Explosions reported in Venezuelan capital

[Apparition of Jack]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/explosions-reported-venezuela-caracas

Sigh. Is this really the next US “forever war?” Are we really doing Iraq all over again? 
 

This is just so depressing. I don’t expect much good to come out of this.

[Alexop]

Thanks dear orange clown 🤡 Trump strikes again. This time literally.

[BlueOak]

We are doing WW3. But nobody likes to talk about it. 

Current theaters are:
Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Cambodia/Thailand, Venezula, Palestine, Several African Countries, soon Taiwan, possibly the baltics, pakistan etc.

Anything that's on the frontlines between BRICS and NATO. When you ask yourself why, a lot of the world wants the war. It took me awhile to accept it but I have. America hitting Venezuela for the oil is to deny China's takeover of south America, of which it has heavy influence on.

Venezula is a case of an expansionist power—China—coming up against American interests, aka oil.

[Twentyfirst]

If I know this forum (which I do) it's only a matter of time before some upper class Venezuelan liberal who is in a minority posts "actually the US is right and we are under an oppressive regime so please let this happen we are all celebrating it"

[Daniel Balan]

@Twentyfirst 2 things can be true at once, That USA is a devil and that Venezuela is an opressive horrible dictatorship. That doesn't give license to the west to invade Venezuela, and this doesn't give license to China and Russia to support with all their might an oppressive dictatorship just because that dictatorship is anti American. 

Yo dude, how about you go live in a total dictatorship? Until then you have no business making fun of "liberals". 

[Daniel Balan]

This is in some ways 10 times more worse than Iraq. This war will give free lincense to both China and Russia and to many other countries to invade all their neighbours. After this invasion, probably the EU will break apart beacuse Russian propaganda will have so much ammunition to spread in eastern Europe, painting the west as a resource thief that steals other's countries resources via "democracy". Russia will have no qualms invading the baltics now and China surely will invade Taiwan.

[Daniel Balan]

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

Venezula is a case of an expansionist power—China—coming up against American interests, aka oil.

This is wrong on so many levels. You have just validated Putin's whole worldview with that statement. If Ukraine wants to be in the west then Venezuela can be in Brics. USA has no business invading a country just because China is an expansionist power that wants to have influence in the US's neighborhood. The west is an expansionist power too, there is no universal law that allows only the west to expand. As I said again, if Ukriane which is Russia's neighbourhood is allowed to go west, then America's neighborhood is allowed to go BRICS. This war is Putin's biggest new year gift. All bets are off now.

Edited Saturday at 10:59 AM by Daniel Balan

[BlueOak]

20 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

This is wrong on so many levels. You have just validated Putin's whole worldview with that statement. If Ukraine wants to be in the west then Venezuela can be in Brics. USA has no business invading a country just because China is an expansionist power that wants to have influence in the US's neighborhood. The west is an expansionist power too, there is no universal law that allows only the west to expand. As I said again, if Ukriane which is Russia's neighbourhood is allowed to go west, then America's neighborhood is allowed to go BRICS. This war is Putin's biggest new year gift. All bets are off now.

I didn't say they couldn't.
I am telling you what's happening.

You make the mistake of thinking i agree with any of it. Until countries are no longer playing zero sum games, as in I win you lose, this is the reality.

*What most people posting that above fail to tell you is. This is how humans are the world over in their daily lives. Reinforced in their own internal conversations in their own mind, let alone the media, instutions, governments and realities they construct.

Edited Saturday at 11:17 AM by BlueOak

[BlueOak]

I will throw a scenario at you though: @Daniel Balan

If I am offering you a lot of money for your resources.
And/OR
Buying up your infastructure
Your politicians.
The media you consume
The provider of your jobs 
Your ports. Your trade routes etc

Its a step above directly throwing bombs at you, but it's still expansionism. I win - you lose. Just done with cash and pressure rather than guns (and maybe the odd assassination). The internet wars going on for your mind and opinion right now are just another face of it. 

And the root is this: I want the world to be like me. - People hate this when I remind them.

Edited Saturday at 11:27 AM by BlueOak

[Wilhelm44]

27 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

This is in some ways 10 times more worse than Iraq. This war will give free lincense to both China and Russia and to many other countries to invade all their neighbours. After this invasion, probably the EU will break apart beacuse Russian propaganda will have so much ammunition to spread in eastern Europe, painting the west as a resource thief that steals other's countries resources via "democracy". Russia will have no qualms invading the baltics now and China surely will invade Taiwan.

Didn't something similar happen in Panama in 1989 ? Comparing this to Iraq might be a bit of a stretch. Russia have their hands full with Ukraine. And China seems very reluctant to get involved in military war, but yes of course there is still the Taiwan issue.

[Daniel Balan]

Putin will now unleash hell over Europe now. Putin knows that if he doesn't reach the old frontiers of the USSR, if he doesn't have buffer states all the way to Germany, the west will try to do to him the same way they did today with Maduro. Watch Putin now, he will have all the reasons to invade the west. Putin's propaganda aparatus will have ammo to paint the whole west as this resource hungry thief.

[Daniel Balan]

5 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

I will throw a scenario at you though: @Daniel Balan

If I am offering you a lot of money for your resources.
And/OR
Buying up your infastructure
Your politicians.
The media you consume
The provider of your jobs 
Your ports. Your trade routes etc

Its a step above directly throwing bombs at you, but it's still expansionism. I win - you lose. Just done with cash and pressure rather than guns (and maybe the odd assassination). The internet wars going on for your mind and opinion right now are just another face of it. 

And the root is this: I want the world to be like me. - People hate this when I remind them.

Isn't this what the west has done since ww2?

