocracy.

Actually Trump has stated very clearly that Venezuela has &quot;stolen American oil which resides in Venezuela&quot;.

Oil.We also have a crusade in Nigeria next on the docket for project 2026.

after Iran and now venezuelaIran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??

Yes, I’m sure a US invasion will help the local populace finally understand that they should be friendly with Uncle Sam and his freedom loving ways rather than the Russians and Chinese who brought mostly shady investments as a way of building influence.

Venezuela already was a refugee crisis ~5 years ago, until they liberalized the economy slightly some years ago. Not sure what the current status is.I could foresee* some US-backed pro-business president coming to power
* GDP going up
* still no completely liberal democracy but anyway better than Maduro
* less emigration or maybe people start coming backThe main casualty is the notion that the US follows rules instead of doing whatever it wants. I&#x27;m not sure if I&#x27;d say democracy is a casualty as well, because (AFAIK with my non-leftist sources) Venezuela wasn&#x27;t a real democracy.

Spark? Venezuela has already been undergoing a refuge crisis. That crisis is the biggest reason for this invasion, trump hates refugees.

&gt; will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or twoIt will be a small miracle if it doesn&#x27;t spark a refugee crisis.

I think it will be regarded as a poor move long term to so boldly put the us stamp on what will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or twoI&#x27;m admittedly somewhat ignorant of all the details but I don&#x27;t see what the real benefit ismy only guess is that it&#x27;s to disincentivize the Russians and Chinese from being more involved in South America but it feels like it could do the opposite and act as an annoying wedge

and Trump said he want nobel peace prize, such a joke

another country, without justification, again after we promised not to do that after the last dozen similar cases, duh.

until things go sideways, which they always do. We haven&#x27;t won a war since WW2.

It’s looking like very carefully selected military targets

So, uh, anyone seeing any educated guesses as to what we&#x27;re bombing?

Is that the beginning of a three-days special military operation?

Gotta get those gasoline prices down before the midterms.

Yep. It&#x27;s the illiberal authoritarians. The people who need hierarchy, for domination and submission. This is why equality is an scary abomination to them.All societies have such people. But civil societies prevent them from gaining significant power. Failing that, it&#x27;s going to be expensive.This society elected a known abuser. Of course this society will be abused. But also because of this society&#x27;s global power, the world will also be abused.

I&#x27;d like to see a study or more information that backs up this ~30% statement - That is alarming!

Genuinely, I think ~30% of Americans just like it when other people suffer. This might also be true of people in general

I regret to inform you that this is not how the cycle of violence works. As the US itself has repeatedly found, inflicting violence on people makes them more supportive of violence, both because you’ve taught them it’s a legitimate tool and because many of them want revenge on you.

The hostility toward your comment proves the point: Americans willl only understand when their own cities suffer the same fateIronically, that prospect is approaching with each passing year

Combat footage is coming out by the minute. Watching it, I don&#x27;t understand how Americans can be so fundamentally evil. Watching helicopters gun people on the ground down. What makes you so sick in the head that you would do this? How could you obey these orders and feel nothing as you slaughter innocent people? There isn&#x27;t even any possible pretext to this invasion. They know what they&#x27;re doing and still choose to do it. It&#x27;s utterly incomprehensible.

Chinese envoy was meeting Maduro just hours ago in Miraflores. Wonder how that factors into the situation

Flags. It&#x27;s still on &#x2F;active [1].[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;active">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;active</a>

Did this thread get down-rated on HN due to too many comments? Please keep one main thread on this alive. Thanks.

Invading a country is worse than having a constitutional crisis yes.

If this results in Maduro leaving office with a small number of mostly military deaths, followed by the swift return of Venezuelan democracy, I would concede that the hawks made a good call this time. It is extraordinarily uncommon for US regime change wars to go that way and I don’t think this is going to be the exception.(E: Honesty compels me to come back and say that it is looking somewhat likely I was wrong and will have to concede to the hawks.)

More rogue than ignoring the results of a presidential election?

you ready to BDS all computers, good chunk of phones and a bunch of other tech ?

I would say we are not a Democracy and it doesn&#x27;t matter who we vote for. I think it will take a full on dollar collapse to end it, and I think Washington would sacrifice every one of us to not lose grip on power.

&gt; rumble is that it is time to BDS the United StatesI doubt Europe’s fondness for self-flagellation goes that far.

