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atomheartbevo

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by atomheartbevo

  1. He’s only talking about assassinating the Venezuelan VP and attacking a close and long-time democratic nation because we want their rare-earth materials. Those comments of Trump’s make it clear there was no plan for after Maduro was out. We now have to run Venezuela even though we don’t have any control over it.
  2. Don't scare us like that @WBT
  3. I'm the son of a doodlebugger who moved into upper management somehow and who was a good troubleshooter, so my dad has seen it all. That was similar to what he was saying this morning about his group chat, that there would be a lot of unknowns and doubt about what Venezuela would look like a year, 5 years, 10 years from now. These guys had decades of experience in Central/South America, and one of them joked there was always a Hugo Chavez lurking around the corner. There's just no way to guarantee that they invest billions in revamping/building out new infrastructure in Venezuela only to have another Chavez come along in 5 or 10 years. Right now, the US Army could go in there and provide security with a massive footprint, but what happens in 2029 with a new President? Or 2027 with a new Congress? He would be surprised if anybody takes Trump up on that offer unless the US government is footing the entire bill or some kind of financial guarantee of sorts and that there's solid security (massive footprint). There's just going to be a lot of resentment from Maduro's fans (and there are fans of his), not to mention the cartels, etc. Even then, there's the potential of lost contracts with other countries down there (and elsewhere).
  4. Finnish police detain two crew members on ship suspected of cable sabotage | Yle News | Yle
  5. The Venezuelans when the United States finishes the orderly transition to democracy and they can vote again
  6. One other thing - we dissolved the Panamanian military. We do that in Venezuela, we are creating a fuckton of guerillas who are going to be looking to get paid.
  7. So, my dad retired from one of the companies being mentioned in the media (well they acquired his company, but he spent 10+ years at them) and he worked all over Central and South America, including both onshore and offshore operations, from the 1980s through the early 2000s in his 45-year career. He's in a facebook group with a bunch of his former co-workers that he's remained friends with and was telling me some of what they were discussing. Bunch of former o&g exploration/production folks in their 60s-90s mostly from the South and Texas, so you can guess their politics. It sounds like some of them have been contacted "recently" about going down to Venezuela or at least acting as consultants here, because they have knowledge of the areas or former facilities or something. He said there's two main threads - the first is security. When they were down there, regardless of the country, they almost always had private security teams that secured their compounds, and they had the country's government backing them (sometimes units had small barracks nearby). Even if there was corruption, there was an understanding that various groups (drugs, guerillas) generally wouldn't fuck with them too much because the governments liked the oil flowing, and pretty much everybody got some kind of cut of revenue (bribe) whether it was locals or whatever groups were active nearby, and they were usually left alone as a result. They also, as a last resort, usually had American contacts they could call upon. Here in 2025, they may not have the Venezuelan military/government on their side (if there is a military) if there's bitterness/resentment over how things are playing out, especially if all of the revenue was flowing straight from the facility back to America. You can get into some nasty areas out there in the boonies. The other thread is basically "what's the point" because a bunch of them think even if we go in there and run things, it's going to take years of investment to make a healthy profit and if we actually follow through on elections, 5 or 10 years down the road, some populist/socialist type will get elected on a platform of "they are stealing our oil" and things will get really nasty again, and there will be a hostile environment and/or either the government takes a lot more of the revenue, or stops any contracts (or even nationalizes things again). The US is then faced with either letting those resources go, or being hardasses and putting down the Venezuelan government, and that will come down to whoever is in the White House. They think there is no way in hell Chevron or Exxon or anybody else will go in there without guarantees from the US government of covering their expenses/potential losses, which means the taxpayers will cover it. And a couple of people mentioned that if Chevron and Exxon go in there, they will probably face a pretty serious boycott by a lot of people, and/or there may even be problems with them operating in other countries who don't renew their contracts or even cancel them outright over this. They thought there was a real possibility that surrounding countries, and even countries outside of the region, will decline to do business with them in the long run.
  8. We haven't done this before. With Panama, Congress was involved in the years running up to the invasion. Panama even declared war on the US and killed a Marine Corps officer. The American people had been told over and over what was going on down there, and ultimately why we needed to. Venezuela? We were told fentanyl was a WMD, even though the vast majority comes through Mexico. We were executing dudes in boats without due process, when for the previous 20+ years, the Coast Guard would catch them and put them on trial, oh and our administration couldn't get their story straight on whether or not we were killing helpless dudes in water. And some of those dudes were not going to the US at all. We were told these dudes in boats could kill 25,000 Americans. None of us were buying any of that. We hear all of this stuff about drugs, but what did Trump fixate on in his presser? How we were going to run Venezuela and bring in our oil companies and take our oil back. And then he goes on Fox and Friends and says "gee whiz, we need to do this to other countries, we are really good at this" and he apparently warns Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia. Meanwhile, unlike Panama where we had tens of thousands of boots already on the ground with all of their gear, we don't have any control within the country itself, and Maduro's Vice President and Army Chief of Staff are out there on Venezuelan TV demanding Maduro be released. This is an absolute shit show. We kidnapped two people. There is a huge gap between kidnapping two people and actually controlling and running a country of 28 million people. We couldn't do it in Iraq with a force that was on the ground and ten+ times the size of what we have deployed in the Caribbean.
  9. The thing about Panama is that Reagan and then Bush were working with Congress and getting Congress involved. The US military spent years gaming out scenarios and the politicians developed plans for once Noriega was captured or killed. That didn't happen here. Plus, in the run-up to the invasion, Panama declared war on the US, and Panamanian forces killed a US Marine Corps officer and captured a US Navy officer and wife. Panama had its issues, but it was a lot more clear-cut than this operation, where we have no plans for what to do now that we captured Maduro.
  10. Also toss in that if Ukraine doesn't give up its nukes, the chances of a Russian invasion drop quite a bit. Lot of countries in the world have to be looking at those two things now that Trump has actually, publicly, said we need to go after more countries.
  11. Here’s hoping we get the sequels then. I took my middle-schooler to an IMAX 3D screening (theater one at Barton Creek AMC is absolute trash, avoid Barton Creek AMC) after he watched the first two the previous week at home and he absolutely loved them. I’m like the others, I appreciated the visuals and I kind of saw what they were going for, but the last battle was too much. At this point, what’s left of RDA leadership? Cameron said if 4-5 are not made, he will write a book wrapping up the one dangling plot line from three. What was it? The colonel’s death or the Ash tribe?
  12. We aren’t running anything if we don’t have boots on the ground and/or control of any part of their society. It’s crazy, we have all of these people talking about what’s down the road, but nobody is talking about the fact that we do not currently control Venezuela in any way, shape, or form outside of a naval blockade. And I’m lukewarm on Zeihan on a lot of things, but he’s right about their food imports. We are about to become responsible for making sure that many Venezuelans are eating, and there’s a timer that has started. Shame USAID got cut, that’s their bread and butter.
  13. Good background listen for those not following too closely. It is odd that protestors are calling for the return of the Shah. Lane Kiffin, you’re up!
  14. I don't think Cuba or Venezuela have the capability to bomb Pearl Harbor.
  15. So I've been dealing with the flu the past few days and napped a lot today. Maybe I heard incorrectly, but I swear I heard Trump say we're going to run Venezuela and get the oil. We don't have boots on the ground, and Maduro's people are still in control, and therefore we have no control. But we are going to run it and send civilian oilfield workers in there to take back "our" oil. But we don't control it.
  16. She’s going to have to up her game, people are going to forget about her now that Trump is a wartime President again.
  17. What could go wrong attacking a country that we share a large border with, that had a third of our population.
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