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Okay, am I the only one who just sees this article as “U.S. government steals a plane, pats themselves on the back”?
Today, the U.S. Department of Justice took action to enforce U.S. sanctions – seizing an aircraft used by Maduro and his representatives.
He wasn’t on it. There’s no report of them finding anything useful on the plane. Are we supposed to assume he has no other planes? That this will have any significant impact on him whatsoever?
Whatever your moral stance is on Maduro, or stealing, or U.S. intervention, this feels absurd. Even if the dude were literally Hitler, this just doesn’t accomplish anything. The time spent inspecting and stealing this plane could’ve been better spent on so many other things.
As the conservatives would say, my taxes paid for this and I want them back.
I’ll cry about this as soon as I finish crying about all those Russian yachts that were seized
It’s not about feeling bad for Maduro or the Russians, it’s about wanting the U.S. to be more productive instead of whatever this is. Snatching up Russian yachts hasn’t done shit to stop hundreds of thousands of people being killed or wounded in Ukraine. Taking Maduro’s plane isn’t going to give freedom of press and election oversight to the Venezuelans.
It’s just grandstanding and trying to make people feel like the “right side is winning” when actually, everybody’s going to keep on losing because the power majority isn’t actually fixing anything.
What is your alternative to sanctions? Do you have a bit of armed conflict in mind or would you rather guys like Putin and Maduro do whatever the hell they want, like the orange goblin?
The US can choose who they can do business with.
Unil you can suggest an alternative, there is no reason to respond.
What is your alternative to sanctions?
The short answer:
The same alternative that’s been the best and most effective alternative throughout literally all of history: diplomacy with a focus on improving the lives of the general populace. Working with the UN as well as groups like Amnesty international, Doctors Without Borders, and Reporters Without Borders to accomplish that end goal.
The longer answer:
We knew the Taliban was going to get back into power after the U.S. influenced those events. We knew somebody like Maduro was going to get into power after the U.S. influenced those events. And we knew somebody like Putin was going to get into power after the U.S. influenced those events. These were either a result of total incompetence (likely, in at least Afghanistan’s case) or intentional (as with something like Allende/Pinochet). It’s not easy for anybody to prove which of these was intentional, but it’s worth noting they’re not always trying their best to help the people of the country they’re intervening in or the people of the U.S., they’re trying their best to accumulate wealth and power.
Historically, problems like this have always popped up because of power and wealth imbalance. You can prevent these problems by ensuring people are living happy, healthy lives. Sometimes, as with South Korea, Japan, Israel, or West Germany, it means propping up their economies and making sure they develop quickly. They become allies awfully quickly that way, even if they were sworn enemies just a few years prior (as with Japan or Germany). But even if you can’t occupy them with military force and control their every move, softening relations tends to lead to better outcomes. North Korea was actually being somewhat cooperative with Clinton until W threw a shitfit. Iran’s compliance with safety inspectors has been directly related to how the international community - mainly the U.S. - treats them. Calling these two countries the Axis of Evil along with Iraq and then invading Iraq was a very, very poor way to keep them from developing nuclear weapons.
So no, I don’t believe in just letting them “do whatever they want” because that’s also shown to be a terrible mistake time after time. Letting Hitler do whatever he want obviously was a mistake, but letting Hitler get into power in the first place by imposing a crushingly bad economy on the Germans was what created the opportunity to make that mistake in the first place. The U.S., as the most powerful economic and militaristic country in the world for decades, and as one that has consistently intervened to cause these issues in a very direct way, can fix these issues if they want to. Hell, they could prevent some of them just by not doing shit like this in the first place.
The real answer:
The U.S. has over 13,000 people in the U.S. Foreign Service. It’s their job to figure out the intricacies of diplomacy, not ours. People are dying and they’re failing to solve that problem.
And lastly, I’m pretty sure you’ve decided I’m on the wrong side so you won’t read any of this and you certainly won’t look at it as a nuanced, good faith approach, but it was a good exercise for me anyway.
So this is an attempt to throw all the food at the wall and make me choose my dinner. It only highlights ignorance.
It may shock you to find out that diplomacy was tried with Maduro. The US met with him eand told him if he promised free and fair elections the US would gradually ease sanctions. Instead, he produced a kabuki theater and now gets to fly commercial.
Most of rest is pure ignorance of the facts.
Okay, but did you die?
