It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day. That's not how these things work. This is like the first stone of an avalanche. It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.

Remember the 'Arab spring' and what came after.

I can't help but think this is going to end so poorly for the innocent men, women, and children in Venezuela. I feel for them. While Maduro seems to not be loved, these periods of violent transition can result in horrid outcomes for the local populace. I can only hope my fellow Americans start to see the light and vote the current administration out of office. I'm not hopeful.

The US continuing a long tradition of interference in LatAm:

https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/the-united-states-hist...

edit: typo

I just spent way too much time reading through this thread looking for a single post more concerned about Venezuela and its people than the poster's own politics. I gave up when I noticed I was only a 1/4 of the way through thread, should have started from the bottom.

I almost feel bad for the people who instigated the War on Terror. They did not know how badly it would go - and they worked really hard and tirelessly to build and sell their illegitimate case to the American public.

This administration is making the same mistakes - but in living memory of the first, with a less noble prize, and with complete derision of Congress and Americans' intelligence.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured in an unannounced/unnamed military operation by a superpower is wrong from a principled standpoint, and that it’s destabilising a country with 30+ million people if not the entire region.

If you're ever confused by Don's actions, just remember: all he cares about is gaining more wealth (and power if possible). This was done to enrich Don and the oil barons who funded his campaign.

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...

Prediction: the regime will not fall. This will destabilize the country further, not so much the regime itself.

There will be a decrease in oil production, marginally boosting world prices. What's probably being taken out right now is the regime's ability to react in any meaningful way to the oil embargo.

It will also allow Maduro to throw his hands in the air and blame the US for all of VZLA's ills going forward. More poverty, more suffering, more migration.

And we wonder why rogue regimes seek nuclear weapons. My biggest concern in geopolitics is non-proliferation and every little thing we do like this works against it.

A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it.

Maduro is not good for Venezuela.

The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.

The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".

The US is giving another clear message that it does not care about global order, just global control. We're back in the 70s.

There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, its a power play, if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes. Pinochet, The Brazilian regime are all here as testament to that.

I hope the power change turns out better for the Venezuelans. I hope this is a catalyst of change for a better government. Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.

Here's a trick I've learnt to get an authentic view of events like these, a nice way to parse through the keyboard warrior and ivory tower voices and noise is to hear what Venezuelans, the millions of Venezuelan migrants, and the citizens of neighboring countries who've had to reckon with the legacy of Chavez think about this. You can extend this to anything really with good results.

No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.

Maduro is a dictator and a murderer but I'm sure most people should now be uncomfortable with the way this was handled. Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold and no there won't be regime remaining because Maduro doesn't have popular support it requires to do so.

I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do or if it will have negative implications in the future. I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.

Having said that, international law is a myth. At the power level of nation states what we have is basically anarchy where interests is what matters. Not saying its right or wrong but it is what it is.

"It (Venezuela) currently exports (oil) about 900,000 barrels per day and China is by far its biggest buyer."

Ah ok, so this was about China. MAGA's fixation on China is certainly going to lead to more instability.

This is pretty standard for America, nothing new.

https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...

Let freedom ring. Every Venezuelan I know is happy for the regime to fall.

Let's hope Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Russia follow soon.

A lot of talk about how the administration didn't even try to justify this, but I think that the administration actually believes they did justify it. They exist in some bubble completely un-tethered from reality. I don't know what that means for the future but it's terrifying.

As someone old enough to have seen the US invade too many countries, I'm struck by the lack of effort put into justifying this sort of military action these days. There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal and I have no idea where the courts or history will ultimately land on that decision. But the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far.

It’s mind blowing how many people here justify this because Maduro is “bad for Venezuela”, as if the US was appointed to be to police of the world.

Such self centric view that usually leads to dark places.

Should be on the lookout for major upcoming domestic news they're trying to bury.

I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.

Maduro is alive and charged with crimes in a US court. So, we will see evidence presented I guess. This is new.

I'm surprised Maduro wasn't just killed, and wonder if he might somehow die in US custody. The US will have to make a case in court while the whole world watches. That will be embarrassing I expect.

https://youtu.be/ijFOLv17RX4

Notice the hypocrisy of the "explosions reported" title instead of "US bombs Venezuela".

If this is all true, then China has been pretty much given green light to invade Taiwan, in my opinion.

"There's so much oil in here, US is about to invade this dish!"

--Chef Ramsay

"Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to 'liberate' by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest.

The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election', 'protecting interests', 'restoring order'. The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.

The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable."

-Jose Mario

https://bsky.app/profile/cristianfarias.com/post/3mbjlwkmb6c...

FIFA looking awful silly right now.

So the US will be excluded from the SWIFT banking system? Heavy international sanctions will be put in place? Europe will send weapons and money to help Venezuela defend itself?

No? Oh... just checking.

If it's to get access to the oil reserve, it is bad news for the shale oil industry in the USA : maybe "drill baby drill" is not feasible any more, and the only way to maintain the level of GDP is to get the oil from somewhere else.

Or it's just banking oil to prepare a war with China.

Thank FSM some AI-first is going to create fusion any time soon to power the robots solving climate change.

It’s incredibly depressing to watch the same mistake made again well within my own lifetime. Regime change by chopping off the top failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and it’ll fail here too. Many will die. It doesn’t matter how bad or illegitimate the deposed leader is.

I think people are overindexed on the US's failures to turn Islamic theocracies into democracies. The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.

I get slightly desperate realizing how people are lead to such naive discussions, even in a place with supposedly instructed, informed persons. Maduro may be a dictator, a murderer, whatever. This has absolutely no relation with the reasons for US invading, bombing and killing Venezuelans, or whichever country. For about a century, US has been doing it all over the world, not because they wanna live in a better, peaceful world - quite the opposite, they've been doing it for supporting coups and stablishing dictatorships that favour their supremacy, their role as the most powerful country in the world. Do you really, really believe Mr. Donald is very concerned about the lives of poor venezuelans? Or, just to stay in the region, he supports El Salvador dictator because he's a very nice fellow?

I'm horrible at reading between the lines, but this just smells of oil related concerns. It's not about a bad leader, it's not about drugs.

My entire life, we have always been at war. :|

“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” ― George Orwell

So we are back to the 1980's CIA actions destabilising South America, each day feels more like Cold War is here.

Read: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-us-is-attempting-...

Prof. Philips P Obrien's analysis is an interesting one, also highlighting Cuba's reliance on Venezuelan oil, which complicates the situation further.

Venezuela accuses US after explosions and low-flying aircraft reported in Caracas – live

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...

Venezuela accuses US of attacking Caracas as explosions rock capital

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/explosions-rep...

At best this is a violation of international law, at worst we have seen many times how badly things can turn when leaders are removed by foreign power.

Hard to draw conclusions from early reports like this. Situations involving explosions tend to generate a lot of noise before verified facts emerge, especially in politically tense environments. Best to wait for confirmation on cause, scale, and impact before speculating, and hopefully accurate information follows quickly.

“If we [Economic Hit Men] falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military.”

John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

That's not going to play well with DJT's bid for Nobel Peace Prize. Although I guess invading Sweden would be a solution, and there are probably plenty of reasons to invade Sweden - they must be looking badly at Russia, or he can mix it up with Groenland, or something.

That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per default", leaving only Oceania ? Should Australians brace themselves ?

On the legality front

Congress practically matters when significant mobilization, boots on the ground, money, with high likelihood of many lives lost. Iraq. Not random one-off adventures.

Otherwise modern Presidents have done this thing for decades.

