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Today is a very interesting day for reflection. Some people said, “Does the end justify the means?” Well, we have to look at the damage caused by those means, but if the end is to overthrow a dictator who has ruined a population of 30 million people for years, what happened today is more than justified. But was today's goal to overthrow Maduro or to steal Venezuela's oil? It's curious how Putin has been criticized, and mind you, I'm never going to defend a statist, but I love to expose the double standards of the West. Putin simply defended or took advantage of the opportunity that arose when Ukraine bombed and massacred the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine for years in order to annex those lands. Was it because of the massacre of the Russian population or was it to annex the land? We will never know. But today Trump tells you directly that it is because of the oil, and it is not just part of Venezuela, it is all of Venezuela. Worry more about your family and your pocketbook than defending statist interests, and you will get further in life.

Replies (15)

What if the goal was both i.e. getting rid of a dictator who was making it hard to get to the oil? Saddam was a dictator and his overthrow served a dual purpose, but his country was worse off after that. Regardless of the real reason behind the actions of the USG today, one thing's for sure, good times are coming to Venezuela. Similar to what Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria to name a few.
↩ replying to Kudzai Kutukwa
I sincerely believe that Saddam's downfall was due to his attempt to have oil paid for in euros rather than dollars, and the European Union turned its back on him. Gaddafi wanted something similar: he wanted to create an African currency backed by gold. The most important thing for the United States is not oil but the petrodollar, that energy be paid for in dollars, maintaining the hegemony of the dollar, which allows it to finance its trade deficit by exporting inflation to the rest of the world. Maduro sells oil for cryptocurrencies and other currencies other than the dollar.
I don't know what hurt the Venezuelan's more, Maduro's brand of socialism or the U.S. economic war against it. I do know that this intervention will make things worse for them, a lot worse.
↩ replying to nix
Although I somewhat agree. There may be power vacuums left in country’s where dictators have been removed. But it is also the process of the how , and also the cultural rifts within those societies. Within Syria, the whole process was a long protracted one and regime itself did not do itself or its people any favours, snd literally killed millions of its own people trying to hold on to power. The societal rifts within that society were also deeply religious and cultural. Libya, for the most part very similar. The reality was within those two countries the status quo , was not desirable from any side’s perspective. It’s true, one could look at both these examples and cast judgement. Were they perfect , no I grant that. Yes, from one perspective it is the corrupt over throwing the corrupt, but power corrupts.