The Invasion of Venezuela

[Soen Eber]

I am pretty sure that Donnyboy just wanted to flex before Vlad how such a special military operation is done in the right way. And join the club of war criminals before the ICC.

Reich-Praesidents will be Reich-Praesidents, if I have the spelling right.

I've decided I'm going to start putting Reich in front of every one of Donnie's "marshalls", subject to our local native German's approval and advice.

 

[Spirits Rising]

Until the ICC is capable of directly extracting those it wishes to put on trial, they are nothing more than paper tigers. Being considered by them as a 'war criminal' in such circumstances is ... absolutely laughable.

Teeth - get them, show them, use them ... or sit the fuck down.

 

[Soen Eber]

Until the ICC is capable of directly extracting those it wishes to put on trial, they are nothing more than paper tigers. Being considered by them as a 'war criminal' in such circumstances is ... absolutely laughable.

Teeth - get them, show them, use them ... or sit the fuck down.

I will cheer if a group of Belgian SFG members performs an extraordinary rendition to the Hague.*

*said without the permission nor consent of the ownership and management of VirtualVerse.one.

 

[Govi]

Reich-Praesidents will be Reich-Praesidents, if I have the spelling right.

I've decided I'm going to start putting Reich in front of every one of Donnie's "marshalls", subject to our local native German's approval and advice.

Reichspräsidenten

 

[Isabeau]

Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.onestnetwork.com)

Watch this. Watch again. "This incredible thing last night... We have to do it again [in other countries]. We can do it again, too. Nobody can stop us."

bsky.app

 

[Soen Eber]

If he wasn't born rich, he'd be in prison

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

If he wasn't born rich, he'd be in prison

If he was born poor, I imagine him as a really shady used car salesman who pretends to be a huge big shot.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

If he was born poor, I imagine him as a really shady used car salesman who pretends to be a huge big shot.

In a checkered suit he can 't afford to dry clean.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

From 2012, this aged so well:

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I will cheer if a group of Belgian SFG members performs an extraordinary rendition to the Hague.*

*said without the permission nor consent of the ownership and management of VirtualVerse.one.

Or even the Dutch Korps Commandotroepen.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Personally, I think the invasion is a bone thrown to the Venezuelan "Exile" community in Florida, who have made common cause with the Cuban "Exiles". Which has made them influential because....Florida's electoral votes. Same sort of people, different country. It's why Rubio warned that Cuba might be next. Rubio probably wanted the Secretary of State job because HE would get to control america's policy towards Cuba. The Exiles have always wanted the US to put one of them in charge of Cuba as essentially "Viceroy" and turn Cuba back into "America's Pet Banana Republic" again. (Of course, that would essentially recreate the conditions that caused the Cuban Revolution in the first place. Some mostly Euro-ancestry wealthy Cubans on top, Cubans of indiginous and/or African ancestry on the bottom.

Keep an eye out for some of the more influential members of the Venezuelan Exile community becoming part of a Transition Government.

I also think this invasion has been influenced by the "prepare for resource wars" part of the right wing movement. There are conservatives who KNOW the environmentalists have been right about everything. But rather than put more money into renewables and fusion research, they think it's easier and faster just to control the remaining oil and resources. It's why there's all the talk about annexing Canada or Greenland. And also why Trump has referred to Venezuela as "our land" and "our oil". Some of the "scramble for the resources" conservatives have his Trumps fake-injured ear. They KNOW that global warming will make any resources up far north more accessible and they want to be able to compete with the Russians who have Siberia.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Venezuela: The Precedents

And America: The Future

snyder.substack.com

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Now that I am thinking about it more this Venezuelan operation worries me quite deeply.

Not so much because the incident itself, but its implications: Trump damaged the constitution already so much, that he alone like a dictator can order an attack to a sovereign country and the US Army does happily oblige. So the US Army so far is behind him, not aside or against him.