I think it’s more an effective argument to question this as a policy. As in “is there a plan for what comes next”. Congress should be holding hearings and performing oversight to understand whether theres actually a plan and to allow debate.

Footage is quickly spreading, looks like strikes on military bases as well as a bunch of low-flying helicopters, so a strike + a ground invasion? They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent for a war against Venezuela. Wonderful.

We have seen the same scenario. First military occupation, second a puppy US-phile government, third oil infra rebuild by US oil companies. Simultaneously a clear sign to Russia/China who the boss is in South America.

Hmm, think about that if China does the same thing to Taiwan tonight as well. Capture the current pretendent and install a new pro-China government.

Replace Venezuela with Iraq, and Maduro with Saddam, and read this whole comment section. We never learn.

Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?

We tried every peaceful way to get rid of the regime, they stole the elections, commit multiple human rights violations, the list of crimes is too long. The majority of Venezuelans wanted this to finally happen.

Turns out Douglas Dykhouse really meant this years US New Year wishes when he said "Americans and Russians share the same values".

If you think this is primarily about drugs and authoritarianism, don't overlook this one important dimension: the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world is...Venezuela.

[0] https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8...

A boy receives a horse as a gift. Villagers say, "How wonderful!"

The Zen master replies, "We'll see".

The boy falls while riding the horse, breaks his leg. Villagers say, "How terrible!"

The master says, "We'll see".

War comes, all young men are drafted, but the boy is spared due to his leg. Villagers say, "How lucky!"

The master says, "We'll see".

I wonder if Tim Cook is enjoying how his “investments” are being spent.

As for the rest of the us, I suppose now we should sanction the US

I am in favor of leaders fighting each other directly instead of sending millions of their citizens to die in their stead.

I can only hope there's a plan for what happens in Venezuela now. But I'm certain that as long as it isn't a protracted war with millions dead, it is better for everyone than what's going on in Ukraine.

I will spare saying the obvious illegality of such actions and how serious this is.

I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s, when the world felt like it was going towards a brighter age of peace and respect. Berlin wall falling, China opening, Apartheid ending in South Africa, even Palestine and Israel were moving towards a more peaceful future.

But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages.

General public not caring anymore about any tragedy, it's just news, general public being fine with their press freedom being eroded, journalists being spied and targeted, more and more conflicts all around.

I just don't see nor feel we're heading where we should considering how developed and rich we are.

We should boast in how well we raise our kids, how safe and healthy our cities are, but it's nothing but ego, ego, money and money.

This is all turning worse and worse.

This is illegal, immoral, unsupported by the vast majority of the US population and requiring immediate action by every US citizen and elected official.

To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night:

1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.

2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night.

3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.

4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.

5. There is still stability because most of the people in charge are still there. Only the illegitimate president is gone. Venezuela can have a real election now.

Just commenting here to see how many American clowns justifying these actions based on my down votes.

American anti human parasites are curse of this planet.

There's precedent in the 1989 invasion of Panama and the capture of Manuel Noriega, who was indicted for drug trafficking in the US.

Laws often fail to matter in cases where they should. If a country as powerful as the USA wants to handle a problematic country (from its perspective) by whatever means, they will do so and with a glaikit smirk on the faces of its leaders and politicians. "Here's democracy and justice on your face," has been a typical American foreign policy for a long time whether we like it or not. A lot of people thankfully do see through this pretence, but also at the same time, the fierce followers of Cheneyism are trying hard to find possible explanations to legitimize this.

> "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition"

How do you run a country without invading it or at least having a puppet regime already in place?

This is a masterpiece on how to sidestep a national debt crisis.

1. Don't acknowledge the problem directly.

2. Take over Venezuela's GDP by benevolent force or whatever he is calling it.

3. Pay off the debt interest with new funding windfall.

4. Profit

"US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Venezuela that strong action would be taken if Guyana is invaded or an attack is launched on ExxonMobil's oil assets in the Stabroek Block." https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... Why take a chance?

Before jumping in with an opinion on this event, it's a good idea to bone up on the modern history of Venezuela. I recommend this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4

From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. If you're looking for bias, he is neither American nor lives in the US.

Surprise, surprise, US still the country of regime change and military intervention, when control of or access to valuable natural resources are at play.

US flexing its muscles and showing that it's in charge of its "backyard", just as it always has been.

Please don't insult our intelligence with comments about how this is about justice, drugs, or democracy. I've lived long enough to have seen this movie many times.

Meanwhile, One America News Network's front page reporting that Mamdani is undoing protections against "antisemitism"; DOJ is demanding Minnesota voting records; Will Smith accused of sexual harassment of a male violinist; and, of course, polling readers on the question "Does President Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?"

http://archive.today/PIvHL

So we know what many Red-Hats are seeing right now.

The "president of peace," everybody!

Hypocrisy is the greatest western value. And the west really likes its values

Reading through this thread is disturbing not because people disagree, but because of how the disagreement is happening.

What I'm seeing is a breakdown in the ability to hold consistent principles across contexts. The same people who condemned Russian actions in Ukraine are now making "realpolitik" arguments about Venezuela. The same people who claim to oppose foreign intervention are now calculating whether this was "done cleanly enough." Positions seem determined entirely by tribal affiliation rather than any coherent framework about sovereignty, international law, or the use of military force.

There's also a striking historical amnesia at work. The US has been running this exact playbook in Latin America for over a century. We have extensive data on how these interventions typically unfold, what the second and third-order effects tend to be, and how the initial justifications relate to the actual outcomes. Yet that entire body of evidence seems to have evaporated from the conversation. People are reasoning about this as if it's a novel situation requiring fresh analysis, rather than a well-worn pattern.

Most concerning is the casual normalization. We're discussing whether it's "justified" to invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader as if this is a routine policy question. The window of what's considered shocking has shifted so far that outright imperial aggression gets the same treatment as a zoning dispute. When someone points out we didn't even attempt to follow Constitutional requirements for declaring war, the response is essentially "yeah, we stopped doing that decades ago, so what?"

The nihilism is the most insidious part. "What are we supposed to do about it?" Well, at minimum, we could refuse to let the Overton window keep drifting. We could maintain some continuity of ethical standards. We could recognize power plays for what they are instead of generating elaborate post-hoc rationalizations about democracy and narcotics.

The question isn't whether Maduro is a dictator (he is) or whether this particular operation succeeded tactically (it apparently did). The question is whether we've collectively lost the capacity to see what we're actually doing and where this pattern of behavior leads.

So the USA is officially a roque state internally and externally and was brought down by its very own law and order party. Poetic.

Always remember the role of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in preparing this unprovoked and illegal (under international law) attack on Venezuela by awarding the prize to María Corina Machado.

Julian Assange actually filed a Swedish criminal complaint against Nobel Foundation officials, alleging misappropriation of Nobel endowment funds and facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, and it seeks immediate freezing of funds and a full investigation: https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...

Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela?

Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?

All your "moral" comments don't matter, I live in Argentina and the ABSURD amount of venezuelans that migrated here in the last 10/15 years is nothing you'll ever see. I have 3 venezuelan friends here and a couple more that I only know (one is an Uber I once took and have a couple neighbors in the building), all were able to escape the dictatorship and left their family there, I just can't express with words the JOY I saw in their statuses from WhatsApp and Instagram today when the door to maybe go back to their country finally opened.

One of my friends is my motorcycle mechanic, met him in 2015 when I bought my first KTM, still my mechanic to this day. A lot of the bike services I stayed with him talking while he worked, I listened to a lot of his stories from back in the day, why he had to run, why his family stayed, how he had to send money to them to eat and some other horror stories.

