> That the US cannot win a war is silly. The US could erase every population center within a few minutes.
Although the U.S. ruling class often likes to pretend it can operate with no regard for its domestic perceptions of legitimacy, the stunning amounts they expend on relentless psychological operations suggest otherwise. Killing millions in an aggressive nuclear strike would do nothing but reveal to many people (who are desperately trying to pretend otherwise) that they are controlled by a klatch of relentless psychopaths.
It's because Venezuela has lots of oil and gold, and the money (and blood) won't be "wasted" for the small sliver of people who benefit from stealing it.
The main purpose is probably to get American ships to fire the first shot, and thereby firmly establish that it is the U.S. empire that is the aggressor.
I see your point, but it's kind of one thing to blow up a handful of "drug boats" (only a complete idiot believes that story, but simply having _any story_ seems to be the only requirement these days), quite another to start going after tankers carrying oil or their escorts.
Maybe they'll try to arrange some kind of Gulf of Tonkin style false flag.
Are you seriously claiming that the the boats blown up so far were not smuggling drugs? I think that sinking them was bad policy and possibly illegal, but I know enough about boats to be pretty certain that those guys weren't out there fishing.
You'll have to ask the M/T Skipper's master about why he was flying a false Guyanese flag. I understand that he has been detained so that may come out during the investigation. The vessel had never been registered in Venezuela so there would have been no reason to fly that flag.
I can speculate as to motives for flying a false flag but so what? Any vessel flying a false flag is subject to seizure and isn't entitled to legal protection.
> It's widely accepted that the US lost in Vietnam due not to military defeat, but from the clever Tet Offensive - where they successfully influenced US politics via US journalism, to cause them to simply cease fighting.
Yes, that's called "losing a war," and no serious strategist pretends that politics is not one of the key theaters (if not the key theater) of conflict.
Hard to comprehend the stunning levels of cope required to still view what happened in Iraq as some kind of decisive victory for anyone except Blackwater and Halliburton.
I have to say I appreciate Maduro calling the U.S. empire's bluff at every turn. Whether it's the corrupt Nobel Peace Prize, trying to bribe his pilot to betray him, or now this, it's all just making it clear to anyone with eyes remotely open to see that U.S. foreign policy operates on shameless pretense and dishonesty.
Interesting to see this added to the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram Experiment as "widely believed and cited studies with dubious scientific underpinnings":
https://x.com/i/status/1309241320632995849
To get anywhere filing some kind of claim over this, Gizmodo would have to prove in court:
- The "Legacy Media Lies" was targeted at Gizmodo
- It was a false allegation (i.e. they might have to go through huge amounts of discovery as the defense tried to establish a single instance of dishonesty in past reporting)
- Grok/xAI knew the allegation was false
- The allegation caused such-and-such amount in damages
Although the U.S. ruling class often likes to pretend it can operate with no regard for its domestic perceptions of legitimacy, the stunning amounts they expend on relentless psychological operations suggest otherwise. Killing millions in an aggressive nuclear strike would do nothing but reveal to many people (who are desperately trying to pretend otherwise) that they are controlled by a klatch of relentless psychopaths.
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