Did the US not used to require congress authorization before engaging in violent repression against other sovereign nations? Or is that not needed anymore? Seems it was a long time ago the US actually followed their own practices, was this capturing of Maduro basically Russia's "Special Operations" but somehow "actually good this time" or something like that?
Especially for the supposed capturing of a foreign leader. But maybe we did this with Gaddafi and Hussein, not sure what Congressional approval there was for those either. Apparently H.W. Bush also ordered the capture of Noriega for drug trafficking charges.
I'm tired of the US thinking that military forceful action is the way to resolve conflicts, especially the way to win the "war on drugs." We should be much more effective at reducing drug addiction if we realized that it's not so much about the drugs, it's about our growing culture of conflict and emotional avoidance. When a population lets itself feel sadness, feel pain, and reinterpret conflicts from the assumed "they don't care about me" to "they care more about me than I may ever realize," then I am willing to bet the drug industry will shrink significantly.
Punishing those who sell drugs often just perpetuates this idea that punishment resolves conflict, which I'm very willing to bet actually _increases_ our tendency to be addicted to drugs.
Every culture consumes drugs. There was a massive heroine consumption problem before WWI in the US, which was largely mitigated by making it illegal to sell it over-the-counter.
It's far easier to reduce consumption by cutting the supply entering your country, than solving the self-actualization issues (is it even one?) of your population.
People selling drugs such as fentanyl or cocaine have various techniques to hook consumers and keep them addicted regardless of their mental state. Selling hard drugs is criminalized for a good reason.
> It's far easier to reduce consumption by cutting the supply entering your country
So easy. Exactly why Sweden have had a "zero tolerance" policy against drugs, particularly Cannabis, yet usage keeps growing no matter how much resources they keep throwing at stricter border controls and trying to reduce both supply and demand by arresting everyone with even traces of Cannabinoids in their blood. https://www.euda.europa.eu/publications/country-drug-reports...
> People selling drugs such as fentanyl or cocaine have various techniques to hook consumers and keep them addicted regardless of their mental state. Selling hard drugs is criminalized for a good reason.
You're making the argument for why these things should be sold in controlled circumstances, rather than by private individuals who don't care about anything else but themselves, yet you end with "is criminalized for a good reason". Completely opposite, you're making the argument for why it needs to be legalized.
There is a difference between "0 tolerance", which affects mainly users, and "no entry", which prevents the product to reach your border.
In the case of Sweden, it is mainly a symptom of non-european immigration, using their criminal networks to import the product. Netherland is dominated by Moroccan mafia, France by the Algerian mafia, and so on. Remigrating them would likely solve a big part of the problem.
> controlled selling
Yes, that's already the case in most countries: I can get opioids such as morphine in the case of surgical operation. Many ADHD teens get derivatives of amphetamines. No one is against this.
In practice they tend to substitute A with B, and B is often times even more destructive (black market fentanyl rather than medical opioids, or just inhalants).
It really depends on where you live and the repression. In France, drug dealers paint large ads on buildings, advertising coke and weed, flood telegram channels and so on. If alcohol and cigarettes sellers do it on a massive scale, why wouldn't other drug dealers do the same (if the conditions allow it).
Drug users can be found at every stage of the society, either because of psychological/genetic issues making them more prone to consume, or because it's a cultural thing to do it (e.g alcohol), or there is peer pressure leading to consumption. Your living conditions have little to do about it, really.
Perhaps, if our main goal is to simply reduce consumption of a specific drug. The problem I see is that problem avoidance finds other paths. Get rid of heroine? People will use marijuana. Marijuana gone? People use alcohol. Alcohol gone? People use video games.
I don't think the drugs are inherently the problem, as there's a paper I loved talking about different kinds of escapism: one where people escape to avoid problems and the second where people escape to solve problems.
So I still think the root is problem avoidance, which at an even more root level is emotional avoidance, especially of "bad" feelings, mostly sadness.
So I don't see it as self-actualization for some noble goal, but rather a practical how do I actually solve problems in my life goal.
tldr; banning certain drugs can be whack-a-mole, trying to solve symptoms but not the problem.
This is why it's more effective to focus on the most destructive drugs. Video games don't make you lose your teeth and become a burglar to buy the new CoD season pass (so far!).
If heroin were legal, in my current phase of life, I don't think I'd take it. I don't like even being drunk, and alcohol is very legal in most places I've lived.
But I dunno, I tend to say we should make it harder to get guns, so I want to reflect a little more on my double standard.
> It's far easier to reduce consumption by cutting the supply entering your country, than solving the self-actualization issues (is it even one?) of your population.
Stuff like this is hard to believe in 2025 without really compelling evidence.
I gave you an example. You have similar examples in the XXth century, such as post-war amphetamin consumption in Europe.
The reverse is also true: the crack epidemic was caused by a dramatic increase in the supply of cocaine, which allowed even the poorest members of society to afford it. It's happening again now in Europe.
We can discuss about the criminalization of users and its effects on society, but in the case of the sellers I don't really see a case, especially when you know the conditions in which drugs are produced, involving often borderline slavery and wide corruption networks.
> People selling drugs such as fentanyl or cocaine have various techniques to hook consumers and keep them addicted regardless of their mental state. Selling hard drugs is criminalized for a good reason.
You don’t need any special tricks to keep someone buying fentanyl, the withdrawals are your sales pitch.
Most organizations ignore their policies and stated missions and do whatever they were going to do anyway, then justify it after the fact (or when they get in trouble)
Most? I doubt that. Many? Yes. But because "many" can't avoid being hypocrites constantly, doesn't mean we suddenly should stop calling it out when we see it, don't you agree?
> I would say almost all organizations ignore their missions
There are countless of organizations who follow their stated missions even after 100, 200, 400 or even 800 years. I'm not sure you should judge it based on some young US organizations, or whatever you're going by.
