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On January 04 2026 06:22 pmh wrote: They are actually using the oil as an argument to justify the whole operation. "but you are doing this because of the oil!" "yes we are doing this because of the oil its the best reason one can have!" It shows how much the world has changed since the pandemic. That what used to be seen as a negative is now a positive.
It has not changed. For some strange reason the US just elected a corrupt corporate/mafia stooge as president and a near majority in their congress/senate. So that is how they act currently. Globally people are still discussing how to decrease oil usage, even if the US slipped for a while and risk global progress on the issue.
One thing that I guess is going to be very annoying for militaries running countries is that the US has shown they are willing to go down the ladder and replace you. Where previously those below would get it worse in a democracy, now they just climb and get a solid backer. It is back to the cold war promoting of dictators if they align with US policy.
The US is in competition with China for energy consumption. If they can‘t reach a joint accord they‘ll just shrug and deplete it as fast as they can before the other does.
Doesn‘t look like one‘s going to be reached. Best face it that it‘s going to turn into a race between takers.
Just put his nobel peace prize in the bag bro 😭😭😭 Maybe after occupying East Germany (then it‘s deserved)
On January 03 2026 22:49 Sermokala wrote: Crazy part is that there was just no need for this. Biden had done enough with the other nations in the carribiean to create a more profiable and more efficent oil industry with its neighbors. All Trump had to do was to present this evidence to Maduros backers and show how being friendly with the US was more profitable than being enemies.
But yeah lets just continue the cold war and make everyone hate us in the region again. I'm sure there will be no blowback for kidnapping a head of state within their own nation by military force and killing a bunch of people in the process.
that will never happen, and honestly a very naive take to the whole situation. Madurors wasn't in it for the money itself, but that Russia and China etc are giving him plenty of staying power. Power comes before money/wealth.
There's a tiny fraction of venezuela population who would be against this, the nation had been suffering a F ton. 2025 nobel peace prize winner herself wanted US arms intervention to force the transition.
The whole thing is controversial move, but not only was it a power move against Russia and china,
It also ensures national interest of the US there in the region.
Also those who are talking like the US wants the Oil and therefore they intervene, what do you think Russia and China are there for? welcome to politics in the real world.
Some of you want checks and balances against the US, it's a good reminder the past couple of decades of relative peace wasn't because Russia/China was a strong check and balance against the west. It's because they had arms superiority and geopolitical power.
It’s an interesting moment to look back on the 20th century and all the steps toward decolonization that occurred around the world. Conventional wisdom is that a few centuries earlier Europeans developed the right combination of technology and government and cultural attitude to be able and willing to trot around the world colonizing everybody so they could make a lot of money. And God knows they made a lot of money. But then over the last century that’s been slowly unraveled and all those former colonies have achieved national independence. But… why? Did Westerners stop liking money?
I’m not really qualified to answer that question. In some cases the country won a war of independence, and the Europeans fought (unsuccessfully) to keep their colonial project alive. In a lot of cases though, it seemed like there was this global tide of opinion that made the old colonial systems simply untenable. And, of course, there’s “economic imperialism” and various similar schemes aimed at reformatting the money-making operation to keep it viable in the new world order.
But that concept is premised on the idea that the elites knew the old colonial systems were untenable and they needed a new scam. Trump talks about it like something closer to a British Empire model. You just invade places, take over running the government, and extract their natural resources for profit. I’m not sure even the British were saying that in their *public messaging* – “we invaded so we could extract the natural resources and make a big profit.”
The easy explanation is that Trump’s just too dumb to understand the modern obfuscated imperialist systems and he’s fucking up the whole game. The alternative is that everybody was overthinking it, and the Western powers could have just kept invading places and installing viceroys. It would have been more profitable, it’s just that nobody was brazen enough to do it.
I’m still inclined to believe that kind of brazen colonialism is untenable in the modern age, and Trump’s people will fall flat on their face if they try. Their best path is to declare victory and go home, even though the government they left in Venezuela will probably still be pretty hostile and whatever concessions they extract probably could have happened without invading.
