Maduro was not the legitimate winner of the recent election in Venezuela. So a POTUS who exactly five years ago attempted a violent autogolpe to remain in power is going to remove him.
Maduro allegedly is involved in trafficing narcotics. So a POTUS who quite recently pardoned another corrupt leader who was in jail for the crime of trafficing narcotics is going to remove him.
This was an exercise in naked power. Folks around Trump have their own various reasons for championing it. Trump's own reasons are obscure, but could be as simple as his enjoyment of exercises in naked power. Most likely he thinks there is some upside for him, personally, most likely because one of his minions told him so. Good luck to him with that.
I am beyond confident that none of them - not one - is motivated by a desire for a free and peaceful Venezuela. Venezuela is just another example of, to quote Ledeen, a crappy little country that we can throw against the wall.
And Miller's observations about what makes the world go around is how we get world wars. The man is a cancer on the nation.
Opening up oil is a good idea if the government is going to lose drug revenue and get the economy going again. If the plan includes pressure for a free and fair election in the immediate to near future, and it actually happens, and there is a peaceful transition of power, that would obviously be amazing.
It would be amazing if any US administration could pull it off.** But the massive incompetents we actually have? Even assuming the massive counterfactual that it would even occur to them to try, there's zero probability that the attempt would be anything but an epic failure.
** We did manage something like this with Germany and Japan in the mid-20th century. But we had also just utterly, overwhelmingly, defeated them in war. We had huge armies in place to conrol the places. And we had a few people in positions of authority (e.g. Marshall) with both the desire and the wit to make it happen. None of which conditions apply.
“We live in a world in which, you can talk about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time,” he continued.
Does this mean I could beat the living sh*t out of Stephen Miller and it would be okay with him?
lj: I don't know that I see everything as an extension of what has come before, but I do see similarities. This is a lot like Noriega, but with much bigger risks and incentives. I hope the end result is a lot like Panama.
What acts of terrorism has he committed? The charges are he conspired to financially support terrorist organizations, namely FARC, FARC-EP, Segunda Marquetalia, ELN, TdA, the Sinaloa Cartel and CDN.
Why to a lesser extent? Only because of my sense that the Venezuelan people are largely unified in wanting something different, Venezuela has an educated population, they had a successful economy not all that far in the past and the risks are less from outside groups than they were in Libya for example.
It looks (so far) that the plan is to keep the regime sans Maduro in place, at least temporarily, to keep stability, using pressure to keep the regime/Rodriguez in line. There are rumors of a secret agreement with Rodriguez. There are questions whether she could deliver if there is. Opening up oil is a good idea if the government is going to lose drug revenue and get the economy going again. If the plan includes pressure for a free and fair election in the immediate to near future, and it actually happens, and there is a peaceful transition of power, that would obviously be amazing. I have no way of assessing whether an approach like this will work. It is a completely different look than boots on the ground, putting Machado or Gonzalez in power by force. It might be brilliant. It could be incredibly stupid. I have a hard time keeping a Chavista in power, but the problems with the alternative are obvious. Let's hope we end up with a free Venezuela with a duly elected leader in six months or so.
How can one be even-handed about this? It's clearly illegal according to international law, the charges are ridiculous and hypocritical and the self-interested motivation is crystal clear.
I guess that Venezuela is seen as different from Iraq because Venezuelans (papist Latino weaklings) are not expected to put up as much or as successful a resistance as the sand n-words in the Middle East. The US looks at a long tradition of controlling South American countries via right-wing authoritarian proxies who use death squads.
Btw, legally the UK has first rights to buy Greenland. After the US in the past tried to purchase Greenland several times with implied threats that a refusal to sell could lead to a hostile takeover, Denmark turned to the UK for help and there is a legal agreement that, if Greenland would be sold, the UK has right of first refusal. Of course, at the time the UK was as or even more powerful than the US. Not that His Orangeness knows or cares.
No doubt, this will be enthusiastically repeated when the US invades Greenland and thereby officially ends the postwar consensus and NATO:
“We live in a world, in the real world, ... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland
Whenever the US intervenes abroad at least half of its population will unquestioningly believe, parrot or justify the most ridiculous propaganda disseminated by the government and the rule of law will be ignored completely, contorted or aggressively ridiculed.
WRT "narcoterrorism" - hoo boy, how fraught and tactical a word.
