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fnox posted:
No if anything I am saying the opposite, that sanctions only had an impact in 2017 and after. The decline in currency reserves had a different cause (at least from 2012).
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Jul 8, 2019 22:41
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uninterrupted posted:Whataboutism is a pseudofallacy created during the Cold War, and used near exclusively by the west, to shield the west from criticism. Hmm interesting. Here is another statement: Nicholas Maduro, the unelected dictator of Venezuela, commands a nationwide network of death squads that have killed more people in the time since Mad Men went off the air than the Pinochet regime did in two decades.
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Jul 9, 2019 00:50
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M. Discordia posted:Hmm interesting. Here is another statement: Nicholas Maduro, the unelected dictator of Venezuela, commands a nationwide network of death squads that have killed more people in the time since Mad Men went off the air than the Pinochet regime did in two decades. “Gaddafi/Saddam are killing their own people, obviously we have to invade, how can it get any worse!” ~it proceeds to get much worse~ “Ah, well” (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 9, 2019 00:53
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uninterrupted posted:“Gaddafi/Saddam are killing their own people, obviously we have to invade, how can it get any worse!” You forgot the part where later investigations showed the allegations to be wrong or deliberate fabrications to justify invasion.
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Jul 9, 2019 01:04
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Corky Romanovsky posted:You forgot the part where later investigations showed the allegations to be wrong or deliberate fabrications to justify invasion. What, exactly, are you trying to say about the Bachelet report? If anything?
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Jul 9, 2019 01:22
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GreyjoyBastard posted:What, exactly, are you trying to say about the Bachelet report? If anything? He's saying that Michelle Bachelet, the longtime head of the Chilean Socialist Party who, along with her family, was imprisoned and tortured by the actual Pinochet regime, is secretly a fascist Pinochet disciple whose greatest goal in life is to lie about how great socialist governments are.
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Jul 9, 2019 02:48
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uninterrupted posted:“Gaddafi/Saddam are killing their own people, obviously we have to invade, how can it get any worse!” So, can you answer these questions (you won't): 1. Are there ANY circumstances at all under which U.S. intervention would be justified in any country at any time? 2. Is there ANYTHING that any country at any time can do that you cannot respond to with "in theory, this allegation could be used to justify a U.S. intervention?" 3. If you have answered "no" to both questions 1 and 2, thereby creating a perfect anti-moral loop under which no atrocity may be acknowledged or condemned no matter how severe, how much evidence there is for it, or who is making the accusation, then under what authority do you claim to be able to have any contribution to a discussion of politics? You've logically excluded even the notion of right or wrong behavior in any context - how can you have any beliefs about what is good for the world at all?
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Jul 9, 2019 02:52
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uninterrupted posted:Whataboutism is a pseudofallacy created during the Cold War, and used near exclusively by the west, to shield the west from criticism. hmm yes  
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Jul 9, 2019 02:57
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M. Discordia posted:He's saying that Michelle Bachelet, the longtime head of the Chilean Socialist Party who, along with her family, was imprisoned and tortured by the actual Pinochet regime, is secretly a fascist Pinochet disciple whose greatest goal in life is to lie about how great socialist governments are. Corky has often had interesting and good-faith things to say about Venezuela, even if he often says them in the Other Thread; I am willing to give him some benefit of the doubt.
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Jul 9, 2019 03:06
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M. Discordia posted:So, can you answer these questions (you won't): small brain: civilians being killed by state actors is bad normal brain: war crimes aren't war crimes if they happen in "police actions" by the US glowing brain: how can you have a sense of good and evil when you categorically oppose wars of aggression? exploding cosmic brain: the only possible basis for a moral code is the murder of civilians by state actors
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Jul 9, 2019 06:12
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GoluboiOgon posted:glowing brain: how can you have a sense of good and evil when you categorically oppose wars of aggression? How can you have a sense of good and evil when you categorically oppose acknowledging any bad thing ever with the refrain that "someone could hypothetically use this to justify a war of aggression, therefore it didn't happen"?
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Jul 9, 2019 06:56
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GoluboiOgon posted:exploding cosmic brain: the only possible basis for a moral code is the murder of civilians by state actors Venezuela is positively bursting with moral codes right now.