In the name of my friends, if you think what happened today is bad, you can respectfully go fuck yourself.

It's hard to think through the implications of living in a world where it is accepted that countries with more power simply invade each other and take land and possessions from those with less power. I can't think how it doesn't ultimately lead to broadscale instability and ultimately, war. In turn it depresses me that this is toxic to the humanity progressing and solving its bigger picture problems.

Responsibility for the aftermath is with the US. They previously didn't do a good job in Afghanistan or Iraq after they assumed defacto control, without really trying to make the countries stand on their own. Life is not much better for the average person there.

Venezuela has lots of oil and drugs. If different factions fight between themselves there's no reason you couldn't end up with a divided and dangerous country that in some ways could be worse for the people than Maduro.

The best way for "oppressed" people to be liberated is through some joint effort by parties that really want to help out and assume responsibility, or by supporting a revolution that naturally takes over. I don't think there's been any cases of success from this process of forcibly removing the dictator, and crossing your fingers that things will go well.

As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.

Also, some people seems to miss the fact that South America military power is very weak, and we, culturally, are way less proned to fight and die than people in middle east.

Yeah, we know this is all about oil, and I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge. But the fact is we don't have a, undeniable, dictator as neighbor, and my friends can see their families again.

Democracy being restored, one oil well a day.

Is that the beginning of a three-days special military operation?

Maybe the whole attempt is to bully the current government into giving the Venezuelan/Cuban faction in the US government exactly what they want. They want an entry into the society, and to open it up, maybe among other things.

With this USA is essentially saying that "see I can just walk into your home and no one will stop me, so better do as I say".

I will be surprised if USA tries to land ground troops into that country. Running the country, I suspect, will be extremely ugly for USA. OTOH, if they can just coerce the existing government into giving them exactly what they want, then it would certainly be mission accomplished.

It's all a huge gamble, and will depend on how obstinate the Venezuelan setup is.

What I find interresting and would like to see discussed more, is the psychology at play that makes us believe this is another "exception to the rule of international law". I wonder if one could generalize the terror management theory (TMT) to social obedience?

Emanuel Macron, President of the French Republic:

"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.

By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.

The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible. "

- https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/2007525843401154891

Aggregated the discussions for easier reading: https://hn-discussions.top/venezuela-maduro-captured-us-stri...

This is going to make the US look less predictable to adversaries, and that's, on balance, perhaps not such a bad thing.

It will be interesting to observe how the aftermath unfolds. If the US succeeds in installing a gov't which gains some level of legitimacy, perhaps by stoking the economy, then this will be a significant win for the US. If not, it will be a strong "the US is the newish sick man" signal.

That said, it's one thing to pull this in Venezuela, another thing to annex Greenland.

Damn. And no large-scale military activity in play.

I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win, especially where Maduro has been considered being more and more authoritarian, rejecting democracy, and probably would've been willing to sacrifice thousands of lives in a ground war if this increasing threat was handled less finely.

Add to this the fact that Venezuela has crazy amounts of oil BUT a totally mismanaged and badly exploited extraction operation and the economy is in the toilet. Unless this somehow leads in to a Libya situation, everyone could benefit from this, compared to the hopelessness of the past.

If you're wondering WHY, good to read the Maduro indictment from 2020[1] and the press release at the time[2]

[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6819579-Maduro-Indic...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...

There was a time in my life when I would spend a few hours learning about US-Venezuela relations and the Venezuelan government and related topics so I could have a skin deep understanding of it and play an internet expert in threads like this.

I’m not going to do that today. It’s sunny, and I want to spend time with family. Being naive about this topic doesn’t affect the core of things I want to be knowledgeable about. And the reality is, having a vote only gives me nominally more agency over US foreign policy than someone who can’t vote. I am mostly just observing.

This is a unilateral invasion and regime change operation with no Congressional authorization, no UN mandate, no coalition. It's unprecedented in its brazenness—not because the U.S. hasn't done regime change before (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.), but because there's not even the pretense of justification or coalition-building.

The "narco-terrorism" charges are a legal fig leaf. The real drivers appear to be oil (Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves), geopolitical positioning (removing a Russian/Chinese/Iranian ally from the hemisphere), domestic politics (Trump wants a "win" and to appear strong), and what seems like a personal vendetta given how publicly Trump has obsessed about Maduro.

What's disturbing goes beyond the act itself. Trump literally said the U.S. will "run Venezuela"—not "support democracy," not "help transition"—run the country. That's colonial language with no euphemism.

There was no Congressional authorization. This violates the War Powers Act at minimum. If a president can unilaterally invade a country, kidnap its leader, and declare we're taking control, what's the limiting principle? Where does this stop?

The mask is completely off. Previous imperial adventures at least performed the ritual of justification, built coalitions, went through motions at the UN. This is naked power. Trump explicitly mentioned oil, saying American companies will "invest billions" to "refurbish" Venezuela's oil industry. He's just admitting it openly.

What we're witnessing is the final abandonment of even the performance of international norms. The question isn't whether this is legal or justified—it clearly isn't. The question is whether there are any remaining constraints on executive power when it comes to foreign military action.

Interesting that World War 3 never happened; instead, we smoothly transitioned to War World, where war is just something that happens all the time, randomly, intermittently, undeclared, and interminably.

I remember, when people said, that the military would refuse illegal orders.

Good times

And had a good laugh

Statement from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

https://x.com/i/status/2007359985546674407

I think Venezuela should take this to the ICC. (The ICJ is irrelevant).

Righteous Americans are coming! They are here to fix the whole world!

Claim: according to any sensible definition of international law, this action was illegal. See [1] for example.

Would anyone care to offer a genuinely held counter argument? Preferably based on legal expertise.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/is-there-any-l...

I hope the rest of south america doesn’t let this stand. Heavy sanctions on US, maybe even military intervention. The US can’t go to war with an entire continent.

„The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

President DONALD J. TRUMP“

The only interest Americans have is oil. nothing else.

Last month the US president pardoned a Honduran politician who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into America.

Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.

"Venezuelan allies Russia, Cuba and Iran were quick to condemn the strikes as a violation of sovereignty."

Right, Russia, who has been attacking Ukraine not just for one night, but for four years, is now going to lecture the US about violations of sovereignty. Their moral high ground, if they ever had any, is long gone.

I'm not sad if Maduro's gone. I'm even less sad if this results in actual freedom for Venezuela after 20 years of nightmare.

But I am not happy about the president of the US, on his own authority, choosing to remove the head of other countries, on rather flimsy pretexts. (If he presents actual evidence that Maduro was actively and deliberately shipping drugs to the US, or worse, criminals, then I will change my opinion. But I need evidence, not just claims and bluster.)

If the last couple of years have taught anyone anything, your country is an open target if it doesn't have its own Iron Dome.

“You know as well as we do that justice, as the world goes, is only a matter between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” From Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.

I personally think this quote explains the Trump administration’s worldview far better than anything Trump himself would say.

> Nicolás Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.

I'm sorry but "possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."

When did this happen exactly ??

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...

[flagged]

Somehow, I'm starting to agree with Russia's reason for launching the war because Ukraine wanted to join NATO.

That easily makes a Nobel Peace Prize. An attack on Iran will make it into the world's first Double Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, it's also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.

Before anyone starts telling us how they are attacking a legitimate president and that the people will defend it, take your time to find your closest Venezuelan (there are 8 million around the world, so don't need to look to far) and ask him how he feels about this, you will find that happy is part of their emotions.

