from HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 05 Jan 07:02
https://sh.itjust.works/post/52845294
WHAT WOULD DONALD Trump have to do for the U.S. media to frame what he is doing in Venezuela as an act of war?
This isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s an actual inquiry, the pursuit of which can reveal a lot about how U.S. media’s default posture is state subservience and stenography. In the past few months, President Trump has committed several clear acts of war against Venezuela, including: murdering — in cold blood — scores of its citizens, hijacking its ships, stealing its resources, issuing a naval blockade, and attacking its ports. Then in a stunning escalation on early Saturday morning, the administration invaded Venezuela’s sovereign territory, bombing several buildings, killing at least 40 more of its citizens, kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their bed, and announcing they will, henceforth, “run” the country.
This episode seems to indicate that the president can do almost anything in the context of foreign policy, and the media will still overwhelmingly adopt language that is flattering and sanitizing to the administration when describing what has unfolded. This dynamic reached a new low Saturday morning, when the U.S. media rushed to frame the administration’s unprovoked attack as, at worst, a “ratcheted up” (CBS News) “pressure campaign” (Wall Street Journal) and, as was more often the case, some type of limited narcotics police “operation” (CNN).
#world
threaded - newest
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,”
Or the support of the press !
Major news organisations in general are really scared when it comes to pointing out things which are extreme, because they believe describing those things as extreme will lead to accusations of sensationalism. The reason they think that is because sensationalist outlets are indeed more likely to describe everything as extreme and make unjustified comparisons to extremities, so major media outlets often think that to be “unbiased” is to refuse to acknowledge that an action is extreme.
Vox described this as the “this is fine” bias.
Major “news” organisations are owned by oligarchs who support Trump so they have abandoned any pretence of accountability
This is bullshit, though, legacy media have no problem using sensationalist headlines when it suits their ideology. Example from New York Crimes on Oct 7th:
<img alt="" src="https://reddthat.com/pictrs/image/d981addb-fbbe-455a-bd27-46a8e09b6f3a.jpeg">
Death to America, death to “Israel”
Once you have replaced the press leadership with lackeys then yes. They had a very very productive 2025 for doing things to eliminate resistance
It’s all Western media. And governments. EU deserves Greenland to be invaded - I wonder what’ll be the reports then like.
I bet you loathe Taiwan too.
If they are fine with US invading random countries, why would they be concerned when they are invaded?
Trump needs to be stopped before he hurts someone.
Oops, too late!
I don’t think they are fine with it.
Did they publicly accused US of war and kidnapping, perhaps filled a lawsuit or something about it or at least condemned US? Or did they say it’s fine as long as international law is followed, we are with US blah blah? Rhetoric question, obviously.
Why would we loathe any Chinese province? China is pretty cool
Does Venezuela see this as an act of war? Regardless of if they’re going to fight or not. Ask people.
The Venezuelan government might. But according to some DW reporting and footage earlier today, the actual reaction of ordinary Venezuelans is mixed, and mostly concern and confusion rather than anger or fear. Maduro is generally not popular in Venezuela but I doubt many people really wanted the US to come and kidnap him. And understandably those who supported him are in the streets calling for his release.
Of course Maduro government doesn’t like the situation, but people’s opinion is important.
Yes, the method is still not right, but for now from my Eastern-European point of view the situation become better than it was.
Let’s wait for how the power transition will end.
Situation is so much better now that 100 people have been murdered in the name of oil!
Venezuela was supporting Russia, now that will stop most probably. And Russia kills hundreds every day in Ukraine.
The US + EU kill half a million yearly through economic sanctions alone, much more than the mortality from the Ukraine war. Should we also destroy those countries?
Oh, and of course EU sanctions Russia just for the sake of evil? As soon as Russia retreats from Ukraine, shoves its army to Putin’s ass and compensates the damage, sanctions will be lifted. Russia is the cause of all this shit. And destroying Russia is a good way as long as Russia is unwilling to stop aggression.
The EU sanctions Russia because we’re US puppet states, but the sanctions are more harmful to other countries like Cuba, Venezuela or the DPRK, none of which has invaded any other country. The half a million deaths per year mostly come from such countries and not Russia (though I fail to see how it’s morally good to prevent medical goods from entering Russia or anywhere in the world).
The EU sanctions Russia to defend itself from Russian aggression.
And why does the EU sanction Venezuela and the DPRK and complies with sanctions against Cuba? Again you’re avoiding talking about the 38 million murdered by US + EU sanctions since 1970
So, no more questions about Russia?
No, we can move on about Russia (which you brought up yourself). Now: let’s coup every country in the EU and North America for supporting the genocide of Palestinians and the economic sanctions murdering 500k people yearly?
The Venezuelan government could likely consider this to be an act of war based on international law. The question right now is if it wants to.