&gt; I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.I doubt that. It&#x27;s far more likely to backfire into increased support for aggressive right-wing populism of the kind Trump peddles. It also seems doubtful that Europe could really afford that economically at the time when it&#x27;s already in an open confrontation with Russia and not exactly on friendly terms with China.&gt; does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice.We do not have an effective mechanism for that. Even if our democracy were truly functional, people have voted for candidates who promised no more wars for &gt;15 years now, and yet here we are. Meaningful reforms that would _perhaps_ enable this require constitutional amendments, which have such a high bar as to be unattainable in this political climate. I don&#x27;t think the system can recover, but it still has a lot of capacity to do damage as it breaks down.

Here in middle Europe the rumble is that it is time to BDS the United States. I hear this everywhere, on the streets, at parties, at work.I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.It’s going to be bumpy if&#x2F;when it happens, but does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice. Everything else is doom.

Never thought that whataboutism was going to be the coping mechanism.

&gt; USA is officially a roque state internally and externallyAll of the great powers are. So are most of the regional powers. It&#x27;s basically the EU and Brazil hanging on to the old rules-based international order.

You really believe he will be out in three years?There&#x27;s only one way he&#x27;ll be out, and voting will not be part of that

Considering the former state AG lost the election to the felon facing two open-and-shut federal cases, I think the &quot;law and order&quot; label has to be retired.On the plus side, nothing here is permanent, this guy is out in just over three years. How much more damage could he possibly do?

So the USA is officially a roque  state internally and externally and was brought down by its very own law and order party. Poetic.

You might want to directly link the tweet in question.And use xcancel.com rather than the largely-inaccessible source.

Statement from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;i&#x2F;status&#x2F;2007359985546674407" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;x.com&#x2F;i&#x2F;status&#x2F;2007359985546674407</a>

That easily makes a Nobel Peace Prize.
An attack on Iran will make it into the world&#x27;s first Double Nobel Peace Prize.Now, it&#x27;s also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.

Turns out Douglas Dykhouse really meant this years US New Year wishes when he said &quot;Americans and Russians share the same values&quot;.

He just called it a &quot;war&quot; on TV, and only Congress can declare war.

&gt; There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?No. From an international-law perspective, Trump is stepping into the footprints left by Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Khamenei and his own predecessors in D.C.From a domestic-law perspective, this is un-Constitutional.

&gt; the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions?Which one?

No American, but the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions? That doesn’t make them any better but I was wondering the same thing

There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?The congress people who are military veterans recently put out a public service announcement reminding those in the military that they must refuse illegal orders, and Trump called that reminder of the law &quot;treasonous&quot; and said the veterans should be executed for reminding people of the law.There should be military tribunals for all involved here to ensure that law and order is maintained. The US is losing its constitution, its rule of law. There is not country if we have two different sets of laws, one for normal people but zero laws for those following rhe president&#x27;s wishes. That&#x27;s a monarchy.

I tend to agree with you. Venezuela is no beacon of freedom or prosperity and I think Maduro might prove even less popular than thought.

When was the last time America successfully conducted a regime change via military force? One that didn&#x27;t result in a bloody civil war and hundreds of thousands dead?

&gt; the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of $CountryInvadedWhen have we not heard this line? When has it even been true?We always hear it, it&#x27;s never true.

Here&#x27;s another prediction: the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of Venezuelans. Trump admin (which was hugely insecure about its actual strength) will be bolstered and do some really really stupid thing next.

Either, really. Just a prediction, not clairvoyance.

If they have any brains they’ll keep the functionaries and install their own puppet as the new head, likely Machado.For some reason we wisely keep the machineries of government in place in Japan and Germany post-war and threw that lesson out the window in Iraq. Always boggles my mind, how the CPA ran things immediately into the ground.

Are you saying the US will decide not to take out the senior leadership of the regime? Or are you saying that the regime will survive even if they do that?

If it was strictly a decapitation attack there probably wouldn&#x27;t be multiple sites involved. They&#x27;re claiming four states were targeted.

Argentine newspaper Clarín reports some resistance.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clarin.com&#x2F;mundo&#x2F;respuesta-nicolas-maduro-explosiones-venezuela-acuso-estados-unidos-llamo-movilizarse-decreto-conmocion-exterior_0_sCE7TW0ZCg.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clarin.com&#x2F;mundo&#x2F;respuesta-nicolas-maduro-explos...</a>

there&#x27;s footage of a half dozen US Chinooks over Caracas with no resistance being put up at all. Possbly a General has acquiesced to a US led coup. This isnt just lobbing missiles.

