Venezuala could use some help but to put it delicately I would be hesitant to suggest a foreign occupation would improve the situation.
What a fucking idiot. The US needs to stop with this shit. Trump even ran on being anti-interventionalist but has been a classic Republican war-monger, as expected.
I will say that the chicken in that picture looks like a blobfish though:
https://78.media.tumblr.com/4151da1fbbcd89f8d337e7b5a18dd250/tumblr_mgr1q4lux61s3yrubo1_640.jpg
"I'm just a blob. What can I do?" etc. etc.
You'll just validate what the Venezuelan government has been saying.
You know what you should do? Open up to accept political and economic refugees so they get a fucking chance.
Yeah, because that totally worked out when we intervened in Libya. Or Syria. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Vietnam. Or... wait a minute, this is actually a fucking horrible idea.
invading a country in the midst of a massive humanitarian crisis is a very bad idea, doing so in south america while we are tied up in iraq syria libya and the china sea is even worse.
The situation there is bleak, but time and time again we've seen that military occupation doesn't work. As stated above, it's only caused more harm then good.
If that isn't reason enough, we have plenty of issues of our own at home that need to be resolved. Foreign relations are already at an all-time low, and we recently had a humanatarian crisis of our own that was caused by a terrible policy in regards to immigration.
Our current government simply cannot afford to kick that hive.
God dammit.
Gotta show support for your fellow fascists, I guess
Government overreach was the reason that this disaster happened at all.
The only thing we can really do with Venezuela, is station the US Navy and Coast Guard near Latin America, and stop piracy. That's all we really should do.
Realistically, any attempt by us to intervene will only escalate the conflict into a regional fuck-fest. Cartels and criminal organizations have a fuck-ton to gain. Mostly in terms or armaments. Not every military officer is gonna sit idle while their family dies, and many of them will probably go rogue and start a warlord faction.
All I can say is this: Expect the cartels to get a lot of military grade equipment, and possible revolution/resistance groups popping up in Latin America.
Even if a foreign military intervention is warranted (it probably isn't, or rather, probably isn't yet, let's at least wait until an actual revolution starts before we completely destabilize things), the US is the last country that should do it in Venezuela. Far better for it to be some kind of joint South American operation. Brazil's supposed to be a rising regional power, this is exactly the kind of thing they should be able to take a lead on.
Can we not
How about noooooo, you crazy Floridian bastard?
I think there should be a military intervention. Position a carrier off the coast and form a beach head.
And then provide food and medical aid to anyone that wants it. Nothing else. Given that they have rolling blackouts, there has been some suggestion that carriers could theoretically provide power to the shore. The Ford class carriers have a 700 MW nuclear reactor, which should be sufficient to restore power for the thousands of people living in the immediate area.
Provide basic medical care on site, but keep a hospital ship off the coast for more advanced needs.
Just. You know. Help people. Because it is the right thing to do.
Certainly a better use of the US Navy than whatever the fuck else it would be doing.
If there must be a practical reason to render aid, then consider the diplomatic benefits of helping an oil rich nation.
But that would cost money that isn't funneled through a bloated military expenditure.
Not going to happen. Venezuela is a shit country but they have a modern army, navy and airforce. The US is not going to attack a country that has the ability to fight back.
The only thing I can see happening is some kind of special ops sabotaging stuff, but a real war is completely unlikely.
While a nice idea, I think the Venezuelan gov't would just declare anyone who tried to get assistance from that carrier a traitor to the state and put armed guards in the entire immediate area to cordon of the entire site.
That is an excellent possibility.
All the same, it shouldn't stop us from trying to help.
but socialists are the bad guys!1
hmmm yes let's brazenly violate Venezuela's sovereignty to achieve something that could be done by sending aid via trustworthy third-party NGOs
Brazil doing anything is laughable at best. They were a rising start back in 08 to 10 but that's pretty much dead. They've wasted billions on projects that never finished and the Rio Olympics were nothing more than a shitstorm for them face wise.
I can do a lot thank you very much.
just watch as the madmen actually go and do it
and after a brutal war, showcasing what would happen if modern militaries actually engage each other and worsening the humanitarian crisis there, the cartels etc will become the new ISIS
Republicans call democrats "warmongers" for not being Putin's puppet and actually opposing Russia's bullshit. And then say this shit lol. Not that I particularely think democrats are good at anything but the hypocrisy of the republican party is just brain meling.
Doing it with Navy ships would be an act of war if done without consent iirc.
Brazil's government is corrupt as fuck too and they can't really afford it either.
Really it ought to be a joint effort by most South American nations as Venezuela's crisis is going to overspill into their lands eventually.
There is already a mass exodus into Colombia. It'll only be a matter of time before refugees start making their way to Ecuador and Peru.
I would prefer it to be a fleet under the UN forces so at least Maduro can't at least 100% going "the fascists are here".
Granted, he declaring traitors to anyone who approaches the aid is almost granted ( unless China / Russia are in the fleet ) as Whibble said, but at least it would be something useful.
Good luck convencing anyone of the five top countries to only intervene for aid, however.
He would just say that they're "US-backed" forces and blame the US for it in some way or manner.
With dictators like him, reality can be twisted for propaganda no matter what.
Yeah, if Venezuela devolves into large-scale fighting, we'd be looking at a refugee crisis comparable to Syria. Possibly larger, as Venezuela is about twice the size, but without preexisting religious/ethnic conflict to exacerbate things, I suspect it won't get quite so bad proportionally. Still, bad times for any country on either of the American continents.
The best way to prevent that, or at least minimize it, would be to decisively end the civil war quickly. Until it actually starts, no actions should be taken or even really threatened - a violent overthrow is not inevitable, and a peaceful resolution is still quite possible, so we ought to do nothing that would push them towards civil war. But if it does, foreign support from countries not perceived as enemies should be thrown behind whichever side has the widest popular support, with the goal of ending it quickly. Syria wasn't a huge refugee crisis until the war started to drag on, and it drags on mostly because foreign powers are aiding different sides. (Syria is a really complicated mess, that preceding sentence is a massive simplification.)
Complicating matters is that the US is perceived as an oppressive foreign power by many Venezualans (not a wholly unearned reputation but amplified by Venezuelan propaganda). We'd otherwise be in the best position to force a quick end to war, but doing so would only de-ligitimize whichever side we aligned with. So really, the best thing we can do is keep Russia from deciding to fuck around with it and otherwise stay minimally involved. Maybe help with transport and logistics? Air support? Just nothing that involves American flags where anyone can see them.
For perception, any intervention should be a multi-national affair, but inevitably one country has to take a leading role. I still think Brazil is a good candidate, due to proximity and relative economic power. Other than that, I'd consider France (French Guiana, legally part of France and the EU, is fairly close, and France has a great military with the kind of force-projection that would be necessary), Colombia (lots of counter-insurgency experience, and they're right on the border), or, surprisingly, Cuba, who has a fairly large military, is generally seen as an ally due to their socialist/communist nature, and is also generally seen as an enemy of the US, so any US involvement gets counterbalanced as long as we work together (yes, "joint US-Cuban military operation" is a crazy fucking idea but it just might be crazy enough to work).
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