If you’re tracking signals around geopolitical events, there’s a quirky one a few folks like to watch: the Pentagon Pizza Index. It’s a real-time dashboard that monitors pizza shop activity near the Pentagon as an informal indicator of unusual late-night activity. Historically people have pointed to spikes in food orders before major operations as a sort of low-tech OSINT signal. https://www.pizzint.watch/

Obviously this isn’t hard intelligence — correlation isn’t causation — but when combined with more grounded indicators (verified reports, diplomatic channels, satellite data) it can be a piece of the broader picture. Just a fun example of how people try to find patterns in publicly available data.

Interesting that they chose to capture him alive. Surely this poses a great problem to the administration. Maduro didn't exactly commit any crimes....

This is a horrifying way for any country to act, and millions of people will be hurt. Truly a travesty of the greatest order.

Lots of people seem to expect that the map will look exactly the same a thousand years from now; but the last hundred years of relative - historically speaking - stability are the exception, not the rule.

The irony is that this is a president of the US that wants to have a Nobel peace prize.

I get why some people were neo-con the first 3 or so times (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) but it's criminal not to learn after failing 3 times over. I want the most severe consequences for the people who have enabled this to happen again.

"Venezuela has ~2.7× as much proved oil as the UAE (303 / 111 ≈ 2.73)."

Pretty incredible

Those who rejoice today with the fall of Maduro may not rejoice when China or India or any other regional player decides to topple the government of another country and kidnap their leaders and then install a "friendly" regime in their place.

Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.

Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?

Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.

Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.

I'm a bit relieved that UN will do something about this:

https://youtu.be/9DLuALBnolM?si=Vg56GgJCisLOqvw0&t=146

Unless Maduro was somehow actually deposed BEFORE the US mil came into the country, or at least into Maduro's residence, Trump just changed the standing international order of centuries to allow kidnapping of heads of state

So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".

This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.

https://vxtwitter.com/FaytuksNetwork/status/2007338956241985...

Not Venezuelan helicopters...

They should have done the same stunt in Iran and remove Chamenei. Dictatorships without a dictator don't survive long.

1. Take over the oil companies

2. Reduce price of Gas in USA.

3. Everyone will celebrate

4. Next election. > 80% majority.

it's truly incredible the harm that the psychological need for "strong man" leaders has on the world. What's even more strange, in my opinion, is that the bumbling and incoherent stuff Trump says is actually viewed by anyone as tough or strong. In my view it shows tremendous fear of directness and accountability. To call it womanish would be an insult to women.

Similarly, how does picking on much weaker countries (some of whom are allies) seem tough to anyone? In my view it's ugly and shows weakness rather than strength.

He needs the oil to fuel the military as they invade Canada and Mexico and Greenland. He wants a north American empire.

Come back in 3 years and tell me if i was right.

Well this aged like shit [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100816

How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?

We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about ideals like liberal democracy or allies, but is a warmongering corporatist autocracy.

I just called my representatives and told them they need to do their jobs and put a check on the executive branch and stop this illegal, undeclared war. Please do the same.

If USA can attack Venezuela for oil, why other countries, like France, couldn't do the same to Qatar or Koweit for example? France has more needs for oil that USA.

24 hours and no zionists complaining about how this is not tech news/flagging the post.

Thank you, I guess, for allowing the rest of us to talk about whatever we want.

"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US ..."

should be

"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US authoritarian government ..."

or (better, really)

"Venezuela has accused the US ..."

I’ll bet FIFA feels pretty silly now about their peace award.

It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans. Especially the Venezuelans. It’s been 25 years of hell. They don’t really care at the moment if Trump did it for oil. You think Russia and China just wanted the recipe for Arepas? That’s the common saying. Venezuelans just wanted a chance to live a normal life. This is not a society like Afghanistan that cannot function as a democracy when autocrats are removed.

The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.

The USA are a blight on the Americas and the larger World. Their fanatic population will immediately jump in to justify a violent, naked attempt at stealing this country's mineral resources. This already happened dozens of times, always with terrible outcome, yet here we are again. The fall of the American empire can't happen fast enough.

Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."

What's to stop Russia from simply abducting whoever we install in his place? If we can do it, anyone can. The arrogance is unbelievable.

All Americans are at fault since it claims to be a democracy. They should all be sanctioned into the ground. This is the M.O they deal with others on.

No Interpol or ICC warrant, no answer to sovereignty or jurisdictional issues, no justified claim of extraterritoriality.

Can't we call a kidnapping what it is?

well maybe the world is indeed back to different spheres of influence, as per the latest US security policy

overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants

hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..

Politics aside: If this is all true and was a snatch and grab, it will go down as one of the most impressive military operations in the 21st century.

For everyone defending these actions on the basis of Maduro's own corruption and the desires of Venezuelans, I would encourage you to research the history of American intervention and regime change in Latin America. It is impossible to anticipate the second and third order effects of this change, and how it will be absorbed in the local politics. We are witnessing the return of American military intervention in Latin American, nothing more and nothing less.

To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.

Oh, it seems Mexico is next. I'm afraid to go to sleep these days, you never know what kind of world you will find in the morning.

Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.

One person made a decision.

And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.

Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.

It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.

after Iran and now venezuela

Iran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????

what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??

This is illegal, immoral and not supported by the vast majority of the country. Every us citizen and every elected official needs to act, now, to stop this.

Well, this thread certainly hasn't aged well. Lots of people here trying to spin this as an act of liberation while the real motivation has been more than obvious.

Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!

What did y’all think María Machado won the Nobel for over Trump? Does it even matter or is orange man bad all you care about anymore? HN was over the moon to see her win just a few months ago.

US declares war on Venezuela without Congress. The republicans have really destroyed the constitution.

Rules based order.

The other takeaway: if you have oil, and no nukes, in due course, the US will come to steal it.

Summary: Venezuela just lost its oil.

I honestly have little sympathy, and not because Maduro is a dictator or whatever label the US has given him. It's because he spent his country's resources on useless, incompetent staff that fell apart before any conflict even began. Say what you want about Iran, but at least they maintain a solid defensive posture.

Any country that doesn't invest in its own tech stack gets what it deserves. This is information superiority in action; made possible by the deep proliferation of American technology. The US is now leveraging information warfare for what used to require physical force. The difference is stark. We've seen it with the Hezbollah pager attacks, high-profile targeting in Iran, and now this.

Natural selection in progress.

I understand the point that some dictators are so bad he damages the whole region. The world invented the procedure to resolve it through the UN and the international institutions. Yet one superpower decides to do it itself because no one can stop it. I think that makes world more chaotic, it is the opposite of restoration of the order ax it was declared.

It can’t be fun running HN right now. Sorry, dang et al.

It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.

Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!

(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)

How much equity in chevron will the federal gov get for this? 20% seems fair.

Will BP want “their” fields back?

What kind of visa Mr. Maduro was using when he entered the US?

I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.

But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.

When is the US military going to start going after all those Venezuelan fentanyl labs?

Does Americans really believe a chief of a big country is state is a drug smuggler?

They're American aircraft. It sure seems like after repeatedly threatening to invade Venezuela, Trump is now invading Venezuela. For what though?

I think something like The Hague is the moderate position with this administration.

  Maduro is a dictator who stayed in power by force after losing an election. No one who believes in democracy should mourn his fall. Trump's pretexts and potential geopolitical deals especially w Russia deserve scrutiny, but the Venezuelan people deserve a chance at freedom. 
  
