Venezuela
Is Venezuela lost for decades? Is it going to become a full blown pariah state? The opposition leader Guido seems like a
it shows that Russia was absolutely correct to invade Ukraine. and it showed once again that I underestimated the evil and depravity of the Empire. Putin would have been getting assraped to death by Israeli trained good ole boys and Russia would have been asset stripped and split up if he hadnt. and for the record, yes I will admit that until now I was absolutely wrong in be
I have a lot of problems with what has happened in the last 48 hours, but the post above is both delusional and morally depraved.
So sad. BJ got banned but Victor/Deuces is allowed to post his disturbing stupid propaganda.....
it shows that Russia was absolutely correct to invade Ukraine. and it showed once again that I underestimated the evil and depravity of the Empire. Putin would have been getting assraped to death by Israeli trained good ole boys and Russia would have been asset stripped and split up if he hadnt. and for the record, yes I will admit that until now I was absolutely wrong in be
Russia’s situation is not the same because they have nukes.
Sorry, I forgot. Here's my post translated to 'Rococo':
BJ stupid posts -> got banned
Deuces/Victor stupid posts -> not banned
Hope that was simple enough for you.
It's true. I like to take the actual meaning of words into account when posting and reading the posts of others.
As a zero substance poster, the actual meaning of words of course is less important to you.
You're doing the thing again where you talk about substance but then post worthless garbage. Fix yourself, buddy.
You're doing the thing again where you talk about substance but then post worthless garbage. Fix yourself, buddy.
There is not a single person here who thinks that your posts are more frequently substantive than mine. Admittedly, that observation is mainly a reflection on you and says very little one way or the other about me. You set a very, very, very low bar.
You're doing the thing again where you talk about substance but then post worthless garbage. Fix yourself, buddy.
Six months ago, I would have been surprised if Trump had taken this step re Maduro. He obviously never had any moral objection to using the military this way--indeed, he has no moral compass at all--but I thought he had decided this sort of military adventurism was unpopular with his base.
That said, the run up to this specific action has been evident for several months now, so he must have changed his mind or maybe he no longer cares whether it is popular with his base.
I have a lot of problems with what has happened in the last 48 hours, but the post above is both delusional and morally depraved.
What morality? It's delusional to demand and expect other countries to have any morality at this point. It's the Wild West. If anything countries have the obligation to take every precaution to avoid ending up like Libya Syria Iraq or Venezuela.
What morality? It's delusional to demand and expect other countries to have any morality at this point. It's the Wild West. If anything countries have the obligation to take every precaution to avoid ending up like Libya Syria Iraq or Venezuela.
I didn't expect the Russian government to operate according to some moral code.
I also didn't expect you to defend Putin's invasion of Ukraine on moral grounds, but I guess I should have.
We just watched the leader of a peaceful nonthreatening nation get abducted and tortured bc the USA wants the country's oil. We just watched 2 years of accelerated extermination in Palestine bc the US-Israeli Empire wants to steal the land to build luxury hotels. What morality is there? You think other countries should act moral while the USA explicitly plans to kill their leaders and steal their wealth?
You're being sincere here but China doesn't get rich nationalizing things - teaching others that isn't going to do ****. They got rich because they let their markets build things that the world needed and made bank off of exporting those things using cheap labor. The nationalization was what they did with their profits - basically their version of govt subsidies in the US. Y
Yeah. China didn't start succeeding until it opened its markets.
For ****'s sake, Victor. My comment had absolutely nothing to do with how we should, as a practical matter, expect other countries to behave. An action by a government can be immoral even if I have no reason to expect the government to act morally.
You could have said that we had no basis or right to expect the Russian government to behave morally. That isn't what you said. What you actually said was:
and for the record, yes I will admit that until now I was absolutely wrong in believing he was wrong to invade from a moral and strategic standpoint.
In other words, you said that you believe that Russia's invasion was morally defensible, which is completely ****ed.
We also don't have anything close to the ability to control a country as vast as Russia effectively. I'm highly skeptical that we have the ability to manage Venezuela for any appreciable length of time.
Yeah. There is little reason to think this will work. But Maduro was so incompetent and the country such a disaster good chance things get better by accident.
I think a lot of people dont realize how completely dysfunctional Venezuela has been the last 10 years (and really since Chavez seized power). Or what a govt made humanitarian disaster it has been. There is a reason something like 1/3 of the population has fled in the last 10 years.
