Pros and Cons for Invading Venezuela

must Matthis and Trump take out Maduro?

  • yes
  • no
  • maybe not
0 voters

The Venezuelan on the forum here begged Trump to take out Maduro the Socialist torture king. Socialists always torture for human rights. Maduro is just the “best” at it now.
But this doesnt mean the US should waste its money on Venezuela.

If the US takes Venezuela like it healed Colombia, then maybe South America will no longer be a third world place.
But if it goes wrong, like Obama, then thats a sad problem.

Are the risks worth the reward?

It seems like right wing latin american leaders managed to find noble ideals to justify torture and the officers who carried it out were often trained at the School of the Americas, that is by the CIA, etc. First do no harm might be a good heuristic for future US latin america relations. And that includes corporate america also.

Thanks for the answer.
Yes Pinochet was horrid.
I’m only asking because the Venezuelan I know was imploring on Trump to please stop Maduro the torture king

I assume similar to Saddam Hussein.

Who we armed, defended when it was found out he gassed the Kurds (and may even have supplied the chemicals to). In fact some of the same people calling for Gulf War 1 and 2 were buddy buddy and supplying Hussein back under Bush 1 or Reagan. Again I would say let’s start with first do no harm.

Human rights is often emphasized before interventions, but the motives are almost universally something else. Money usually.

And if we look at our interventions of Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, Afghanistan we did not leave these places in better shape, and in the process we killed a lot of people, damaged a lot of our own people and spend untold tax dollars, often in the interests or corporations. And often the current bogeyman was a supported ally or asset: Noreiga, Hussein, The Taliban/Bin Ladin. Those not the current Venez. pres.

Yes thats the moralistic rhetoric, its well known. Reality isn’t so simple, each case is different.

For example we did not put Maduro there I just said his torture practices are alike to Saddam.

For me it is not clear what Trump could most wisely do. The only Venezuelan dude I ever talk to begs Trump to cast his eye on Venezuela and change its course.

Lets have a non-moralistic discussion about this specific case.

It is all different anyhow because Trump isn’t a neocon or an apparatsika, we could discuss what can be done within the America first doctrine instead of the hypocritical doctrine which Trump broke down, where the USA was representing the objective good but alway managed to kill whole cities of innocent people together with the UN.

Trump is a real human, so maybe he can pull it off and make life livable for Venezuelans. I know the left will just hate the idea of alleviating even more suffering, but can we ignore the left for a moment?

Socialism didn’t bankrupt Venezuela. The courts did. Exxon was ripping them off on some oil deals and the govt found out and stuck up for it’s people. Took exxon’s rigs and kicked them out to settle up. Then lost a case from a foreign court and went broke, in the meantime exxon is still taking their oil just with horizontal rigs set up in disputed waters off the coast on a deal with Guyana. Same thing happened in northern Iraq. Like the US, the UN etc didn’t recognize “Kurdistan” as a legit place, but exxon did and when they went to drill, the locals ran them out and we all see how that went.

Trump may be different. AND if he is different, AND he has enough control, perhaps an intervention would be different. But to me that is all speculation. Trump is willing to say all sorts of things. What his real agenda is, or if he even has one, I do not know. I am skeptical that anyone does. That he cares about Venezuelans, I am skeptical about in the extreme. Compassion for those suffering oppression is not something I see him having exhibited particularly as a private citizen. I see no reason to assume it will suddenly arise in public service. Not impossible, but speculation. I do agree that he has made a tremendous amount of no neo con noises. And the left has also not supported him on policies that they should have. He was against certain trade agreements - neo con corporate anti-democratics stuff - and I did not see anyone on the left admit that he was doing something they should like. A game both side play, but the left sure played it. It sure seemed like the neo-cons wanted Clinton. On the other hand,these people, the elites are not necessarily nice to each other. He represent a more chaotic faction within that world. In general he is one of them, but a kind of minority about method. He goes to all the same power meetings, is a member of all the same clubs, and he sure surrounded himself with a pro-israel radically anti-Iran neo con bunch, a bunch that would love to ‘intervene’ in Iran. And he went along with the neo-cons when he bombed that Syrian naval base, a base where Russian soldiers were based. I do think Hilary would already have had the US in Syria. It’s not like I think she is fine at all. But I can’t tell who Trump is, I hate his sociopath eyes, he says a lot of different stuff, he has not lived in this loving compassionate way it seems some Trump supporters believe, and if, deep under that narcissistic exterior their beats a compassionate heart, I am not sure he has the clout to really carry anything out.

Mr R that’s interesting man so ExxonMobil is stealing the oil?

KP Trumpington has already destroyed is is which in my opinion the neocons created .

I like Trumps pro Israel stance as I’m pro Israel though have Islamic gf. Obama was pro Iran and anti Israel. It’s just a matter of taste and values. I won’t say you need to be for Israel or against Iran. I am. It’s all about choices.

I see no.sociopath in Trump, I know sociopaths and they have less quirky eyes. You can’t see if someone is a sociopath that is their power.

Context like this is always missing from these witch hunts.