[Wilhelm44]

3 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Putin will now unleash hell over Europe now. Putin knows that if he doesn't reach the old frontiers of the USSR, if he doesn't have buffer states all the way to Germany, the west will try to do to him the same way they did today with Maduro. Watch Putin now, he will have all the reasons to invade the west. Putin's propaganda aparatus will have ammo to paint the whole west as this resource hungry thief.

Does Putin really have enough resources left to attack all of Europe, would that not be suicide at this point ?

[Daniel Balan]

1 minute ago, Wilhelm44 said:

Does Putin really have enough resources left to attack all of Europe, would that not be suicide at this point ?

Doing nothing is suicide too, because the west will surely do the same to him if they ever got the chance. So he is a cornered animal. Cornered animals are very lethal. Russia has at least 30 million men that can be mobilised to fight, the war in Ukraine only sacrificed people from Siberia and rapists from prisons, if the Russian propaganda apparatus paints this as the west trying to annihilate the motherland as Hitler did, trust me, the Russians will be in Berlin by the end of the year.

[BlueOak]

9 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Isn't this what the west has done since ww2?

YES.
Exactly. 

This is exactly the point. China is just doing what the west did. And all I hear is people saying oh its fine because they are going about it differently. Drives me bonkers. 
What America is doing in Venezula is equivalent to what Russia is doing in Ukraine, or what Israel did in Palestine, or what China did in Tibet, or what India did in Kashmir etc etc and on we go.

All you'll get as responses to this is how the situation was initially different, but the underlying impulse is always the same, fear of the other, the other not being enough alike.

 

5 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

Does Putin really have enough resources left to attack all of Europe, would that not be suicide at this point ?

Putin doesn't have the resources to continue in Ukraine with China's lifesupport, and at best he's got a year or so left there.

 

3 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

Doing nothing is suicide too, because the west will surely do the same to him if they ever got the chance. So he is a cornered animal. Cornered animals are very lethal. Russia has at least 30 million men that can be mobilised to fight, the war in Ukraine only sacrificed people from Siberia and rapists from prisons, if the Russian propaganda apparatus paints this as the west trying to annihilate the motherland as Hitler did, trust me, the Russians will be in Berlin by the end of the year.

Now you are stuck in the mindset.

So Europe needs to fight Russia then. By the same logic. They need to destroy Russia.

Do you not see how this logic does not help?

[Wilhelm44]

This is nothing new.

[zazen]

1 hour ago, Daniel Balan said:

@Twentyfirst 2 things can be true at once, That USA is a devil and that Venezuela is an opressive horrible dictatorship. That doesn't give license to the west to invade Venezuela, and this doesn't give license to China and Russia to support with all their might an oppressive dictatorship just because that dictatorship is anti American. 

True

1 hour ago, Daniel Balan said:

3 hours ago, BlueOak said:

Venezula is a case of an expansionist power—China—coming up against American interests, aka oil.

This is wrong on so many levels. You have just validated Putin's whole worldview with that statement. If Ukraine wants to be in the west then Venezuela can be in Brics. USA has no business invading a country just because China is an expansionist power that wants to have influence in the US's neighborhood. The west is an expansionist power too, there is no universal law that allows only the west to expand. As I said again, if Ukriane which is Russia's neighbourhood is allowed to go west, then America's neighborhood is allowed to go BRICS.

What's being collapsed into one category or conflated is that economic expansion automatically means military / imperial expansion. Influence is different to imperialism.

Influence isn't a reason to go to war with another country as you said.  On the flip side - the imperialism of another rival power wanting to use a neighboring or regional country as a forward military base is something that any rational power will respond to. So if China or Russia were to station missiles pointed towards the US from Venezuela - it's totally rational for the US to do something about it and though unjustifiable - is understandable. Same goes for the West doing similar in Russia or China's vicinity.

The point is that China and Russia haven't done that in Venezuela. The US moving on Venezuela now isn't reacting to a military threat but this behaviour is disciplinary ie Empire Discipline. It's saying ''you don't get to sit inside our hemisphere and outside our unipolar system''. It's setting a precedent for others to fall into line - that there will be consequences for defecting from the status quo and current world system in which the US leads and the West dominates. It's entrenching dollar dominance and the ''exorbitant privilege'' that comes with that.

But yes - China or Russia haven't turned their economic alignment or political signalling with Venezuela into a embedded military architecture creating a military threat platform. Not at all in the same way the West has done and is doing in Ukraine and along China in Taiwan, Japan or Philippines which are much closer to China than Venezuela is to the US.

Edited Saturday at 12:24 PM by zazen

[Husseinisdoingfine]

America is a despicable and evil nation. 

Long live the Bolivarian Socialist revolution! Long live Hugo Chavez! Viva Venezuela! 

 

[Jannes]

[zazen]

Highly unlikely WW3 will happen. Venezuela isn't existential for China or Russia to come to the rescue or whilst heightening tensions with the US.

What's happening I think is we'r transitioning from a uni-polar world order to a multi-polar/nodal one where all the great-middle powers are jockeying/probing for position in that new system - whilst consolidating what they ''perceive'' as critical to them. Red lines and thresholds are being tested (even with smaller actors like UAE-Saudi like we just saw in Yemen). But the great powers themselves will avoid direct conflict, just as we have seen in Ukraine - even whilst covert proxy conflict occurs via ISR, intelligence, arms and drone operations carried out by the CIA.

Nothing overt can happen (Tomahawks example) because the stakes are too high.Of course the chances aren't 0% either - because miscalculations can happen and things can spiral out of control during these transitions. The turbulence comes from flashpoints where these proxy fights will occur with some being existential for those powers ie Ukraine right on the border of Russia, Taiwan seen as part of China, or if Russia/China were to station up in Mexico or Canada right on the US border which they haven't even got close to doing.

Edited Saturday at 12:23 PM by zazen