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Jul 9, 2019 06:57
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I legitimately don’t see how some of you can continue to shout about hypothetical future death squads while paying absolutely no mind to the current ones that exist in the country. You’re telling the Venezuelan people, who are living in terror of a tyrannical military government, to suck it up. Do you realize how ridiculous it sounds to make a moralist argument while defending a government that kills, arrests and tortures indiscriminately? You can criticize me about me living in Sweden while advocating stronger action against Maduro all you want, but you’re doing the exact same thing. You don’t know anybody affected by this crisis, you don’t have anybody personally affected by the violence. I do, and they want it over.
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Jul 9, 2019 10:10
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fnox posted:You’re telling the Venezuelan people, who are living in terror of a tyrannical military government, to suck it up. You’re right, we’re the evil ones for not wanting the US to be directly responsible for a million Venezuela deaths from direct or indirect military action lol
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Jul 9, 2019 11:09
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Slanderer posted:You’re right, we’re the evil ones for not wanting the US to be directly responsible for a million Venezuela deaths from direct or indirect military action lol Is that how it works? You just bump the number every time to dwarf the fact that Maduro has killed thousands of innocents? Now it’s a million? Yeah dude, nobody wants Abrams to nuke Venezuela. What the gently caress do we do to stop Maduro from killing people? What do you do? The Venezuelan citizens can’t fight him alone.
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Jul 9, 2019 11:14
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Discendo Vox posted:hmm yes I’m sorry, please stay in topic, we’re talking about whataboutism. Whataboutism was coined in 1978 as a response to anyone doubting the moral superiority of the United States. America says “Venezuela is starving it’s people/killing it’s own people, therefore it is a uniquely horrible country that must be overthrown by military force if necessary”. A reasonably intelligent person can easily disprove this by saying “but look, a number of other countries have the same issue (the US killing 40 thousand Venezuelans, much more than the Maduro regime is claimed to kill based on sources the U.N. refuses to publish) and there is no push to militarily overthrow their government, therefore the assertion that Venezuela is a uniquely awful country that must be overthrown by military force is false”. A logical response to this would be to look at other countries the US makes this argument about and see if there are actual characteristics they have in common (such as large oil reserves not sufficiently privatized for US companies). The pro-coup response is histrionic screeching about whataboutism because their lust to see their former countrymen babies skulls bashed in in response to losing the family gold course has yet to be dated.
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Jul 9, 2019 13:28
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Ok, now will you please explain what we should do about Maduro? And no. The US didn’t invent tu quoque fallacies. But I mean, now we know we’re dealing with a loving brick wall if you’re blaming your own bad argumentation on US action. fnox fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Jul 9, 2019 |
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Jul 9, 2019 14:10
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fnox posted:Ok, now will you please explain what we should do about Maduro? Whataboutism isn’t tu quoque. That’s why there’s a whole other word for it. Also who’s we? The US literally cannot help, do you mean the two of us? This thread? The global community?
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Jul 9, 2019 14:53
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uninterrupted posted:Whataboutism isn’t tu quoque. That’s why there’s a whole other word for it. Anybody. What should be done about Maduro?
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Jul 9, 2019 15:04
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fnox posted:Anybody. What should be done about Maduro? End sanctions, have the opposition actually run in elections next time. Don’t take unsourced reports that a third of homicides in VZ are performed by the government at face value.
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Jul 9, 2019 15:20
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uninterrupted posted:End sanctions, have the opposition actually run in elections next time. So what you’re telling me is that you don’t believe he is killing, torturing or arresting people? Like, not at all? He’s behaving? Also why would the opposition running affect anything if the electoral authority isn’t impartial or transparent?
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Jul 9, 2019 15:22
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uninterrupted posted:End sanctions, have the opposition actually run in elections next time. Those numbers came from the Venezuelan government. They aren't unsourced.
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Jul 9, 2019 16:23
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fnox posted:So what you’re telling me is that you don’t believe he is killing, torturing or arresting people? Like, not at all? He’s behaving? OK if electoralism is a no-go, what should be done then.
