How should west respond to potential (likely) U.S. invasion of Venezuela?

[TV and credit cards]

I did not know Maria Corina Machado supports Trump's boat strikes.
Scrapping away my disdain for Trump, it is understandable that the US government, Venezuelans and Venezuela's neighbors want Maduro gone. Yes, the Trump administration put out a simple explanation for our involvement in Venezuela's affairs: Drugs. Drugs bad. But this is about the store of natural wealth within Venezuela, not just oil but gold and other minerals but mostly oil and what a Maduro regime would do with this wealth and how it might affect the western hemisphere. Consider an America hating pro-Iran, pro-China, pro-Cuba oil rich nation not halfway around the world. Should we get involved in this nation's affairs? To say any change in government in Venezuela should happen organically is wishful thinking. Two thirds of Venezuela's population opposed Maduro in the last election. Millions of Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries. These countries have received little support from wealthy nations in assisting these displaced people. Maduro has disappeared thousands since the last election. The Maduro government is thoroughly corrupt: the upper ranks on the decentralized military, the intelligence service, drug trafficking guerilla groups and pro Maduro paramilitary forces (colectivos) all work to keep Maduro in power. They have all the guns. So even with Maduro's overthrow, it is farfetched to think a pro democracy government could take control. Not without some interim assistance, not financial assistance but physical enforcement, and therein lies the rub.
For now it's my understanding agentic AI is being employed within Venezuela to leverage discontent. Even this is tricky as checkpoints are set up and people's phones are opened to look for anything anti-government.
Aside from Machado's support, I think it is important to watch to what extent congressional Democrats are willing to cling to these highly questionable boat strikes. This will tell us how they view the larger picture.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

In a previous post, I used the term siege warfare. After reviewing recent events, this isn't just a metaphor—it is a literal description of the current strategy. We have moved from decades of economic sanctions along a spectrum to a full-scale siege. To me, this legitimizes the argument that we are already at war with Venezuela, regardless of what the White House claims.

Let's look at the facts on the ground (and water):

• De Facto Blockade: The President has deployed the US military—not law enforcement or the Coast Guard—to enforce a naval blockade. This effectively scares off all trade, including fishing and essential survival goods.
• Airspace Closure: The administration has shut down Venezuelan airspace. Like the naval blockade, this isolates the country and strangles commerce.
• Violent Interdiction: We are bombing boats and seizing tankers. The justification—saving lives from fentanyl—is a hoax. Venezuela is not a significant producer of fentanyl, and the cocaine supply is negligible in terms of "terrorism." These are excuses to justify attrition.
• Internal Destabilization: The President announced CIA covert measures are active inside Venezuela. This aligns with historical siege tactics: pressure from the outside, subversion from the inside.

The core mechanic of siege warfare is attrition over assault. The goal is not to defeat an army in the field, but to exhaust the enemy’s resources and political will until the "castle" (the state) collapses. Historically, sieges rarely involved fighting inside the castle walls; they were about stopping supply lines and crushing anything that tried to run the gates. That is exactly what we are seeing now.

The Danger to Democracy

We need to be honest about what is happening: this is a power grab cloaked in secrecy. Even if you believe Maduro should be removed, look at how it is being done.

By refusing to call this a "war," the President bypasses Congress. He avoids the need for a formal declaration, public debate, or the appropriation of funds that would create a paper trail. If this were a legitimate intervention, the administration would argue its case openly, with transparency regarding who gets the rights to the oil fields afterward.

Instead, we have a siege war managed by executive fiat. This isn't just about Venezuela; it's about whether we still function as a democracy with checks and balances, or if we simply allow the executive branch to wage private wars off the books.

 

[thebeave]

More information about the oil tanker seizure:

Satellite images suggest seized tanker 'deliberately' manipulated location data

An ABC News analysis of satellite imagery and tracking data shows the oil tanker seized by the United States off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday may have manipulated its location data -- an apparent attempt, experts said, to circumvent restrictions imposed by sanctions.

The crude oil tanker, named the "The Skipper," according to four people familiar with the operation, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022.