For ****'s sake, Victor. My comment had absolutely nothing to do with how we should, as a practical matter, expect other countries to behave. An action by a government can be immoral even if I have no reason to expect the government to act morally. You could have said that we had no basis or right to expect the Russian government to behave morally. That isn't what you said.
right bc there are no morals when it comes to the Western Empire. is it morally proper to just ignore the USA and let them overthrow the government, abduct or assassinate the leaders, kill millions, and give up all resources? like in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Venezuela. bc that absolutely would have happened to Russia.
right bc there are no morals when it comes to the Western Empire. is it morally proper to just ignore the USA and let them overthrow the government, abduct or assassinate the leaders, kill millions, and give up all resources? like in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Venezuela. bc that absolutely would have happened to Russia.
Completely delusional. There is zero chance that we could accomplish what you are describing, and zero chance that we would risk nuclear war to attempt it.
Yeah. There is little reason to think this will work. But Maduro was so incompetent and the country such a disaster good chance things get better by accident. I think a lot of people dont realize how completely dysfunctional Venezuela has been the last 10 years (and really since Chavez seized power). Or what a govt made humanitarian disaster it has been. There is a reason
I'm well aware of how dysfunctional that government has been for the last twenty years. But I don't share your optimism that we are going to make things better. We are quite good at projecting military force. But we have shown little or no ability to manage the aftermath effectively, and that's in no small part because managing the aftermath is a lot harder than dropping a lot of bombs or doing a quick tactical strike like we did to seize Maduro.
Completely delusional. There is zero chance that we could accomplish what you are describing, and zero chance that we would risk nuclear war to attempt it.
they literally tried to assassinate Putin a few days ago. you think if the US had full control of Ukraine that they couldnt take down Russia?
and the Biden admin put it at 50% that Russia would use nukes according to the recent Woodward book.
I'm well aware of how dysfunctional that government has been for the last twenty years. But I don't share your optimism that we are going to make things better. We are quite good at projecting military force. But we have shown little or no ability to manage the aftermath effectively, and that's in no small part because managing the aftermath is a lot harder than dropping a l
--Yeah. But again, the bar is so low it could get better by accident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2f-tBam...
--I cant figure out how to embed it, but Peter Zeihan does a lot of short videos on geopolitics and even attempts to make predictions about the future, and it is interesting to watch even if his predictions dont really ever seem to pan out (in fairness, most geopolitical commentators dont even try to make predictions, and if they did it probably wouldn't be any better, so kudos to Zeihan for even trying).
--Anyways, he is of the opinion that Venezuela has been on the road to complete dysfunction and state dissolution since Chavez. And this does nothing but speed up the timeline.
When Victor is in full on tankie mode I find it best to just let him get it out of his system and not engage, as there is no coherent discussion to be had. But you guys do you.
So I don't think the US can "run" Venezuela and there doesn't seem to be any plan to do so. What they could probably do is get the oil industry functioning at a better capacity through expertise and investment.
The Venezuelan economy has stabilized in recent years because Maduro eased restrictions on dollars and now the economy is fully dollarized and things are priced in dollars. So unless they went back to using Bolivars it would be hard to make the economy worse.
I would doubt that there is any sort of civil war scenario for Venezuela like we've seen play out in the middle east-- most people do not support the government and are happy to see Maduro go.
I would doubt that there is any sort of civil war scenario for Venezuela like we've seen play out in the middle east-- most people do not support the government and are happy to see Maduro go.
Seems the govt is just going to continue as is without Maduro. Non zero chance this was all arranged before Maduro's arrest.
As I said before, it seems likely more pragmatic people in the junta saw what a losing strategy continuing alignment with Iran/Russia was; and were "convinced" it would be better to align with the US.
And hopefully this will improve economic conditions overall, which will trickle down to the people.
Maduro being arrested while a Chinese delegation was there meeting with him is an interesting wrinkle. This makes it unlikely China was involved in this or given a heads up. Will be interesting to see how China reacts.
Russia and Iran are so weak right now they cant do anything about this and no one really cares what they think.
I am guessing Trump can just promise Xi they can buy as much Venezuelan oil as they want at a discount with US dollars* once things are up and running again; and make some other concessions somewhere else and this will hopefully be good enough.
Also, as Russia continues to fall apart due to Putin's imcompetence and warmongering, China is quietly taking over control of Siberia, which will give them access to all the natural resources they need, so might become a moot issue anyways.
*This isn't an area of knowledge for me, but people much smarter than me are speculating using Venezuelan oil to stabilize the US petrodollar would actually be a big deal.