  As with everything Trump does, his motivations will be about personal power and enrichment. This does not contradict that Maduro was an illegitimate thug allied with others like him. However his removal was arranged (deal?) it shakes the global forces of dictatorship.

  Condemning a nation's people to authoritarianism and repression because of potential bad outcomes after the fall of their dictator is a free world observer's luxury. Democracy and prosperity can never be guaranteed, but the opportunities for them should be promoted.

https://x.com/Kasparov63/status/2007435764678705347

Maduro has apparently been indicted in New York on various drug trafficking conspiracy charges and gun charges[0].

Seeing how various other cases have went (James Comey, Letitia James) in this administration run by loyalists, what are the chances that he's acquitted due to prosecutorial incompetence?

0: https://xcancel.com/AGPamBondi/status/2007428087143686611

I grow tired of the might makes right world we inhabit again. If you are not a citizen of a hegemon, or their allies, all the best envisioning a stable environment to thrive for your children when you know that the price of sovereignty and nationalised natural resources is a US invasion.

Dang - is there a way to view all the comments on a story in a single page?

Don't know why, this link gives me:

Access Denied

Our apologies, the content you requested cannot be accessed.

It's explicitly about oil, right?

Wikipedia [1]:

> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”

> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."

PBS [2]:

> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_invasio...

[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-want-it-back-...

Wtf

Captured? To do what with?

No surprise Pam Bondi can just use her Grok subscription to make an incitement appear out of thin air, but what jury is going to be fair and unbiased here? How are American citizens Maduro’s peers? How could a judge have jurisdiction over him?

The other day there were people here seriously arguing that China was more interventionist than the US.

The latest US mass theft and aggression is far from surprising to anyone that studied south American history. Trump just drops the humanitarian pretexts, but the act itself is exactly in line with how US treats South America.

Wondering what and who is going to fill the power vacuum there.

Brazil, Iran and China should be prepared for the worst now

Can china use that excuse to do the same thing to Myanmar?

It is not about oil but... blue gold[1]

[1] https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11372/

Huh. I thought Greenland was going to be the 51st state.

The Guardian reports that Maduro has been charged with: "narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."

Good to know that possession of machine guns is finally being made illegal by the US!

Marco Rubio needed this for his presidential run in 2028. Does this mean that Putin will look the other way for Maduro as long as Trump looks the other way when Putin captures or kills Zelenskyy? Have they officially agreed to divide the world as spheres of influence?

Gotta get those gasoline prices down before the midterms.

looking through the comments one thing I find strange that no one has picked up on is that maduro had met the chinese hours before being captured. To me I think the initial plan was to just let the economy tank by blockading the economy, chinese stepped into help and trump goes nuclear and kidnaps the guy. still pretty shocking that they wont hand over power to the party who won the election and plan on setting up a puppet state and steal the oil, does seem USA has become some despot country albeit with a large army.

So they are taking the oil reserves, that's why they came, oh the hypocrisy is unbearable, the democratic powerhouse terrorising a weak country the same way for what they condemned Russia for.

That's one way to bring down energy inflation...

There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?

The congress people who are military veterans recently put out a public service announcement reminding those in the military that they must refuse illegal orders, and Trump called that reminder of the law "treasonous" and said the veterans should be executed for reminding people of the law.

There should be military tribunals for all involved here to ensure that law and order is maintained. The US is losing its constitution, its rule of law. There is not country if we have two different sets of laws, one for normal people but zero laws for those following rhe president's wishes. That's a monarchy.

Just checked on r/conservative what the diehard MAGA fans are saying and they seem to be very happy that Trump is attacking the Cartels and Chinese influence in their backyard. That seems to be the current narrative among MAGA right now.

1. This distracts from the Epstein files.

2. President for peace he never has (silly FIFA award aside).

3. They’re more interested in oil than any other stated goals.

4. This is straight out of the republican playbook of tanking the economy and using a war to distract from it and prop up defense contractors.

5. US regime changes are always a disaster.

Trump's post: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...

As a German I see a lot of history repeating.

What a disgrace

arabs and iran you should now team up and do something about your collective security, because US is now openly started kidnaping the future of countries. team up with pakistan and ensure it's economic stability and make some NATO like agreement and get atleas 10 Nukes each otherwise you will also see the same day as maduro. i beleave you have very little time.

If Maduro had paid the going rate to the right lobbyists it wouldn't have come to this.

He should have learned from the example of the ex Honduran president who was recently pardoned by Trump.

So the US can just fly into a country and kidnap it's president and his wife at will now? Just because Donald Trump feels like it. And most Americans will somehow praise and love it.

What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?

Trust in the US is officially broken

Venezuela's major crime is having natural and human resources that it won't allow multinational corporations to exploit.

It’s so simple to understand. There are tens of dictatorships around. Why this one? Shit is fucked more a lot more in Congo. Why is the US not interested? This is not about human rights. This is about oil.

Trump's handlers have proven the USA military don't care about the Constitution. They're happy to enforce the dictators will even though they know it to be unlawful. Seems like that is a significant movement that opens the door for Trump to be even more evil. They've rallied to the sex offender, they probably have to follow through now to avoid joining him and his cohort in jail.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a new kind of crime committed by the US? We've been involved in a lot of regime change operations but I can't think of one where we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state and bring them to the US. I guess Saddam Hussein but that was after we caused the collapse?

Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?

Yup. Venezuelans voted for the Bolivaran Revolution. This is it. We shouldn’t waste our time with it. Especially because every time we topple a regime like this it creates a refugee crisis and a huge influx of refugees to the U.S.

USA, the world's bullying.

It brings joy to my heart every time democracy is brought to an oil rich country, no matter what the price is.

Maduro was a monstrous dictator who was guaranteed to kill more people than this US strike did. And there is an opposition party which has been suppressed by Maduro, but is otherwise ready to go. There is much hope to be had for this beautiful country and its people now.

Hopefully this act will also have a chilling effect on other vile left wing dictators like those in North Korea and Cuba

Venezuelan president Maduro captured and flown out of country following ‘large scale’ US attack, Trump says – live

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...

Combat footage is coming out by the minute. Watching it, I don't understand how Americans can be so fundamentally evil. Watching helicopters gun people on the ground down. What makes you so sick in the head that you would do this? How could you obey these orders and feel nothing as you slaughter innocent people? There isn't even any possible pretext to this invasion. They know what they're doing and still choose to do it. It's utterly incomprehensible.

Very disappointing to see some of the arguments being put forth in favour of this blatant aggression. After reading through quite a few comments I'm left with the impression that very many people seem to hold some pretty dubious opinions:

1. That previous justifications in the lead up to this event are now irrelevant or to be ignored or forgotten about ('narco-terrorism', 'it's our oil', 'sanctions busting', etc).

- These were all weak to begin with (but are still relevant because the truth is in there and stated almost explicitly - i.e. 'US interests').

2. That this attack on Venezuelan sovereignty was done for moral reasons ('bad regime').

- Even accepting that the government of Venezuela is a 'bad regime', this is insufficient - there are many arguably much worse governments in the world.

3. That might is right.

- Correct in some sense but morally bereft.

All in all a lot of post-facto nonsense on display.

I'm frankly appalled at the self-serving moral blindness on display here. I refuse to believe that people are arguing in good faith here. Disappointing to see from the otherwise thoughtful commenters on this site.

To anyone making the above arguments, let me ask you - what do you think of the saying "do unto others as you would have done unto you"?

Chinese envoy was meeting Maduro just hours ago in Miraflores. Wonder how that factors into the situation

Oil's a hell of a drug

If one believes we are moving towards major conflict with China this sort of operation is justifiable given Maduro's closeness to the CCP.