But they’re talking like they’re gonna keep going – stick around and occupy the place, try to take the oil, maybe even invade some other places and take their resources too. And I don’t have an exact answer to why or how that isn’t actually viable, but I think it’s not and we’ll all have a pretty good idea why in the nearish future.
On January 04 2026 16:06 ChristianS wrote: And I don’t have an exact answer to why or how that isn’t actually viable, but I think it’s not and we’ll all have a pretty good idea why in the nearish future.
Why this isn't viable is because of several reasons:
You undermine the whole concept of country sovereignty. If other nations can just change your government or completely take over it makes a total mockery of democracy and the idea that a country has self-determination. It's nothing more than might makes right.
Actions like that won't make you any friends on the global stage. If anything everyone will now be wary of you so any diplomatic endeavours from now on will be harder. It'll also make smaller countries band together against you and while you can bully small isolated countries bullying a global network of them is a much tougher proposition if not an impossibility, which could lead to your collapse.
Forcefully replacing the current regime with a new one that YOU put in place instead of what the citizens of the country chose will net you a lot of resentment among the population. Potentially leading to revolts, guerilla warfare and general instability (we all know how well the US did in Vietnam).
It gives the green light to other big nations to do the same. With this one move Trump has effectively validated Russia's invasion of Ukraine and potentially China's invasion of Taiwan.
Not to mention this whole thing makes Trump effectively a dictator since he didn't go through the proper channels and violated the US constitution. It's not that Congress wasn't on board with the action, it's that it wasn't even informed...
So, shortly after all those declarations Rodriguez was made the head of Venezualan state (with US support) and made a public speech where she went against Trump, demanding the release of Maduro and his wife. According to her Maduro remains the legal head of state. She announced that Venezuela will fight against US aggression until victory, instituted a state of emergency in the country and expanded the competences of army and other state services.
Despite some of the citizens rallying and cheering for the end of dictatorship most of regime's administration and loyal soldiers have declared their will to fight.
In other words, so far this US action has achieved nothing, if anything it might've galvanized the anti-US sentiments in the region and led to a prolonged chaos.
On January 04 2026 16:06 ChristianS wrote: And I don’t have an exact answer to why or how that isn’t actually viable, but I think it’s not and we’ll all have a pretty good idea why in the nearish future.
Why this isn't viable is because of several reasons:
You undermine the whole concept of country sovereignty. If other nations can just change your government or completely take over it makes a total mockery of democracy and the idea that a country has self-determination. It's nothing more than might makes right.
Actions like that won't make you any friends on the global stage. If anything everyone will now be wary of you so any diplomatic endeavours from now on will be harder. It'll also make smaller countries band together against you and while you can bully small isolated countries bullying a global network of them is a much tougher proposition if not an impossibility, which could lead to your collapse.
Forcefully replacing the current regime with a new one that YOU put in place instead of what the citizens of the country chose will net you a lot of resentment among the population. Potentially leading to revolts, guerilla warfare and general instability (we all know how well the US did in Vietnam).
It gives the green light to other big nations to do the same. With this one move Trump has effectively validated Russia's invasion of Ukraine and potentially China's invasion of Taiwan.
Not to mention this whole thing makes Trump effectively a dictator since he didn't go through the proper channels and violated the US constitution.It's not that Congress wasn't on board with the action, it's that it wasn't even informed...
People don't seem to really want to/have the capacity to confront how catastrophically this obliterates the entire framework for the world as we know it.
On January 04 2026 16:06 ChristianS wrote: And I don’t have an exact answer to why or how that isn’t actually viable, but I think it’s not and we’ll all have a pretty good idea why in the nearish future.
Why this isn't viable is because of several reasons:
You undermine the whole concept of country sovereignty. If other nations can just change your government or completely take over it makes a total mockery of democracy and the idea that a country has self-determination. It's nothing more than might makes right.
Actions like that won't make you any friends on the global stage. If anything everyone will now be wary of you so any diplomatic endeavours from now on will be harder. It'll also make smaller countries band together against you and while you can bully small isolated countries bullying a global network of them is a much tougher proposition if not an impossibility, which could lead to your collapse.
