alt Hacker NewsAs a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
Also, some people seems to miss the fact that South America military power is very weak, and we, culturally, are way less proned to fight and die than people in middle east.
Yeah, we know this is all about oil, and I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge. But the fact is we don't have a, undeniable, dictator as neighbor, and my friends can see their families again.
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> I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge
If history teaches us anything, a democracy won't emerge. Nothing good comes from the US intervening in foreign affairs. This is being done to the benefit of the invaders, not those being invaded.
This is hardly a regime change. Only Maduro has been captured, the rest is still in power.
Publicly, it's about oil, privately, it's also about China getting a foothold in South America, on the USA's doorstep and denying them a source of cheap oil from the world's largest proven reserve. It's the modern version of the Great Game.
You are still young so you don't seem to get it yet but history has shown that killing or capturing the leader of a country with outside actors rarely leads to anything good. It usually just leads to more instability.
Pop-culture shows you that if you get rid off Mojo Jojo you suddenly get rainbows and flowers but reality doesn't work that way very often and it is just propaganda.
That's good to hear. As a European, I do hope our leaders keep this in mind... It may be an unconventional move, but it's hard to argue this is a bad outcome.
I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
Fixing the dilapidated oil production will take years I think. But my best wishes to all my Venezuelan friends. Hoping for a bloodless transition and a brighter future for the country.
> As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
No, we aren't. You don't speak for the majority of us.
Yes I'm quite sure the Venezuelans are greeting us as liberators.
It's the international community who should decide this sort of thing.
Did the UN agree to this invasion?
Nations aren't supposed to unilaterally attack other nations.
And I am a non-American with friends from the US that surely would be happy if someone assassinated Trump. That doesn't make it a good thing.
it's a positive step for the population, my worry is about global signalling.. we were trying to keep the armed fascists floodgates tight since putin invaded ukraine and now US is doing bold military regime changes, not even covert (some would argue old CIA was worse).
hard to sleep well these days
ps: if anybody knows places where people discuss this, feel free to hit me
Sounds like you ok with genocide in your neighbourhood tho. How they see their families if they get bombed?
Yeah, we know this is all about oil
"War for oil" is always the easy go-to to criticize any American military action, even in countries that don't have oil.
And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
America has more oil than it knows what to do with, and because of that, prices are so low that there are lots of newspaper articles about how American oil companies have dramatically slowed exploration and production. Plus, even under the current administration, America is using more and more renewable energy sources (some states now get more than 50% of their energy from wind/solar).
With the whole Chevron situation, I'm willing to think that oil may play a role here, but again the "war for oil" seems like nothing more than a convenient slogan for a high schooler's protest sign.
No, we are not happy. We were not happy when they intervened and installed their friendly dictator. I can criticize Maduro and I can censure these actions. I don't want any other country to invade mine because they didn't like the government that we had.