The answer to why this war will be framed as "based" is because quick conquests for concrete american interest (end drugs, take oil) are based as opposed to endless, undefined ideological wars.
This is what peak European Imperialism used to look like. Lightning raids from fast gunboats, toppling failed states and plundering their treasuries with zero blowback. Then 1914 came around and European states began cannibalising each other with the same appetite and aggression and the good times were permanently over.
One substantive quibble with an excellent post. Israel is now a high salience issue in the US and so Israel is getting retconned into previous policy debates (Tucker now implicates "Zionists" for British involvement in WWII), but I was a college student when we invaded Iraq and I remember the debates vividly. Israel was minor factor all around. The pro-war faction considered benefits to Israel way down on their list of reasons. As for anti-war, I was at an anti-war rally the day the US invaded. I was a moderate who thought the war was dumb rather than evil, but the even the more militant people on the stage never invoked Israel as the reason for the war. They talked about "no blood for oil", "foreign war being used as a cover for class war"- I think quite literally the only invocation of Israel was a speaker worrying that the war could unleash an Iraqi chemical weapons attack on them. Believe it or not, even the anti-war people assumed Saddam had some WMDs.
As for Israel itself, they were happy to see Saddam go, but they worried about increased Iranian influence after his fall and this just wasn't their big issue.
The reason we invaded Iraq was that we were mad at them ever since the Kuwait invasion in 1990 made Saddam a household name. He was the closest thing we had to a Hitler, he even gassed ethnic minorities! The foreign policy establishment was mad we blew the chance to overthrow him in 1991, post-9/11 the public was pretty happy to do wars if there was even a peripheral link to terrorism, Saddam really had played cute with chemical and biological weapons in the 90s and seemed a menace. What's more, there was just a democratizing wave going on from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. The idea that you could just knock over a dictatorship and a democracy would arise did not seem that crazy. Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I, Kosovo . . . the idea that the US could just attack places and solve problems likewise seemed plausible.
Now it all seems so stupid in hindsight that you have to invoke malign foreign actors to explain why the US did what it did, but three quarters of Americans supported that war at the onset and they had their reasons.
I didn't meant to claim that on 9/11, Israel was top of mind, but that 9/11 was a turning point in the salience of the Middle East in conspiracy narratives. If you go back an read "none dare call it conspiracy" and the "old school" of the John Birchers, everything was centered on Moscow. After 1991, the conspiracy view shifted toward Brussels, London, and the EU as the capital of the "globalist conspiracy." 9/11 put the Middle East on the map, and brought Israel more and more into view.
I'd also say that the concept of a "war with Islam" changed the tenor of the New Atheist movement. I remember Dawkins et al taking a very harsh view toward "bronze age goat herders," i.e., the ancient Israelites. Again, I'm not constructing a logical justification for why Israel became a central focus, but showing how inferences and associations coalesced around Israel. It's a complicated issue but I do think 9/11 was a turning point.
Great post. I'm glad you're acknowledging the possibility I see that no one else seems to be mentioning, which is that still after all this, "nothing ever happens." Their new president Delcy Rodriguez has insisted that Maduro should still be president, and it could be that she'll govern very similarly to how Maduro governed. Trump has said that we're going to tell Venezuela what to do, without putting boots on the ground, and they'll do it... which seems a little implausible to me... Anyway, the extradition of Maduro, in itself, is a big deal, but I wonder if that will be it and nothing much else will change in the US, Venezuela, and the Western hemisphere.
I think Trump wants to milk this "crisis" for as long as possible because he rightly understands it benefits him in the polls to distract from the state of the economy. Therefore he has an incentive to maximize ambiguity to keep people glued to the feed.
In VZA the two most powerful players after Maduro are Delcy Rodriguez, the VP, and the wonderfully named Diosdado Cabello (the name means "God-given Hair", and the dude is bald). The former is a party loyalist, full stop, but Cabello has the rep for being truly evil. Remains to be seen what will happen in the subsequent power struggles.
For years there have been reports (and by this I mean by the US Congress, using CIA intel) that Hezbollah has large training centers, and a big cocaine smuggling operation, out of the island of Margarita, which is sort of the Hawaii of Venezuela. (I imagine this is the closest these guys will get to Islamic Paradise, but the hotties on the beach might not be virgins). I was sort of hoping that there would be more boots on the ground, just to see if those rumors of terrorists on the beach were true.