It is very unlikely this will be met with anything like a coordinated condemnation from the Europeans given Maduro's closeness to Russia. Hence giving Trump some degree of international political cover for the move.

I think it will be regarded as a poor move long term to so boldly put the us stamp on what will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or two

I'm admittedly somewhat ignorant of all the details but I don't see what the real benefit is

my only guess is that it's to disincentivize the Russians and Chinese from being more involved in South America but it feels like it could do the opposite and act as an annoying wedge

I guess even the last former voter now understands that a certain orange man is a huge liar. So much for "I'm gonna get the peace nobel prize" by Invasion 2.0. Actually, it is not even an invasion right now - it is just a distraction from certain files. How much has not yet been revealed with regard to that network involving underage people?

What a publicity hound. Ratings plummeting? Nothing like a foreign war to pump the numbers.

Best it be a puny helpless country, so nobody (important) gets killed. Just some brown folk from South America, nobody cares about them.

Anything to serve the ego; absolutely no crime or moral outrage is off-limits. Long as it serves that endless pit that is ego.

Fantastic news. Hope Venezuelans are able to have their Democracy back.

Am I going to see Venezualan flags pop up all over European capitals like I did when Putin did the exact same thing in Ukraine that Trump just did? I had highly doubt it. I guess invading foreign countries is fine if it’s „our“ side doing it.

Drill baby drill.

Non-USA citizen here. What's going on?

I just woke up to this madness, and have heard nothing about it prior to today. Has this come as a surprise to everyone in the USA too, or were there murmurings leading up to it? What was the reason given? I'm presuming there was _something_, even if it was clearly nonsense?

Trump is solidifying control over (North and South) American oil to ensure oil reserves in the event of a global war. China's first move would be to control middle eastern and russian oil - choking manufacture.

There is a war coming. A larger war.

Trump just said that Maduro and his wife have been captured and flown out of the country.

From the standpoint of international law, this is an unprovoked attack, it's a war crime and act of terror. Trump and United States of America can now be officially treated as a terrorists and terrorist state!

This will lead to a long drawn out guerilla war in the name of oil. Thousands or tens of thousands will die. And trump does. Not. Care. At. All. Neither their lives, or yours or mine, have any meaning to him and his cabinet. They simply do not care.

Didn't Trump just pardon a narco-terrorist head of state (Juan Hernandez, Honduras). Now we go to war for a different one.

Can Maduro just pay off Trump for a pardon, like Juan did?

Or is it really. Honduras doesn't have oil?

Why U.S. army takes orders from a mentally ill person

The whole thing is so weird; both sides are coy.

Venezuela is playing the usual card about America trying to seize oil; US playing usual card about narcotics. You can believe what you want, or buy into whatever mainstream narrative you want, I’m not here to judge, but I’ve seen these cards played out so many times in my lifetime.

Neither makes sense to me for this level of resistance and response from the US. I have a feeling this has to do far more with Iran, Russia, and China, than Venezuela/drugs.

For instance next-door, China is active around the Darien gap region, developing roads and highways. Allegedly this is for port infrastructure, but given Chinese history of low intensity conflicts and island building techniques in the South China sea, this could be a land version of that strategy.

I need to read up about Venezuelan and Iranian Russian connections and interactions. I think the most underrated piece of news is the seizure of tankers under embargo, with blowing up drug boats as the distraction.

One thing is for sure; even the most hard core right of uneasy to support Trump in a new war, and Trump has publicly lamented the expense (of all things) of war.

Myself: no thanks. No more wars please.

Not too much info out yet, but I'm guessing one of these happened:

A) Maduro negotiated some deal for himself and his family.

B) His whole military leadership sold him out.

(A) Makes sense if you assume that he had no other exit strategies. If he could have fled to Russia, he'd already done that. I'm thinking that Trump pressed hard on Putin not to take him. With no strong allies left, there's no exit for him. At best he'd be exposed to full-scale invasion by the US, civil war, or other internal power struggles.

(B) Makes sense if you assume that someone simply took the bait, and were flown out of Venezuela with the US operatives. But from a military perspective, it wouldn't be easy - any serious country has contingency plans, and there are many moving parts. Obviously one (or many) generals could provide these things in great detail, but there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel that will stick to their procedures once shit hits the fan.

From what I've seen, some airstrikes took out AA systems. And there's been reported some fighting back.

I don't know. (A) sounds a bit more likely to me. By any measure, the man was backed into a corner. I think his hail marry was for Putin to offer to save him. But that never happened...a big clue will be how Russia, and the Russian disinformation campaigns react to this.

Fuck these imperialists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

It's a US military invasion. I hope that an unpopular invasion with zero justification results in some level of political consequences for Trump but sadly I remain skeptical

Abuse of power by a self-serving oligarchy, redux. “ Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny out of the most extreme form of liberty.” ~ Plato (The Republic)

Trump is acting exactly as an agent of Russia would. Pissing off allies, trying to break up the EU and NATO, creating a distraction war to cut aid to Ukraine.

<< America needs to be at war so that Trump can halt normal domestic process and procedure under war powers acts etc. This is the next step. >>

Good riddance! But there are other key figures that need to be captured.

Maduro arrested https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...

Considering the general incompetence of this administration, this level of success with such a surgical operation seems completely out of character.

Incredibly impressive operation, whether or not you agree with it. Although the ability to operate helos over Caracas with such impunity may very well suggest high-level collaborators in the local military.

So Trump is jalous because it did not have its peace Nobel and take it on Maduro. Shall we give it to a Russian political opponent next year ?

Rules-based global order, right?

I still care more about what’s on the Epstein files

When Russia invaded Ukraine it was imperialism, regardless of their "reasons".

When Trumpistan invades Venezuela it is also imperialism, regardless of its "reasons".

It seems that every 20 years the Americans forget the lessons from the wars 20 years ago.

I only hope a lot of Americans die, if that is the price to pay to avoid them to invading other countries and stop their imperialism.

This administration is lawless to an almost a comical degree. First murdering people with little more than the most obvious figleaf, now invading a country without Congressional approval. Clearly the US constitution is just a list of suggestions to Trump.

I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.

Thank God, Chavez turned the richest country in south america into the poorest and Maduro continued his legacy with the average person losing 17lbs in a year when the price of oil fell. Although I'm surprised Trump is getting involved in world affairs we're at least at a point where the situation can't get any worse. Hopefully Trump will end socialism and bring back democracy to Venezuela

EU is just headless chicken. They will just blindly agree to whatever Trump says

So they got Maduro now they gonna commit genocide or why the hell keep bombing??

It's the Epstein Distraction Action.

Wag the Dog.

bush: theres uh, nuclear weapons.. we gotta stop him and free the country! also hes a jerk and i hate him

trump: drugs or something. but mainly we need the oil so if they won't give us the oil we'll just take the oil. who's gona stop us, canada? lol

This is just sad. We have a long history and lots of data to know this will be catastrophic for the Venezuela. Hope it doesn’t go that way but feels inevitable. The us is never expected to learn from its mistakes so nothing new there, with the administration desperate to distract from the Epstein files has decided war is the way.

It's funny how all the comments are discussing it from a "was Maduro good or bad" point of view.

This is an invasion for oil, nothing to do with drugs since they come from Mexico, and that propaganda is weak. And nothing to do with Maduro being a dictator or anything similar since each one of our politicians is objectively worse than him, I wish this was an exgeration, but when you look at the Epstein files, even the few unredacted things found there (and most of them are redacted) make it obvious that we are literally ruled by criminals.

