SO, this is all going to work out well...

I'm not a fraidy-cat person, but I fear for the precarious position the world is currently in.

Gangsters are in charge.

I'm Canadian, and though it would shock me it would not surprise me if Trump moves on Canada.

I'm Canadian, and though it would shock me it would not surprise me if Trump moves on Canada. — Questioner

Why would it shock you if it wouldn't surprise you? :chin:

SO, this is all going to work out well... — Banno

Venezuela was already a failed state. How much worse could it get?

Why would it shock you if it wouldn't surprise you? — frank

It would be a shock to the system but not unexpected from Trump

So best case scenario from what I can tell is that the US worked out some deal with the Maduro government to capture him to save face while essentially keeping his government intact making this a pointless exercise. Worst case scenario is that this is gonna be another more reckless Iraq war situation.

Meanwhile healthcare premiums are spiking due to the administration letting ACA subsidies expire recently and the "America First" crowd is celebrating the kidnapping of a foreign leader.

I take issue with the constant mentioning of Trump because this isn't about Trump. — Tzeentch

Everything Trump does is about Trump. It's all designed as a show to demonstrate how great he is. He has no other intentions.

And most definitely not because the US is sensing it is starting to lose control, and feels the need to rapidly consolidate what it has considered its part of the globe to rule for hundreds of years as per the Monroe doctrine. — Tzeentch

How does it make sense to talk about "the US" as if it is a being with senses and feelings?

No oil company will invest in infrastructure in the circumstances Trump has created. — Banno

That's about the size of it. If any American company takes over an oil well, it becomes a terrorist target. Defense of such holdings would require an on the ground force of occupation. The only real means to American dominance would be to provide a very strong force to assist in Venezuelan governance, like they tried (and failed) in Afghanistan, but have had some degree of success in Iraq. Maybe the Americans are learning, and will come up with something reasonable this time around.

It would be a shock to the system but not unexpected from Trump — Questioner

I see.

China invested a lot in Venezuela.
What will come of that? (And China's general influence in South America?)
Seems like Trump "told" China to go away.

China's general influence in South America? — jorndoe

:rofl:

This suits China down to the ground!

Xi says major countries should take lead in abiding by int'l law, UN Charter

There’s plenty of differences. The propaganda under a democratic administration would be much nicer. — Mikie

I'm not gonna argue with that. :lol:

Yeah, the optics of this are bad to put it mildly, and apparently now there's talk of a second attack on Venezuela, and even other Latin American countries.

It seems the US is already beyond the point of caring about global opinion. That's how far down the road we are towards an era of renewed geopolitical struggle where the only currency is power.

Of course the overall gist of what's happening and the reasons is exactly what you say, but it's also a new thing of just helicoptering in and "arresting" (... with the FBI?!?) a sitting President of a sovereign nation on New York conspiracy charges?!?! — boethius

Very weird, I agree.

Possibly Maduro struck a deal in exchange for leniency or something. Time will tell what exactly went down.

I liked the rest of your observations about the oil situation.

Venezuela was already a failed state. How much worse could it get? — frank

A lot more worse.

Civil war. Hundreds of thousands of dead. Widespread famine. Failed state with competing regime that have divided the country. Or become like Haiti with criminal gangs running the country without any much if any operating government.

Or something...

Believe me, things can always be far more worse. Improving things is the difficult part, creating chaos is easy. And it's very easy for things to come far more worse. Especially with Trump as now when he has quite a war lust going on. Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Greenland...

I liked the rest of your observations about the oil situation. — Tzeentch

How much of that Iraqi oil went to US oil companies in the end? Not much, there's few of them, but they don't represent the majority of the foreign companies now in Iraq: there's Russia, China, the Europeans etc.

And yeah, as @Mikie stated, not much even rhetoric of democracy or war on drugs with Venezuela! Yet in order for oil to flow to Chevron (or the bunch), Venezuela needs:

a) A regime/administration that is willing to have the US in the country and work with it.
b) enough stability that it's safe for American companies to work in the country and for the companies really be willing to invest in the country.
c) a way for all of the above somehow to be reached by a cunning and capable US, which the US isn't under Trump, even if it's military is very capable and pulled of a successful 90-minute decapitation operation.

What I'd like to know is how Trump is thinking of running Venezuela now. Basically the option is to seize the oil shipments from Venezuela at sea. Or then take strikes on Venezuelan leaders and government. So pressure them and assume they will cave in. And hope that this will pressure the "Bolivarian revolution" to surrender to Trump.

That's it.

Question: was Trump so petty that he had to through Machado under the bus because she got a Nobel prize? When is Trump we are talking about it, it might be really the reason.

And just like from the Iraq/Afghanistan playbook, they might want to pick up some Venezuelan who kisses Trump's ass the most. Likely will dedicate his or her time to make the Trump family wealthy. So fuck off, Edmundo Gonzales or any other anti-Chavistas, you aren't needed!

Very weird, I agree. — Tzeentch

They're just vibe warring it.