Forcefully replacing the current regime with a new one that YOU put in place instead of what the citizens of the country chose will net you a lot of resentment among the population. Potentially leading to revolts, guerilla warfare and general instability (we all know how well the US did in Vietnam).
It gives the green light to other big nations to do the same. With this one move Trump has effectively validated Russia's invasion of Ukraine and potentially China's invasion of Taiwan.
Not to mention this whole thing makes Trump effectively a dictator since he didn't go through the proper channels and violated the US constitution.It's not that Congress wasn't on board with the action, it's that it wasn't even informed...
People don't seem to really want to/have the capacity to confront how catastrophically this obliterates the entire framework for the world as we know it.
Plenty of people do that, plenty of people have done so for tons of others things this administration has done.
It's just that your fellow country men and women rather chant "USA, USA, USA" than do anything, anything at all.
Just to be clear, are you suggesting that this is worse than Biden using the Supreme Court's decision to prevent this happening like it is?
On January 04 2026 04:51 ChristianS wrote: Extremely annoying how many people have been pretending to understand the idea “Saddam Hussein was bad but that doesn’t mean invading Iraq was good” for decades now.
So the position of people on the right (including Intro I guess?) seems to be that the American president has unilateral authority to decide literally any person on the planet should die and enact that. Dunno why Congress ever bothered to declare war in the past, just for moral support I guess. Also, the US justice system has unilateral authority to try anybody around the world for crimes, even foreign heads of state, with the sole exception of the American president, who has absolute immunity.
On the other hand as imperialist ventures go this isn’t really that ambitious. Substantially less so than Iraq, and *way* less than something like Vietnam. Admittedly if they follow through on occupying the country and extracting the oil (presumably with brutal repression of any Venezuelans who try to oppose them) it could still be a pretty big undertaking. But for the moment this goes a long way towards saying “the President has absolutely no legal restraints on his behavior of any kind” but does very little to actually flex our muscles and intimidate opponents.
Bad, bad day. One of the worst in my lifetime imo.
so far! the year is still very young and POTUS stable genius not even a year in office this second time around!
I love how Mr. T now essentially sidelines the actual Peace Prize winner and makes her just another "little woman", as she "doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country".
let me translate: "you took my prize woman - now you think I will let you have a country/gas station to run as well for me?"
I wonder if this is related and if Trump is planning on becoming an actual dictator. According to this he's not building the ballroom in place of the East Wing but an underground bunker for a data center.
It does sound like a conspiracy theory but the arguments she provides seem quite solid.
On January 04 2026 04:51 ChristianS wrote: Extremely annoying how many people have been pretending to understand the idea “Saddam Hussein was bad but that doesn’t mean invading Iraq was good” for decades now.
So the position of people on the right (including Intro I guess?) seems to be that the American president has unilateral authority to decide literally any person on the planet should die and enact that. Dunno why Congress ever bothered to declare war in the past, just for moral support I guess. Also, the US justice system has unilateral authority to try anybody around the world for crimes, even foreign heads of state, with the sole exception of the American president, who has absolute immunity.
On the other hand as imperialist ventures go this isn’t really that ambitious. Substantially less so than Iraq, and *way* less than something like Vietnam. Admittedly if they follow through on occupying the country and extracting the oil (presumably with brutal repression of any Venezuelans who try to oppose them) it could still be a pretty big undertaking. But for the moment this goes a long way towards saying “the President has absolutely no legal restraints on his behavior of any kind” but does very little to actually flex our muscles and intimidate opponents.
Bad, bad day. One of the worst in my lifetime imo.
so far! the year is still very young and POTUS stable genius not even a year in office this second time around!
I love how Mr. T now essentially sidelines the actual Peace Prize winner and makes her just another "little woman", as she "doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country".
let me translate: "you took my prize woman - now you think I will let you have a country/gas station to run as well for me?"
You might also want to add another fact on top of that. Trump was told numerous times by Rubio that Venezuela had a hand in "rigging" the elections in 2020.