> “Calling it out” is meaningless
Not calling it out is cowardice and complacency. "Calling it out" might have a tiny effect, but it surely beats nothing.
I keep seeing this comment regarding congressional authorization for war all over social media this morning, and am wondering why everyone seems to be aware of that, but not aware of the 80+ years of eroding those checks and balances and abandoning that precedent time and time again.
It's the 2020's, not 1920's. Congress hasn't declared war since WW2, and that hasn't stopped us from engaging the dozens of wars and armed conflicts we've been directly involved in since then.
To be clear, I'm not happy/proud of that fact. I think it's a moral and systemic failing, and do not support America's actions in Venezuela this morning. I'm just perplexed why everyone seems to think a precedent we abandonded long before most of us were even born suddenly applies today, or why they know about that law but don't know that we've violated it more times than we've observed it (without consequences), or don't know about the War Powers Act, or think that Congress would do anything but further enable him.
In short, why does everyone suddenly think that's relevant while also ignoring all the other relevant history that establishes we do not and have not observed that precedent in the modern era. Again, we *Should*, but did anyone honestly expect it to happen, or that congress wouldn't go along with it, or that the current POTUS would respect such law/precedent?
TL;DR: I don't think we should be going to war or engaging in armed conflict without congressional approval either, but the law and well established precedent both say POTUS legally has that power, at least in the short term, and we're not even 24hours into the 60 day period the War Powers act (which is 50 years old and passed by congress btw) grants.
I don't think the US Congress has declared war since Word War 2.
I would say this is the exact same thing we did with Manuel Noriega in 1988.
Personally, I hate that we do these things but it is certainly not impossible in the long run the lives of the Venezuelans will be improved.
It is hard to get an exact figure but inflation last year was 150-200% and that is an improvement from what they had. 50,000% hyperinflation at the end of the last decade.
Given I was just annoyed at my grocery bill an hour ago because of 3% inflation I really can't imagine what life is like with that level of inflation.
"The last time the United States formally declared war, using specific terminology, on any nation was in 1942, when war was declared against Axis-aligned Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, because President Franklin Roosevelt thought it was improper to engage in hostilities against a country without a formal declaration of war. Since then, every American president has used military force without a declaration of war.[1]"
Korea was not a war. Vietnam was not a war. Iraq I and II were not wars. Afghanistan was not a war. The "War on Terror" was not a war. You could be forgiven for thinking this invasion of a sovereign foreign country is a war, but it's not a war according to any law that is likely to be enforced within the USA.
Power accumulates in places it shouldn't be permitted unless the people occasionally claw it back and redistribute it. Unfortunately, Americans failed to claw back the power to declare war from the POTUS almost a century ago. Trump's reasons for declaring not-war (cough Wag the dog. cough Epstein. cough) are more unprecedented than his methods in this particular case.
Post 9/11 US president is allowed to take action against terrorists without any approval(AUMF). Hence the months/years long messaging around "narcoterrorism" and it's links to venezuela. Not saying the drugs don't exist, but AUMF is selectively applied to say the least.
Now the real reason is that venezuela is a "hostile influence in the western hemisphere" both from a russia/china perspective as well as an energy security perspective so this was a matter of when not if (monroe doctrine and all that).
This is not the first time the US has intervened in LatAm, and it won't be the last. Being the sole influence in N and S america is a defining feature of america and all americans, and has been so since 1823.
The current US administration seemed to prefer isolationism (at least up until today), and seems hellbent on destroying the US economy. If they're successful in their goals, this might very well be the last SA intervention from the US for a very long time. Maybe they're aware of this, and this is some sort of dead-cat bounce or whatnot.
Isolationism will never become so strong that they limit influence to literally the country USA. If anything, they will refocus efforts on the americas, taiwan, rest of the pacific, away from the middle east and the indopac[1]. This means making sure japan, phillipines and taiwan are US allied, and of course that they are the sole influence in the Americas.
[1] which they have taken a lot of massive steps towards recently
That would require a functional economy though, which is why the US been able to do what they've been doing. Without it, I'm not sure how they're hoping to achieve this, but I'm guessing "oil" somehow is involved in the calculation, considering today's actions.
Ya, I find predictions for what would happen in that scenario extremely noisy. Tend to avoid them.
But I do believe that a lot of the US government posturing that if implemented would be bad for economy (which you are alluding to), will not actually happen. A massive revamp of the economy is what the majority voting bloc in the US wishes for, so the winning politician will have to keep signalling in that direction. But actually following through with it, be it in a way with positive or negative effect, is extremely difficult. So I don't pay much attention to it.
I'm confused why this isn't bigger news internationally.
Sure, it's the tip headline everywhere, but seems less emphasised than football world cup final results. More like, "Very large rain occured somewhere".
Trump, without even Congress' authority, never mind UN or any allied country consultation presumably, kidnaps a foreign president, "elected" likely fraudulently but still the head of his state, over accusations even more tenuous than WMD in Iraq.
What's next? Danish PM held hostage until Greenland is handed over? This seems like a really hostile move by the US, and the reaction seems to be, oh yeah, something's up.
there are many people who believe that punishment creates fear and fear creates compliance and compliance solves problems. So if someone in America believes this, then they probably think this will punish people for trafficking drugs (or disobeying US demands) and instill fear in them with regards to trafficking and will get them to stop trafficking drugs and therefore Americans will no longer be addicted to drugs.
The problem is that fear-based problem solving often just becomes problem avoidance. People become afraid to say there's a problem so it _looks_ as if the problem is solved, but the problem just becomes more buried and actually gets worse.
So, it might help Americans _think_ that the drug problem is solved, but not actually help us solve the drug problem. And I suppose when we push punishment, we're mostly pushing problem avoidance, and so it helps people Americans avoid problems more, so I guess it'd be successful in that.
Same as with Iraq. A more friendly regime that would be willing to let American companies extract its natural resources, and a proxy state used to coerce neighbors on behalf of the US.