Russia and Iran also are reported to have a footprint in Venezuela, so, from a purely realpolitik, New Cold War perspective, it makes sense to increase US power projection there.
Without going on a nauseating tangent, I’ve worked with all kinds of political views. Some of the most fascinating funny moments on the right or left have been people taking up positions that they don’t actually believe in, and it becomes somewhat tribal, weak, and contradictory. It’s just the NPCs of extremistan rather than the NPCs of mediocrastan.
Today’s Democrats wouldn’t have supported the D-Day invasion because Eisenhower didn’t know the Battle of the Bulge would occur six months later. For fucks sake the worst dictator in the western hemisphere is in jail in NYC. Rejoice.
I like how conservative claim that Democrats are too violent, and then claim they would have chickened out in front of the Nazi menace. Try criticizing Tucker more.
You forget one possible avenue to glue all that coalition together: memes.
If, in the next few weeks, the Trump administration decides to keep the public informed on social media through AI generated "Franklin the Turtle" covers, even some faithful 3rd worldists will forgo harsh judgement.
Regarding the future of Venezuela, Trump can cut the Gordian knot by giving a sinecure position to Dr. Disrespect. Attach some bullshit title to his name and there you go, right-wing bootlickers will melt with pleasure.
"With that being said, here are some potential effects of Venezuela being Milei-ified:
(1) Venezuelans get richer (ok, but how does that affect me personally?)
(2) Venezuelan immigrants go home (less Latina hotties 😔)
(3) Venezuela floods the market with cheap oil.1
Domestically, if the price of oil drops, that would (4) drive down inflation, (5) lower the price of energy, and (6) benefit the American voter. (7) The stock market will rise and the (8) economy will improve."
Hahahaha I know the Doctor Professor things quite well so like I always say; there is no way Americans can understand duginism haha and definitely you aren't an exception. I told many times Dr Professor to stop talking with the MAGAS because it is not longer necessary, it is useless, and they are gross and ignorant. Trump is the perfect embodiment of duginist geopolitics 😉 much more than Putin who follows strictly the St Petersburg group ideology which is anti-duginist 🤣 see how paradoxical things are...! Trumpism is "a" duginism, lol, much more than MAGA "alone" who are mostly just "retardeds".
The world has changed and you can’t simply ignore duginism or saying these stupid things without base and foundation. You never read Dugin but just the internet propaganda: that is how Dugin protects his own stuff. He is a quite inteligent guy. And Russia won, Israel won... and Trump won. Very duginist.
The main problem of dugin with the Ukranian regime: well, they killed his daughter, and that is a reason to call them gays and whatever. It is his right. But the main problem is nazism. We don’t know if they are gay, idgf, but definitely they are quiiiiiiite nazZzzi, antisemitic (yes; and I can prove it 😁), and russophobic. By the way AfD is voted maximally by gays because gays in Germany want: reduction of Muslims and reconnection with Russia, lol. You see; gay things. Like always; your analysis might be very homo-nazi funny but definitely are hollow as fuck.
Awww how sweet, TY; I wish you the best as well! (truly)
Synthesis-kindergarten-level: -Duginism is real, and only Trump seems to have grasped it; something you’d know if you’d actually read The Foundations of Geopolitics.
-MAGA “Duginists” don’t read; they follow Dugin "online" and use “Dugin” as a white pill symbol in their cultural wars.
-You do the same from the opposite side; very American.
- Duginism, whether we like it or not, is key to understanding what is going on in the world.
-Take Duginism more seriously: your analyses keep failing; you say it yourself. I’m not insulting you; I’m helping you 😁... (truly)
great post.
The answer to why this war will be framed as "based" is because quick conquests for concrete american interest (end drugs, take oil) are based as opposed to endless, undefined ideological wars.
Motive and speed.
This is what peak European Imperialism used to look like. Lightning raids from fast gunboats, toppling failed states and plundering their treasuries with zero blowback. Then 1914 came around and European states began cannibalising each other with the same appetite and aggression and the good times were permanently over.