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Jul 9, 2019 16:35
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VitalSigns posted:OK if electoralism is a no-go, what should be done then. Remove him from power, remove everyone currently in power, general elections in 30 days under international supervision. As to how to remove Maduro, it will likely have to be through force. He’s not going to surrender, he’s not going to agree to a transitional government, so there doesn’t seem to be any other way to get to vacate the office other than forcibly. Any forceful option is going to result in war, so, it doesn’t matter who’s fighting him, it’s going to be atrocious. Will the resulting government be good? I don’t know. Will innocents suffer? Yes. Will people die? Yes. Will Venezuelans end up owing allegiance to whoever goes to get Maduro? Probably. It’s that, or allow Maduro to remain and allow him to continue destroying Venezuela and undermining his people. You remove the sanctions, Maduro will end up renegotiating the debt with Russia and China with state assets, so Venezuela loses sovereignty no matter what. Innocents suffer, people die, only nothing has a chance of changing, and no future government will be able to regain control of oil assets, or recover the economy to where it was.
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Jul 9, 2019 16:58
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The economy should probably transition to something that isn't oil anyway, fossil fuels are destroying world as it is and their infrastructure for it is all hosed anyway. Why should they rebuild that trash instead of do literally anything else to try and improve the economy? gently caress oil, gently caress invasion.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:02
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I think you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that a war of regime change will go any better for Venezuelans than it did for Iraqis or Afghans. It's also not going to be easy to convince anyone that if the US did prosecute the war you want, that the motive would have anything to do with opposition to death squads, given the vast numbers of death squads and outright state-run genocide that the US is gleefully funding and arming all around the globe as we speak. But good luck finding anyone who just woke up from a 70 year coma and doesn't know anything about anything, that's your best target audience!
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Jul 9, 2019 17:02
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uninterrupted posted:End sanctions, have the opposition actually run in elections next time. Amnesty International, the UN and the Observatorio Venezolano de la Violencia has reported widespread abuse and killings by the Maduro regime. I'd rather trust those organizations than a regime that kills its own populations by the tens of thousands through an entirely self-made economic disaster. To tell the opposition to "actually run in elections next time" is a stupid as it would have been to tell the opposition of Pinochet to just vote him out during the worst years of his terror.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:09
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Oh, there's a third way. It's extremely unlikely to happen, and it will be something no Venezuelan citizen will agree with. But it's there. And it doesn't involve an invasion or US action. Get this motherfucker to sit down and negotiate. The agreement being, he gets a lump sum of cash for him and his family, he gets put on a plane, appoints a fall guy, and gets to spend the rest of his life in exile in either Turkey, Russia, China or Cuba, his choice. Everyone else must surrender, amnesty for whoever surrenders, everyone who resists has to be arrested. Proceed with elections in 30 days. Maduro avoids prosecution, his seat is vacated, a new government is appointed, sanctions are removed, the new government has to renegotiate its debt to China, Russia and the US. fnox fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jul 9, 2019 |
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Jul 9, 2019 17:11
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fnox posted:Oh, there's a third way. It's extremely unlikely to happen, and it will be something no Venezuelan citizen will agree with. But it's there. And it doesn't involve an invasion or US action. Something like that would probably be the best possible outcome for everyone.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:21
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fnox posted:Oh, there's a third way. It's extremely unlikely to happen, and it will be something no Venezuelan citizen will agree with. But it's there. And it doesn't involve an invasion or US action. This is probably the best outcome at this point, yeah. I get that it would suck to let him go after he did all that but it's better to end it and start moving on than to let it continue to drag out. I really wish China/Russia/USA would be more lenient on the debts. It's nuts to me that everyone recognizes that it is just and good for Germany to get to write off half their post WW2 debts and restructure the rest into super generous terms but lately some rear end in a top hat austerity wonks have taken over and instead enjoy turning the screws on places like Greece/Venezuela/etc. Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Jul 9, 2019 |
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Jul 9, 2019 17:23
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What kind of threats would you need to level at him for him to actually drag his rear end to negotiations? From the looks of it, after Guiado fizzled out, Maduros grip on power has only solidified.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:26
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Presumably there'd have to be some stick involved along the lines of "we're going to cruise missile you otherwise."
