alt Hacker NewsTrump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
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> Nicolás Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
I'm sorry but "possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
When did this happen exactly ??
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Somehow, I'm starting to agree with Russia's reason for launching the war because Ukraine wanted to join NATO.
Before anyone starts telling us how they are attacking a legitimate president and that the people will defend it, take your time to find your closest Venezuelan (there are 8 million around the world, so don't need to look to far) and ask him how he feels about this, you will find that happy is part of their emotions.
That easily makes a Nobel Peace Prize. An attack on Iran will make it into the world's first Double Nobel Peace Prize.
Now, it's also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.
Interesting that they chose to capture him alive. Surely this poses a great problem to the administration. Maduro didn't exactly commit any crimes....
This is a horrifying way for any country to act, and millions of people will be hurt. Truly a travesty of the greatest order.
1. Take over the oil companies
2. Reduce price of Gas in USA.
3. Everyone will celebrate
4. Next election. > 80% majority.
If you’re tracking signals around geopolitical events, there’s a quirky one a few folks like to watch: the Pentagon Pizza Index. It’s a real-time dashboard that monitors pizza shop activity near the Pentagon as an informal indicator of unusual late-night activity. Historically people have pointed to spikes in food orders before major operations as a sort of low-tech OSINT signal. https://www.pizzint.watch/
Obviously this isn’t hard intelligence — correlation isn’t causation — but when combined with more grounded indicators (verified reports, diplomatic channels, satellite data) it can be a piece of the broader picture. Just a fun example of how people try to find patterns in publicly available data.
Those who rejoice today with the fall of Maduro may not rejoice when China or India or any other regional player decides to topple the government of another country and kidnap their leaders and then install a "friendly" regime in their place.
Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.
Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?
Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.
Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.
"Venezuela has ~2.7× as much proved oil as the UAE (303 / 111 ≈ 2.73)."
Pretty incredible
The irony is that this is a president of the US that wants to have a Nobel peace prize.
24 hours and no zionists complaining about how this is not tech news/flagging the post.
Thank you, I guess, for allowing the rest of us to talk about whatever we want.
Unless Maduro was somehow actually deposed BEFORE the US mil came into the country, or at least into Maduro's residence, Trump just changed the standing international order of centuries to allow kidnapping of heads of state
So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".
This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.
I'm a bit relieved that UN will do something about this:
I get why some people were neo-con the first 3 or so times (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) but it's criminal not to learn after failing 3 times over. I want the most severe consequences for the people who have enabled this to happen again.
It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans. Especially the Venezuelans. It’s been 25 years of hell. They don’t really care at the moment if Trump did it for oil. You think Russia and China just wanted the recipe for Arepas? That’s the common saying. Venezuelans just wanted a chance to live a normal life. This is not a society like Afghanistan that cannot function as a democracy when autocrats are removed.
The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.
https://vxtwitter.com/FaytuksNetwork/status/2007338956241985...
Not Venezuelan helicopters...
it's truly incredible the harm that the psychological need for "strong man" leaders has on the world. What's even more strange, in my opinion, is that the bumbling and incoherent stuff Trump says is actually viewed by anyone as tough or strong. In my view it shows tremendous fear of directness and accountability. To call it womanish would be an insult to women.
Similarly, how does picking on much weaker countries (some of whom are allies) seem tough to anyone? In my view it's ugly and shows weakness rather than strength.
Well, this thread certainly hasn't aged well. Lots of people here trying to spin this as an act of liberation while the real motivation has been more than obvious.
Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!
If USA can attack Venezuela for oil, why other countries, like France, couldn't do the same to Qatar or Koweit for example? France has more needs for oil that USA.
I just called my representatives and told them they need to do their jobs and put a check on the executive branch and stop this illegal, undeclared war. Please do the same.
I’ll bet FIFA feels pretty silly now about their peace award.
What's to stop Russia from simply abducting whoever we install in his place? If we can do it, anyone can. The arrogance is unbelievable.
well maybe the world is indeed back to different spheres of influence, as per the latest US security policy
overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants
hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..
How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about ideals like liberal democracy or allies, but is a warmongering corporatist autocracy.
The USA are a blight on the Americas and the larger World. Their fanatic population will immediately jump in to justify a violent, naked attempt at stealing this country's mineral resources. This already happened dozens of times, always with terrible outcome, yet here we are again. The fall of the American empire can't happen fast enough.
Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US ..."
should be
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US authoritarian government ..."
or (better, really)
"Venezuela has accused the US ..."
No Interpol or ICC warrant, no answer to sovereignty or jurisdictional issues, no justified claim of extraterritoriality.
Can't we call a kidnapping what it is?
For everyone defending these actions on the basis of Maduro's own corruption and the desires of Venezuelans, I would encourage you to research the history of American intervention and regime change in Latin America. It is impossible to anticipate the second and third order effects of this change, and how it will be absorbed in the local politics. We are witnessing the return of American military intervention in Latin American, nothing more and nothing less.
To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.
Oh, it seems Mexico is next. I'm afraid to go to sleep these days, you never know what kind of world you will find in the morning.
All Americans are at fault since it claims to be a democracy. They should all be sanctioned into the ground. This is the M.O they deal with others on.
Politics aside: If this is all true and was a snatch and grab, it will go down as one of the most impressive military operations in the 21st century.
Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
What kind of visa Mr. Maduro was using when he entered the US?
I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.
But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
Rules based order.
The other takeaway: if you have oil, and no nukes, in due course, the US will come to steal it.
after Iran and now venezuela
Iran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????
what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??
This is illegal, immoral and not supported by the vast majority of the country. Every us citizen and every elected official needs to act, now, to stop this.
It can’t be fun running HN right now. Sorry, dang et al.
It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.
Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!
(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)
US declares war on Venezuela without Congress. The republicans have really destroyed the constitution.
Summary: Venezuela just lost its oil.
When is the US military going to start going after all those Venezuelan fentanyl labs?
How much equity in chevron will the federal gov get for this? 20% seems fair.
Will BP want “their” fields back?
What did y’all think María Machado won the Nobel for over Trump? Does it even matter or is orange man bad all you care about anymore? HN was over the moon to see her win just a few months ago.
I honestly have little sympathy, and not because Maduro is a dictator or whatever label the US has given him. It's because he spent his country's resources on useless, incompetent staff that fell apart before any conflict even began. Say what you want about Iran, but at least they maintain a solid defensive posture.
Any country that doesn't invest in its own tech stack gets what it deserves. This is information superiority in action; made possible by the deep proliferation of American technology. The US is now leveraging information warfare for what used to require physical force. The difference is stark. We've seen it with the Hezbollah pager attacks, high-profile targeting in Iran, and now this.
Natural selection in progress.
If the last couple of years have taught anyone anything, your country is an open target if it doesn't have its own Iron Dome.