True modernization.

was Trump so petty that he had to through Machado under the bus because she got a Nobel prize? When is Trump we are talking about it, it might be really the reason. — ssu

Yes, he is that petty, and egocentric. According to reporting from the Washington Post, Trump is not installing the legally-elected Machado because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize instead of giving it to him -

The day before, Trump had effectively dismissed the prospects of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, including Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, whose stand-in candidate, Edmundo González, won more than two-thirds of the vote in an election last year that saw Maduro refuse to leave office.

“It’d be very tough for her to be the leader,” Trump said when asked about Machado on Saturday, adding that she “doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country.”

[…]
Two people close to the White House said the president’s lack of interest in boosting Machado, despite her recent efforts to flatter Trump, stemmed from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award the president has openly coveted.

Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people.

“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said.

This act of his alone demonstrates he does not have the interests of the Venezuelan people in mind.

Venezuela was already a failed state. How much worse could it get? — frank

A lot more worse.

Civil war. Hundreds of thousands of dead. Widespread famine. Failed state with competing regime that have divided the country. Or become like Haiti with criminal gangs running the country without any much if any operating government. — ssu

Criminal gangs and armed groups already control large swathes of Venezuela, and they actually seem to do a better job of it than the central government.

But yeah, it could get a lot worse.

lot more worse. — ssu

Despite ranking as one of the world’s top 15 countries in renewable fresh water resources, nearly 8 out of 10 Venezuelans do not have continuous access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation. For most citizens, the water they sporadically consume is of dubious quality or not drinkable. Clean water in Venezuela has become a luxury, and even with price controls set in place, a bottle of water is about $3, a significant portion of the country’s minimum wage of approximately $8 a month. — here

An interesting Brookings institution evaluation of the US operations in Venezuela. I generally trust the Brookings Institution more than a lot of other voices and the evaluation includes individual analysis from 12 commentators with very different attitudes.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/making-sense-of-the-us-military-operation-in-venezuela/

I generally trust the Brookings Institution more than a lot of other voices — T Clark

I think you just like the name: Brookings Institute.

A lot of open doors being kicked in and unremarkable conclusions being drawn. None of them particularly offensive, but from a team of 12 experts I would expect more - especially given the annual funding Brookings receives.

A lot of open doors being kicked in and unremarkable conclusions being drawn. None of them particularly offensive, but from a team of 12 experts I would expect more - especially given the annual funding Brookings receives. — Tzeentch

I don’t disagree, but I appreciate that it was the only article I could find that didn’t just focus on the wild mismatch between the Venezuelan and US militaries.

but from a team of 12 experts I would expect more - especially given the annual funding Brookings receives. — Tzeentch

Do notice one aspect here: everybody in the US Foreign Policy sphere, which obviously includes the Brookings Institute, is now walking on egg shells. Criticism will get a nasty attack from the White House, but there is still criticism.

Yet you can notice the real criticism, that is made very diplomatically:

Focusing narrowly on oil access or prioritizing creditor repayment over recovery would risk creating a small set of rent-seekers while keeping Venezuela’s failed institutions largely intact.

He seems to believe that oil revenues will fund the ongoing presence, stating that, “We’ll be selling large amounts of oil to other countries,” and that running Venezuela “won’t cost us anything.”

This is nonsense.

The oil industry in Venezuela is a shambles.

Trump’s particular brand of lawless bravado, narrow-minded nationalism and crony capitalism have combined in Venezuela to lead our nation down a dark hole of open-ended responsibilities for the world’s largest holder of oil reserves and the region’s largest source of migrants (though not narcotics, the alleged threat). The harmful consequences for U.S. national security, and international peace and security more broadly, will unspool for years to come.

Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine‘—his rebranding of the Monroe Doctrine aimed at building a U.S. sphere of influence in Central and South America—seems to have made a relatively secure region meaningfully less stable overnight.

And it just goes on like this. This is, in the long term, an absolute disaster to Venezuela thanks to Trump. Another consequence is the decline of the US position in the World will speed up, because Trump very likely cannot handle this.

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The words of these think-tanks are worth about as much as the words from the White House itself, and this is how they always operate. In 20 years we'll learn there was some of angle that was conveniently left out of the discussion, like the Israel angle with Iraq, that also 'happens to' establish mens rea.

They are just playing dumb, attributing to incompetence what ought to be attributed to malice, and attributing to the Trump administration what ought to be attributed to the machinations of all of Washington and the foreign policy blob.

That's how this rotten intellectual infrastructure functions: they get to criticize Washington, because they never say anything that's actually damaging. Intellectuals lap it up, because everybody likes to complain about their government and it makes them feel awfully smart while doing it.


It's clear the American goal was to send a signal to all of Latin America: If you get too cozy with other great powers, we have the power and the will to ruin your country overnight. It's the Monroe Doctrine.

It's also a message to the rest of the world; if you reject our system, the gloves are coming off.