Maduro is a piece of shit.But a military invasion of another country to commit regime change is literally what Russia tried to do to Ukraine.America has blood on it&#x27;s hands yet again.EDIT: If the reports are true that Maduro has been captured and the fighting stops, then that&#x27;s the best resolution one could hope out of this horrible situation. I pray for the Venezuelan people.

It might be welcome by the majority of Venezuelans (nor not, depending what’s next) but it is not justified in a US domestic sense or indeed by international law

I keep seeing this argument in here, but no one seems to point at any actual Venezuelans or message boards or whatever to support the point. Personally I only know a couple, classmates from decades ago who are FB friends and while they don’t support Maduro IIRC, I also don’t see any posts celebrating this great victory for the people. Who knows, maybe they’re partied out.

Why talk only to displaced Venezuelans though? If you want meaningful data, your sample shouldn&#x27;t be biased. What is the overall proportion of Venezuelans supporting this action?

Maduro is a coward and has no military powerPeople here saying it&#x27;s &quot;unjustified&quot; should go and talk to a displaced Venezuelan.

They&#x27;re more expert at demolishing democracy right now, their very own.

US is an expert in trying to artificially build democracies.

Already captured. Press conference in 5 hours.

Prediction: nobody is going to lift a finger to defend Maduro. Unless he already has escaped, his cronies will sell him out.But afterwards, there&#x27;s going to be a free-for-all struggle between ACTUAL cartels. That will be indistinguishable ftom a civil war.

Pay attention to who is generating the wrong predictions, and what their other opinions are on tangential questions.

Yes. And some russian sources seem very understanding of the situation. I strongly believe Trump made a Deal with Putin. South america belongs to him. Putin can have europe.Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech. Or really any kind of support except empty words.

The regime isn’t the President in this case. It’s the ruling party and its institutions.The power stays in Maduros party and just goes
To the VP. It’s anyone’s guess what happens next - but nothing changing is a relatively easy bet.

Well they just captured Maduro and flew him out of the country, so yes the regime quite literally did just fall minutes after you created your throwaway account to post this.

It&#x27;s a country not a ticker symbol. VE is proper but even VZ would be better.

I wonder who is financing your efforts with throwaway accounts?
Iran? Russia? China? or is it from drug cartels?

A military coup seems like a decent possibility here IMO.The Venezuelan opposition leader was extracted and moved to Europe and I assume the US wants to install her. Maybe that is more likely, but a military takeover before the US can install whatever puppet government they&#x27;re hoping for.

show positions or go away; skin in the game

None of this makes sense. Venezuela has faced crippling sanctions from the US since 2017 that have not allowed it to sell to any western nation. Only China, Russia, and Cuba are potential customers for it. I highly doubt this will have any immediate effect on oil prices. It is also crude oil which only a handful of countries are capable of processing (the US probably being the best equipped)US corporations will be brought in to exploit oil the same way they did in Iraq where they actually had to amend the constitution to allow for foreign corporations in.

when you predict something you state a time line.

Prediction: the regime will not fall. This will destabilize the country further, not so much the regime itself.There will be a decrease in oil production, marginally boosting world prices. What&#x27;s probably being taken out right now is the regime&#x27;s ability to react in any meaningful way to the oil embargo.It will also allow Maduro to throw his hands in the air and blame the US for all of VZLA&#x27;s ills going forward. More poverty, more suffering, more migration.

Just like how Denmark and Greenland stole American land that happens to be where Greenland is. Or Canada.Seriously though, even the imperial ambitions from the guy feels racist :)I guess Turkey can stop worrying on thanksgiving days.I have a lot of conflicting views with both the &quot;left&quot; and the &quot;right&quot; these days, but it seems the so-called &quot;conservatives&quot; are not that conservative in their ambitions, no?

Well, &quot;Venezuela has stolen American oil which is in Venezuela&quot;.Isn&#x27;t that a justification?!

I think also many dont have the time or ressources to care. If you live a precarious life, you are happy if you can pay for food and your home.

What data do you have that they don’t care? Waging a war is a pretty massive thing to not care about. I would think that someone would either be positive or negative towards it. Because even if they don’t care about invading countries per se they would presumably care about what their presumed tax money is spent on.Of course being “nihilistic” is a different matter.&gt; Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.Typical.Doing anything about US foreign interventions is a very tall order in a country where the vast majority are politically disenfranchised (with income and wealth as a proxy). It’s difficult enough for domestic affairs, like getting universal healthcare. Much harder to fight the war machine.Americans did put up a fight against the interventionism of the Reagan administration. But that didn’t stop the funding of the Contras. “All it did” was force the interventions to become clandestine. (A big contrast to this admin.)But ordinary Americans do have the largest power in all of the world to fight the war machine of their own country. That ought to be encouraged. But as usual we see the active encouragement of nihilism from comments where A Lot Of X are deemed to be useless for this particular purpose. Ah what’s the point, People Are Saying that everyone around me are useless or politically katatonic. Typical.

