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Merged Peace President invades Venezuela,/U.S. Forces Capture Maduro

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please consider this posted to every thread. I'm going to go to bed now, or to repeatedly slam my head against the wall - I've not yet decided which. Either way, oblivion will draw me into its' welcoming bosom, and softly sing the songs of my childhood as I drift away.

TTFN.
 
smartcooky said:
Bbbut, didn't the "illicit activity", i.e. the drug trade, stop when Maduro was illegally kidnapped? That was the idea... wasn't it?

Oh, wait!!
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No. The drug trade will continue unabated.

The idea was to provide a pretext for invading Venezuela to 'arrest' him. Why? In a nutshell, because Maduro is a socialist (aka radical democrat). There's nothing the US hates more than communism socialism. The very idea of a country's wealth being shared by all its citizens is anathema to it, and unchristian too.

Oil companies are still smarting from losing control of Venezuela's oilfields, especially as the profits were diverted into social services for Venezuelans. They don't actually want that oil right now (and probably never will), but it's the principle that matters. They still want to be paid top dollar for all that infrastructure they were 'forced' to leave behind.

But that's not the main reason for kidnapping Maduro now. It's really about those other evil communist countries - Cuba, China, and Canada. If Maduro had cut ties with the axis of evil, let US companies exploit Venezuela's natural resources for profit, and canceled the Communist Cuban-run Bolivarian missions, the US would have been quite happy to leave him in power. But since he refused...

The only question now is who gets the $25 million that Biden promised for information leading to Maduro's arrest? If Maduro was smart he would have dobbed himself in, then claim the reward after most of the charges against him are dropped. This will help pay for his pardon from Trump.
 
Axxman300 said:
Our expansion west, and our use of military force was ad hoc from 1787 through Wounded Knee in 1890. We didn't get organized until after the Civil War. It was always ugly, even the raids Andrew Jackson led against the Creek are up there with worst of the worst, but we evolved our tactics and policies to go even darker in the 1870s. But it needs to be pointed out that we often fought along side indigenous tribes who'd been at war with many of those other tribes, which speaks to a deeper truth about North and Central America - this has always been a place of war. It's literally in our blood. As someone pointed out, we just took the British playbook, and added new chapters to use local tribes against each other to meet our goals.

This was all done with an army that numbered around 30,000, and local tribes of about the same strength. But we were not a super power in the 19th century, but by the 1830s we were starting to have super power problems. The French had washed their hands of this continent, but the British were still to the north, and Mexico was flexing to the south, and Russians were out here on the west coast. We had already jumped into the Barbary War, and after the War 1812 we got salty. We went to war with Mexico, went all the way to Mexico City forcing their surrender. But we didn't keep Mexico, we signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and went home keeping California, and their territories north of the Rio Grande (which we paid $15 million, and we really didn't need to do that).

I do have to ask, why do the Spanish, British, French, Mexico, Sioux, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Apache, and Comanches get a pass whenever American expansion is discussed? We didn't invent the game, we just played it.

And?

Have we used these weapons in any of our wars since August, 1945? Why is that, do you think?

And back then is was only the US, Soviet Union, Great Briton, France, and eventually China, and most countries don't want these things. Sure, we tested the crap out of our nuclear devices, why wouldn't we? It was, and is the responsible thing to do because the military understood, even back then, that at some point the American people would elect morons into power, and they needed to provide accurate data about the effects, and long term outcome of using nuclear weapons. The smartest minds in the word worked on our nuclear weapons knowing they might end up in the hands of a guy like Trump, and he hasn't seriously threatened anyone with nukes (yet). We also tested them to understand what we could face if and when they fell on our country. Scary weapons require scary things be done to ensure nothing scary happens, and that's the paradox of being a nuclear power.

We could have nuked Hanoi, Nixon openly proposed this a few times in NSC meetings. After 9-11, we could have brought one of our Ohio Class subs to launch depth, and erased Afghanistan. We didn't.


We never had a war machine.

Our defense posture was based as a response to Soviet and Chinese aggression. We would have been happy to not be the world's policeman.

After WWII, Eisenhower's foreign policy after Korea was to threaten hostile nations nations with nuclear force. When JFK came in he expanded our conventional forces to give the US what was called a flexible response. So instead of threatening a nuke strike, we could send an aircraft carrier, Marines, and the Army. Obviously flexible response sometimes gave us a military option we should have skipped.

That's because Russians have always been their worst enemy. We never needed nukes to destroy Russia, just patients while they destroy themselves.


You need to make up your mind. You began your post by dredging up our Indian Wars where we just killed as many as we could, and now you postulate that not killing as many people as we can is weakness. We learned from our 19th century atrocities, and they loom over much of our military decision making today. The Soviets would just level Afghan villages, through tribal leaders under tank treads, kill live stock, and poison wells. While we killed some non-combatants in Afghanistan it was never intentional, and there were plenty of targets we were forced to pass on because of proximity to civilians. Russia doesn't make this effort, nor does China.

The Anbar Awakening in 1987 turned things around for us in Iraq because of our restraint. Since the end of the Vietnam War US Special Forces ODA teams have inoculated more kids and cattle, dug drainage ditches, built schools, and stood up city councils all over the world. Sure, they've been shooting bad guys in the GWOT, but their overall record shows they helped far more people than they've killed.

That is restraint, and it should be something we're proud of, and we used to be.


Our bad.


Honestly, if we knew just how much the Russians suck at war we would have been more hands on. But I guess I need to point out that the Russians have those pesky nuclear weapons you complained about, and they tend to make strategy a little prickly. I'd love to joke about how their missiles might not work as advertised in a dependable manner, and even the Russians aren't completely certain all of their warheads will detonate (one of their missiles failed in a test this past December, lol), but they have a lot of missiles, and it's always been about quantity over quality with them.

I have to ask you, which American cities are you willing to trade for Ukraine?

Or maybe we can cool our jets and make nice when we can, instead of taking other countries' lunch money, and stuffing them in a locker.
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Because generally speaking they didn't break their treaties of alliance with native powers that came to their side and held up their end of the bargains (hence why the Spanish nobility has significant Nahuatl ancestry, for example). The US broke every treaty it made, taking the rout of the English in Ireland (during and after the plantations) and the EIC in India.

There have been few powers as duplicitous in its dealings with tbeir neighbours as the US has been.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
...

The only question now is who gets the $25 million that Biden promised for information leading to Maduro's arrest? If Maduro was smart he would have dobbed himself in, then claim the reward after most of the charges against him are dropped. This will help pay for his pardon from Trump.
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Donald already said he's getting the reward.
 
Ian Osborne said:
When's the next US election? It can't come soon enough.
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If you bothered to google the question. you would have found out that the Midterms for the House and part of the Senate are In November, the next Presidential electins is in 2028,
US is different then the UK in that elections have fixed dates.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Reporter: President Trump says the drug cartels are running Mexico.

Leavitt: I think the president was speaking candidly and frankly about the reality on the ground in Mexico

https://twitter.com/x/status/2008952961280458824
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It digusts me to say it, but Trump to a degree is right, the drug cartels are a huge problem in Mexico. In some areas, they seems to be an "overmighty subject" that are more powerful then the government. Think Sicily during the heigh of the Mafia;s power.
Having said that, I have zero faith in Trump's ability to handle the situation. Insu.lting the President of Mexico is NOT a good move toware helping Mexico get the cartels under control.
 
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