In 20 years we'll learn there was some of angle that was conveniently left out of the discussion, like the Israel angle with Iraq, that also 'happens to' establish mens rea. — Tzeentch

In decades we will have actual history writing. And when it comes to Trump, it really can be things like he got pissed off about Maduro dancing and ridiculing him. Just like that one partly reason for the Soviet Union collapsing was that Gorbachev and Yeltsin didn't get along (and the people doing the Putsch didn't get Yeltsin).
.

They are just playing dumb, attributing to incompetence what ought to be attributed to malice, and attributing to the Trump administration what ought to be attributed to the machinations of all of Washington and the foreign policy blob. — Tzeentch

The Trump administration is quite different from the Obama administration, just as Putin is different from Yeltsin, even if the former are US administrations and the latter Russian administrations.

It's clear the American goal was to send a signal to all of Latin America: If you get too cozy with other great powers, we have the power and the will to ruin your country overnight. It's the Monroe Doctrine. — Tzeentch

I think the apt name is Donroe doctrine. Very different from the doctrine that European colonizers shouldn't try to take back their colonies that they've lost. (Which btw. was shown to be an empty threat in the late 19th Century, when France attempted to take over Mexico and had it's debacle there. But then the US wasn't a Great Power yet.)


What the future reality will be is unclear. Trump is simply a chaos engine, which then many try to make sense into, into the famous 5D-chess or whatever. And oh boy, do they have a tough time supporting their leader which changes his stances totally:

6 months ago:


and Now:


That's the kind of spineless turnarounds one has to make when supporting Trump. First against the neocons, now embracing them! Wonderful logic and integrity in one's beliefs.

It's clear the American goal was to send a signal to all of Latin America: If you get too cozy with other great powers, we have the power and the will to ruin your country overnight. It's the Monroe Doctrine.

It's also a message to the rest of the world; if you reject our system, the gloves are coming off. — Tzeentch

Maduro up until his capture was more than willing to work with the US on whatever concerns it had. If they were trying to send a message to everyone to fall in line or else they picked a pretty lousy target for that. It seems more likely the message for most countries is that the world's greatest superpower is run by an irrational madman who thinks he can do anything for any reason. Countries have tried working and not working with him and in both cases they have gotten bombed.

There's a difference between turning a country into a vassal state and trying to install a democracy from scratch.

Destroying the Ba'ath Party in Iraq left a vacuum which created the conditions for ISIS. In Venezuela they left the regime intact... minus Maduro.

Destroying the Ba'ath Party in Iraq left a vacuum which created the conditions for ISIS. — ChatteringMonkey

Actually, let's be a bit more specific about just how it went: The US Military, on it's own and without the politicians in Washington, actually basically destroyed Al Qaeda in Iraq and it's grasp in the Sunni areas by the Sunni Awakening, where Sunni tribes were supported to fight Al Qaeda and helped to form the Sons of Iraq.

But then the US troops withdrew and the Shiite leader of Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki denounced the Sons of Iraq and dismantled them... which then lead to a power vacuum and the emergence of ISIS. Remember that ISIS leaders were first Al Qaeda leaders...which emerged in Iraq only after the US invasion.

Hence a successful insurgency strategy that worked was stopped by Obama's withdrawal and Iraqi policies.

In Venezuela they left the regime intact... minus Maduro. — ChatteringMonkey

Which doesn't make sense. How is this even be thought to work in a country that basically is very close to just collapsing into anarchy? And why would the Chavistas roll over?

Here's what vice President Rodriguez is actually saying:

Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, has said that “no foreign agent” is running Venezuela in the wake of Nicolas Maduro’s abduction by United States military forces.

Rodriguez, who had been Maduro’s vice president before his abduction, spoke during a televised event on Tuesday, a day after Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in a New York court to drug-trafficking conspiracy charges.“The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country, and no one else. There is no foreign agent governing Venezuela,” Rodriguez said.

And the Chavista government and the paramilitaries are cracking down on the people, so it really doesn't make any sense.

Just think of the present in the scenario of Iraq: So assume that under Bush prior to attacking into Iraq in 2003, the US would have made a similar stupendous special operation and gotten Saddam Hussein. And a high profile Baathist politician and field marshal Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri would have taken the lead in Iraq (Saddam's second in command). Yet Bush wouldn't have the nearly 300 000 ground force ready to invade the country, but only 15 000 even if the Navy and Air Force were at the disposal.

You think the Baathists would have then surrendered and given the US their oil?????

Yes I would think Delcy Rodriguez will be inclined to accommodate the wishes of the US otherwise she will befall a quote unquote 'worse fate' than Maduro.

But I think a lot will depend ultimately on how much China and Russia will back Venezuela against the US.

That could actually be the biggest miscalculation of the Trump administration in all of this.

I don’t want to distract from the main subject of this thread, but does any of this really matter? Strikes me that the really big deal is Trump‘s dismantling of NATO, leaving Europe to face Russia alone, and making the world a much more dangerous place. Are there any consequences in Latin America that come anywhere close to that?