I think even Bush would recognise it didn't really work out that way with Iraq, but hey, maybe this administration has unlocked the secret.
That is an out of date question unfortunately. Now you just have to ask how it benefits the criminal oligarchy currently in charge of our country. Short term it gives them bread and circuses for their base. Longer term, oil wealth.
That’s a way of viewing it, but of course it assumes logical planning by reasonably bright individuals. So it’s begging the question somewhat.
Years ago I had a cubicle right next to the supervisor's office. I noticed that he was having more closed-door meetings than usual, and mentioned it to my good friend who was also my boss. My boss did a good job not reacting, because she already knew a layoff was eminent but couldn't share that with me (I was not one of those let go.) Events like this can be surprisingly accurate indicators of something significant going on.
A friend of mine used to say, "Companies that are about to go bankrupt start behaving strangely."
I always just nodded in agreement without really knowing what she meant.
A couple of years later, one morning, I noticed that the daycare my daughter attended had swapped the large iMac in their office for an old Dell monitor. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
Somewhat later, the soft wipes in the diaper-changing room were gone. There only were the cheap, sandpaper-like ones to be found.
Not long after that, they announced their bankruptcy, shortly after the piano had mysteriously disappeared, without any explanation.
I had a manager years ago tell me to pay attention to the free soda / coffee. It costs them basically nothing. If they can’t pay that how are they going to pay your salary.
Wise words, years later I worked at a fancy place. All kinds of snacks and drinks and weekly lunches. One day we got moved off into a smaller, worse office. Our old Herman Miller chairs were missing and our nice fancy desks were replaced with bottom barrel IKEA furniture. The weekly lunch was cut. The snacks were scarce.
I got a new job within the month. By the following month the entire company went bankrupt.
> apparently two of them met for lunch, and the one who was left out pulled funding
Yeah, I could kind of understand that, somewhat. Big sign that they're planning on pushing you out anyways if they meet in secret without you to talk about the business, so better GTFO quick rather than try to force-staying.
There are like 10 of these surge pizza traffic posts from this account every month. And 99% of the time we don’t hear anything happening afterwards so I’m not sure how reliable it is
It’s kind of amazing that this is a weak point in the Pentagons’ opsec.
Like, surely they could afford to have their own pizza ovens installed .. or does all that cash really just need to be spent slaughtering innocents instead?
One bad anchovy batch and the world might be at peace for a while, hmm…
Knowing that massive pizza consumption is important to the functioning of the Pentagons’ minions means that there is a back door into the Pentagon via pizza.
What my local secret service does is they rent various houses in a circle around their headquarters and order pizzas to them frequently. Mostly the pizzas are securely destroyed, but on days with large meetings they're transported from the houses to the headquarters via underground pneumatic tubes. I would have thought a similar DPS (Decentralised Pizza Strategy) would be employed in the US too, but I suppose they are not as tactically advanced in that area.
The US doesn't do a lot of pneumatic food delivery, and the main tunnel[1] is both inappropriately placed for pentagon activities and inappropriately configured for pizza. Maybe you could do calzones, but calzones don't make a good work meeting.
It's probably not, if you sit on Twitter at all you'll see posts about Pentagon pizzas almost once a week. Maybe it does measure something about the Pentagon, but I doubt it's anything close to as precise a measure as folk like to believe.
In the interests of national security might I humbly recommend that we open a pizza joint INSIDE the pentagon? It’s distressingly easy for our adversaries to identify when something big is going down.
That makes sense for the average unsuspecting Android user who keeps location on all the time. "Proper" Android is more or less spyware from Google, so this is not surprising. But Pentagon people keep their work/personal Android location on all the time?
Otherwise, for iPhones, can Google get real-time location data when someone is not actively using Google Maps?
The pizza report is very annoying to me. It’s a trivial thing for any interested party ( few thousand dollars) to sway up when they want to bring attention to an action the pentagon is doing, and has been such a measure for so long that it’s (in my opinion) ridiculous to still follow it as a source for actual activity. Maybe I should start manipulating it myself.
well, they definitely had an operation tonight to get maduros. maybe the pizza activity is more from the reporters and news crews tgat need to pull a late night shift?
I believe that state actors have put in the relatively low amount of effort to use android device farms to manipulate this statistic. I believe it hasn’t been relevant outside of seeing what the state wants to signal. I also believe individuals can do it as well, since it’s just phones reporting to google maps where they are. You see businesses in tourist cities that are dead empty with massive reviewbots and it showing as a ‘busy place’ as well.
As far as my quick twitter research goes there have been reports¹ to an attack before 2am EST (= 7am UTC). So, is this correlation actually useful or just a gimmick?
> You can tell when shit is going down inside the pentagon cause they're working after hours and they order pizza from nearby places. Today the US is invading/destabilising: Venezuela
i wonder about pizza near Chinese MOD - it looks like Putin gets Ukraine in exchange for Trump getting Venezuela, and the next natural piece here is Xi getting Taiwan.
"Bro please just give me the Sudetenland. I swear bro just let me take the rest of Czechoslovakia and I'm done. It's my last territorial demand bro I promise. Just one more annexation and the Treaty of Versailles is fixed. Please bro it's just for the living space."
"Bro please just let me take Kyiv. I swear bro just one more special military operation and the security buffer is complete. It's not a war bro it's denazification. Just give me the Donbas and the land bridge and I'll be chill. One more mobilization and the multipolar world order is saved bro please."
"Bro please just acknowledge the Nine-Dash Line. I swear bro just let me have Taiwan and the great rejuvenation is complete. It's totally an internal matter bro. Just one more island chain and the century of humiliation is over. Please bro just let me cross the strait."
