From: punditster@gmail.com   
      
   On 1/5/2026 7:56 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   > ]Trump seizes control of Venezuela. What next?   
   >   
   > Julius Strauss   
   >   
   > Donald Trump has made his first major move to extend US dominance in   
   > his neighbourhood, an ambition he has long telegraphed. What will   
   > happen next? And will this be his last such gambit?   
   >   
   It's about time someone did something about these dictators. So, I hope   
   it's not the last time we stand up to the tyrants and the terrorists!   
      
   Good work!   
      
   Anwar al-'Awlaqī, September 30, 2011, an American-Yemeni Islamic cleric,   
   was assassinated in Yemen by a U.S. drone strike ordered by President   
   Barack Obama.   
      
   Osama bin Laden, May 1, 2011. President Obama spoke live on television   
   from the East Room making the announcement.   
    >   
      
   > The first I saw of US special forces in Afghanistan was bearded men   
   > with colourful scarfs wrapped tightly around their heads and side-arms   
   > strapped to their thighs.   
   >   
   > It was late 2001 and I was in the north of the country a few weeks   
   > after the 9/11 attacks to report from the frontline between the ruling   
   > Taliban and their enemy, the Northern Alliance.   
   >   
   > The Northern Alliance were delighted to see the Americans. After years   
   > of fighting the Taliban single-handed, they were about to get a   
   > massive injection of military aid and the most powerful ally in the   
   > world.   
   >   
   > A few weeks later I watched as US B-52 bombers emptied their deadly   
   > loads onto a ridge line where the Taliban were dug in.   
   > A decade passed and I was in Helmand in southern Afghanistan. A young   
   > US Marine was brought into a medical facility at the base where I was   
   > living. His legs had just been blown off below the knee, and his face   
   > was a deathly grey.   
   >   
   > The marine was one of 2,000 US soldiers who were killed in   
   > Afghanistan. Around 20,000 more were injured. Many lost limbs to   
   > roadside bombs and mines. The US finally withdrew in spectacular and   
   > humiliating disarray in 2021.   
   >   
   > Eighteen months after I watched the US bombers in action in   
   > Afghanistan I was in northern Iraq talking to a US Green Beret called   
   > Chuck. A mile or two down the road Saddam Hussein’s forces were   
   > defending a frontline position.   
   >   
   > On assignment for The Daily Telegraph in Afghanistan in 2001. The US   
   > attack on the Taliban was held up as a model intervention at the time.   
   > Chuck was what is known as a forward air controller, spotting for   
   > warplanes overhead, and he began calling in air strikes. When the   
   > Iraqis replied with mortar fire we took cover behind some concrete   
   > walls.   
   >   
   > Shortly afterwards Baghdad fell, Saddam was toppled, and Iraqi crowds   
   > rejoiced. George W Bush, the US president, flew onto an aircraft   
   > carrier to celebrate. A banner read ‘Mission Accomplished.’   
   > By the following year, when I returned to Iraq, the mood had soured.   
   > US soldiers were widely hated and Washington had besmirched its   
   > reputation by torturing prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.   
   > In the central city of Najaf I joined a group of Shia students. They   
   > were so incensed by US brutality and mismanagement they had gathered   
   > to take pot shots at its soldiers. The Americans responded with   
   > withering automatic fire.   
   >   
   > By 2007 Iraq was in full-scale civil war. Hundreds of thousands of   
   > Iraqis and thousands of American soldiers were to die before Barack   
   > Obama pulled out the troops in 2011.   
   >   
   > All this flashed through my head when I heard that Trump had ordered   
   > US special forces into Caracas and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro   
   > and his wife. For an American president who was elected on a ticket of   
   > ending US involvement in foreign wars it was quite a move.   
   >   
   > Maduro was a kleptocratic dictator, around eight million Venezuelans   
   > had fled the country under his rule, and the economy was in ruins.   
   > But Saddam had been a mass murderer responsible for the death of   
   > hundreds of thousands of his countrymen.   
   >   
   > The Taliban had run one of the most brutal regimes in Afghanistan’s   
   > history - replete with theatrical touches such as killing adulterers   
   > by stoning, or pushing a wall onto men convicted of sodomy.   
   > Yet in each case the American intervention only made matters far   
   > worse.   
   >   
   > The Trump administration has boasted of the skill and precision of the   
   > US Delta Force operatives which extracted Maduro without taking a   
   > single casualty (though the operation did kill at least 80   
   > Venezuelans).   
   >   
   > But it is worth remembering that the US invasion of Afghanistan -   
   > which relied on air power, special forces and millions of dollars in   
   > cash to buy the favours of regional warlords - was also lauded as a   
   > great success at the time.   
   >   
   > At an American army base in Baghdad in 2004. The anti-American   
   > insurgency was already escalating.   
   >   
   > The lightning run to Baghdad by American tanks moving ahead of the   
   > main attacking force in 2003 was similarly acclaimed as masterful.   
   > Months later, however, as American bodies lay burned on the streets,   
   > everything looked so different.   
   >   
   > Will Venezuela end the same way? Can Trump really avoid the mistakes   
   > of the past, install a pliant government, and rebuild Venezuela’s oil   
   > industry?   
   >   
   > I wouldn’t put my money on it.   
   >   
   > For one Maduro ruled a country that was home to myriad factions, many   
   > of them heavily-armed, and some with their own designs on power.   
   > Trump has eschewed the obvious choice of opposition leader Maria   
   > Corina Machado to run the country, presumably on the basis that she   
   > won the Nobel Peace Prize and he didn’t.   
   >   
   > Furthermore the US doesn’t seem to have a follow-up plan in Venezuela,   
   > other than to threaten another round of kidnapping and bombing.   
   > Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who has lobbied for intervention   
   > in Venezuela for a decade, will now be tasked with overseeing the   
   > running of the country.   
   >   
   > But even he, a relative adult in a US administration made up largely   
   > of miscreants, seems to have little solid idea of how to move forward.   
   > The notion that American oil companies can siphon off the world’s   
   > largest reserves - mostly heavy crude that refineries on the US coast   
   > of the Gulf of Mexico are thirsting for - seems naïve.   
   >   
   > The invasion of Afghanistan ended up costing the US taxpayer around   
   > two trillion dollars. It ended with US cargo planes taking off at   
   > Kabul airport with desperate Afghans hanging from the undercarriage.   
   > This potent image of American imperial weakness was almost certainly a   
   > major factor in persuading Vladimir Putin that he could attack Ukraine   
   > with little meaningful opposition from an enfeebled West.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)