Now you either look at it as it is, and accept that Santa isn't real, and that life is hard, and we are greedy, and we don't care about other people, and then you stop the moralizing when you do nothing about it, or you keep gobbling up the lie after lie, that Murica is the good guy, and everyone else is evil, and that all Murica's wars are moral and bringing freedom and liberating those third worlders.

TLDR: free your mind before you talk about freeing others (which is ironic because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm also writing this message for myself).

Okay, that was smooth and effective. But now what? Let's hope not another Libya.

Looks like Maduro and his wife were captured https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...

oil price down

There was already an Israeli pundit on Fox News saying that Venezuela harbors Hamas and Hezbollah operatives. My assumption is that they are throwing that out there to garner support from Trump’s “anti-war unless it’s defending Israel” supporters.

This is a crime. It is an unlawful act of aggression which may defacto trigger an international armed conflict. There will be paper thin justifications of course but those are merely to give loyalists talking points and a thread to grasp to in their mental gymnastics.

In normal parlance, this is an act of war.

Taiwan is doomed.

I suggest reading the few south american comments in this thread hidden by the usual whatever Trump does vitriol fro EU/US commenters.

r/venezuela is one placce to start. Very different tone there than the ill informed commenters here ( and I say that with detest for “that other site”)

Hopefully the Venezuelan people will have a fighting change to restore their country now.

Time will tell I suppose.

What's the desired strategic outcome here - to remove the incumbent president and his political party from power and replace it with one more favorable to US oil interests? And to do that without putting ground troops in to some Latin American Vietnam? Good luck with that.

Why are comments allowed on these posts? What is the point? What is ever gained? Conservatives question and deny. Liberals point out the multiple laws broken. People from the rest of the world tell those of in the USA that we have our head up our ass.

How are any of us better for this? How is this better than Facebook's engagement-bait?

Peace. Out.

International law does not exist.

Regardless of how retarded maduro was, "i felt like it" should not be justifiable reason to kidnap a president of a different country on their own turf.

Maybe i felt better about that if trump wasnt in bed with another dictator.

How on earth was this allowed?

Neither the republican nor democrat base wanted this. There wasn't even an attempt at justification, the drugs argument was a complete and utter joke. They could at least do a little false flag attack.

If voting does it solve it what does?

1. It's distraction on a grand scale from the Epstein Event Horizon, also on a grand scale.

2. Trump: (2018) We don't want to be the policemen of the world BY BRETT SAMUELS - 04/30/18 [0]

> President Trump on Monday said the U.S. should no longer serve as the “policemen of the world.”

> “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

> “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority,” he said.

> Trump ran on the promise that he would extricate the U.S. from foreign wars.

[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385521-trump-we-...

Trump will do anything for his oil friends.

Maduro was captured by Trump

Hernàndez was captured by Biden. Trump pardoned him because Biden bad.

This world is a shitshow. Honestly, I am GenX and always read of wars and tensions as historical artefacts (there were wars, but localized and far away from France).

Now I am seriously wondering if this is going to end well for us over here. I do not work that much about myself, I had an interesting life, but rather about my children whom I now start to regret. I did not expect to hand them a world like this one.

I know, global warming was there but I was 30 and was looking my close surroundings. My bad. This said, if I know what the world would be today I wrote reconsider having them.

If countries are able to just fly in and kidnap criminal presidents now will someone be coming for Trump? For the rape and various other crimes.

Trump ballon d'or 2026

"The oil must flow"

Imagine the terror felt by those in the capital as American warplanes flew overhead launching munitions.

Boy is trying to outdo both Regan and Dubya. He didn't even try to sell it to us like they did with Iraq.

Venezuelans, I'm sorry my shithole country is about to inflict a fascist puppet state on you. Nobody here gives enough of a shit despite all the chest-thumping and "MUH LIBERTY TREE". We'd rather have drum circles and ask for permission to dissent.

It's time for you Americans to wake up. You're supporting the wrong things!

National sovereignty is a fundamental principle of international law and cannot be selectively applied according to the interests of global powers. Donald Trump’s threats and aggressive rhetoric toward Venezuela undermine this principle by treating a nation’s self-determination as negotiable. Criticizing this stance does not mean endorsing the Venezuelan government, but acknowledging that sanctions, intimidation, and external pressure rarely affect political elites and instead harm ordinary people, deepening humanitarian crises.

Latin American history reveals a recurring pattern of foreign interference framed as the defense of democracy. From a moral standpoint, collective punishment and imposed solutions are indefensible. If such actions would be unacceptable when directed at the United States, they cannot be justified against Venezuela. A responsible international approach requires multilateral dialogue, international mediation, and genuine respect for the sovereignty of nations.

So, uh, anyone seeing any educated guesses as to what we're bombing?

Project "don't talk about Epstein" is well under way.

Next up: Greenland

The reaction on HN to what just happened in Venezuela is exhausting and revealing. People who have never lived under socialism, communism, dictatorship, or military rule speak with total confidence while dismissing those who have.

More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country, one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. They are celebrating. You are being critical. That alone should give pause.

Those condemning this action (and almost defending the oppressors) have never:

  - Lived under a dictatorship where dissent leads to prison, torture, rape or disappearance
  - Watched the military and police become criminal enterprises
  - Seen private property and entire industries seized by the state, as happened under Chávez and Maduro
  - Experienced the collapse that follows decades of corruption, repression, and ideological control

If you claim to care about migrants, human rights, or the oppressed, you cannot only care after people escape. You cannot oppose every serious attempt to end regimes that jail, torture, and kill their own citizens while calling yourself humanitarian. That is not morality, it’s distance.

Is oil involved? Of course. Venezuela’s oil industry, built with foreign investment, was expropriated, looted, and mismanaged into ruin. But this is also about state-backed criminal networks, narcotrafficking, and regional destabilization that have killed hundreds of thousands beyond Venezuela’s borders.

If you had lived under these conditions, if your family had been broken by fear, disappearance, or exile, you would not be citing abstract “international law” to defend your oppressors. You would be hoping, every night, that someone powerful enough would intervene.

What’s missing here isn’t compassion. It is context.

Before defending dictators from the safety of a functioning democracy, have the self-awareness to ask whether you understand the reality you’re judging. Otherwise what comes through isn’t moral clarity, it’s ignorance dressed up as virtue.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=venezuelan+cele...

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reacciones+de+v...

My AI summary of these 4k comments

Yes—there are very clear, recurring *themes*, and what’s striking is how consistently people keep circling the same fault lines from different angles. I’d group them like this:

---

## 1. *Legality vs. Morality*

*Core tension:*

> Is overthrowing a dictator morally right even if it violates international law?

* One side argues law exists precisely to restrain power, not to reward virtue. * The other argues moral urgency overrides abstract legalism when human suffering is extreme. * This becomes a meta-question: Who decides when morality trumps law?

This is the philosophical backbone of the entire thread.

---

## 2. *Precedent Anxiety*

*“Today Maduro, tomorrow anything.”*

* Fear that once unilateral regime change is normalized, the justification becomes infinitely elastic:

  * “correcting elections”
  * “restoring order”
  * “protecting interests”

This is less about Venezuela than about *future permission structures*.

---

## 3. *Outcomes Over Intentions*

*Ends don’t redeem means if outcomes are catastrophic.*

* Even commenters who despise Maduro emphasize:

  * removing a dictator is easy
  * building a functioning state is hard

This is pragmatic pessimism rather than ideological purity.