"Bro please just let me bring them freedom. I swear bro just one more regime change and the region is stable. It's about democracy bro it's not about the oil reserves I promise. Just let me install an interim president. Please bro just one more coup."
no way - this notion of "exchanges" isnt real, certainly i will never believe it.
why would the US 'play nice', when it can have its cake and eat it too? venezuela show of force, followed by imminent regime change in iran, ukraine will get more weapons, and china will continue getting surrounded via japan.
i think the people hoping to see some kind of change to the status-quo will be disappointed! pax americana alive and well.
well yes, but from todays events it seems that everybody elses military is degraded, if anything.
after being inundated with scenes of russian donkeys, ukranian 3d-printed drones, and hezbollah toyota machine-guns, this is a stark reminder of who the real, OG 'world policeman' is (and there is only one!)
ultimately its actions that matter, and the US can punch.
every dictator of every 3rd world nation is thinking super hard today about how much they really care about resisting 'US imperiaism' - indeed, whether their soldiers are even capable of preventing them from being abducted in a shock extraction by a vastly more organised and technologically superior US.
US going full terrorist/Russia at the same time is fun to watch.
A "military operation" in another country's territory (without declaring war, like a coward) and entering their capital is the same as ICC wanted military criminal Putin did to Ukraine.
Saudi royalty torture, murder and dismember a Washington Post correspondent. But they let the US have oil so that's OK.
Venezuelan politician stays in power after losing the election. You'd think a "Stop the Steal" Jan 6 insurrectionist like Trump would be proud. But no, they're not letting the US have oil, so this is unacceptable.
The US needs cheap oil like the US's United Fruit Company needed cheap bananas. Both are more than happy to devastate other people's countries to get what they want.
Russia sold some military equipment, but also, I recall in 2008-10 Venezuela got a loan from Russia (IIRC after acknoledging Abkhasia & Ossetia states), ...but spent it on American helicopters, not Russian. (A friend of mine worked in helicopter plant in Novosibirsk, that were doing services for Venezuelians, fixing and upgrading soviet Mi's. They had hillarious messages, like "With a hot Bolivarian salute, we inform you...") IDK how much they had, and whether that was sufficient. Apparently, doesn't matter now, because the Venezuelian arms stayed silent.
A bigger difference is that Ukrainians want to defend Ukraine from Russia.
Maduro is a dictator. His first presidency was legitimate but he had to steal the last election and is now ruling by force, because he is so unpopular.
Majority of Venezuelan don't want to fight US. They want Maduro out and the person who actually won last election to rule.
US doesn't want to occupy Venezuela. They want a government that is aligned with US and not with Russia/China/Iran.
The goals of US and majority of Venezuelans align.
That is somewhat true, but how would you know that part?
"Majority of Venezuelan don't want to fight US. They want Maduro out and the person who actually won last election to rule."
We will see that, if there will be free elections soon.
And then I would be curious what would happen, if the winner is someone different and does not grant US companies exclusive oil deals, but keep them nationalized. What do you think will happen then?
Soviet stockpiles nearly depleted, 1.5 million dead or wounded, Black Sea fleet practically destroyed, third of strategic bomber fleet destroyed, economy in downfall, no major cities captured in 4 years of all out war, gas and oil revenues plummeting, and there are STILL people saying “oh they just didn’t even start for real yet, just you wait”, gosh. Just laughable.
Russian war industry operating at levels it hasn’t in decades, 1.5 million dead or wounded == unverified and thus irrelevant as propaganda until it actually is verified, Sebastopol nuclear base still in Russian control with direct land corridors well and truly established, capture of cities not on the agenda for the special military operation (that’s your standard, not theirs), gas and oil revenues not plummenting (also unverified propaganda), and those of us who are aware of Russian military doctrine know all too well that the Russians escalate in ways that the US don’t (old Soviet stock goes first, new Russian stock saved for real war), so your standards may need to be adjusted if you want to understand this situation better.
> that the Russians escalate in ways that the US don’t (old Soviet stock goes first, new Russian stock saved for real war)
Isn't this mostly the same for the west? In the first year or so, everyone sent Ukraine their old stock. Clear the warehouses and increase production of current equipment. As the war continued, newer equipment was made available; cynically, this is where the sales demos happen for arms dealing to other states.
I dunno, I think the US probably has a lot of weaponry it has held in stock in its conflicts as well, and yes it does tend to send its chumps into the meat grinder first - but we will have to see when the US actually takes on an enemy capable of fielding its own symmetrical response. So far this century, the US only fights asymmetric wars against much weaker opponents it knows it can defeat.
Russian war industry just burns reserves for nothing — hundreds of billions spent on missiles and long range drones didn't achieve any strategic objectives, all those expensive modern tanks, armored vehicles and artillery systems gets demolished by $500 drones, russian soldiers mass switching from military vehicles to donkeys, horses, bikes & buggies. Russia is no longer able to defend their vast territory against Ukrainian long range attacks so their oil refineries and military factories explode every day. 150k+ verified deaths (with names) already vastly exceed any russian wars since WW2 and we know there are many times more unverified ones.
Sevastopol nuclear base is irrelevant to modern warfare, and the fleet (both ships and subs) is either on the bottom of the sea (like the flagship Moskva) or gone to hiding in Novorossiysk because they can't defend against cheap Ukrainian naval drones.
Capture of cities not on the agenda — of course every time they fail spectacularly at something they'll claim they didn't plan it anyway, lol. They attempted and failed the capture of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy & Mykolaiv, then had to flee from Kherson & much of the Kharkiv oblast, and they are no longer strategically able to attempt capturing any more — only slow creep over obliterated rubble of small towns by sacrificing a thousand people a day in meat grinders.
I can't believe you can be so delusional, it's just amazing what russian propaganda does to people.
I think you’ve swallowed your own propaganda pill and are having a hard time digesting it.
Yes, warfare has changed - but Russia’s war-fighting doctrine has changed along with it. Their war industry is ramping up to meet these challenges, and anyone paying actual attention, rather than being spoon-fed nightly news’ hot takes or funker530 clips, can see this on the ground.