Like the quick conquest of Iraq (take oil) and Afghanistan (stop terrorism). Mission Accomplished!
If it turns into that... perception will shift
One substantive quibble with an excellent post. Israel is now a high salience issue in the US and so Israel is getting retconned into previous policy debates (Tucker now implicates "Zionists" for British involvement in WWII), but I was a college student when we invaded Iraq and I remember the debates vividly. Israel was minor factor all around. The pro-war faction considered benefits to Israel way down on their list of reasons. As for anti-war, I was at an anti-war rally the day the US invaded. I was a moderate who thought the war was dumb rather than evil, but the even the more militant people on the stage never invoked Israel as the reason for the war. They talked about "no blood for oil", "foreign war being used as a cover for class war"- I think quite literally the only invocation of Israel was a speaker worrying that the war could unleash an Iraqi chemical weapons attack on them. Believe it or not, even the anti-war people assumed Saddam had some WMDs.
As for Israel itself, they were happy to see Saddam go, but they worried about increased Iranian influence after his fall and this just wasn't their big issue.
The reason we invaded Iraq was that we were mad at them ever since the Kuwait invasion in 1990 made Saddam a household name. He was the closest thing we had to a Hitler, he even gassed ethnic minorities! The foreign policy establishment was mad we blew the chance to overthrow him in 1991, post-9/11 the public was pretty happy to do wars if there was even a peripheral link to terrorism, Saddam really had played cute with chemical and biological weapons in the 90s and seemed a menace. What's more, there was just a democratizing wave going on from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. The idea that you could just knock over a dictatorship and a democracy would arise did not seem that crazy. Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I, Kosovo . . . the idea that the US could just attack places and solve problems likewise seemed plausible.
Now it all seems so stupid in hindsight that you have to invoke malign foreign actors to explain why the US did what it did, but three quarters of Americans supported that war at the onset and they had their reasons.
I didn't meant to claim that on 9/11, Israel was top of mind, but that 9/11 was a turning point in the salience of the Middle East in conspiracy narratives. If you go back an read "none dare call it conspiracy" and the "old school" of the John Birchers, everything was centered on Moscow. After 1991, the conspiracy view shifted toward Brussels, London, and the EU as the capital of the "globalist conspiracy." 9/11 put the Middle East on the map, and brought Israel more and more into view.
I'd also say that the concept of a "war with Islam" changed the tenor of the New Atheist movement. I remember Dawkins et al taking a very harsh view toward "bronze age goat herders," i.e., the ancient Israelites. Again, I'm not constructing a logical justification for why Israel became a central focus, but showing how inferences and associations coalesced around Israel. It's a complicated issue but I do think 9/11 was a turning point.
Great post. I'm glad you're acknowledging the possibility I see that no one else seems to be mentioning, which is that still after all this, "nothing ever happens." Their new president Delcy Rodriguez has insisted that Maduro should still be president, and it could be that she'll govern very similarly to how Maduro governed. Trump has said that we're going to tell Venezuela what to do, without putting boots on the ground, and they'll do it... which seems a little implausible to me... Anyway, the extradition of Maduro, in itself, is a big deal, but I wonder if that will be it and nothing much else will change in the US, Venezuela, and the Western hemisphere.
I think Trump wants to milk this "crisis" for as long as possible because he rightly understands it benefits him in the polls to distract from the state of the economy. Therefore he has an incentive to maximize ambiguity to keep people glued to the feed.
In VZA the two most powerful players after Maduro are Delcy Rodriguez, the VP, and the wonderfully named Diosdado Cabello (the name means "God-given Hair", and the dude is bald). The former is a party loyalist, full stop, but Cabello has the rep for being truly evil. Remains to be seen what will happen in the subsequent power struggles.
For years there have been reports (and by this I mean by the US Congress, using CIA intel) that Hezbollah has large training centers, and a big cocaine smuggling operation, out of the island of Margarita, which is sort of the Hawaii of Venezuela. (I imagine this is the closest these guys will get to Islamic Paradise, but the hotties on the beach might not be virgins). I was sort of hoping that there would be more boots on the ground, just to see if those rumors of terrorists on the beach were true.