Technically, Trump performed this attack without declaring war and his war powers without a Congressional declaration. Per American law, the USA isn’t at war with Venezuela. If Venezuela declares that this is an act of war, it gives Trump a better pretense to get war declared on Venezuela. It also vastly changes how neutral powers can treat both countries during the war.
Countries have fought wars without declaring wars before. The military action surrounding the invasion of the Falklands was done without either nation officially declaring war.
Why would anyone trust pro-genocide Zionist media on their reporting about Venezuela and the opinions of Venezuelans? Might as well ask Netanyahu himself.
If China decided that trump had violated some domestic law of theirs, and sent their military into Florida, dragged him and his third wife out of their beds, flew them back to their territory, and put them in prison, would these assholes consider that an act of war?
I wouldn’t! 😇
lmao the lemmy replies showing exactly why no one has declared it war, literally no one gives a shit about an oppressive dictator who clung to power using the military post being voted out
That’s not the point. The point is, who made specifically the US the World Police? This kind of forced intervention is how you create the Taliban, ISIS, etc. What is your response to that?
The world made the US the world police. Where were Venuzuela’s neighbours when dictatorship set in? Why weren’t they parking their tanks on the president’s lawn? Why has the UN Army been repeatedly rejected by members?
The usual disinterest, apathy and self interest governs all countries.
Don’t promise me a good time
Don’t get our hopes up
50% chub, and rising.
They’d say “interesting that you’d use China as an example you commie”
They could’ve said any European country and everyone would have just laughed.
No no no, you’ve got it backwards. It’s .ml users who’d get mad at you for comparing China and the US. “It’s a false equivalency!”
Like I had happen to me just the other day when I compared the US regime’s invasion to the invasion of Ukraine and the lack of any real response from world leaders.
MAGA would be screaming about it until the end of time if that happened. Because it’s different. Somehow.
It’s called American Exceptionalism, and it’s much older than MAGA.
Valid point. MAGA is just the latest iteration.
“Me? you want Me to pay tax? To Revolution!”
Stop, I can only get so erect.
Now, that would definitely feel like one of those ultimately rare and rarer “Nature is healing” moments, and everyone would live happily ever after.
It’s just locker room abduction.
First, the MSM always props up the MIC. If this is surprising to you now, maybe you should revisit history. Second, the capture of Maduro was also Biden’s policy. Did you forget already?
www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g9ezyw0keo
Funny… I don’t recall Biden invading Venezuela, or drumming up lies about drugs then stealing their oil.
Proud Zionist Biden upped the bounty leading to Maduro’s arrest, claiming he was an illegitimate leader in favor of the US-backed Zionist puppet. Trump had his goons arrest Maduro. If you don’t like what Trump is doing then don’t vote for politicians that support genocide & regime change.
Colombia and Brazil both declared Maduro’s election as illegitimate. They have also been in opposition of the capture of Maduro by the USA.
Source?
google.com
This may come as a surprise to you, but you can both condemn Trump’s actions AND recognize that Maduro was an illegitimate leader that stole an election according to every third-party audit. And not just like “well it was close, who’s to say who really won?” but like the votes went 2-1 to his opponent. He lost BAD, but decided to lie, cling to power and attempt to imprison his opponent. Maduro is a vicious dictator and calling him an illegitimate leader is not just a claim, it’s a fact.
And yes, it’s also true that Trump’s actions were an illegal act of war. Full stop. No questions at all there. But the people trying to condemn this by making Maduro out to be some innocent saint are either trolls ignoring his corruption, or people so ignorant as to the situation that they should maybe just shut the fuck up until they spend more than 2 minutes learning about it.
Maduro is not an illegitimate leader. The Bolivarian revolution was widely supported among the people of Venezuela and freed millions from poverty, until USA sanctions demolished their economy. The express purpose of USA sanctioning, according to the US government is to, and I quote, “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government”. USA+EU sanctions additionally murder half a million innocents per year according to recent serious sociologic and medical studies.
By defending regime change under extreme economic sanctioning, you’re approving the murders of 38 million people over the past 50 years of economic sanctions, and directly supporting the CIA strategy of “starve them until they change their minds”.
A) They didn’t up the bounty for his arrest. They upped the reward for legitimate information that could be used to support having him arrested. Since Biden never gave that bounty to anyone and didn’t arrest him or request he be arrested, then that should trigger in your thinking process that there is a huge fucking difference in policy between “We are investigating whether it is legally valid to pursue narco-terrorism charges against a world leader who we think did not win a legitimate election” and “We are invading a nation to capture a person to bring to trial without showing any evidence.”
B) That link was about getting information leading to his legal arrest through international cooperation in a court system, not about unilaterally deciding to invade a country and kill a bunch of people to extract a high value target.