Digital broadcast signals emitted from the vessel’s transponder and tracked by analytics company Kpler placed the Skipper near Guyana’s offshore between November and December. However, more than a dozen satellite images verified by ABC News confirmed Skipper was in fact operating in waters off the coast of Barcelona, Venezuela, around 550 miles away during this same period.

 

[bilby]

Consider an America hating pro-Iran, pro-China, pro-Cuba oil rich nation not halfway around the world. Should we get involved in this nation's affairs?

No, absolutely not. What justification would there be for doing so?

Their choice to dislike you, and to like people and things you dislike, is not a sufficient reason for violent action against anybody, whether an individual or a nation state.

Only an evil bullying asshole would think such a choice justified a violent response.

Yes, the Trump administration put out a simple explanation for our involvement in Venezuela's affairs: Drugs. Drugs bad.

And as I already mentioned, this "explanation" is an outright, pants-on-fire LIE, which nobody with any grasp of regional geography or politics woild believe. Sadly, the average US voter is incapable of telling the difference between Venezuela and Colombia.

Shit, if you had asked the average US voter last year what they know about Venezuela, they would probably have guessed that it is that super annoying horn that South African soccer fans inflicted on us in 2010.

Two thirds of Venezuela's population opposed Maduro in the last election. Millions of Venezuelans have fled to neighboring countries. These countries have received little support from wealthy nations in assisting these displaced people. Maduro has disappeared thousands since the last election. The Maduro government is thoroughly corrupt: the upper ranks on the decentralized military, the intelligence service, drug trafficking guerilla groups and pro Maduro paramilitary forces (colectivos) all work to keep Maduro in power. They have all the guns. So even with Maduro's overthrow, it is farfetched to think a pro democracy government could take control. Not without some interim assistance, not financial assistance but physical enforcement, and therein lies the rub.

Sure, it's a shit place with a shit government. So are most nation states. There are plenty of worse places that the US has a bigger interest in invading than Venezuela - unless this whole thing about how evil Maduro and his regime are is a mere pretext, and the actual issue here is just that Trump wants Maduro's oil.

Beating someone up, so you can take their stuff isn't justified, even if your victim is a horrible person. Indeed, doing so also identifies you as a horrible person. Trump is apparently hell-bent on being just as bad as Maduro, and thinks that Maduro's badness somehow justifies that.

It can't, and it doesn't.

For now it's my understanding agentic AI is being employed within Venezuela to leverage discontent. Even this is tricky as checkpoints are set up and people's phones are opened to look for anything anti-government.

It is my understanding that the same is being done at the US border. As yet, this doesn't target US citizens, but I am struggling to see how that makes it any less evil.

 

[barbos]

Venezuelans and Venezuela's neighbors want Maduro gone.

Coming from the same guys who claim that russians want Putin gone, Chinese want Xi Jinping gone.

By the way, german chancellor has 20% approval, british PM has less than that. And Macron is 10%.
Don't see you talking about them going.

Macron’s approval rating drops to historic low

The French president now shares an unwelcome record with the man who gave him his start in politics.

www.politico.eu

 

[barbos]

I did not know Maria Corina Machado supports Trump's boat strikes.

Machado is an CIA asset.

 

[ZiprHead]

More information about the oil tanker seizure:

Satellite images suggest seized tanker 'deliberately' manipulated location data

An ABC News analysis of satellite imagery and tracking data shows the oil tanker seized by the United States off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday may have manipulated its location data -- an apparent attempt, experts said, to circumvent restrictions imposed by sanctions.

The crude oil tanker, named the "The Skipper," according to four people familiar with the operation, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022.

Digital broadcast signals emitted from the vessel’s transponder and tracked by analytics company Kpler placed the Skipper near Guyana’s offshore between November and December. However, more than a dozen satellite images verified by ABC News confirmed Skipper was in fact operating in waters off the coast of Barcelona, Venezuela, around 550 miles away during this same period.

Is that supposed to mean it was okay to pirate an oil tanker?

 

[Playball40]

All presidents get a sense of power through military force, Trump is an extreme.

Bush and Neo Cons thinking they would liberate Iraq like the Allies did France.

