Noteworthy News

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm curious what will happen to the unfortunate Venezuelans who now live on top of Trump's oil. I hope their country doesn't collapse into chaos, as happened in other US interventions.

Why did you wait until now to be concerned about the wellbeing of Venezuelans considering that Venezuelan economy was already collapsed under Maduro with one forth of population emigrating from the country? It certainly can't be worse now than it was.

Because like so many other preachy assholes, the suffering of others only matters to Bel insofar as he can use it to push his narrative or agenda.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Why did you wait until now to be concerned about the wellbeing of Venezuelans considering that Venezuelan economy was already collapsed under Maduro with one forth of population emigrating from the country? It certainly can't be worse now than it was.

Because like so many other preachy assholes, the suffering of others only matters to Bel insofar as he can use it to push his narrative or agenda.

Yeah, Venezuelans have been unfortunate (to put it mildly) since the Chavez days, but Bel is crying crocodile tears over it now as part of his anti-American/pro-Russian agenda.

Boru

[Angrboda]

It sounds like Maduro's cronies still hold the reins of power. Trump, for his part, said that if the current acting leader of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, a vice president under Mr. Maduro, “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

[Angrboda]

"One lesson of other regime-change operations is not to topple a government without a plan for what comes next. Yet what comes next in Venezuela seems as vague as the plan for running postwar Gaza under a Board of Peace."

— The Atlantic

[Rev. Rye]

So, I get home and Trump has started a war with South America and is making threatening comments towards Mexico.

2026 is going to be fun...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a war between the US and Mexico wouldn't just be a bad idea; it wouldn't even just be the worst foreign policy decision America ever made. It'd probably be the worst foreign policy decision possible for the US to make that doesn't involve nukes. 

You remember Hank's death from Breaking Bad?




Now imagine a version of this scene where, instead of just the Neo-Nazi gang, all of Heisenberg's surviving allies, plus the population of the To'Hajiilee Navajo Reservation, took on the DEA (which wasn't just Hank and Gomez, but an 8000-strong force), brought them to their knees within hours, convinced them to let Heisenberg go (in this version, he's not only not begging for Hank's life, but he probably planned the whole thing), and when the battle was over, Barack Obama went on TV to explain why the government had to let Heisenberg go. This isn't some fever dream from a Breaking Bad fanfic written by some fan who hasn't figured out that Heisenberg isn't just supposed to be a badass we should root for. This is just a retelling of events that happened in Culiacan, Sinaloa on 17 October 2019. The only changes I made were just to fit it into the Breaking Bad analogy. In reality, it was one of El Chapo's sons in Heisenberg's place, and in place of the gangs and Navajo fighters*, it's the cartels and the population of one Culiacan neighborhood. But the account of their failure is dead accurate. That's how fucking powerful the cartels are there. 

And on the off chance that anyone who sees this and thinks "But, Rev, that's just a sign of how shit the forces of law and order in Mexico are. America can totally kick their asses," I'm going to have to say no. In military terms, the cartels are a guerrilla force. Guerrilla forces are like the Hydra. You cut off one head, two more will grow in their place. And they'll keep growing because you're in their country, killing them, and it's pissing them the fuck off. If you haven't watched it yet, watch The Battle of Algiers. It's the story of a rebel group in Algeria fighting for independence, and France's ever-escalating attempts at keeping them in line.





And, yes, in spite of France's short-term victory in Algiers, they end up failing in the long term. And they don't fail because the French are a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. The French are plenty brutal, but it turns out that normal Western armies are absolute shit at fighting guerrillas, especially when they become as powerful as the FLN. We haven't gotten any better since 1957, and America has had a lot of practice trying and failing to do so. And I don't think any of the insurgencies in Iraq or Afghanistan were powerful enough to force us to our knees in hours. In practice, there's really only three endgames for the larger forces fighting guerrillas that become this powerful (ordered in terms of likelihood): 1) Retreat; 2) A Final Solution that would make Hitler seem downright milquetoast; 3) Pray that the guerrillas are naive enough to accept a treaty that will put them on a reservation.

All this will do is put an Iraq situation right at our doorstep.

* Remember, the big showdown on the show took place on the To'Hajiilee Navajo Reservation, so they'd have to take the place of the civilian population.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I wonder how all those morons who supported Trump for the Nobel are feeling now. Another thing I wonder is whatever happened to the conservative mantra, ‘America cannot be the world’s policeman.’ A third thing I wonder is if there will be anything left after the fallout falls out.

Boru

[Thumpalumpacus]

Another thing I wonder is whatever happened to the conservative mantra, ‘America cannot be the world’s policeman.’

Nothing, really. We haven't minded policing Latin America for a century or so.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a disappointment for people who hoped we had put that sort of thing behind us - but it does look like trump, without any restraint from his hostage government, is going to put us back into a more active phase of that. Just in the last few days, and in the context of discussing venezuela, trump has suggested occupying columbia, panama, mexico, and greenland too - just for good measure. This is his ideological affinity with putin bubbling up to the surface of what he considers his own sphere of influence as the american emperor. President for life. Isn't that something. Maybe we should try that.

[Angrboda]

Approaching the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the official plaque honoring the police who defended democracy that day is nowhere to be found.

It’s not on display at the Capitol, as is required by law. Its whereabouts aren't publicly known, though it’s believed to be in storage.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has yet to formally unveil the plaque. And the Trump administration’s Department of Justice is seeking to dismiss a police officers' lawsuit asking that it be displayed as intended. The Architect of the Capitol, which was responsible for obtaining and displaying the plaque, said in light of the federal litigation, it cannot comment.

Determined to preserve the nation's history, some 100 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, have taken it upon themselves to memorialize the moment. For months, they've mounted poster board-style replicas of the Jan. 6 plaque outside their office doors, resulting in a Capitol complex awash with makeshift remembrances.

---

Lawmakers approved the plaque in March 2022 as part of a broader government funding package. The resolution said the U.S. "owes its deepest gratitude to those officers,” and it set out instructions for an honorific plaque listing the names of officers “who responded to the violence that occurred.” It gave a one-year deadline for installation at the Capitol.

Jan. 6 plaque made to honor law enforcement. It's nowhere to be found at the Capitol

[Leonardo17]

Belaqua:
 
   Do not oversimplify this. This is a debatable issue. But it might set a precedent. So people in the Kremlin are probably happy about this whole situation.
 
Nudger:
 
If I am correct, 8 million Venezuelans had to flee because of Maduro. I’m not saying the US is their savior. I am saying that we live in a world of consequences. Not every wrong action in this world will keep going unnoticed forever (even if you are a dictator)
 
Bel:
 
Yes there is in Monroe and the Truman Doctrine of 1823 and 1947. Trump is sort of reviving it (or something). And we are all opposed to this type of imperialism.
 
But the Venezuela under Maduro was not a true state. So again: Should I be sad about the corrupt Maduro regime?
 
2) I wish American isolationists could understand your point. This is today’s world as it is. The US army is bigger than all other armies combined. So they may or not start acting like “the police of the world”. The debate is open. But I don’t think what happened 2 days ago is “bad”.
 
- Right now I think that Juan Guaido or Marina Corina Machado should emerge from wherever they are and elections are organized within months (not years). And the Venezuelan people should decide about its own future.
 
/The US already took the Oil. So there isn’t anything there for the US.