A) First, I don’t know if you can be even more clueless to understand what “information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Maduro” refers to. Do you think that just means a bounty that doesn’t get enforced? It literally is to there to provide information to assist the US in arresting Maduro.
B) Ah yeah, I forgot they were going to send in the international police to arrest him despite not having an arrest warrant by the ICC. I do know of one person that had an arrest warrant by the ICC though that Biden was very friendly with, sending money & weapons to help murder children while his admin vetoed bills to stop the genocide.
There was ever so much whining about Obama using drone strikes
Special Millitary Operation in Venezuela. Quick 30 minute adventure.
Dipshits are gonna be greedy, fuck it up and turn it in to an another Afganistan. This time really close to home.
Nobody likes Maduro. They should play with that, take their successful 30min and exit.
If nobody likes Maduro, why is the USA placing Venezuela under extreme economic sanctioning?
Maduro is not an illegitimate or unpopular leader. The Bolivarian revolution was widely supported among the people of Venezuela and freed millions from poverty, until USA sanctions demolished their economy. The express purpose of USA sanctioning, according to the US government is to, and I quote, “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government”. USA+EU sanctions additionally murder half a million innocents per year according to recent serious sociologic and medical studies.
By defending regime change under extreme economic sanctioning, you’re approving the murders of 38 million people over the past 50 years of economic sanctions, and directly supporting the CIA strategy of “impoverish them until they change their minds”.
Maduro has been declared illegitimate by nearly every other nation, and the UN and EU. The election was a farce.
“Special military operation”
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/cc59d930-c2c5-4cfd-9618-8292cf875164.gif">
At least Dr Evil was evilly cool compared to these facists!
Hey if big daddy Putin can do it, why can’t diaper Donny?
Calling in war would make both of them criminals.
Ehm… I’m sorry if this comes as a blow, but they both are criminals (Trump already found guilty on 34 accounts). They have been criminals for most of their lives.
Yes yes. Other one is an old KGB murderer and kleptocrat the other one an old KGB asset, convicted conman and kleptocrat.
And pedophile.
Anyone that doesn’t is on his payroll and not to be trusted.
Christ, I hope my country is putting some serious effort into jailbreaking their F-35s.
So long as you’re fine with whatever consequences the US is willing to impose on you for doing so, this can’t seriously be that hard—right? IIRC, the US just controls the server that signs flight plans? So… worst case scenario, that’s managed by a chip without any write access? Reverse engineer the little chip to ask your own server for permission, no?
Given we’re talking about state-sponsored capabilities here, am I oversimplifying things? I don’t feel like I am.
Why they would? like come on dude! do you want to be taken to el salvador ? like wake up! USA is a dead country where people are deported for what they are saying. Why The media or any media would want that?
USA started a war with Iraq and many other countries including Venezuela. We all pretend that didn’t expect it, but yet we knew, and we are partners in a crime. The thing is we didn’t stop it and we wont(as countries).
Sit and watch.
Do ya’ll not have search engines? Literally anybody can find like 20 articles calling it an Act of War with the press of a button.
And you can find as many saying it isn’t. Confirmation bias is in play here
Schrodinger’s act of war.
ABC was covering it like it was a football game. “Incredible performance from the US military”, “Flawless victory over the Venezuelans”, “Impressive display of professionalism from the troops”
Makes me sick.
That is nauseating. These are human lives, 80 people died
That’s cause only white people matter.
Unfortunately, those 80 human lives are almost nothing compared to the 38 million the US and EU have murdered over the past 50 years through economic sanctioning (still murdering half a million per year).
<citation needed>
And its the military’s job to kill people. I’ve never got people who love soldiers.
Soldiers are still human beings and there are enough instances where soldiers did the right thing. Aside that, soldiers do what they’re told. Kill the one person in charge and all soldiers stop
Hen turning off their critical thinking on purpose are a pity…
DAE all the Lemmings saying that the good men in the military would refuse to carry out unlawful orders because they swore an oath to the Costitution?
Remember when the invasion of Afghanistan got its own theme tune and title sequence?
USA Nukes Poland
“The president took another eyebrow-raising strategy today, let’s talk to a panel of assorted youtube streamers to analyze what he meant with this action…”
Friggin RIGHT?!?!?!
The semantics at play indicate the media “watchdogs” have put their tails between their legs and pissed themselves.
Media is just bought and controlled by the corporate donor class who have installed this administration to begin with. Every major outlet is compromised.
Every time you see media making the administration angry or they have spats, it’s just performance. I think if everyone realized how much of what we are experiencing is kayfabe people would have a mental breakdown.
I keep trying to point this out to my mother, who keeps overreacting to one news story after another. She agrees in the moment that it’s all theater, then goes right back to being outraged by every obvious bait story.
