I think what’s difficult to grasp is how easy they kidnapped Maduro. If it’s as easy as a few months of training, simulation and intelligence and then just do it, how is it possible that none of the other much worse world leaders have not had this happen to them until now? Has this ever even happened in recent history?
You’re telling me the US had the capability to eliminate any of the worst ones in much more problematic countries and chose not to because there was no oil in it for them? That’s a grim thought.
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They have nuclear weapons.
…under the president’s pillow?
(No, nukes do not prevent an abduction)
It is the threat of retaliation using nuclear weapons that keeps countries from doing certain things.
North korea didn’t have them for the longest time. None of the middle east countries have them to this day. I wonder if Rusia would even retaliate like that, I suspect not.
It has had a lot of artillery pointed at South Korea for quite a while, so I guess that helps.
pakistan has nukes, and they never signed on to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. not that that matters anymore…
Does pakistan have a particularly problematic leader? Or why are we taking about them?
That’s where Osama Bin Laden was hiding.
Your statement about nukes in the Middle East was inaccurate.
But Pakistan isn’t in the middle east.
The only middle eastern country with nukes is Israel.
And yet he said there were none. So, still inaccurate.
Technically you are right, but we already know the us is in love with Israel so them having nukes would have no effect on the hypothetical situation of clearing out the trash in that particular country.
I don’t think Russia would really give a shit, or the US for that matter, at least not with their current ‘leaders’
how easy they kidnapped Maduro
they made it look like they woke up one day and just decided to take venezuela, when in reality they’ve probably been planning the op for months. bombing the “drug” boats was just a test run for international response. of course people wagged their fingers, but nothing beyond that. so US moved forward with invading the country, and guess what–more finger wagging
you can expect an upcoming deluge of rhetoric about how “greenland citizens WANT to be ‘liberated’!!! we need to go FREE them from oppressive denmark!!!” the fact that it’s guaranteed people will still be surprised when they invade greenland is the reason i have no hope for the future of this country
Wouldn’t they need to kidnap the King of Denmark for that?
No. Just massively increaze military presence there. All europe will do is write letters
Kidnapseize or capture, please.
-BBC
The CIA first dropped a team into Venezuela in August, got an informant close to Maduro, and spec ops forces created a replica of the building Maduro would be in, which they drilled in repeatedly. So yes, months of preparation.
I’m not doubting you in the least based on how successful this was but would be highly interested in reading a source for that
They did the same for Bin Laden.
A lot of what Trump does is out of jealousy of Obama. That’s probably why he wanted that Nobel Peace Prize as well.
They most likely made deals with the ones next in line to power, mostly generals, to ensure success. Good luck getting russian or north korean generals to “look the other way” when you want to 'nap their president.
worse world leaders have not had this happen to them
They protect themselves better.
Also, you should not think that Usa were leading in this regard. So you could ask as well why Trump isn’t in a Siberian jail right now (my opinion: he knew when to kowtow before the stronger man).
Maduro made a crutial mistake, he didn’t have nukes.
Putin, Xi, and fat boy Kim, they all have nukes.
DPRK is also supported by PRC, so there’s no way the US would touch it (I mean unless trump got crazy and started ordering nuke strikes to end the world)
(I mean unless trump got crazy and started ordering nuke strikes to end the world)
H-ok, so, here’s de Earth…
'bout that time ey chaps.
Fkn Kangaroos…
But I’m le tired…
It looked easy but It’s ludicrously difficult to do. Russia tried something similar in Ukraine and got bogged down in a war they still have not got out of.
The fact that it worked and did not turn into another black hawk down scenario is like you say months of preparing, someone on the inside high enough to have information and dislike Maduro enough and a good batch of luck.
the us budget for
wardefense is stupidly huge.i think the venezuelan budget is just way below 1% of us that we can easily say it is pure bullying. the other factors would be location and the lack of nearby potential adversity.
You’re telling me the US had the capability to eliminate any of the worst ones in much more problematic countries and chose not to because there was no oil in it for them? That’s a grim thought.
The call was always coming from inside the house.
Because you cannot just go into a country and kidnap the leader. With no declaration of war, no jurisdiction at all, not even a hint of a justification through the UN. That’s why it isn’t done. Americans ought to be on the streets protesting in force. Their children at the latest will rue this day. 47 just sealed the end of the rules-based international order. He didn’t start that fire but he dropped 50 gazillion barrels of Venezuelan crude onto it. This is not good bad very, very bad.
Because you cannot just go into a country and kidnap the leader.
You sure about that? Because it just happened. If there’s never any consequences then you can do whatever you want.
Keep reading this thread.
Americans ought to be on the streets protesting in force.
Most of us are too busy trying to afford surviving.
That’s a design feature.
I am fully aware of that.
I understand that shit is hard. My projection for the future is just: it isn’t getting better. Much the opposite. So what are you surviving for? To watch your country spiral down the toilet? To be branded a playground bully and unreliable partner internationally? Economies don’t thrive on that, either. And economists are dot com bust Lehman crash level concerned about the single minded bet on so-called AI that represents pretty much the only GDP growth today.
