Non paywalled version https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-us-explosions-caracas-ca712a67aaefc30b1831f5bf0b50665e
(Thanks to @AnchoriteMagus@lemmy.world )
Non paywalled version https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-us-explosions-caracas-ca712a67aaefc30b1831f5bf0b50665e
(Thanks to @AnchoriteMagus@lemmy.world )
Imperialism and general fuckery, no…but to my knowledge this is the first time the US has opened a conflict by just straight up taking the head of the foreign government.
Unless, of course, you’ve got something that says different.
gonna hand wave in Hawaii
Honestly, idk, but they’ve done worse/adjacent things so it’s not shocking. 🤷 Just depressing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama
Noriega didn’t surrender until 2 weeks of conflict had passed.
Again, has the US ever opened a conflict by kidnapping a head of state?
There’s also the US-backed coup in Hawaii where they put the queen under house arrest first thing.
You know what, you got me on that one. I had forgotten about Hawaii. We definitely did those people dirty.
the only technicality was it wasn’t the ‘US government’ doing this, they just okayed it after
completely unrelated rogue gunboat guys, we promise
you beat me by 7min lol but this was my immediate thought
So the 60+ boats bombed were just a bit of pre-war?
Are you saying air strikes are the same level of military involvement as the Invasion of Panama?
i am. it’s manufactured consent at the minimum and a fucking act of war at the maximum. see what the us did in the gulf of tonkin for instance. the us does not care as it is a terrorist state.
i bet the new guy is … oddly friendly with oil corporations
You’re conflating guilt or culpability with level of military involvement.
Did they result in equivalent loss of life? Damage to property? Commitment of forces on both sides?
One is a literal invasion. The other is missiles hitting fishing boats. Both are disgusting. Both are wrong.
But you cannot say that they are an equivalent level of military involvement.
military involvement is a binary. if a nation state uses violence it’s used violence.
this is indeed an invasion. so was the missiles hunting boats. was 9/11 just planes and towers?
military action is a binary and this is why it’s so damn serious. but to say it’s different because the mechanism of injury to the target is not equal is to distract from the point: acts of war are always acts of war.
9/11 was an attack.
No foreign forces occupied territory of the United States, which would be the criteria for an invasion.
These are all well-established definitions in the legality of war.
Edit- and before we take the pacifist “there should be no legal war” approach, that may be so, but we live in a world where international law delineates just and unjust war, and applies strict definitions to do so, so when discussing conflict happening in the real world and not theoretically, it must be done within the confines of its practical definitions.
Have you heard about the expression “moving the goalposts”?
How?
One is strike operations on individual vessels operating in international waters and, while illegal and reprehensible, doesn’t even come close to being equivalent to an amphibious landing invasion of a nation utilizing all branches of the US military.
Are you even remotely serious?
Your original argument was that this conflict was opened by kidnapping the head of a state.
Faced with a counterpoint, you’re arguing it’s not like a much more serious invasion.
True, but that’s not invalidating the fact that it was not opened by a kidnapping.
And?
Please point me to a single comment I’ve made on any post in the last 24 hours that indicates, in any way, that I don’t consider the arbitrary abduction of the head of a foreign government to be a serious breach of international law.
You cannot.
What I won’t let slide without argument are false equivalencies, half-truths, or misrepresentations of law.
When horrible shit happens is the time for more accuracy and specificity, not less.
I suppose that depends on whether or not you consider the wars against the indigenous people here in North America actual wars.