My parents were also people whom I would make great efforts to explain things to them with reason and logic and they would understand it and act logical when presented with logical arguments, but the moment an emotion rose up in them again it would all go out the window.
Some people can’t deal with emotions, they never worked out the basic concept that emotions are not the same as factual reality, they just respond to a feeling and let their brains write whatever story fits immediately to explain and validate those feelings, even if the story doesn’t make sense. The only way you can get people like that to stay aligned on a particular idea is to present them a constant narrative that provokes their emotions.
Unfortunately, this is a known technique now for capturing large segments of the population. Fear and anger are much stronger emotions than any others so as long as you can keep people scared or paranoid or angry at some other group, you can tell them anything and they won’t bother trying to reason it out.
You’re not a mean cow at all! As someone that’s about to start therapy with a spouse with a similar issue, you just handed me the beginning of the proverbial thread I need to start pulling on. So serendipitous!
I’m very glad to hear that you’re taking the right steps to working something out with your partner.
I guess if I were to pass on any measure of aged wisdom on the issue, it would be that having an emotional/reactionary state of mind is not entirely bad. If you’re a logical thinker who defaults to reason first before reacting to an emotion, that will serve you well in life making decisions and figuring out problems, but it’s not necessarily “better” than being someone emotional.
Just like an emotional/reactionary person needs to learn that their system isn’t the only valid way to deal with the world, a logical minded person isn’t necessarily having a “better” experience in life. We are all deeply emotional creatures and trying to squash that can be just as damaging as letting our feelings run away with us and falling down some conspiracy hole. A feeling person has more potential for healthier emotions and emotional intelligence than someone who just sticks to systems and “policy” about life.
Making this concession is key to reaching out and bridging that gap. We all have things to work on in ourselves, the key to good relationships is deciding together, as a team, what traits or values you’re going to share and what you need to work on improving, and acceptance that you’re never going to “get there” and be the best version of yourself, you can only keep trying for someone who you decide is worth it, and hopefully that person will share that same perspective.
nah bro its just a gentle love tap
Billionaire owned media isn’t covering this?
Will be interesting to see what Maduro’s trial judge says.
As IF he gets anything close to a fair trial. Everything about this kidnapping was illegal to begin with. All world leaders can now be kidnapped in their beds by US Special Forces. What happened to Noriega will happen to Maduro.
Why haven’t they captured genocider Netanyahu?? Oh right…….
There’s a longstanding law which says a court can disregard how the defendant ended up in the courtroom, regardless of the legality of the means used to get them there.
SHAME
“Special Military Operation”
This was an act of war wrapped in the shroud of narcotics enforcement
Who actually believed that justification? Not even the MAGA crowd believe it, they just straight up say its about oil. Back in 2016 they called neocons “rhinos”, now MAGA is neocon, cheering for the very same things they previously hated Bush Jr. for.
I agree, I’m describing what THEY call it
It is an act of war, the “capture” of Maduro is a kidnapping, and the deaths of ~80 cuban and venezuelan security and civilians is murder.
USA is a rogue state.
Not many people are bringing up that the US invaded a country and not only kidnapped a guy, but left a trail of bodies.
middleeasteye.net/…/us-attack-venezuela-death-tol…
Please, we desperately need to be invaded and conquered by the most convenient communist country
Edit: not sarcasm
The subscription billionaire media companies are all complicit, and have been for quite a while.
As written by General Buttler in 1935, War is a Racket. The billionaire cabal benefits from war immensely, and the media they own and control will always sing the praises of war.
The world is sleepwalking into WWIII
Seriously, the US isn’t going to be the only country looking to put their finger on the scale in Venezuela. Heck, there’s plenty who will do so just to further entangle the US.
International law is very clear that the seizing of ships is not a casus bellum. Claiming it is a “clear act of war” suggests the author is more interested in rabble-rousing and news-as-a-team-sport than answering the question, which is disappointing.
It’s churnalism like this that landed us with Trump, Bolsonaro, Johnson, and all the other crap.
Seizing of ships? My sibling in Christ Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped by the USA
Its in the article.
I’m aware the US has seized ships, the act of war would be the invasion of the country, bombing of civilians, and kidnapping of the president
Right, but the article claims theyre all acts of war.
I think this is not necessarily the case, the article could be interpreted as calling these “acts of war” from a colloquial standpoint, which is a judgement informed by the fact that we know now that the USA performed the kidnapping. It’s not necessarily saying that these acts should’ve already been called acts of war back then.
If you told me ten days ago the US would capture Maduro, bomb the shit out of a variety of military sites, and kill a bunch of civilians in the process, I would ask which American navy vessel was attacked to start the war.
But, uh.
The US media is owned by the same oligarchs who benefit from his fascism. Why would they bite the hand that feeds?