> they didn't plan it anyway
So, where in the SMO doctrine did they ever make the claim their goal was to capture all of Ukraines cities? They’ve captured the cities they set out to capture.
But .. You’ve clearly educated yourself about their military goals - so where is it stated in the SMO that this constant capture of cities is one of their goals? Not your Western-propaganda spoonfed standard, actually theirs.
Perhaps you see this conflict from the perspective of a sports fan - but I assure you, the Russians do not.
> I can't believe you can be so delusional, it's just amazing what russian propaganda does to people.
If you think Russia are the only ones using propaganda to obfuscate the nature of this conflict, it is you who is delusional.
Take a step back, have a look at the actual state of things on the ground, compare it to the stated goals which were put forth at the beginning of this SMO, and lets continue to discuss this rationally, if you can. So far Russia has got what it wanted - a buffer corridor to Sebastopol, control over the eastern oblasts, destruction of NATO bio-weapons labs, and a massive degradation of Ukraines military capabilities. Yes, perhaps at a far greater cost than intended, but nevertheless, today they are in control over the territory they set out to control.
Just because I’m willing to see this doesn’t mean I support Russia - or Ukraine for that matter - because I seriously don’t, but I’m also not going to just kowtow to western media. I’ll look for myself at the conflict from both sides and make my own assessment based on real facts on the ground. BTW, I live within a few hours driving distance from this conflict, have worked with assisting refugees arriving in my region for two years now, and have formed my own opinion by direct contact with those involved in the conflict as a priority over any information gleaned from mass media. I strive to avoid the propaganda, which is why we’re having this discussion in the first place.
> Perhaps you see this conflict from the perspective of a sports fan
I see this from the perspective of a Ukrainian living in Kyiv. Your ignorance is mind-boggling, and after the laughable mention of "NATO biolabs" there's truly no sense in further conversation. These tinfoil-head "I do my own research" people are something else.
nah thats cope. idk what putins issue is, i think hes just old, or maybe its just the best they can do. obviously ukraine is not venezuela but frankly 'slow and steady' is a losing strategy most of the time.
something ive read somewhere, is that the whole world is 'declining' in some sense - everywhere the median age is rising, the population is getting tired, but the US is getting tired 'less quickly' than other countries, and in that regard they are pulling ahead relatively speaking.
so youve got to get your wars in 'now' so to speak, before you don't have any young men left. in that sense, a fast and fierce offensive makes even more sense.
They're nuclear armed so they have a lot more weight than otherwise but Russia is not that militarily strong conventionally compared to the US or even Europe.
And then what? Putin could have assassinated / abducted the Ukrainian president… and it wouldn’t have gotten him any closer to his goal. Trump has taken Maduro because he (ostensibly) believes Maduro specifically to be a criminal funnelling drugs into the U.S. A completely different situation. Trump wants Maduro, Putin wants Ukraine.
It’s his second term, and he doesn’t care about the GOP after him, so it’s not like he needs funds for the next election, or needs to deliver on the economy.
And as I understand it he doesn’t have long term bonds of friendship with Texan oil folks.
Nepotism-wise, his kids only need one job each, that’s all squared away already. Trump needs allies who can keep him and his kids out of jail, but oil companies don’t have any super powers in that area.
So what's his "Drill, baby, drill" about? He thinks renewable energy is the something sent by the anti-christ. The only energy source he accepts is burning fossil fuels or nuclear power.
2026's China it's very different to Nixon's China. They basically became themselves the factory of the whole world while spending trucks of money on R&D.
For instance, the US grey CS and AI with brute force. Intel's designs are like that. The Chinese's motto it's kinda like Unix, less is more. But also doing far more per cicle, as MIPS CPU's. Just have a look at what Deepseek can do with a far less powerful machine.
Yes, there's a gap between Intel CPU's and the Chinese ones, but it's shortening over time. Also, if you can achieve less per cycle by optimizing (and with less power) in the end you can just cluster several CPU's with a similar power usage and win by doing parallel processing.
you say cannon fodder - the latest reports indicate not a single casualty in todays US offensive.
infact US combat operations are very well known for minimizing troops casulaties, and when it happens an entire movie gets made about it (black hawk down)
china has absolutely zero track record in might-makes-right style of politics.
and not to mention how many chinese students are currently betting their future on living in the US, and how many billions of dollars of chinese assets are invested in the US. if anything, chinese expats in the US would actively lobby the CCP to avoid a military confrontation with the US, whatever it takes.
I'm tired of the US thinking that military forceful action is the way to resolve conflicts, especially the way to win the "war on drugs." We should be much more effective at reducing drug addiction if we realized that it's not so much about the drugs, it's about our growing culture of conflict and emotional avoidance. When a population lets itself feel sadness, feel pain, and reinterpret conflicts from the assumed "they don't care about me" to "they care more about me than I may ever realize," then I am willing to bet the drug industry will shrink significantly.
Punishing those who sell drugs often just perpetuates this idea that punishment resolves conflict, which I'm very willing to bet actually _increases_ our tendency to be addicted to drugs.
People seem to conflate whats supposed to be separate in these realms
Like, when we talk about farmer subsidies, wedont call it food grab, when its functionally the same.
Shouldnt we just drop this american democracy facade for a hybrid corporatocracy with optional citizen input?
Anyway, oil grab suggests American government, rather than business interests, benefits.
It's far easier to reduce consumption by cutting the supply entering your country, than solving the self-actualization issues (is it even one?) of your population.
People selling drugs such as fentanyl or cocaine have various techniques to hook consumers and keep them addicted regardless of their mental state. Selling hard drugs is criminalized for a good reason.
So easy. Exactly why Sweden have had a "zero tolerance" policy against drugs, particularly Cannabis, yet usage keeps growing no matter how much resources they keep throwing at stricter border controls and trying to reduce both supply and demand by arresting everyone with even traces of Cannabinoids in their blood. https://www.euda.europa.eu/publications/country-drug-reports...