On January 04 2026 04:51 ChristianS wrote: Extremely annoying how many people have been pretending to understand the idea “Saddam Hussein was bad but that doesn’t mean invading Iraq was good” for decades now.
So the position of people on the right (including Intro I guess?) seems to be that the American president has unilateral authority to decide literally any person on the planet should die and enact that. Dunno why Congress ever bothered to declare war in the past, just for moral support I guess. Also, the US justice system has unilateral authority to try anybody around the world for crimes, even foreign heads of state, with the sole exception of the American president, who has absolute immunity.
On the other hand as imperialist ventures go this isn’t really that ambitious. Substantially less so than Iraq, and *way* less than something like Vietnam. Admittedly if they follow through on occupying the country and extracting the oil (presumably with brutal repression of any Venezuelans who try to oppose them) it could still be a pretty big undertaking. But for the moment this goes a long way towards saying “the President has absolutely no legal restraints on his behavior of any kind” but does very little to actually flex our muscles and intimidate opponents.
Bad, bad day. One of the worst in my lifetime imo.
so far! the year is still very young and POTUS stable genius not even a year in office this second time around!
I love how Mr. T now essentially sidelines the actual Peace Prize winner and makes her just another "little woman", as she "doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country".
let me translate: "you took my prize woman - now you think I will let you have a country/gas station to run as well for me?"
You might also want to add another fact on top of that. Trump was told numerous times by Rubio that Venezuela had a hand in "rigging" the elections in 2020.
ah that's a juicy bit of lore as well for the actual enjoyers . thank god Trump won, just imagine a woman as POTUS... vindictive, unstable and just very much a victim to their natural predispositions to mood swings.
in the Situation Room pressing the buttons and giving the OK for unspeakably awesome justice, then suddenly blood coming out of their... wherever?!
On January 04 2026 16:06 ChristianS wrote: It’s an interesting moment to look back on the 20th century and all the steps toward decolonization that occurred around the world. Conventional wisdom is that a few centuries earlier Europeans developed the right combination of technology and government and cultural attitude to be able and willing to trot around the world colonizing everybody so they could make a lot of money. And God knows they made a lot of money. But then over the last century that’s been slowly unraveled and all those former colonies have achieved national independence. But… why? Did Westerners stop liking money?
I’m not really qualified to answer that question. In some cases the country won a war of independence, and the Europeans fought (unsuccessfully) to keep their colonial project alive. In a lot of cases though, it seemed like there was this global tide of opinion that made the old colonial systems simply untenable. And, of course, there’s “economic imperialism” and various similar schemes aimed at reformatting the money-making operation to keep it viable in the new world order.
But that concept is premised on the idea that the elites knew the old colonial systems were untenable and they needed a new scam. Trump talks about it like something closer to a British Empire model. You just invade places, take over running the government, and extract their natural resources for profit. I’m not sure even the British were saying that in their *public messaging* – “we invaded so we could extract the natural resources and make a big profit.”
The easy explanation is that Trump’s just too dumb to understand the modern obfuscated imperialist systems and he’s fucking up the whole game. The alternative is that everybody was overthinking it, and the Western powers could have just kept invading places and installing viceroys. It would have been more profitable, it’s just that nobody was brazen enough to do it.
I’m still inclined to believe that kind of brazen colonialism is untenable in the modern age, and Trump’s people will fall flat on their face if they try. Their best path is to declare victory and go home, even though the government they left in Venezuela will probably still be pretty hostile and whatever concessions they extract probably could have happened without invading.
But they’re talking like they’re gonna keep going – stick around and occupy the place, try to take the oil, maybe even invade some other places and take their resources too. And I don’t have an exact answer to why or how that isn’t actually viable, but I think it’s not and we’ll all have a pretty good idea why in the nearish future.
I'm not a historian, but I'm well enough travelled that I can at least take a stab at this. It was a combination of many factors. The first of which was that the industrial revolution turned economies upside down and inside out. Having colonies was still super profitable, but it wasn't absolutely necessary anymore: the really profitable step was not having the resources (for almost free) to create a product, it was having the factories to build the final product at scale. And over the course of the 20th century even that changed with global supply chains, information technology: you don't need to have the factories physically, you just need guaranteed access. This kinda does away with the need for colonies for resource extraction. It still helps a bit if you own all the raw resources, but that's where the next bit comes in, which makes it a lot more costly than it used to be.