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Jul 9, 2019 17:27
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VitalSigns posted:Something like that would probably be the best possible outcome for everyone. Yeah, except the second that news come out that this kind of agreement has been granted to Maduro, any number of the 3000 generals he's got or anybody else in the government is going to want their own exit agreement. The bill will rack up incredibly quickly and it's very, very hard to tell which are the ones you need to talk with and which you can skip. The second problem is, who enforces this agreement? What if he doesn't leave? Where would you even sit with him? Additionally, will the Venezuelan public agree with an option that doesn't grant them any justice, just the possibility of recovery? I doubt it.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:28
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It's your proposal dude obviously we don't have the details worked out.  If it isn't viable due to those things then it isn't really a 3rd option and we're back to invade or wait it out. None of those sound particularly insurmountable, though. If people are starving to death I doubt they're going to decline a deal that gives them food and relief just because Maduro has to be exiled instead of executed but I dunno I guess. Wouldn't be the first time a dictator was exiled though. Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jul 9, 2019 |
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Jul 9, 2019 17:29
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Moridin920 posted:It's your proposal dude obviously we don't have the details worked out. I'm telling you why it's not gonna happen. This is the ideal solution but it requires a simultaneous compromise by the Venezuelan public, the government and the opposition in which no one wins. Conditions have to be perfect for it to even take place. It'll fall apart.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:33
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fnox posted:Yeah, except the second that news come out that this kind of agreement has been granted to Maduro, any number of the 3000 generals he's got or anybody else in the government is going to want their own exit agreement. The bill will rack up incredibly quickly and it's very, very hard to tell which are the ones you need to talk with and which you can skip. Yeah that's one of the problems. The original buildup of US troops on Iraq's border was allegedly for the same purpose: to compel Saddam Hussein to give up his (imaginary) WMD and step down, with a credible threat of war only as a last resort. This was completely successful, Saddam did in fact offer to allow thousands of US troops into the country to search for weapons and to hold internationally monitored democratic elections in two years. These offers were, as we all know, rejected by the United States because whoah turns out none of those things were the actual motivations for the US military deployment, who would have ever guessed! fnox posted:Additionally, will the Venezuelan public agree with an option that doesn't grant them any justice, just the possibility of recovery? I doubt it. idk sounds better than being bombed but that's just me. I mean that exact thing happened in South Africa, in the face of imminent civil war the Nats' apartheid government gave up and negotiated a deal to hold the first multiracial democratic elections in exchange for amnesty for all the hideous criminals who had run the apartheid regime for decades. Some people in the ANC weren't happy with that, but the vast majority preferred letting a few criminals go after some Truth & Reconciliation bullshit to open war and hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jul 9, 2019 |
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Jul 9, 2019 17:34
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VitalSigns posted:Yeah that's one of the problems. The original buildup of US troops on Iraq's border was allegedly for the same purpose: to compel Saddam Hussein to give up his (imaginary) WMD and step down, with a credible threat of war only as a last resort. And Maduro knows the handbook, meaning he'll be even less likely to negotiate with the US directly. That part will have to be filled in by another party, likely, South American countries who are currently holding Venezuelan refugees.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:39
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Giggle Goose posted:Those numbers came from the Venezuelan government. They aren't unsourced. Then quote the numbers. Otherwise, the Venezuelan government told me no one has died and everyone has elevated to being of pure energy. No I can’t post a source it’s secret. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 9, 2019 17:40
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I don't think it would work well in this specific thread but between here and the Middle East thread it's actually kind of interesting to imagine what a genuinely pro-democratic "intervention" (and I don't necessarily mean a military intervention, just any deployment or hard and soft power) would look like. Imagining for a second that governments worked the way they are described as working in high school civics or your less cynical Hollywood film, and actually try to game out what you could do with the immense soft power of the United States to improve governance and living standards in other countries. It'd be a pure hypothetical of course, but from a purely analytical perspective it'd be interesting to actually try and work through all the organizational and logistical hurdles you would face. Also, suffice it to say, whatever process you worked out would probably not look anything like how the USA or other great powers actually act in practice.
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Jul 9, 2019 17:43
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fnox posted:I'm telling you why it's not gonna happen. This is the ideal solution but it requires a simultaneous compromise by the Venezuelan public, the government and the opposition in which no one wins. Conditions have to be perfect for it to even take place. It'll fall apart. There's precedent though, compromises have been brokered in other places: South Africa, Northern Ireland
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Jul 9, 2019 17:46
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