The FBI defines international terrorism as "Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations." From that definition, all that is required is for the federal government to declare a group or a nation as "terrorist." They are a bit more helpful on the subject of domestic terrorism: "Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature." Neither of these definitions, however, really do much to differentiate terrorism from other political crimes, especially hate crimes.
From my readings on the subject, I think that the crucial element of terrorism is that terrorism is a narrative crime. The media identity of the party doing the terrorizing must be announced to the public, or at the very least the reason for the violent spectacle must be made known to the public in some way, and that violence must have an ideological goal. I'd argue that the tool of the violence itself is not the weapon of the terrorist, but rather that the media is the weapon and that the media narrative is the intended injury.
From this viewpoint the Mexican cartels would qualify as narcoterrorists, but only in as much as they engage in kidnap, torture, and grisly executions as a means to subjugate the Mexican populace and intimidate, subvert, or control the legitimate government. Killing US citizens with the product that they sell is not an act of terror, it's just an illegal business enterprise. The drug cartels don't have any ideological goals they are trying to achieve through the deaths of their customers. They'd probably prefer to keep those customers alive in order to continue selling the drugs to them.
Maduro was a tyrant who violated the human rights of Venezuelans: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/venezuela/report-venezuela/ He engaged in political intimidation and authorized arbitrary detentions and unfair trials for his political opponents. He wielded the Bolivaran National Guard against his political opponents in much the same way that the KKK engaged in terrorism against blacks after the Civil War.
But "narcoterrorism" against the US? That's propaganda. The illegal drug trade is just typical organized crime, and not the sort of thing that justifies military intervention in my non-lawyerly view of things.
“Maduro is a narcoterrorist and was illegally importing cocaine”
What acts of terrorism has he committed?
The users of the term "narcoterrorism" argue that anyone who traffics narcotics is, ipso facto, a terrorist. Regardless of where the narcotics are from or where they are going to. (Except US manufacturers, e.g. the Sackler family, of course.)
On editing... To add slightly to @wj's comment, you generally have to be logged in to WordPress and have sufficient privileges to edit comments. I have enough privileges to be really dangerous, so if I want to edit, I log in, do the edit, then log out immediately.
Are the G-I-UK gap sonar facilities to keep Russian submarines from reaching the North Atlantic undetected still a thing? I assume so, since some of NATO's strategy still involves holding open the sea lanes between Europe and the (supposedly) vast manufacturing capacity of the US.
GftNC,
Re editing: I have found that, once I post something, I can tap on the text of the post and then (but only then) a little gear wheel appears at the bottom right of the post. Click on that to get to edit mode.
To say "It's always about what happens next" comes very close to saying "The ends justify the means". Don't get me wrong: I am not an absolutist about ends and means; I freely confess to inconsistency on that proposition.
Hairshirt's practical question ("Why to a lesser extent?") is one I would have asked, myself. But I also have to wonder about about a couple of other things.
For one, is there a difference between intended ends and the actual ones? If your intent is criminal but the unintended consequences of your action turn out to be "good", maybe that mitigates your criminality?
For another, what is the intended end here? I have a hard time believing that the end He, Trump and his cabal intend is a free and sovereign Venezuelan democracy. And I seriously doubt that, intended or unintended, this "good" consequence is a likely outcome of the Maduro snatch.
It’s always about “what happens next”, right? I have similar feelings about Venezuela, but to a lesser extent.
Why to a lesser extent? It appear that there was little forethought on this action. The administration is generally incompetent (even worse than Trump's first) and is terrible with follow-through once it becomes apparent that whatever they're trying to do is actually difficult or complicated.
DOGE? The healthcare plan from over a decade ago? Trump's infrastructure bill? Ending the hostilities in Ukraine and Gaza? Inflation? Rounding up all the actual violent criminals in the country illegally?
I don't think it is real worthwhile to try and figure out where Trump gets his ideas. I suppose that everything is similar to something, until it is not. I'm thinking that bc is a lawyer, so I have to wonder if he sees everything that is going on as simply an extension of previous trends or something that is actually different?
The question was whether Trump got the idea to "purchase Greenland" from the GRU letter, not whether there is justification for simply taking it over. That's the context of my response. As a 3rd generation Alaskan (currently living outside my home state), I'd point out that William Seward tried to buy Greenland (and Iceland too). At one point he wanted to bring Canada into the US. So maybe Trump got both ideas from Seward? There were other attempts in the 20th century, (including Truman, I believe) and the US refused to leave after WWII due to the Cold War. But I don't support taking over Greenland by force over the Denmark's objection.
TP: As I recall, I had mixed feelings about Libya, but more practical than whether or not the President had the authority. It's always about "what happens next", right? I have similar feelings about Venezuela, but to a lesser extent. But I am concerned about not leaving the Venezuelans worse off due to a power vacuum than before. I don't like how Trump is talking about Machado nor do I like leaving the illegitimate VP in power. I am glad that Venezuela has a fighting chance to be free.
This from GftNC's Atlantic link seems relevant to norm busting.
But in that sense, we are in a kind of breakthrough moment. I mean, it is a different kind of U.S. military operation. The U.S. has invaded other countries before; you can argue the U.S. has broken international law before. But to do so without any justification, without any explanation, without any support in Congress or any attempt to get it, without looking for any legal cover, even without having a coherent set of reasons or a coherent strategy, it’s all very strange.
And for anyone who wants to listen to (or read a transcript of) a conversation between David Frum and Anne Applebaum on the Venezuela story, this is a gift link from the Atlantic. It's a couple of days old - I always wait for transcript because that's how I prefer to take in my information and media if possible:
As I've said before, I'm interested in what saner and more clear-sighted rightwingers think of Trump's adventures, and as far as I know nobody has ever accused Anne Applebaum of being any kind of lefty!
Apart from that, the only thing we haven't mentioned is the much quoted opinion going round that the reason Trump did not instal María Corina Machado as president given that she won the last election is that she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, and didn't immediately say "I can't take it, it should be President Trump's". She came to her senses afterwards, but it was too late. Again, no "basis in fact".
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
"How can one be even-handed about this?"
Thank you.
Maduro was not the legitimate winner of the recent election in Venezuela. So a POTUS who exactly five years ago attempted a violent autogolpe to remain in power is going to remove him.
Maduro allegedly is involved in trafficing narcotics. So a POTUS who quite recently pardoned another corrupt leader who was in jail for the crime of trafficing narcotics is going to remove him.
This was an exercise in naked power. Folks around Trump have their own various reasons for championing it. Trump's own reasons are obscure, but could be as simple as his enjoyment of exercises in naked power. Most likely he thinks there is some upside for him, personally, most likely because one of his minions told him so. Good luck to him with that.
I am beyond confident that none of them - not one - is motivated by a desire for a free and peaceful Venezuela. Venezuela is just another example of, to quote Ledeen, a crappy little country that we can throw against the wall.
And Miller's observations about what makes the world go around is how we get world wars. The man is a cancer on the nation.
"
It would be amazing if any US administration could pull it off.** But the massive incompetents we actually have? Even assuming the massive counterfactual that it would even occur to them to try, there's zero probability that the attempt would be anything but an epic failure.
** We did manage something like this with Germany and Japan in the mid-20th century. But we had also just utterly, overwhelmingly, defeated them in war. We had huge armies in place to conrol the places. And we had a few people in positions of authority (e.g. Marshall) with both the desire and the wit to make it happen. None of which conditions apply.
"
Because it is so much more difficult to hide resistance groups in heavy jungle than it is in the desert. Riiiiight....
"
bc, I'm glad your reasoning has more to do with conditions in Venezuela than with your trust in the current administration.
"
“We live in a world in which, you can talk about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time,” he continued.
Does this mean I could beat the living sh*t out of Stephen Miller and it would be okay with him?
"
lj: I don't know that I see everything as an extension of what has come before, but I do see similarities. This is a lot like Noriega, but with much bigger risks and incentives. I hope the end result is a lot like Panama.
What acts of terrorism has he committed? The charges are he conspired to financially support terrorist organizations, namely FARC, FARC-EP, Segunda Marquetalia, ELN, TdA, the Sinaloa Cartel and CDN.
Why to a lesser extent? Only because of my sense that the Venezuelan people are largely unified in wanting something different, Venezuela has an educated population, they had a successful economy not all that far in the past and the risks are less from outside groups than they were in Libya for example.
It looks (so far) that the plan is to keep the regime sans Maduro in place, at least temporarily, to keep stability, using pressure to keep the regime/Rodriguez in line. There are rumors of a secret agreement with Rodriguez. There are questions whether she could deliver if there is. Opening up oil is a good idea if the government is going to lose drug revenue and get the economy going again. If the plan includes pressure for a free and fair election in the immediate to near future, and it actually happens, and there is a peaceful transition of power, that would obviously be amazing. I have no way of assessing whether an approach like this will work. It is a completely different look than boots on the ground, putting Machado or Gonzalez in power by force. It might be brilliant. It could be incredibly stupid. I have a hard time keeping a Chavista in power, but the problems with the alternative are obvious. Let's hope we end up with a free Venezuela with a duly elected leader in six months or so.
"
How can one be even-handed about this? It's clearly illegal according to international law, the charges are ridiculous and hypocritical and the self-interested motivation is crystal clear.
This is just normalization.
"
This is an even-handed review of recent events.
Everything You Need to Know About Nicolás Maduro's Capture
"
I guess that Venezuela is seen as different from Iraq because Venezuelans (papist Latino weaklings) are not expected to put up as much or as successful a resistance as the sand n-words in the Middle East. The US look
sat a long tradition of controlling South American countries via right-wing authoritarian proxies who use death squads."
Btw, legally the UK has first rights to buy Greenland. After the US in the past tried to purchase Greenland several times with implied threats that a refusal to sell could lead to a hostile takeover, Denmark turned to the UK for help and there is a legal agreement that, if Greenland would be sold, the UK has right of first refusal. Of course, at the time the UK was as or even more powerful than the US. Not that His Orangeness knows or cares.
"
No doubt, this will be enthusiastically repeated when the US invades Greenland and thereby officially ends the postwar consensus and NATO:
“We live in a world, in the real world, ... that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/us/politics/stephen-miller-greenland-venezuela.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CVA.rKYs.cbVC6hJAGyHB&smid=url-share
"
Whenever the US intervenes abroad at least half of its population will unquestioningly believe, parrot or justify the most ridiculous propaganda disseminated by the government and the rule of law will be ignored completely, contorted or aggressively ridiculed.
This is a law of nature.
"
WRT "narcoterrorism" - hoo boy, how fraught and tactical a word.
The FBI defines international terrorism as "Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations." From that definition, all that is required is for the federal government to declare a group or a nation as "terrorist." They are a bit more helpful on the subject of domestic terrorism: "Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature." Neither of these definitions, however, really do much to differentiate terrorism from other political crimes, especially hate crimes.
From my readings on the subject, I think that the crucial element of terrorism is that terrorism is a narrative crime. The media identity of the party doing the terrorizing must be announced to the public, or at the very least the reason for the violent spectacle must be made known to the public in some way, and that violence must have an ideological goal. I'd argue that the tool of the violence itself is not the weapon of the terrorist, but rather that the media is the weapon and that the media narrative is the intended injury.
From this viewpoint the Mexican cartels would qualify as narcoterrorists, but only in as much as they engage in kidnap, torture, and grisly executions as a means to subjugate the Mexican populace and intimidate, subvert, or control the legitimate government. Killing US citizens with the product that they sell is not an act of terror, it's just an illegal business enterprise. The drug cartels don't have any ideological goals they are trying to achieve through the deaths of their customers. They'd probably prefer to keep those customers alive in order to continue selling the drugs to them.
Maduro was a tyrant who violated the human rights of Venezuelans: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/venezuela/report-venezuela/ He engaged in political intimidation and authorized arbitrary detentions and unfair trials for his political opponents. He wielded the Bolivaran National Guard against his political opponents in much the same way that the KKK engaged in terrorism against blacks after the Civil War.
But "narcoterrorism" against the US? That's propaganda. The illegal drug trade is just typical organized crime, and not the sort of thing that justifies military intervention in my non-lawyerly view of things.
"
The users of the term "narcoterrorism" argue that anyone who traffics narcotics is, ipso facto, a terrorist. Regardless of where the narcotics are from or where they are going to. (Except US manufacturers, e.g. the Sackler family, of course.)
"
On editing... To add slightly to @wj's comment, you generally have to be logged in to WordPress and have sufficient privileges to edit comments. I have enough privileges to be really dangerous, so if I want to edit, I log in, do the edit, then log out immediately.
"
"Maduro is a narcoterrorist and was illegally importing cocaine"
What acts of terrorism has he committed?
"Panama, Grenada and Libya show this to not be so norm-crushing as some might think"
Precedent does not equal norm. Also, FWIW those are also not the greatest moments in our history.
"The US has wanted Greenland for a long time."
It's not our fucking island. Full stop.
"
Certainly Greenland still has strategic value.
Are the G-I-UK gap sonar facilities to keep Russian submarines from reaching the North Atlantic undetected still a thing? I assume so, since some of NATO's strategy still involves holding open the sea lanes between Europe and the (supposedly) vast manufacturing capacity of the US.
"
GftNC,
Re editing: I have found that, once I post something, I can tap on the text of the post and then (but only then) a little gear wheel appears at the bottom right of the post. Click on that to get to edit mode.
"
bc,
To say "It's always about what happens next" comes very close to saying "The ends justify the means". Don't get me wrong: I am not an absolutist about ends and means; I freely confess to inconsistency on that proposition.
Hairshirt's practical question ("Why to a lesser extent?") is one I would have asked, myself. But I also have to wonder about about a couple of other things.
For one, is there a difference between intended ends and the actual ones? If your intent is criminal but the unintended consequences of your action turn out to be "good", maybe that mitigates your criminality?
For another, what is the intended end here? I have a hard time believing that the end He, Trump and his cabal intend is a free and sovereign Venezuelan democracy. And I seriously doubt that, intended or unintended, this "good" consequence is a likely outcome of the Maduro snatch.
--TP
"
It’s always about “what happens next”, right? I have similar feelings about Venezuela, but to a lesser extent.
Why to a lesser extent? It appear that there was little forethought on this action. The administration is generally incompetent (even worse than Trump's first) and is terrible with follow-through once it becomes apparent that whatever they're trying to do is actually difficult or complicated.
DOGE? The healthcare plan from over a decade ago? Trump's infrastructure bill? Ending the hostilities in Ukraine and Gaza? Inflation? Rounding up all the actual violent criminals in the country illegally?
All they seem good at is breaking things.
"
I don't think it is real worthwhile to try and figure out where Trump gets his ideas. I suppose that everything is similar to something, until it is not. I'm thinking that bc is a lawyer, so I have to wonder if he sees everything that is going on as simply an extension of previous trends or something that is actually different?
"
wjca:
The question was whether Trump got the idea to "purchase Greenland" from the GRU letter, not whether there is justification for simply taking it over. That's the context of my response. As a 3rd generation Alaskan (currently living outside my home state), I'd point out that William Seward tried to buy Greenland (and Iceland too). At one point he wanted to bring Canada into the US. So maybe Trump got both ideas from Seward? There were other attempts in the 20th century, (including Truman, I believe) and the US refused to leave after WWII due to the Cold War. But I don't support taking over Greenland by force over the Denmark's objection.
TP: As I recall, I had mixed feelings about Libya, but more practical than whether or not the President had the authority. It's always about "what happens next", right? I have similar feelings about Venezuela, but to a lesser extent. But I am concerned about not leaving the Venezuelans worse off due to a power vacuum than before. I don't like how Trump is talking about Machado nor do I like leaving the illegitimate VP in power. I am glad that Venezuela has a fighting chance to be free.
"
This from GftNC's Atlantic link seems relevant to norm busting.
"
By the way, I see people have edited their comments, but I don' t know how to. Can anyone explain?
"
And for anyone who wants to listen to (or read a transcript of) a conversation between David Frum and Anne Applebaum on the Venezuela story, this is a gift link from the Atlantic. It's a couple of days old - I always wait for transcript because that's how I prefer to take in my information and media if possible:
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/01/david-frum-show-bonus-venezuela/685492/?gift=cx0iluuWx4Cg7JjlT8ugCZ27BPAKdMsjTztCEaEK_K4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
As I've said before, I'm interested in what saner and more clear-sighted rightwingers think of Trump's adventures, and as far as I know nobody has ever accused Anne Applebaum of being any kind of lefty!
Apart from that, the only thing we haven't mentioned is the much quoted opinion going round that the reason Trump did not instal María Corina Machado as president given that she won the last election is that she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, and didn't immediately say "I can't take it, it should be President Trump's". She came to her senses afterwards, but it was too late. Again, no "basis in fact".
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.