The second part is that western philosophy and learning spread across the world. Some of the first colonies to gain independence were the USA and very soon after all of South America. In a very brief nutshell, they all followed a similar pattern: European colonial elites felt they were being economically exploited, their interests were being disregarded in the Homeland, and they'd studied these new ideas from the enlightenment and French Revolution (often having been sent to Europe for an elite education). They then applied ideas such as humanism, emancipation and particularly nationalism to their native regions. The American Revolution was a bit earlier, but they can roughly be grouped together as early examples of how enlightenment ideas, when applied to colonies, lead to revolution. Education worldwide has accelerated: it is no longer the elite that learns to read, but over the course of the 20th century, schooling boomed for everybody. Ideas also evolved, and refined and this caused the further seed for decolonization of Africa and Asia: there was a growing local understanding of how European rulers were oppressing them and this fed sufficient local resistance to European rule to make it increasingly costly for European colonizers to maintain their control (insofar as at all possible in the first place, bringing us to the third reason).
The third is politics. The major waves of decolonization were at the beginning of the 19th century and midway through the 20th century. Contemporary to the Napoleonic wars, and the second world war. The colonizers were embroiled in major wars for survival. Either during or in the aftermath they didn't have the military capacity or will to quell colonial revolutions.
While Trump is clearly not limited by the third, the predominant thinking has been that reason (1) is sufficient to no longer really need colonies for modern prosperity, and (2) that the extra gains from having them are offset by increased costs of holding them. But clearly that thinking isn't universal. China fairly obviously disagrees. Whether it's due to sound economical reasoning or some misplaced idea of imperialist pride (similar to Russia's calculus in Ukraine)... I cannot say.
On January 04 2026 16:06 ChristianS wrote: It’s an interesting moment to look back on the 20th century and all the steps toward decolonization that occurred around the world. Conventional wisdom is that a few centuries earlier Europeans developed the right combination of technology and government and cultural attitude to be able and willing to trot around the world colonizing everybody so they could make a lot of money. And God knows they made a lot of money. But then over the last century that’s been slowly unraveled and all those former colonies have achieved national independence. But… why? Did Westerners stop liking money?
I’m not really qualified to answer that question. In some cases the country won a war of independence, and the Europeans fought (unsuccessfully) to keep their colonial project alive. In a lot of cases though, it seemed like there was this global tide of opinion that made the old colonial systems simply untenable. And, of course, there’s “economic imperialism” and various similar schemes aimed at reformatting the money-making operation to keep it viable in the new world order.
But that concept is premised on the idea that the elites knew the old colonial systems were untenable and they needed a new scam. Trump talks about it like something closer to a British Empire model. You just invade places, take over running the government, and extract their natural resources for profit. I’m not sure even the British were saying that in their *public messaging* – “we invaded so we could extract the natural resources and make a big profit.”
The easy explanation is that Trump’s just too dumb to understand the modern obfuscated imperialist systems and he’s fucking up the whole game. The alternative is that everybody was overthinking it, and the Western powers could have just kept invading places and installing viceroys. It would have been more profitable, it’s just that nobody was brazen enough to do it.
I’m still inclined to believe that kind of brazen colonialism is untenable in the modern age, and Trump’s people will fall flat on their face if they try. Their best path is to declare victory and go home, even though the government they left in Venezuela will probably still be pretty hostile and whatever concessions they extract probably could have happened without invading.
But they’re talking like they’re gonna keep going – stick around and occupy the place, try to take the oil, maybe even invade some other places and take their resources too. And I don’t have an exact answer to why or how that isn’t actually viable, but I think it’s not and we’ll all have a pretty good idea why in the nearish future.