Normally Congress would have to approve such a step, because by constitution Trump cannot order such a task alone. Under Trump that important check and balance system is obviously gone, making Trump pretty unhinged already. And obviously whatever such system in the US army was present has gone as well.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Financial Times (@financialtimes.com)

Any attempt to install an occupation force would face a hostile reaction from Venezuela’s fiercely nationalist government and armed forces, as well as from a network of well-armed neighbourhood militias ft.trib.al/Rv8LZ2J

bsky.app

Evernote Link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Tarik Abou-Chadi (@tabouchadi.bsky.social)

EU citizens - especially those in Greenland - deserve a clear answer to the question of how EU leaders would react to attempts of the US to annex Greenland. Will there be a clear political and economic response? Or is it also going to be a "complex situation" to be "closely monitored"?

bsky.app

 

[Chalice Yao]

Now that I am thinking about it more this Venezuelan operation worries me quite deeply.

*stumbles out of the grave*

You should be worried. You should be deeply, sorely worried on many levels.
Trump just made invading smaller countries for their resources en vogue again. Colonialism 3.0 is here, and it decided to skip 2.0.

He just opened the gates for any uncaring military power to go 'Well yeah, that one country was clearly corrupt, this is just self-defense, we're going to run things now'.
He just dropped a huge steaming dump on anything the UN remotely resembles, so now the institution that was supposed to be a roadblock to anything resembling WW3 is now *officially* just a kid's crayon drawing, as now all the superpower countries decided to just ignore it.

Next up: The US aiming at Cuba, China potentially using this moment in time to justify the invasion of Taiwan, and Putin having about zero reasons to stop the Ukraine invasion.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

*stumbles out of the grave*

Next up: The US aiming at Cuba, China potentially using this moment in time to justify the invasion of Taiwan, and Putin having about zero reasons to stop the Ukraine invasion.

WB Chalice!

I don't disagree, but is there any reason to suppose that Venezuela won't go as disastrously wrong for the US as did Iraq, or as has Ukraine for Russia (who expected to be in Kiev within a couple of days, as I recall), or as did Afghanistan for both the US and USSR?

Trump says the US will be running things when they don't even have an embassy there, and seems to expect the oil companies to commit, without being consulted ,to billion dollar investment projects that will take at least a decade to show much return, in a hugely unstable political, military and legal environment and at a time of falling oil prices.

I can see why Cuba is worried about cheap oil (though I wonder if Trump will stand up to Putin if Russia's ghost fleet fill the gap left by Venezuela) but I am not at all convinced that Venezuela will turn into any sort of advertisement for colonial military adventures. To my mind, China understands far better than do the US or Russia how to do C21st colonialism.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

WB Chalice!

I don't disagree, but is there any reason to suppose that Venezuela won't go as disastrously wrong for the US as did Iraq, or as has Ukraine for Russia (who expected to be in Kiev within a couple of days, as I recall), or as did Afghanistan for both the US and USSR?

Trump says the US will be running things when they don't even have an embassy there, and seems to expect the oil companies to commit, without being consulted ,to billion dollar investment projects that will take at least a decade to show much return, in a hugely unstable political, military and legal environment and at a time of falling oil prices.

I can see why Cuba is worried about cheap oil (though I wonder if Trump will stand up to Putin if Russia's ghost fleet fill the gap left by Venezuela) but I am not at all convinced that Venezuela will turn into any sort of advertisement for colonial military adventures. To my mind, China understands far better than do the US or Russia how to do C21st colonialism.

Who knows what will happen!

What I do know is that Venezuela doesn't have anything that is directly comparable to a huge Islamist group like ISIS. It is possible they will just roll over and welcome the US in much the same way Bush claimed Iraq would... With that said, there is plenty that can still go wrong. Trump is likely to overtly steal resources rather than helping the people of Venezuela and then even many of the people currently celebrating the capture of Maduro might turn on the occupation forces.

So what I'm saying in a nutshell is that Iraq and Ukraine were two very different situations that each went bad for the invaders for actually very different reasons. Venezuela is a third, very different situation that could go many ways from here.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I am NOT saying I think this will all go just fine.... just saying the situation is unpredictable.