US undeclared war on Venezuela

[Puja]

What the actual fuck. The US regime has bombed a national capital, abducted an internationally recognised national leader (and his wife), and have charged them with trumped up accusations (no pun intended) under US law in US courts, neither of which either of those people are subject to (especially since one of the "crimes" is "Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices" for a commander-in-chief of a country's armed forces).

Absolutely incredible gunboat-diplomacy of a kind not seen in over 100 years. I would ask how Trump possibly thinks he's going to get away with it, except for the fact that all of his political career so far has been demonstrating that so many things which we consider to be facts or inviolable rules don't actually have any sunstance behind them if someone decides to just ignore them and see what happens.

Nice to see all the deafening silence from the Congressmen who were previously outraged at the idea of a President using any military action without the approval of Congress.

Feel pity for FIFA though - must be a shock to them to have their long-running and prestigious Peace Prize devalued like this.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

FFS.
Illegal, arrogant and entirely inevitable.
FFS

[Sandydragon]

Maduro won’t get any tears from me. But Trump is just making the world more dangerous by a blatant act of gunboat diplomacy.

Very hard to hold a high ground when dealing with the likes of Russia if this is the latest tactic.

[Son of Mathonwy]

While this is less serious than the illegal invasion of Iraq by Bush and Blair, I find it more frightening somehow. Perhaps it's the sight of the senile narcissist US president getting into the swing of total power and openly admitting it's an oil-grab after all. Or that it's so obviously encouraging to his friend, Vladimir Putin. Where next? Cuba? Greenland?

It's not new ground for the USA but every time they trample international law it makes the future darker.

[Donny osmond]

Maduro won’t get any tears from me. But Trump is just making the world more dangerous by a blatant act of gunboat diplomacy.

Very hard to hold a high ground when dealing with the likes of Russia if this is the latest tactic.

Maybe he/America no longer want to hold the high ground wrt Russia? Maybe the unsaid politics is now "This is our back yard, you don't shit here and we won't shit in your backyard"? Russia and China are both heavily involved in Venezuela, so apart from the obvious oil stuff, I would imagine this is really about telling them to back off.

[Son of Mathonwy]

While this is less serious than the illegal invasion of Iraq by Bush and Blair, I find it more frightening somehow. Perhaps it's the sight of the senile narcissist US president getting into the swing of total power and openly admitting it's an oil-grab after all. Or that it's so obviously encouraging to his friend, Vladimir Putin. Where next? Cuba? Greenland? Nigeria?

It's not new ground for the USA but every time they trample international law it makes the future darker.

It's also more frightening than Iraq right now because it's just happened, not without warning but quite suddenly.

Also because it seems that almost no one is safe from this tyrant. No doubt the UK will continue to abase themselves before the mad king but other than this only those with independent nuclear weapons are really safe - France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel (although they're safe for other reasons). I don't include the UK in this list as our weapons could probably be switched off by the US.

This is a tyrant whose dementia is growing as the months pass. A mad mob boss whose power is almost absolute with greed to match, low-grade sycophants for advisors and deteriorating self-control.

[Which Tyler]

Wasn't there some talk back in the summer about Trump and Putin basically agreeing to "swap" exerted influence over Venezuela and Ukraine?

I dismissed it as conspiracy theory at the time, but... you just can't overestimate the stupid of Trump (or the kompromat)