Let’s all bash the evil Socialists for existing only to torture and murder, and get behind the heroic Capitalists saving them from themselves by force. Because team America never tortured or murdered anyone and had nothing at all to do with anything Socialist ever trying to get off the ground and failing…

If there’s anything of value like natural resources anywhere in the world that Capitalists aren’t “legtimately” making money from yet, you can guarantee that all kinds of dodgy shit will go on to “justify” “correcting” this…

Whichever, if any economic model you support, at the very least you should agree with me in the name of objectivity that all context must be presented before jumping on any bandwagon - especially one that is going to invade foreign territories and murder people.

Hey, maybe the US narrative is true or at least justified, but blind jingoism flies directly in the face of exploring alternatives and allowing due process.

Wow, you just discovered all that? :astonished: :astonished:

thats all known for centuries dude, communism was invented to combat this unfainess of capitalism. But miserably it failed .
Anyway back to the topic which was that the Venezuelan I talked to said he Trump to intervene because of the socialist horribleness which is real to him. So thats the human angle we have here. I mean maybe you read the topic but forgot it?

Its fine if you don’t care about the problems in Venezuela. Just say that though. Its not as if capitalism prevents socialism from being evil by being evil even though I know thats how the socios think.

But wtf am I expecting humanity in this site. fuck off already homos.

Haha, not at all :laughing: Obviously you’re new to me. Just seemed like something that’s always being missed in topics such as this - and including this topic.

Duh, but nobody ever seems interested in why it fails beyond “what people call it” and “how it ended up” being sufficient to disregard all context in favour of corroborating the simplistic home-government-approved universal rule. It’s just dumb - and you’re doing nothing to make me think you’re any different from this with statements such as “Socialists always torture for human rights” like it’s some kind of Socialist rule/principle/necessity that isn’t addressed at all as ever happening in non-Socialist places like it so obviously does.

I’ve read that, but just because I didn’t mention it, doesn’t mean I don’t care about it.

Of course I don’t want the horribleness that happens to be happening anywhere in the world to happen. It happens all over Africa, and America doesn’t give a shit about it there - why would it give a shit about Venezuela unless it has something economic to gain from it? You’re getting demoralised by your too readily assumed lack of humanity from me, which didn’t even turn out to be valid, instead of getting demoralised by this truth about “national interests”? Maybe I should presume YOU should “fuck off already homo” as you so delicately put it - but I have my head together and recommend you get yours together too if you want anything rational from this thread.

Maybe you don’t want anything political here and you’re just saying that “given these problems happen to be happening in this particular place at this time, should America intervene in the name of humanity (without being moralistic, somehow)”? It really doesn’t come across like that from reading everything you’ve said on this topic so far (which I have), but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not merely disguising the usual anti-socialist narrative that so many people love to blindly parrot so often these days.

Never in the name of Humanity. But thats a straw man, Silhouette. The question is only would we, I, the horde, you, see a possibility of a justified intervention of perhaps a non military sort?

If I was in the drivers seat Id have to calculate first with the issues mr R introduced, the basis of what Communism responded to, old corporate industry. I know the Venezuelan Pezer was speaking from a very “gringo”-minded perspective, he felt, maybe still feels, that its form of political philosophy for all its grit represents the truest freedom available to man in a world which is will to power. I dont tend to disagree with Pezers political views. But that doesn’t mean anyone knows how to make it work… so this doesn’t need to be an attempt to justify a hypocritical invasion to protect Exxon, it can be a hope of developing some sensible ideas on how to communicate with the regime and the vested interests to allow the population to profit from its resources by having food and basic hygiene taken care of.

Jakob, I want to believe in the hope to which you allude - that in persuading the horde (as such hope would do), it would in turn persuade those in power and in turn those who they order to action their wishes (members of the horde themselves in their free civilian life at least).

Those with the strongest will to power get there only because they act out of economic interest - the army does not take orders from influential social figures, it takes orders from its funding without which members would not be hired. This is not to say that the persons in the army are mercenary and amoral, it is to say that their roles are only permitted to be opened in the first place if said funding is available. No matter how valiant you are, if you cannot be afforded you will not be given the opportunity to prove it. Given that many positions have been opened, those that pay their wages (those who have gained their ability to pay them through acting out of economic interest) in accordance want their investment to return else they have paid away their future ability to influence events of importance. Those that have risen to economic power to influence the army in alternative, less cut-throat ways: they still risk their reputation in funding violence - and potentially they too risk their ability to pay for acts of great influence by putting off the customer base that gave and gives them their power. The rich are rarely so reckless as to throw away their riches on humanitarian actions that may not even work out how they expect.

Economics funds intervention, 100%. Social influence does so 0% - although perhaps you disagree with the above reasoning as to why this is so.
Perhaps I am only slightly rounding up these percentages though, since historically, social influence has swayed the horde to act out of genuine desperation through imminent threat of starvation and death - such as in the Russian Revolution. Only in such situations, from which the most obese nation on earth is the furthest away (even given its astonishing inequality) may such exceptions realise themselves.

I don’t believe such hope as that which you propose is realistic, but I am ignorant enough to not be aware of real examples of it ever occurring and I am open to any suggestions if you have them.

I am a monist in that I think will to power is equal in social and economic interests. Different modalities of perspective on it make for a duality.

I think freedom generates money. People being free causes creativity and bold ventures and this causes wealth which is both unfortunately usurped and enjoyed in positive ways.
So the plan to rescue Venezuela from the situation it has been helped into by cynical interests must, if it is to make sense to me, mean the revitalization of the economic infrastructure with capitalist sensibilities.