Kidnapping the Venezuelan president?

[GrapeApe]

Sure, he may not be a nice/good person, HOWEVER, I'm sure that more than one country on this planet feels the same way about DJT.

Honestly, how do you think "Joe Schmoe" would react if he woke up in the morning and the lead news story was:
"The country of Phuckoverya's military kidnapped Prez and first Lady Trump in a daring midnight raid on the White House"

I don't think it would go over well here, and I get the feeling DJT has opened a can of worms that was best left closed

Thoughts?

[Wambli Ska]

Noriega. The USA has done it before, and it stood up in court. Know the history of Venezuela in depth and the history of their oil industry probably better than most in government today. I did business down there with PDV for many years and for a while I was down there basically every week for work. This should have been done decades ago but no one else had the balks to do it.

[Wambli Ska]

But he (she, it, they???) disagrees with me.

IMG_7386.jpeg (4.2 MiB) Viewed 1055 times

[Justsomedude]

Unpopular opinion here, but I disagree with it. If I had my way and was POTUS, I'd hydrogen bomb everything south of the border. Those fuggers keep coming here and I didn't move to a border town for a reason. I've said it once before but notice that anytime a demographic changes, it's never for the better. It always falls to shìt.

But, he did potentially start some crap that was none of our business. I know drugs were the excuse but the cartel will just pick up where Venezuela left off.

[GrapeApe]

Unpopular opinion here, but I disagree with it. If I had my way and was POTUS, I'd hydrogen bomb everything south of the border. Those fuggers keep coming here and I didn't move to a border town for a reason. I've said it once before but notice that anytime a demographic changes, it's never for the better. It always falls to shìt.

But, he did potentially start some crap that was none of our business. I know drugs were the excuse but the cartel will just pick up where Venezuela left off.

Oil grab. Deny Putin and maybe replenish our strategic reserve.

Not sure about the bombing, but bringing US military back and lining the border and declaring it a fee fire zone would be a good start IMO

[CPJ 2.0]

Trumps a power hungry, bored old man. He needed something to do, and the Epstein list was probably, well, come on. Nothings happening with that. You know that file that was on Blondies desk, then it wasn’t, now it’s “released”.
Is the world better off with a tin pot dictator in jail? Yeah. Do I think we should just march into whatever country we wish and yoink its leader out of bed? Probably not a great move, methinks. Kinda defeats the idea of a sovereign nation. Why not just march into any country we please, kick in the door and yell “America! fudge YEAH! Coming again to save the mother **** day, yeah!”
Where do we stop? Was Maduro the worst? I dunno. But I’m certain there’s some equally as bad. Why not get them too? I’m guessing unless you’ve got oil under your palace, you’re probably safe. I mean, let’s not stop now, let’s show the world we aren’t only after bad guys with natural resources!
If I’m being honest, I really don’t GAF what’s happening in some second or third world poop hole. Poverty, hunger, disease? Meh. Not my problem. What about my property/all taxes going up? The price of milk, bread, and ammunition? We (I) have enough to worry about here at home. I’d prefer to not be blowing my tax dollars on the Jews, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, Mexicans, Somalians, Antarticans, North Poleans, Douchebagians, Houyhnhnms or Yahoos.


I align with George Thoroughgood’s landlady. “That don’t confront me, as long as I get my rent by next Friday.”

[GrapeApe]

Only thing you left out about DJT, ..."that know he can't run again..."

[Rugerfan]

I heard a news snippet somewhere today that said China was getting a lot of oil from Venezuela. They get more from Iran but are kinda backing off on what they get from Iran. Supposedly this invasion was to cut off oil to China.

No idea if what I heard is true. I do think we better be careful about how far we push China.

[Chiro1989]

Cuba has been hurting for awhile, they get most of their oil from Venezuela, not any more. lotsa of stuff in play.