> People selling drugs such as fentanyl or cocaine have various techniques to hook consumers and keep them addicted regardless of their mental state. Selling hard drugs is criminalized for a good reason.
You're making the argument for why these things should be sold in controlled circumstances, rather than by private individuals who don't care about anything else but themselves, yet you end with "is criminalized for a good reason". Completely opposite, you're making the argument for why it needs to be legalized.
In the case of Sweden, it is mainly a symptom of non-european immigration, using their criminal networks to import the product. Netherland is dominated by Moroccan mafia, France by the Algerian mafia, and so on. Remigrating them would likely solve a big part of the problem.
> controlled selling
Yes, that's already the case in most countries: I can get opioids such as morphine in the case of surgical operation. Many ADHD teens get derivatives of amphetamines. No one is against this.
OTOH, if demand drops, that's real money out of traffickers pockets. They sell less, and at lower prices.
You're not solving any problems, you're moving them around. What's the point?
With the exception of medicinally. Like lost op painkillers. But that’s different than what you’re saying.
Drug users can be found at every stage of the society, either because of psychological/genetic issues making them more prone to consume, or because it's a cultural thing to do it (e.g alcohol), or there is peer pressure leading to consumption. Your living conditions have little to do about it, really.
I don't think the drugs are inherently the problem, as there's a paper I loved talking about different kinds of escapism: one where people escape to avoid problems and the second where people escape to solve problems.
So I still think the root is problem avoidance, which at an even more root level is emotional avoidance, especially of "bad" feelings, mostly sadness.
So I don't see it as self-actualization for some noble goal, but rather a practical how do I actually solve problems in my life goal.
tldr; banning certain drugs can be whack-a-mole, trying to solve symptoms but not the problem.
But I dunno, I tend to say we should make it harder to get guns, so I want to reflect a little more on my double standard.
Stuff like this is hard to believe in 2025 without really compelling evidence.
The reverse is also true: the crack epidemic was caused by a dramatic increase in the supply of cocaine, which allowed even the poorest members of society to afford it. It's happening again now in Europe.
We can discuss about the criminalization of users and its effects on society, but in the case of the sellers I don't really see a case, especially when you know the conditions in which drugs are produced, involving often borderline slavery and wide corruption networks.
You don’t need any special tricks to keep someone buying fentanyl, the withdrawals are your sales pitch.
Most? I doubt that. Many? Yes. But because "many" can't avoid being hypocrites constantly, doesn't mean we suddenly should stop calling it out when we see it, don't you agree?
“Calling it out” is meaningless
There are countless of organizations who follow their stated missions even after 100, 200, 400 or even 800 years. I'm not sure you should judge it based on some young US organizations, or whatever you're going by.
> “Calling it out” is meaningless
Not calling it out is cowardice and complacency. "Calling it out" might have a tiny effect, but it surely beats nothing.
It's the 2020's, not 1920's. Congress hasn't declared war since WW2, and that hasn't stopped us from engaging the dozens of wars and armed conflicts we've been directly involved in since then.
To be clear, I'm not happy/proud of that fact. I think it's a moral and systemic failing, and do not support America's actions in Venezuela this morning. I'm just perplexed why everyone seems to think a precedent we abandonded long before most of us were even born suddenly applies today, or why they know about that law but don't know that we've violated it more times than we've observed it (without consequences), or don't know about the War Powers Act, or think that Congress would do anything but further enable him.
In short, why does everyone suddenly think that's relevant while also ignoring all the other relevant history that establishes we do not and have not observed that precedent in the modern era. Again, we *Should*, but did anyone honestly expect it to happen, or that congress wouldn't go along with it, or that the current POTUS would respect such law/precedent?
TL;DR: I don't think we should be going to war or engaging in armed conflict without congressional approval either, but the law and well established precedent both say POTUS legally has that power, at least in the short term, and we're not even 24hours into the 60 day period the War Powers act (which is 50 years old and passed by congress btw) grants.
I would say this is the exact same thing we did with Manuel Noriega in 1988.
Personally, I hate that we do these things but it is certainly not impossible in the long run the lives of the Venezuelans will be improved.
It is hard to get an exact figure but inflation last year was 150-200% and that is an improvement from what they had. 50,000% hyperinflation at the end of the last decade.
Given I was just annoyed at my grocery bill an hour ago because of 3% inflation I really can't imagine what life is like with that level of inflation.
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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_Unit...
Korea was not a war. Vietnam was not a war. Iraq I and II were not wars. Afghanistan was not a war. The "War on Terror" was not a war. You could be forgiven for thinking this invasion of a sovereign foreign country is a war, but it's not a war according to any law that is likely to be enforced within the USA.
Power accumulates in places it shouldn't be permitted unless the people occasionally claw it back and redistribute it. Unfortunately, Americans failed to claw back the power to declare war from the POTUS almost a century ago. Trump's reasons for declaring not-war (cough Wag the dog. cough Epstein. cough) are more unprecedented than his methods in this particular case.
Now the real reason is that venezuela is a "hostile influence in the western hemisphere" both from a russia/china perspective as well as an energy security perspective so this was a matter of when not if (monroe doctrine and all that).
This is not the first time the US has intervened in LatAm, and it won't be the last. Being the sole influence in N and S america is a defining feature of america and all americans, and has been so since 1823.
The current US administration seemed to prefer isolationism (at least up until today), and seems hellbent on destroying the US economy. If they're successful in their goals, this might very well be the last SA intervention from the US for a very long time. Maybe they're aware of this, and this is some sort of dead-cat bounce or whatnot.
This is an interesting claim, what did you see to suggest this?
The tariffs are not isolationist, they are leverage held over trading partners used to coerce them.