&gt; the way they don&#x27;t even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too farA lot of Americans don&#x27;t care. They either actually don&#x27;t care. Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.Like, this entire exercise is a leveraged wager by the Trump administration that this will not cost them the Senate in any of these states next year [1].[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.270towin.com&#x2F;2026-senate-election&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.270towin.com&#x2F;2026-senate-election&#x2F;</a>

Interestingly, this is not just flaunting international law. It is a blatant violation of federal domestic law in the USA itself: Congress is the only body that can declare war, and they have not done so. The Presidency has no right whatsoever to attack a foreign country without a declaration of war.While yes, Congress authorized the &quot;War on Terror&quot;, there is very obviously no possible justification for applying that to the case of Venezuela.

&quot;Rules-based international world order&quot; consists of just two rules:1. The Western countries (basically meaning USA makes the decision) may attack any country.2. Other countries may not defend themselves nor attack any country.Iraq, Iraq (several separate agressions on Iraq, that is not a typo), Afghanistan, Cuba, Serbia, Libya, Sirya, Venezuela... the list goes on, Venezuela is of no particular significance here.

I wouldn&#x27;t call it &quot;some inflation&quot;.
The living standard of the western middle class has been on the decline for a long, long time.

&quot;Rules-based order&quot; just means Washington makes up the rules and gives out the orders. The very phrase hints at its conceit. Why &quot;Rules-based order&quot; instead of &quot;International law&quot; ? Its because International law is something concrete, something you can point to and hold up as a standard. International law means UN, ICC, Geneva conventions, votes and parlimentary procedure. It means accountability and uniform application of said law. &quot;Rules-based order&quot; just gives a slightest hint of legitimacy while Washington and its cronies do whatever they want. &quot;Rules-based order&quot; means that the United States can invoke the Monroe Doctrine in Venezuela, Cuba and all over its &quot;backyard&quot; i.e. South America, but Russia doing the same in Ukraine or China doing it in Taiwan is an affront to civillization.What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off. They don&#x27;t even pretend to give a plausible reason anymore because noone will ever buy it so why bother. &quot;All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.&quot; That is what we are witnessing now.

Just a slight re-write of the rules needed.

It has been a coordinated effort by a portion of republicans for the past decade. It didn’t happen just because of the pandemic

Even the slightest shadow of a &quot;rules-based international world order&quot; is dead. And all it took was some post-pandemic inflation.

&gt; how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime changeIs it?

It’s funny how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime change whose ultimate goal isn’t about drugs or democracy, but getting access to oil and minerals to make the Trump family richer.And that’s so why there is a lack of effort to justify it. The right has been compromised and will support anything the party does - deporting citizens, invading countries, making things unaffordable with tariffs.

Public opinion in 2001 and 2003 followed the 9&#x2F;11 terror attack and was very fresh in peoples mind. A more recent war (2015) would be the attack on Yemen by Barack Obama.I can however not find any good public opinion for that war.

Ironically it&#x27;s very possible the support for US military intervention is higher among Venezuelans than US citizens.On the plus side, that&#x27;s probably good for the odds of success.On the minus side, they&#x27;re not paying the bill.

To briefly quantify some things: US public support at the onset of the Afghanistan invasion polled at 88% [a]; at the onset of the Iraq invasion, 62%, rising to 72% [b]; and Venezuela here and now polls at 30% supporting &quot;U.S. taking military action in Venezuela&quot; [c] (Nov. 19–21 2025).[a] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;International_public_opinion_on_the_war_in_Afghanistan#International_public_opinion_compared_to_American_public_opinion" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;International_public_opinion_o...</a>[b] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#Invasion_of_Iraq" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...</a>[c] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;poll-venezuela-u-s-military-action-trump&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cbsnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;poll-venezuela-u-s-military-act...</a>

As someone old enough to have seen the US invade too many countries, I&#x27;m struck by the lack of effort put into justifying this sort of military action these days. There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal and I have no idea where the courts or history will ultimately land on that decision.  But the way they don&#x27;t even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far.

Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes