So mad king will cause rally around the flag in Venezuela. And then what? Another Vietnam? China and Russia will be more than happy to supply drones and weapons to grind US military in an endless insurgency. Russia especially, to just give USA a taste of a shitsandwich they are forced to eat for 4 years straight.
Russia is in no position to help Maduro, they're currently being bailed out by Tehran and Pyongyang. China could, and it's genuinely interesting to see them sitting it out so far [1].
How is it possible that a president of a country can close the airspace of another country?
How can the extrajudicial killings of (over 80 by now!) alleged drug traffickers
without any charges or trials be justified or accepted? These are, in fact, crimes against humanity.
I'm convinced at some point in the future U.S. citizens will have to learn what war means.
> How can the extrajudicial killings of (over 80 by now!) alleged drug traffickers without any charges or trials be justified or accepted? These are, in fact, crimes against humanity.
It's _been_ accepted for years, if not decades now. Ever since the US started drone striking people without trial, or via trial in absentia, this has been the new normal. It being against international law is meaningless if no one care what the international law is, and especially if other countries are also breaking the law in the exact same way.
> How is it possible that a president of a country can close the airspace of another country?
It is a de facto declaration of war, focussed (on its face, it has other propaganda and diplomatic purposes) on informing civilians of the imminent actions and associated risks so that they can conduct themselves accordingly.
> How is it possible that a president of a country can close the airspace of another country?
To be fair, closing airspace before engaging in air operations is an international courtesy. It reduces the chances of downing civilian airliners. (In a similar vein, announcing closures and then not following through is incredibly damaging.)
> alleged drug traffickers without any charges or trials be justified or accepted? These are, in fact, crimes against humanity
They are war crimes.
If you're concernd about it, call your representative and tell them you care about the American military committing war crimes. There is currently momentum on the issue [1].
It cannot be a war crime if there is no war. There is no declaration of war and no approval of Congress. The ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity.
Any time a state uses armed force against another state (and sometimes against other entities), there is a war in which there can be war crimes.
> There is no declaration of war
War is war whether or not it is formally declared. (And the Trump Administration has described that it is fighting a war against Venezuela for months, though it has characterized Venezuela as the aggressor.) This was, among other things, the explicit premise of the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act months ago.
> and no approval of Congress.
That might arguably make any war also a violation of domestic law, but from the standpoint of international law it isn’t particularly a meaningful argument against their being a war.
> The ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity.
No, an individual who used to be a prosecutor with the ICC, acting as a private individual, described them that way.
(Under U.S. law, I do believe they are war crimes given they're an abuse of war powers, whether exercised legally or not.)
> ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity
No, it did not. A "former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC)" told the BBC "US air strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats would be treated under international law as crimes against humanity" [1].
I haven't seen the ICC take an official position on any of this, which is expected, since it's a judicial body that grinds deliberately.
People seem to think there’s some clever little gap between war crime law, US domestic law, and human rights law that mean a government can just kill people who pose no immediate threat and without any establishment of guilt.
There is not.
The Trump admin wants to say they’re invaders therefore we don’t need Congressional authorization, but they’re actually irregulars therefore we don’t need to follow Geneva, but they’re actually terrorists therefore…
> People seem to think there’s some clever little gap between war crime law, US domestic law, and human rights law that mean a government can just kill people who pose no immediate threat and without any establishment of guilt
International human rights law is back to being an aspirational ideal. Every one of the world's great powers have explicitly rejected it. (So have most of regional powers.)
I'd love it if Trump, Xi and Putin could be hauled in front of an international tribunal for the atrocities they've committed. But it isn't happening. Not to them. Nor to Netanyahu, Kim, Khamenei, Modi, Lukashenko or MBS.
At the end of the day, the only thing that can hold Trump and the U.S. military accountable is U.S. law. Bickering over what crime is committed under that law might be teidous. But it is a legitimate activity that could bring real consequences in a way bringing up what a former ICC prosecutor thinks does not.
> All of it is nonsense
This is lazy. Top of the thread. Real debate happening around whether war crimes were committed. Dismissing that as "nonsense" enables and implicitly supports the illegal behaviour.
No argument about the enforceability of it. US law actually isn't even sufficient. The US body politic has to do it.
> Real debate happening around whether war crimes were committed
But the debate isn't about whether war crimes were committed. The debate is whether war crime law is relevant. And that debate is endless for the reason I just explained: the Trump admin will play the shell game of defining the relevant legal framework as X when it suits them, then Y when it suits them, then Z when it suits them, despite the fact that X Y and Z are mutually exclusive of each other.
Are they a stateless vessel? Are they narco-terrorists? Are they drug smugglers? Are they foreign invaders? Are they agents of the Venezuelan government?
Well, all and none of the above, depending on who is asking for what reason.
This is legal nihilism and Schmittian Decisionism. The administration has declared itself unbound by law altogether. All that matters is calling it a violation, collecting evidence, and when political powers shift, holding the relevant parties to account. Under a non-nihilistic/decisionist legal framework, there will be no shortage of chargeable offenses.
"War crimes can only be committed during times of armed conflict, either international or non-international, as understood under international humanitarian law. While it is necessary that the crime in question was committed during an armed conflict, this is in itself not sufficient: the crime must be sufficiently linked to the armed conflict. This so-called nexus requirement is satisfied if the armed conflict played a substantial role in the perpetrator’s decision to commit the crime, his or her ability to commit it, or the manner in which the crime was committed.
In order to define an act as a war crime, this act must, besides having nexus to an armed conflict, be a serious violation of international humanitarian law and entail individual criminal responsibility."
Part of the mechanism to make this possible is dropping the full weight of the DOJ and other three letter agencies down hard on anybody who dares to point out the illegality of many of the actions here.
eg: Pentagon Is Investigating a Member Of Congress Who Criticized Trump
is essentially direct retribution against elected members, former military members who merely state that serving troops are required to follow the law and the constitution first as a priority.
This wastes the time, money, and resources of those prepared to state the emperor has no clothes and serves as a dire warning to any other that might think to stand up.
If this regime were capable of seeing past its own shoelaces, one could imagine a conspiracy to prompt a migrant crisis so the GOP has an issue its trusted by voters on.
The only advantages I can see to America pushing for Maduro’s removal are unlocking mismanaged oil supplies and removing a hive of Russian, Iranian and Chinese activity from the Western Hemisphere.
Those are the upsides. The downsides are prompting anti-American balancing moves across South America, Bay of Pigsing and increasing Maduro’s legitimacy, giving Russian air defences a paintbrush to our kit and fucking it up completely and sparking a refugee crisis.
In practice, I’m increasingly convinced we’re about to go to war because of what a dead pedophile knows about the President.
This feels even more manufactured than the Iraq invasion. I don't understand why Trump would do something like this which is gonna peel off yet another group of his supporters. Maybe he just thinks he's invincible now? He must feel like this helps him politically somehow, but I can't figure out how.
And how much of that is felt by real-world people?
The insane stock price of Nvidia & friends due to them passing around billions between each other doesn't matter even the slightest bit when your family business is going bankrupt.
Over a third of each of 2024 Trump voters and self-identified conservatives consider Venezuela America's "enemy" [1]. (Over two fifths of each of the male, Hispanic, 65+ and $100k+ income demos view Maduro unfavourably.)
Also, "weapons and AI platforms that were designed for a future conflict with China or struggled to prove themselves on the Ukrainian battlefield have found a niche in the administration’s tech-enabled crackdown on drug trafficking" [2]. ("In an interview, Palantir Technologies Chief Executive Alex Karp declined to say whether his company’s technology was involved in counternarcotics operations, but voiced support for the strikes. 'If we are involved, I am very proud,' Karp said.")
One third is really not a solid base of support for major military action, especially among the administration's staunchest supporters. My purely subjective impression is that there is plenty of doubt in the ranks of MAGA about this, Fox News consent manufacturing notwithstanding. Of course, the imperatives of imperialism being what they are, I don't think it makes much difference.
Those upsides could have also been accomplished by pointing the CIA at Venezuela to do the same thing they've been doing across South America for the past fifty years.
> Those upsides could have also been accomplished by pointing the CIA at Venezuela to do the same thing they've been doing across South America for the past fifty years
Has the CIA actually advanced American interests in South America? Legitimate question. My layman's understanding is they serially fucked the theatres they were assigned to alongside America's reputation in exchange for, at best, short-term U.S. wins.
"Has the CIA advanced American interests" is the wrong question. The CIA does not work for "The United States" proper, it works for a tiny section of it that comprises the ruling elites. Those people certainly enjoyed significant material benefits from CIA actions in Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, etc.
The US has seen six governments since Woodstock ‘99, alternating the ruling party almost perfectly every four years: Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump again.
Venezuela has seen only two presidents in 26 years, Chavez and Maduro, and both belong to the same ruling party.
Somebody should convince the guy that it doesn't count ending a war that you started a little while before... Also, there has to be a general trend of peacefulness in one's behaviour.
This has to be related to Russia and the war in Ukraine. I'm not a military buff, so my analysis might be way off, but here we go.
1. The US has sent a shitload of weapons to Ukraine over the last years.
2. Given the US military superiority and how weak Russia is supposed to be, Russia should be on its knees right now.
3. The US is promoting a peace plan that seems to heavily favor Russia.
So, at that point, I see two possibilities:
1. Trump is a russian asset
2. The US military is privately shitting its pants about how weak they are in this proxy war.
Theoretically, if Trump was a russian asset, he wouldn't go after Venezuela. Why would Russia want to destroy its puppet state?
So I'm going with 2, and it's the cold war again. This is an attempt by the US military to spread Russia thin for further conflicts coming all over the place.
Russia is in no position to help Maduro, they're currently being bailed out by Tehran and Pyongyang. China could, and it's genuinely interesting to see them sitting it out so far [1].
[1] https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/why-russia-and-china-are-...
How can the extrajudicial killings of (over 80 by now!) alleged drug traffickers without any charges or trials be justified or accepted? These are, in fact, crimes against humanity.
I'm convinced at some point in the future U.S. citizens will have to learn what war means.
It's _been_ accepted for years, if not decades now. Ever since the US started drone striking people without trial, or via trial in absentia, this has been the new normal. It being against international law is meaningless if no one care what the international law is, and especially if other countries are also breaking the law in the exact same way.
It is a de facto declaration of war, focussed (on its face, it has other propaganda and diplomatic purposes) on informing civilians of the imminent actions and associated risks so that they can conduct themselves accordingly.
To be fair, closing airspace before engaging in air operations is an international courtesy. It reduces the chances of downing civilian airliners. (In a similar vein, announcing closures and then not following through is incredibly damaging.)
> alleged drug traffickers without any charges or trials be justified or accepted? These are, in fact, crimes against humanity
They are war crimes.
If you're concernd about it, call your representative and tell them you care about the American military committing war crimes. There is currently momentum on the issue [1].
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/30/war-crimes-hegseth-...
Any time a state uses armed force against another state (and sometimes against other entities), there is a war in which there can be war crimes.
> There is no declaration of war
War is war whether or not it is formally declared. (And the Trump Administration has described that it is fighting a war against Venezuela for months, though it has characterized Venezuela as the aggressor.) This was, among other things, the explicit premise of the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act months ago.
> and no approval of Congress.
That might arguably make any war also a violation of domestic law, but from the standpoint of international law it isn’t particularly a meaningful argument against their being a war.
> The ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity.
No, an individual who used to be a prosecutor with the ICC, acting as a private individual, described them that way.
Is this true? Legitimate question.
(Under U.S. law, I do believe they are war crimes given they're an abuse of war powers, whether exercised legally or not.)
> ICC classified these strikes as crimes against humanity
No, it did not. A "former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC)" told the BBC "US air strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats would be treated under international law as crimes against humanity" [1].
I haven't seen the ICC take an official position on any of this, which is expected, since it's a judicial body that grinds deliberately.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9kgqwnk8wo
There is not.
The Trump admin wants to say they’re invaders therefore we don’t need Congressional authorization, but they’re actually irregulars therefore we don’t need to follow Geneva, but they’re actually terrorists therefore…
All of it is nonsense.
International human rights law is back to being an aspirational ideal. Every one of the world's great powers have explicitly rejected it. (So have most of regional powers.)
I'd love it if Trump, Xi and Putin could be hauled in front of an international tribunal for the atrocities they've committed. But it isn't happening. Not to them. Nor to Netanyahu, Kim, Khamenei, Modi, Lukashenko or MBS.
At the end of the day, the only thing that can hold Trump and the U.S. military accountable is U.S. law. Bickering over what crime is committed under that law might be teidous. But it is a legitimate activity that could bring real consequences in a way bringing up what a former ICC prosecutor thinks does not.
> All of it is nonsense
This is lazy. Top of the thread. Real debate happening around whether war crimes were committed. Dismissing that as "nonsense" enables and implicitly supports the illegal behaviour.
> Real debate happening around whether war crimes were committed
But the debate isn't about whether war crimes were committed. The debate is whether war crime law is relevant. And that debate is endless for the reason I just explained: the Trump admin will play the shell game of defining the relevant legal framework as X when it suits them, then Y when it suits them, then Z when it suits them, despite the fact that X Y and Z are mutually exclusive of each other.
Are they a stateless vessel? Are they narco-terrorists? Are they drug smugglers? Are they foreign invaders? Are they agents of the Venezuelan government?
Well, all and none of the above, depending on who is asking for what reason.
This is legal nihilism and Schmittian Decisionism. The administration has declared itself unbound by law altogether. All that matters is calling it a violation, collecting evidence, and when political powers shift, holding the relevant parties to account. Under a non-nihilistic/decisionist legal framework, there will be no shortage of chargeable offenses.
In order to define an act as a war crime, this act must, besides having nexus to an armed conflict, be a serious violation of international humanitarian law and entail individual criminal responsibility."
https://www.rulac.org/legal-framework/international-criminal...
eg: Pentagon Is Investigating a Member Of Congress Who Criticized Trump
~ https://talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things-stand/pentagon-is...
is essentially direct retribution against elected members, former military members who merely state that serving troops are required to follow the law and the constitution first as a priority.
This wastes the time, money, and resources of those prepared to state the emperor has no clothes and serves as a dire warning to any other that might think to stand up.
>leave Venezuela immediately to allow the restoration of democratic rule
and then sunshine and unicorns ensue.
If this regime were capable of seeing past its own shoelaces, one could imagine a conspiracy to prompt a migrant crisis so the GOP has an issue its trusted by voters on.
Those are the upsides. The downsides are prompting anti-American balancing moves across South America, Bay of Pigsing and increasing Maduro’s legitimacy, giving Russian air defences a paintbrush to our kit and fucking it up completely and sparking a refugee crisis.
In practice, I’m increasingly convinced we’re about to go to war because of what a dead pedophile knows about the President.
Bombing fishing boats, saying it's "drugs" and using that to justify a war in our back-porch is insanity.
Who even supports this? It seems like the most unjustified war we've ever started.
Distracts from a tariff-ravaged economy and the Epstein files. Potentially lets him funnel defence spending to allies.
The insane stock price of Nvidia & friends due to them passing around billions between each other doesn't matter even the slightest bit when your family business is going bankrupt.
it won't have any
even the UK has decided not to support the US regime on this one
Political allies. David Sacks, et cetera.
The guy was like a walking auction item as soon as he started his second term. He’s nearly 80. He’s gonna amass a nice fortune for his family and dip.
Come on man, the guy was shilling his own shitcoin as sitting president.
Over a third of each of 2024 Trump voters and self-identified conservatives consider Venezuela America's "enemy" [1]. (Over two fifths of each of the male, Hispanic, 65+ and $100k+ income demos view Maduro unfavourably.)
Also, "weapons and AI platforms that were designed for a future conflict with China or struggled to prove themselves on the Ukrainian battlefield have found a niche in the administration’s tech-enabled crackdown on drug trafficking" [2]. ("In an interview, Palantir Technologies Chief Executive Alex Karp declined to say whether his company’s technology was involved in counternarcotics operations, but voiced support for the strikes. 'If we are involved, I am very proud,' Karp said.")
[1] https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor... The Economist/YouGov, November 15 to 17, U.S. Adult Citizens
[2] https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trumps-focus-...
Has the CIA actually advanced American interests in South America? Legitimate question. My layman's understanding is they serially fucked the theatres they were assigned to alongside America's reputation in exchange for, at best, short-term U.S. wins.
The CIA is popular with voters [1].
Not superbly. But more than the IRS, DoJ or Department of Education.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/08/12/americans...
Venezuela has seen only two presidents in 26 years, Chavez and Maduro, and both belong to the same ruling party.
So I'm going with 2, and it's the cold war again. This is an attempt by the US military to spread Russia thin for further conflicts coming all over the place.
Unnecessary waste of life, attention, money coming soon.