[1] which they have taken a lot of massive steps towards recently
But I do believe that a lot of the US government posturing that if implemented would be bad for economy (which you are alluding to), will not actually happen. A massive revamp of the economy is what the majority voting bloc in the US wishes for, so the winning politician will have to keep signalling in that direction. But actually following through with it, be it in a way with positive or negative effect, is extremely difficult. So I don't pay much attention to it.
Sure, it's the tip headline everywhere, but seems less emphasised than football world cup final results. More like, "Very large rain occured somewhere".
Trump, without even Congress' authority, never mind UN or any allied country consultation presumably, kidnaps a foreign president, "elected" likely fraudulently but still the head of his state, over accusations even more tenuous than WMD in Iraq.
What's next? Danish PM held hostage until Greenland is handed over? This seems like a really hostile move by the US, and the reaction seems to be, oh yeah, something's up.
The problem is that fear-based problem solving often just becomes problem avoidance. People become afraid to say there's a problem so it _looks_ as if the problem is solved, but the problem just becomes more buried and actually gets worse.
So, it might help Americans _think_ that the drug problem is solved, but not actually help us solve the drug problem. And I suppose when we push punishment, we're mostly pushing problem avoidance, and so it helps people Americans avoid problems more, so I guess it'd be successful in that.
I think even Bush would recognise it didn't really work out that way with Iraq, but hey, maybe this administration has unlocked the secret.
That’s a way of viewing it, but of course it assumes logical planning by reasonably bright individuals. So it’s begging the question somewhat.
And a nice distraction from the Epstein files.
A couple of years later, one morning, I noticed that the daycare my daughter attended had swapped the large iMac in their office for an old Dell monitor. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
Somewhat later, the soft wipes in the diaper-changing room were gone. There only were the cheap, sandpaper-like ones to be found.
Not long after that, they announced their bankruptcy, shortly after the piano had mysteriously disappeared, without any explanation.
Now I know what "strange behavior" looks like.
Wise words, years later I worked at a fancy place. All kinds of snacks and drinks and weekly lunches. One day we got moved off into a smaller, worse office. Our old Herman Miller chairs were missing and our nice fancy desks were replaced with bottom barrel IKEA furniture. The weekly lunch was cut. The snacks were scarce.
I got a new job within the month. By the following month the entire company went bankrupt.
(The company only went under because of an investor tiff, apparently two of them met for lunch, and the one who was left out pulled funding)
Yeah, I could kind of understand that, somewhat. Big sign that they're planning on pushing you out anyways if they meet in secret without you to talk about the business, so better GTFO quick rather than try to force-staying.
Like, surely they could afford to have their own pizza ovens installed .. or does all that cash really just need to be spent slaughtering innocents instead?
One bad anchovy batch and the world might be at peace for a while, hmm…
Also what are you going to do about it? Knowing how much pizzas they ate didn't prevent Maduro from being captured.
Weaponized anchovies, you know…
Russia, Iran, Syria, Yemen, North Korea, etc.
[1] https://www.wikibin.org/articles/alameda-weehawken-tunnel.ht...
Hard to motivate people to work late with minimum bidder pizza.
If what you're proposing did happen, there would be a huge power vacuum, not peace.
Make the signal have too many false positives to be worthwhile.
I assume from cell phone location?
Then I have more questions...
That makes sense for the average unsuspecting Android user who keeps location on all the time. "Proper" Android is more or less spyware from Google, so this is not surprising. But Pentagon people keep their work/personal Android location on all the time?
Otherwise, for iPhones, can Google get real-time location data when someone is not actively using Google Maps?
1: https://xcancel.com/AbujomaaGaza/status/2007338360017498269 (6:28am UTC = 1:28am EST)
> You can tell when shit is going down inside the pentagon cause they're working after hours and they order pizza from nearby places. Today the US is invading/destabilising: Venezuela
Freddies Beach Bar, the closest gay bar to the Pentagon is reporting below average traffic.
The nearby sports bar, Crystal City Sports Pub is reporting below average traffic.
The closest open Papa Johns is reporting slightly above average traffic.
"Bro please just let me take Kyiv. I swear bro just one more special military operation and the security buffer is complete. It's not a war bro it's denazification. Just give me the Donbas and the land bridge and I'll be chill. One more mobilization and the multipolar world order is saved bro please."
"Bro please just acknowledge the Nine-Dash Line. I swear bro just let me have Taiwan and the great rejuvenation is complete. It's totally an internal matter bro. Just one more island chain and the century of humiliation is over. Please bro just let me cross the strait."
"Bro please just let me bring them freedom. I swear bro just one more regime change and the region is stable. It's about democracy bro it's not about the oil reserves I promise. Just let me install an interim president. Please bro just one more coup."
why would the US 'play nice', when it can have its cake and eat it too? venezuela show of force, followed by imminent regime change in iran, ukraine will get more weapons, and china will continue getting surrounded via japan.
i think the people hoping to see some kind of change to the status-quo will be disappointed! pax americana alive and well.
after being inundated with scenes of russian donkeys, ukranian 3d-printed drones, and hezbollah toyota machine-guns, this is a stark reminder of who the real, OG 'world policeman' is (and there is only one!)
ultimately its actions that matter, and the US can punch.
every dictator of every 3rd world nation is thinking super hard today about how much they really care about resisting 'US imperiaism' - indeed, whether their soldiers are even capable of preventing them from being abducted in a shock extraction by a vastly more organised and technologically superior US.
A "military operation" in another country's territory (without declaring war, like a coward) and entering their capital is the same as ICC wanted military criminal Putin did to Ukraine.
The US is up to its old tricks. How soon will Maduro's replacement let the US have all the Venezuelan oil it wants?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNE0os3f3VY
https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/us-reportedly-blows-up...
Venezuelan politician stays in power after losing the election. You'd think a "Stop the Steal" Jan 6 insurrectionist like Trump would be proud. But no, they're not letting the US have oil, so this is unacceptable.