Meanwhile the great dealmaker hasn’t brought down cost of living because he thinks the word tariff is beautiful. He didn’t want another war, was so thirsty for the peace prize, and yet ordered the illegal invasion into Venezuela and the abduction of its leader on trumped up charges. Late night show hosts are your free speech canaries in the coalmine. Oh, and he’s a convicted SA felon and very much connected to that late pedophile who shall remain nameless here.
If you don’t find a way to resist and oppose now, I think you will be sleepwalking into an even worse future. This will have been the good ol days.
If you don’t find a way to resist and oppose now, I think you will be sleepwalking into an even worse future. This will have been the good ol days.
All that to say you also have no idea how to do anything that will help.
You see, I thought you can’t just go in a foreign country and kidnap the leader…
The country with the biggest military force on this planet can do many things. But it shouldn’t. Ability and legal justification are two different things. It isn’t done doesn’t mean they’re not capable. Abu Ghraib happened and shouldn’t have either.
It’s not a perfect comparison but you could take your kitchen knife and stab a rando on the street. You can do that but you shouldn’t. Because we have rules. And we have rules because without them soon everybody be stabbing everybody else. And if you stabbed a rando on the street in Caracas you don’t exactly have the moral high ground when you want you tell your pals Vlad or Jinping not to stab randos in Kyiv or Taipei.
- the US most likely had inside help, Venezuela being less hostile towards them than China or Russia it was probably easy to convince people
- head of states of China, Russia and North Korea are much more likely to expect such attacks and have probably more resources to spend on personal protection and armies. Putin is notoriously paranoid and it’s difficult to locate because he spends a lot of reaources to hide
- as others said, those countries have nukes
Because the Rest of the world is civil in comparison to that walking violation of human morality.
They have nukes and even without that their countries would fight back against occupation for more effectively than Venezuela can.
Venezuela would definitely fight back an occupation, that’s why they’re not invading. There are already Communist guerillas on the border with Colombia. Recruitment would shoot up under the banner of “stop the empire from bombing us and taking our oil”.
Completely agree that they would fight back I just think they are less equipped to do so. War with venezuela would be a guerilla war of attrition on Venezuelan soil but Russia and the DPRK could bring the war to us. Not very effectively but it is still a risk. I don’t think the US will invade Venezuela either but I find it likely that we will see bombings and maybe an attempt to arm Guyana (a lot less likely and I don’t know enough about Guyana to judge if they would actually do this but they have a close enough relationship with the US that I consider it possible) and use them as a proxy to take nearby territory with oil reserves. The current administration doesn’t have the political capital to use many US troops if any.
Expect Trump to try to steal Essequibo very shortly. There are some Guyanese that stupidly support Trump and he will use this as propaganda.
I think your premise that it was easy is misinformed. We likely used modern classified tech to pull it off. There are reports emerging of anomalies related to common router vulnerabilities in Caracas. We don’t know how the operation was conducted and probably won’t know any time soon. Kidnapping a head of state is unprecedented. The Trump admin would absolutely use new tech to do this in a show of military prowess.
Trump did make that cryptic statement “… the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have.” General Dan Caine said that US Cyber Command and Space Command “began layering different effects” to “create a pathway” for US forces. Not surprisingly, they did not elaborate on what those were, but we can be certain cyber warfare played a role.
Maduro and Trump are friends
Maduro gets to escape his country and save face instead of being assassinated or executed.
Trump gets to manufacture a conflict so he can start martial law and become a dictator, and to distract from us learning he came inside little girls.
Who the hell is upvoting this obvious nonsense?
People who understand the relationship Trump has with dictators
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Since you asked and I haven’t seen anyone else answer, the most recent parallel to the Maduro situation is the capture of Manuel Noriega, the military leader of Panama, in 1990. All around, it was a pretty similar situation. Just like Maduro, Noriega was accused of using Panama as a drug shipping hub and of being a dictator by the US. Relations deteriorated until in late 1989, Panama declared they were “at a state of war” with the US, prompting George H W Bush to launch a ground invasion into Panama with one of the goals being the capture of Noriega, which was achieved within a few weeks in early 1990. He was then flown to the US to face a trial over his drug charges and was held in prison until 2010, though he was then extradited to France and later Panama, where he spent his final 6 years in prison.
Like Maduro, while the capture was ostensibly over drug trafficking concerns, it was largely to further US interests in Panama and Central America as a whole. Namely, it was to gain outsized control over the running of the Panama Canal for the US and grant them special perks such as reduced costs to send goods through. Additionally, it allowed as many as 14 military bases to be established in the area.
Here’s a really fantastic and very thorough comparison between the two that goes into much more detail. https://brendonbeebe.substack.com/p/comparison-of-us-capture-of-nicolas
Crazy. Thanks, I couldn’t find similar cases when I looked. Considering all the other coups the US has done, this is just a time honored tradition for them.