Russia and Iran also are reported to have a footprint in Venezuela, so, from a purely realpolitik, New Cold War perspective, it makes sense to increase US power projection there.
I agree with you about 75% politically but im too much of a chud to ever truly hate Trump
Well I don't hate Trump, I just think his political coalition is injurious.
I did actually laugh.
i'm curious what was funny
Without going on a nauseating tangent, I’ve worked with all kinds of political views. Some of the most fascinating funny moments on the right or left have been people taking up positions that they don’t actually believe in, and it becomes somewhat tribal, weak, and contradictory. It’s just the NPCs of extremistan rather than the NPCs of mediocrastan.
Today’s Democrats wouldn’t have supported the D-Day invasion because Eisenhower didn’t know the Battle of the Bulge would occur six months later. For fucks sake the worst dictator in the western hemisphere is in jail in NYC. Rejoice.
I'm skeptical as to whether you read my article.
I like how conservative claim that Democrats are too violent, and then claim they would have chickened out in front of the Nazi menace. Try criticizing Tucker more.
You forget one possible avenue to glue all that coalition together: memes.
If, in the next few weeks, the Trump administration decides to keep the public informed on social media through AI generated "Franklin the Turtle" covers, even some faithful 3rd worldists will forgo harsh judgement.
Regarding the future of Venezuela, Trump can cut the Gordian knot by giving a sinecure position to Dr. Disrespect. Attach some bullshit title to his name and there you go, right-wing bootlickers will melt with pleasure.
"With that being said, here are some potential effects of Venezuela being Milei-ified:
(1) Venezuelans get richer (ok, but how does that affect me personally?)
(2) Venezuelan immigrants go home (less Latina hotties 😔)
(3) Venezuela floods the market with cheap oil.1
Domestically, if the price of oil drops, that would (4) drive down inflation, (5) lower the price of energy, and (6) benefit the American voter. (7) The stock market will rise and the (8) economy will improve."
1 no they will not
2no they will not
3 maybe. doubtful.
4. no it will not
5. no it will not
6. no it will not
7. Yes. For sure.
8. That depends on who you ask.
you still appear to be a right winger
Hahahaha I know the Doctor Professor things quite well so like I always say; there is no way Americans can understand duginism haha and definitely you aren't an exception. I told many times Dr Professor to stop talking with the MAGAS because it is not longer necessary, it is useless, and they are gross and ignorant. Trump is the perfect embodiment of duginist geopolitics 😉 much more than Putin who follows strictly the St Petersburg group ideology which is anti-duginist 🤣 see how paradoxical things are...! Trumpism is "a" duginism, lol, much more than MAGA "alone" who are mostly just "retardeds".
The world has changed and you can’t simply ignore duginism or saying these stupid things without base and foundation. You never read Dugin but just the internet propaganda: that is how Dugin protects his own stuff. He is a quite inteligent guy. And Russia won, Israel won... and Trump won. Very duginist.
The main problem of dugin with the Ukranian regime: well, they killed his daughter, and that is a reason to call them gays and whatever. It is his right. But the main problem is nazism. We don’t know if they are gay, idgf, but definitely they are quiiiiiiite nazZzzi, antisemitic (yes; and I can prove it 😁), and russophobic. By the way AfD is voted maximally by gays because gays in Germany want: reduction of Muslims and reconnection with Russia, lol. You see; gay things. Like always; your analysis might be very homo-nazi funny but definitely are hollow as fuck.
Unfortunately due to your inability to speak English I cannot tell if you are insulting me, but I wish you all the best.
...I over-speak English 🙂 I can't help it.
Awww how sweet, TY; I wish you the best as well! (truly)
Synthesis-kindergarten-level: -Duginism is real, and only Trump seems to have grasped it; something you’d know if you’d actually read The Foundations of Geopolitics.
-MAGA “Duginists” don’t read; they follow Dugin "online" and use “Dugin” as a white pill symbol in their cultural wars.
-You do the same from the opposite side; very American.
- Duginism, whether we like it or not, is key to understanding what is going on in the world.
-Take Duginism more seriously: your analyses keep failing; you say it yourself. I’m not insulting you; I’m helping you 😁... (truly)