The US needs cheap oil like the US's United Fruit Company needed cheap bananas. Both are more than happy to devastate other people's countries to get what they want.
Venezuela was supported a bit by Cuba, which is very poor as well. Russia did not help them. (I believe because of a deal with Trump)
If they hadn’t helped Venezuela militarily this time, it’s probably because they are a little busy losing thousands of troops per week in Ukraine.
Maduro is a dictator. His first presidency was legitimate but he had to steal the last election and is now ruling by force, because he is so unpopular.
Majority of Venezuelan don't want to fight US. They want Maduro out and the person who actually won last election to rule.
US doesn't want to occupy Venezuela. They want a government that is aligned with US and not with Russia/China/Iran.
The goals of US and majority of Venezuelans align.
"Majority of Venezuelan don't want to fight US. They want Maduro out and the person who actually won last election to rule."
We will see that, if there will be free elections soon.
And then I would be curious what would happen, if the winner is someone different and does not grant US companies exclusive oil deals, but keep them nationalized. What do you think will happen then?
Don’t let your hubris surprise you when it happens, if it happens.
Isn't this mostly the same for the west? In the first year or so, everyone sent Ukraine their old stock. Clear the warehouses and increase production of current equipment. As the war continued, newer equipment was made available; cynically, this is where the sales demos happen for arms dealing to other states.
Sevastopol nuclear base is irrelevant to modern warfare, and the fleet (both ships and subs) is either on the bottom of the sea (like the flagship Moskva) or gone to hiding in Novorossiysk because they can't defend against cheap Ukrainian naval drones.
Capture of cities not on the agenda — of course every time they fail spectacularly at something they'll claim they didn't plan it anyway, lol. They attempted and failed the capture of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy & Mykolaiv, then had to flee from Kherson & much of the Kharkiv oblast, and they are no longer strategically able to attempt capturing any more — only slow creep over obliterated rubble of small towns by sacrificing a thousand people a day in meat grinders.
I can't believe you can be so delusional, it's just amazing what russian propaganda does to people.
Yes, warfare has changed - but Russia’s war-fighting doctrine has changed along with it. Their war industry is ramping up to meet these challenges, and anyone paying actual attention, rather than being spoon-fed nightly news’ hot takes or funker530 clips, can see this on the ground.
> they didn't plan it anyway
So, where in the SMO doctrine did they ever make the claim their goal was to capture all of Ukraines cities? They’ve captured the cities they set out to capture.
But .. You’ve clearly educated yourself about their military goals - so where is it stated in the SMO that this constant capture of cities is one of their goals? Not your Western-propaganda spoonfed standard, actually theirs.
Perhaps you see this conflict from the perspective of a sports fan - but I assure you, the Russians do not.
> I can't believe you can be so delusional, it's just amazing what russian propaganda does to people.
“Doubleplusgood groupthink, ungood, wrongthink rectify.”
If you think Russia are the only ones using propaganda to obfuscate the nature of this conflict, it is you who is delusional.
Take a step back, have a look at the actual state of things on the ground, compare it to the stated goals which were put forth at the beginning of this SMO, and lets continue to discuss this rationally, if you can. So far Russia has got what it wanted - a buffer corridor to Sebastopol, control over the eastern oblasts, destruction of NATO bio-weapons labs, and a massive degradation of Ukraines military capabilities. Yes, perhaps at a far greater cost than intended, but nevertheless, today they are in control over the territory they set out to control.
Just because I’m willing to see this doesn’t mean I support Russia - or Ukraine for that matter - because I seriously don’t, but I’m also not going to just kowtow to western media. I’ll look for myself at the conflict from both sides and make my own assessment based on real facts on the ground. BTW, I live within a few hours driving distance from this conflict, have worked with assisting refugees arriving in my region for two years now, and have formed my own opinion by direct contact with those involved in the conflict as a priority over any information gleaned from mass media. I strive to avoid the propaganda, which is why we’re having this discussion in the first place.
I see this from the perspective of a Ukrainian living in Kyiv. Your ignorance is mind-boggling, and after the laughable mention of "NATO biolabs" there's truly no sense in further conversation. These tinfoil-head "I do my own research" people are something else.
something ive read somewhere, is that the whole world is 'declining' in some sense - everywhere the median age is rising, the population is getting tired, but the US is getting tired 'less quickly' than other countries, and in that regard they are pulling ahead relatively speaking.
so youve got to get your wars in 'now' so to speak, before you don't have any young men left. in that sense, a fast and fierce offensive makes even more sense.
It’s his second term, and he doesn’t care about the GOP after him, so it’s not like he needs funds for the next election, or needs to deliver on the economy.
And as I understand it he doesn’t have long term bonds of friendship with Texan oil folks.
Nepotism-wise, his kids only need one job each, that’s all squared away already. Trump needs allies who can keep him and his kids out of jail, but oil companies don’t have any super powers in that area.
Invading another country, though? To create foreign jobs and increase imports? Not what you’d expect from Mr Tariffs imho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%27s_final_warning
For instance, the US grey CS and AI with brute force. Intel's designs are like that. The Chinese's motto it's kinda like Unix, less is more. But also doing far more per cicle, as MIPS CPU's. Just have a look at what Deepseek can do with a far less powerful machine.
Yes, there's a gap between Intel CPU's and the Chinese ones, but it's shortening over time. Also, if you can achieve less per cycle by optimizing (and with less power) in the end you can just cluster several CPU's with a similar power usage and win by doing parallel processing.
infact US combat operations are very well known for minimizing troops casulaties, and when it happens an entire movie gets made about it (black hawk down)
china has absolutely zero track record in might-makes-right style of politics.
and not to mention how many chinese students are currently betting their future on living in the US, and how many billions of dollars of chinese assets are invested in the US. if anything, chinese expats in the US would actively lobby the CCP to avoid a military confrontation with the US, whatever it takes.
Taiwan doesn't think so