[breamfisher]

With regards to Panama...
1. The Panamanian General Assembly had declared war on the US prior to Just Cause.
2. A US Marine lieutenant had been killed by Panamanian forces prior to Just Cause.
3. US civilians in Panama had been threatened by Panamanian government forces leading up to Just Cause.
These were the reasons cited for that action. Short of threats to US citizens in Venezuela, I don't know if anything similar was happening in Venezuela.

Plus, Noriega surrendered to US forces about a month(?) after the invasion.

I don't know of any courts of influence have ruled on the legality of Just Cause. Noriega was tried in US court, but since there was a duly sworn warrant for his arrest, how he got to the court was irrelevant. Same with Maduto. However, I find it odd we arrest Maduro a month or so after POTUS pardoned the former Honduran president who trafficked 400 tons of cocaine into the US. According to the government, most Venezuelan cocaine doesn't go to the US.

Was the operation spectacular in execution? Without a doubt, yes. It's amazing no US forces were lost.
Should Madura have been taken out of control? Yes. But, leaving his second in command to take over is an odd move in my mind. Is the regime really removed? Plus, who knows what will happen. Not like the US has a spectacular record in regime change (something Pres. Trump and Hegseth had said, repeatedly, the US was going to stop doing.) Maybe, since the VP is in power, it's not really regime change. Seems to be Death Star Diplomacy: Fear will keep others in line.

Interestingly Maduro is charged with using machine guns in his trafficking. Not trying to procure them, just having them and using them. It would be hilarious if his lawyer argued the NFA was unconstitutional and Maduro shouldn't be charged with violating US firearms laws because those laws shouldn't exist.

[Bigslug]

Not reading anything I disagree with in the preceding posts...

Drugs and crime are the excuse. Oil is in all likelihood the reason. Denying that oil to our adversarial superpower peers is likely another.

There's something of a historical precedent / fiction of "We're America and we don't do Imperialism". We didn't keep Cuba and the Philippines. We gave back the Panama Canal. After WWII we could have laid claim to the entire Pacific basin. . .and didn't, etc... We also spend a lot of time decrying the human rights violations of various mad dictators and mess with them - or not - seemingly based on what our economic interest in their country is.

We have something of an inconsistent image. Our fractious, two-party, "other side BAD" system doesn't help - internally or externally.

Set the above against the reality that China, Russia, and others do not have this problem, and that we still have to play and function on the world stage. Venezuela IS a strategic asset that is within our Monroe Doctrine backyard. Greenland IS a strategic asset for controlling the Atlantic. Donald Trump - being something of a bull in a china shop - is probably NOT the ideal vehicle for addressing those concerns diplomatically and tactfully. Unfortunately, our other choice in the matter was Joe Biden, which was no choice at all.

The thing I found most disturbing in all of this was Trump's initial statement of "We're going to run Venezuela until we can manage a transition", followed immediately by learning Maduro's government was left in place. I have to ask - is there actually a plan here?

[Admin]

Denying China a major source of oil AND a possible base that is just a speedboat ride away from the US right while China is doing major saber rattling around Taiwan- who we have treaty obligations to protect- was not a bad strategic move.

[Zsarvashere]

Reagan once said

"I did not leave the Republican party, the Republican party left me." I think that's right. Close enough I guess.

[Wambli Ska]

For those interested in the actual history of what's going on...

A few years back I managed the relationship between my company and the Venezuelan oil industry/Government (both are one and the same). By default that gave me complete control over the systems that supplied ALL phone/data communications to PDV (Petroleos de Venezuela) HQs and relationships at the highest management levels of the oil industry and government. I still have friends in the local government AND the opposition, many of them are also in exile in Spain and the USA.