---

## 4. *American Power & Self-Deception*

*A recurring, uncomfortable self-indictment.*

* Several comments converge on the idea that:

  * Americans benefit materially from interventionism
  * but psychologically disavow responsibility for the costs

This becomes a debate about *collective guilt vs. structural impotence*.

---

## 5. *Realpolitik vs. Institutionalism*

*Power acting directly vs. power constrained by process.*

* Appeals to ICC, UN, asylum frameworks represent belief in institutions. * Skeptics argue those institutions are deliberately weakened by the same powers invoking morality. * Others argue asylum and invasion are orthogonal issues—and conflating them is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.

Underlying question: Is global governance real, or decorative?

---

## 6. *Lived Experience vs. Abstract Judgment*

*Who gets moral authority?*

* “Those who’ve never lived under dictatorship say this.” * Counter: “Those who never lived through US intervention say that.” * Venezuelans in-thread complicate narratives of total collapse or total liberation. * Firsthand testimony destabilizes neat moral binaries.

This creates epistemic friction: *whose suffering counts as evidence?*

---

## 7. *Cynicism About Motives*

*Oil never disappears from the conversation.*

* Even when people argue it’s not literally about barrels of crude, they frame it as:

  * control
  * leverage
  * profit flows
  * contractor ecosystems

Several commenters note the lack of even performative moral cover.

---

## 8. *Democratic Exhaustion*

*A sense that democracy is no longer the brake it claims to be.*

* Rapid escalation vs. slow electoral correction * Legislatures perceived as compliant or irrelevant * No clear mechanism for popular restraint short of catastrophe

This feeds resignation rather than outrage.

---

## 9. *Historical Echoes & Decline Narratives*

*“We’ve seen this movie.”*

* Arab Spring * Iraq * Libya * Panama (Noriega)

History is invoked less as analogy and more as *warning fatigue*—people feel trapped in a loop.

---

## 10. *A Deeper Subtext: Loss of Moral Coherence*

Perhaps the most important theme:

> The argument isn’t about whether Maduro is bad. > It’s about whether the system judging him is still capable of moral credibility.

That’s why the thread feels less like debate and more like *collective unease*.

---

### If you zoom out:

This isn’t really a Venezuela thread. It’s a conversation about *power without trust*, *law without enforcement*, and *morality without consensus*—and whether any of those concepts still function in the current world order.

If you wanted to fictionalize this, it wouldn’t be a war story. It would be a story about *people arguing at the edge of legitimacy*, trying to decide whether the rules still mean anything once the strong stop pretending they do.

So many people in the comments arguing as if the U.S. government made a rational decision based on specified goals and policies.

Trump is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He admires dictators like Putin and wanted to emulate his invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Miller is pure evil, and Hegseth is a fool, so they came up with a pretext to attack Venezuela. All of this conveniently distracts from the Epstein files.

Nothing that's happened is justified, legal or rational. It's just the egos of idiots who should not be in power.

We need regime change in the U.S. immediately.

It's so hard to talk about this from the perspective of a venezuelan.

Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. Their headquarters is El Helicoide, a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it is the largest torture center in Latin America.

On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and had to convince him to participate in the elections.

During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.

If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.

There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.

I couldn't disagree more with those statements.

I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does. Here in Venezuela, she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols. I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her.

Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.

It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.

Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world.

Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.

Democracy incoming

Orange man is, in fact, bad.

This takes the American Oligarchy to the next level. Trump is now enabling his billionaire friends plunder another country, no doubt Trump will get a cut of the profits.

Muhrica gonna muhrica. It's been like this since time immemorial, the "regime" changes but the modus operandi is the same. True for all other empires.

Prediction: this headline will be renamed "US invades Venezuela" very soon.

Did this thread get down-rated on HN due to too many comments? Please keep one main thread on this alive. Thanks.

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Hacker News?

As a European:

His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.

In reality, he's building out Imperium Americanum, he is fighting wars without Congressional approval and proper casus bellis, he's not bringing the troops home and it is clear he represents the fucking Deep State even more than any of his predecessors since JFK. Shame on him for renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center. Which is absolutely disgusting given the reality of things!

Prime example: Invading Venezuela to steal their oil, just like his predecessors did with Syria (if you do not believe me, look where the US Army is located in Syria, and the prime locations of their oil fields).

Additionally: Trump's United States now has given Putin's Russia and Xi's China precedent to do whatever they fucking want to whoever or whatever. Because who fucking cares about international law if even the United States government, home of freedom and democracy and the rule of law, currently doesn't even give a fuck?

So now fucking what?

(And yes, as you might have noticed I AM FURIOUS AS HELL.)

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Is everyone sufficiently distracted yet?

Y'all never lived under a dictatorship, and it's felt.

"Fuck venezuelans, how can you capture a dictator, that violates a law no one gives a fuck about". You should be really happy how Trump treats putin, like a dear friend, not violating any law. I hope marines will raid kremlin next.

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This is a crime to the Venezuelans, the US citizens, and the whole of South America.

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Maduro had it coming, although I'm not surprised the bleeding hearts on HN can't see that. The guy was a dictator. Fuck him. Well done USA and happy new year.

I really don't understand one thing: is there a single american who still think this has been done to liberate a country from a dictator in the name of freedom? Seriously? This has been done for economical and power interests and USA is the most destabilizing power in the world and a source of war and desperation and death: they supports israel to get political power in middle east, they invaded countries as done in Iraq, they push Nato to the border of Russia and provoke war (not to say Putin had right to invade Ukraine but what would have done usa if mexico Canada or Cuba had russian weapons and support? Oh yes, we knew about Cuba). And the president Trump: he’s just a ridicolous bully like the ones you can find at high schools.

Please US citizens, grow up. There had been a time when you were admired and respected, now your country is killing the world.

Wow, the chief idiot just said on Fox News that Maduro is on the Iwo Jima.

Like, holy classified military secrets Batman!

Bolivian here - no tears will be shed over this scumbag. Check tiktok live and people are celebrating in the streets. Believe venezolanos, and neighbors, and not redditors lol.

So crazy how all of this is highly probably due to the Epstein files. Has anything like this ever happened in history?

Anyone arguing that we cannot legally capture Putin may reconsidered their stance.

The world is complex... It is a fact that Chavez and Maduro have completely ruined Venezuela.

That doesn't mean things can't get worse.

I pray the majority of Venezuelans really have had enough of socialist dictatorships and can find a way to govern themselves. The US should not govern Venezuela - but neither should Maduro or his cronies.

God bless America and God bless President Trump!

This can only be good news for the Venezuelans, having lived in such poor conditions for so long. Soon they will be able to go to McDonald's, drink Starbucks, and maybe one day if they really prove themselves to have that special drive and spirit that only Americans have, apply for US citizenship!

What does this have to do with technology?

All in all, probably a good thing.

Wishing the new cold war will be equally bloodless all along

It is definitely not Russia unprovokenly and illegibly attacking its neighbor, so why even care?

Yay more political posts on the techie news site. Closing the tab for the weekend this time.

Alright So I'm fully expecting that companies like Visa and Mastercard to promptly exit US market, for the EU to stop issuing visas to US citizens and harsh sanctions on the US economy by the EU.

Right? Right?

“The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela” seriously https://x.com/kajakallas/status/2007405051896123707

"Officials from the United States and other countries have questioned the legality of the strikes."

Look, this is getting tiring. You have no idea what the people in this country went through and they might as well see it as a "good thing". I think the same applies to Iran, an intervention by the US could be the best thing that ever happened in these countries, so the "legality" issue doesn't quite sound warranted in my opinion.