I'm not a historian, but I'm well enough travelled that I can at least take a stab at this. It was a combination of many factors. The first of which was that the industrial revolution turned economies upside down and inside out. Having colonies was still super profitable, but it wasn't absolutely necessary anymore: the really profitable step was not having the resources (for almost free) to create a product, it was having the factories to build the final product at scale. And over the course of the 20th century even that changed with global supply chains, information technology: you don't need to have the factories physically, you just need guaranteed access. This kinda does away with the need for colonies for resource extraction. It still helps a bit if you own all the raw resources, but that's where the next bit comes in, which makes it a lot more costly than it used to be.
The second part is that western philosophy and learning spread across the world. Some of the first colonies to gain independence were the USA and very soon after all of South America. In a very brief nutshell, they all followed a similar pattern: European colonial elites felt they were being economically exploited, their interests were being disregarded in the Homeland, and they'd studied these new ideas from the enlightenment and French Revolution (often having been sent to Europe for an elite education). They then applied ideas such as humanism, emancipation and particularly nationalism to their native regions. The American Revolution was a bit earlier, but they can roughly be grouped together as early examples of how enlightenment ideas, when applied to colonies, lead to revolution. Education worldwide has accelerated: it is no longer the elite that learns to read, but over the course of the 20th century, schooling boomed for everybody. Ideas also evolved, and refined and this caused the further seed for decolonization of Africa and Asia: there was a growing local understanding of how European rulers were oppressing them and this fed sufficient local resistance to European rule to make it increasingly costly for European colonizers to maintain their control (insofar as at all possible in the first place, bringing us to the third reason).
The third is politics. The major waves of decolonization were at the beginning of the 19th century and midway through the 20th century. Contemporary to the Napoleonic wars, and the second world war. The colonizers were embroiled in major wars for survival. Either during or in the aftermath they didn't have the military capacity or will to quell colonial revolutions.
While Trump is clearly not limited by the third, the predominant thinking has been that reason (1) is sufficient to no longer really need colonies for modern prosperity, and (2) that the extra gains from having them are offset by increased costs of holding them. But clearly that thinking isn't universal. China fairly obviously disagrees. Whether it's due to sound economical reasoning or some misplaced idea of imperialist pride (similar to Russia's calculus in Ukraine)... I cannot say.
This is all good (and you make clear it's quite abridged), but people are really going to want to learn about/refresh themselves on Haiti for context.
The situation in St. Domingue put the Democratic-Republican party and its leader, Thomas Jefferson, in somewhat of a political dilemma. Jefferson believed strongly in the French Revolution and the ideals it promoted, but as a Virginia slaveholder popular among other Virginia slaveholders, Jefferson also feared the specter of slave revolt. + Show Spoiler +
When faced with the question of what the United States should do about the French colony of St. Domingue, Jefferson favored offering limited aid to suppress the revolt, but also suggested that the slaveowners should aim for a compromise similar to that Jamaican slaveholders made with communities of escaped slaves in 1739. Despite their numerous differences on other issues, Secretary of the Treasury and leader of the rival Federalist Party Alexander Hamilton largely agreed with Jefferson regarding Haiti policy.
The Haitian revolution came to North American shores in the form of a refugee crisis. In 1793, competing factions battled for control of the then-capital of St. Domingue, Cap-Français (now Cap-Haïtien.) The fighting and ensuing fire destroyed much of the capital, and refugees piled into ships anchored in the harbor. The French navy deposited the refugees in Norfolk, Virginia. Many refugees also settled in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. These refugees were predominantly white, though many had brought their slaves with them. The refugees became involved in émigré politics, hoping to influence U.S. foreign policy. Anxieties about their actions, along with those of European radicals also residing in the United States, led to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The growing xenophobia, along with temporarily improved political stability in France and St. Domingue, convinced many of the refugees to return home.
The beginning of the Federalist administration of President John Adams signaled a change in policy. Adams was resolutely anti-slavery and felt no need to aid white forces in St. Domingue. He was also concerned that L’Ouverture would choose to pursue a policy of state-supported piracy like that of the Barbary States. Lastly, St. Domingue’s trade had partially rebounded, and Adams wished to preserve trade links with the colony. Consequently, Adams decided to provide aid to L’Ouverture against his British-supported rivals. This situation was complicated by the Quasi-War with France—L’Ouverture continued to insist that St. Domingue was a French colony even as he pursued an independent foreign policy.