Obama got jazzed getting Bin Laden. He bragged about killing more terrorists than any other president.

LBJ and his administration outright lied about what was going on in Vietnam. Even when on TV ebnry day people saw what was going on. Increasing troops while as the Pentagon Papers showed the military by around 1966 concluded there was no militray solution.

Congress has long ceded the power to use militray force the president. All presidents and admonitions lie and shade the truth. It is a matter of degree.

In 2011, Obama authorized the deployment of about 100 U.S. military advisers to central Africa to assist regional forces in combating the LRA, a notoriously violent rebel group led by Joseph Kony. The reasons for this deployment were:

Combating atrocities The LRA had murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of civilians, mostly children, across Central Africa. The mission was framed as a humanitarian effort to end the group's reign of terror.

Providing training and assistance The special operations forces provided training, advice, and assistance to local partner nations, but were not intended to engage in direct combat except for self-defense.

Upholding national security interests Obama stated that the deployment served U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by supporting regional security and efforts to remove Joseph Kony from the battlefield.

Under President Bill Clinton, the United States conducted several notable missile strikes, primarily in retaliation for terrorist attacks and as part of military actions in Iraq and the Balkans
.
Operation Infinite Reach (1998)

Target: On August 20, 1998, the U.S. military launched simultaneous cruise missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in response to al-Qaeda's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Afghanistan: The strikes hit training camps believed to be used by Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

Sudan: The target in Sudan was the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum. The Clinton administration claimed the plant was being used to produce chemical weapons for al-Qaeda. However, subsequent reports cast doubt on the intelligence linking the factory to bin Laden or chemical weapons, and the U.S. later backed away from its initial claims.

Operations in Iraq (1993, 1998)

1993 Baghdad strike: In June 1993, Clinton ordered a cruise missile strike on the Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters in Baghdad. This was in retaliation for an Iraqi plot to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush during a visit to Kuwait.

Operation Desert Fox (1998): In December 1998, the U.S. and the United Kingdom launched a four-day bombing campaign against Iraqi targets. The action was aimed at punishing Saddam Hussein's regime for its refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.

The Sudan pharmaceutical company attack.

Context of the Attack

Retaliation for Embassy Bombings:

The missile strikes were a response to the August 7, 1998, terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which were linked to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Operation Infinite Reach:
.
The strikes on al-Shifa and alleged al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan were codenamed Operation Infinite Reach.
Controversy and Dissent:
.
The decision to bomb al-Shifa was controversial, with critics arguing the U.S. lacked sufficient evidence of its connection to chemical weapons and that Clinton may have been trying to distract from domestic issues.

Target and Justification

U.S. Justification:

President Clinton stated there was "convincing evidence" that the factory was involved in the production of chemical weapons, specifically a precursor element for a nerve gas, linking it to bin Laden's terrorist network.

Sudanese and Independent Claims:
.
Sudanese officials and later tests by independent labs found no evidence of chemical weapons production at al-Shifa, a factory that produced essential medicines for the country.

Aftermath

Factory Destruction:
The al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory was destroyed in the attack, leading to the loss of its production capacity for essential Sudanese medicines.

And they all had congressional approval. Something Drumpf lacks

 

[bilby]

More information about the oil tanker seizure:

Satellite images suggest seized tanker 'deliberately' manipulated location data

An ABC News analysis of satellite imagery and tracking data shows the oil tanker seized by the United States off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday may have manipulated its location data -- an apparent attempt, experts said, to circumvent restrictions imposed by sanctions.

The crude oil tanker, named the "The Skipper," according to four people familiar with the operation, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022.

Digital broadcast signals emitted from the vessel’s transponder and tracked by analytics company Kpler placed the Skipper near Guyana’s offshore between November and December. However, more than a dozen satellite images verified by ABC News confirmed Skipper was in fact operating in waters off the coast of Barcelona, Venezuela, around 550 miles away during this same period.

Is that supposed to mean it was okay to pirate an oil tanker?

If I felt my ship was threatened by a hostile military force, I too would give serious consideration to "spoofing" my position as a defensive measure.

It turned out not to work, but I can't fault the captain for trying.