Back then the infrastructure in Venezuela was so bad that it took 20 seconds on average to get dial tone once you picked up your handset (remember those?) and even if you got dial tone you had less than a 50% chance of having your call complete, MUCH less if it was an international call. The local phone company CANTV was so horrible and corrupt that the Sr. Execs of PDV called MCI to design a system to give them phone service out of NY. We designed, installed and managed a TELCO class switch in one of their buildings in country and connected t directly to our switch at 60 Hudson Street in NYC. So when anyone in PDV picked up their handset they would get dial tome out of NYC and they all had NYC telephone numbers. Even local calls were routed to the USA and then re-routed back to Venezuela. I sent all their telecom bills to the NYC "world" HQ office so the local Telephone company never found out we did this because while legal it was firmly in a "grey" area of US Telecom law.

The system was hugely successful for them and needless to say we developed a great working relationship. I was assigned the role because of my technical background but also I was the only guy at MCI at a high enough level that spoke fluent Spanish. So for quite a few years I basically lived Monday-Thursday every week in Venezuela. When I assumed the role, during one of my first meetings with the Directors of the Company (what we call the "C" levels in the USA corp lingo) I was given a full briefing on the history and culture of PDV.

They proudly stated that the Major USA oil companies had discovered, developed and paid for the entire infrastructure of the oil industry of Venezuela and for that were "allowed" to build 3 major oil companies in the country. Then they told me that a few years into operation the Venezuelan government NATIONALIZED the oil industry basically stealing ALL in-country assets (cash, installations, machinery, EVERYTHING) of every oil company in country and sending home any foreign executives that were running the companies and assigning government puppets to run the show. It was at the time the largest asset forfeiture of American wealth and property in the world, I believe it still is. The president at the time was good ol' Jimmy Carter who as predicted by them took the hit straight up the ass and we basically tucked our tails between our legs and ran out of there... Not only that but the we allowed them to buy CITGO oil so the could establish a ground to pump strategy with ALL proceeds feeding the Venezuelan country.

Since then the country has been slowly turned into a communist backed narco and oil fueled dictatorship put together to benefit China, Russia and all enemies of the USA. Basically their own personal piggy bank and while doing so they have been laughing their asses off because we again never had a president with the backbone to do anything about it. Pretty much a secret out in the open for anyone that cared to look and get informed, which no one does...

So what is the plan? Maduro was an easy target because he is a criminal the has been indicted in the USA Federal courts. BUT, the USA does not want to give the appearance of being an imperialist country to the unwashed masses soooooo, we take out the easily justifiable big target and just like when one of your siblings got an asswhopping at the hands of your dad it made you a better child by example, whatever is left behind is now under notice that you play nice and go along OR you are next. And while were at it, OUR oil companies are going in to get PAID for the poop that was stolen from them and we're going to manage the largest oil reserves in the world while starving China and other enemies. That also gives us the huge Venezuelan population in the USA (the legal ones, not the TDA) as a single voting block cheering on the streets. so Cuba, Colombia and Mexico are now poop their pants and the Conservative leaders that are successfully now in place in Argentina and other countries are giggling like 12 year old little girls because they are for a change in the right team now. That all fits into into one slide. The execution is tricky, but I assure you the main plan is as solid as it gets and the best people for it are managing it. It's a plan that can only be crafted and executed by a ruthless business mind, not a gutless politician. And THAT is why I understand Trump and what he does.

And as usual you won't get any of this from ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC... Anyway, carry on and have great day folks, I hope this helps clarify the subject a little.

[Diver43]

I knew about the oil and infrastructure part, but the communication part is new to me. Thanks

[Wambli Ska]

It’s new to most. Not something we ever advertised but it brought us MILLIONS of $$$s a year in revenue billed to a “USA” account

[Zsarvashere]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nN-bO_F8AV4

[jbp-ohio]

You always hear about how much oil Venezuela has. They didn't know they had oil. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips found it.

They had no idea how to drill for it. EM & CP drilled to it. The world bank awarded EM & CP billions. Depending on who you hear it from, most of the oil infrastructure seized doesn't even work anymore.

If it will get gas below $2?

1a6cb38c-7310-48c8-a93e-8c87631248c6_text.gif (800.82 KiB) Viewed 817 times