Under President Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, the United States cut off aid to L’Ouverture and instead pursued a policy to isolate Haiti, fearing that the Haitian revolution would spread to the United States. These concerns were in fact unfounded, as the fledgling Haitian state was more concerned with its own survival than with exporting revolution. Nevertheless, Jefferson grew even more hostile after L’Ouverture’s successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, ordered the execution of whites remaining after the Napoleonic attempts to reconquer St. Domingue and reimpose slavery (French defeat led to the Louisiana Purchase.) Jefferson refused to recognize Haitian independence, a policy to which U.S. Federalists also acquiesced. Although France recognized Haitian independence in 1825, Haitians would have to wait until 1862 for the United States to recognize Haiti’s status as a sovereign, independent nation.
Guess we'll find out soon. (That's Stephen Miller's wife.)
Yeah, I have a hard time seeing this as anything but a direct military threat towards a NATO ally. Frankly, I think it would be reasonable (and tragicomic) to invoke article 4 at this point.
I see it happening. at this point it is not just in the CN/RU interest to destroy a limpingly preparing for what's(seemingly - self fulfilling prophecy?) coming/living in denial/happily cheering on Trump EU. no no, current US leadership likes the idea as well.
divide et impera, draw the battle lines for the extra crazy leadership and their followers who want to go to all kinds of adventurous expeditions/special operations/... make the whole world UKRAINE again! you get a war, you get a war! then we make peace so 2026/27/28/... prize comes home like the World Cup! better yet maybe invade that not so shithole country where they give out those prizes and make it the NobelTrump prize. adding a lil Trump to the Kennedy center, I mean the success speaks for itself.
after the catastrophe of WW2 and the disasters before leading up that ultimate cluster fuck the world kinda learned. then it forgot again. a tale as old as time.
better buckle up people, it's gonna be a rough ride. and yes, you voted for this. I voted for this. democracy is to be cherished and tended to like a garden.
not just looked at and then forgotten every couple years so the snakes and pigs can have their little games turning it all to shit.
On January 04 2026 16:39 Manit0u wrote: [*] It gives the green light to other big nations to do the same. With this one move Trump has effectively validated Russia's invasion of Ukraine and potentially China's invasion of Taiwan.
The reason communist China hasn't taken over Taiwan isn't because they were waiting for permission but don't want to get a UN red card. It's because they physically can't because of the robust defense policies of capitalist democracies.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine makes him illegitimate, so he should be defeated and/or removed. Putin's claim to his own sovereignty doesn't top that, because his claim to sovereignty has been forfeited by his criminal actions. The only reason the international community can't act on that forfeiture is the very real power he still wields.
On January 04 2026 16:39 Manit0u wrote: Not to mention this whole thing makes Trump effectively a dictator since he didn't go through the proper channels and violated the US constitution. It's not that Congress wasn't on board with the action, it's that it wasn't even informed...
Under the War Powers Act, if that Act is constitutional, the president just has to notify within 48 hours of a hostile action like this.
I don't think Congress has declared war since like 1942 and they wouldn't be expected to here.
Also even if Putin went through the proper channels and informed, or even held a referendum to get the Russian people's approval to invade Ukraine, that obviously still wouldn't legitimize the war. The problem is the invasion not that Putin initiated it from a position of absolute power.
The rulebased worldorder is nice. When you are the winner in a rulebased world order. When you can no longer win in the rulebased world order you will look for a different world order that allows you to keep winning. This is where the us is at.
On January 04 2026 06:22 pmh wrote: They are actually using the oil as an argument to justify the whole operation. "but you are doing this because of the oil!" "yes we are doing this because of the oil its the best reason one can have!" It shows how much the world has changed since the pandemic. That what used to be seen as a negative is now a positive.
thats because the oil is just a good believable excuse. the actual reason is distracting from internal problems (epstein and more) and consolidate power (trump/republicans)
EPT
