If you think the Maduro grab is unique in its disregard for sovereignty or international norms, you have forgotten a long history of American and non‑American regime change operations. What is genuinely distinctive here is not the willingness to interfere in another country’s politics. It is the combination of two things at once:
A brutally honest strategic motive—energy and great‑power rivalry, not humanitarian uplift.
A procedural choice to bring the captured leader into a courtroom instead of leaving a body in a ditch.
You can see this dynamic even in our own backyard. Local coverage of Representative Salud Carbajal’s swift condemnation of the operation has leaned heavily on tone—outrage, alarm, the obligatory denunciations—while skating past the harder comparisons. The same voices that can barely spare a sentence for the legal gray zone around bin Laden’s killing suddenly discover an elaborate conscience once the target is Maduro and the president is Trump. While the Angry Poodle gave its obligatory partisan growl to Carbajal’s denouncement, a more attentive watch dog has a more tactical response.
Hello Nick Koonce "What is genuinely distinctive here is not the willingness to interfere in another country’s politics. It is the combination of two things at once"
The Cuban Intelligence has been ingrained with Venz. and Maduro for a long time
and are interfering if you want to call it that. Maduro relied on Cuban security forces and Maduro trusted them more than he did his own people. The people Killed during the action were thought to be Cuban Security Forces. My neighbor was a former CIA Operations officers and lived in Latin America until retirement. It is a mess down there.
L. Angel, poor use of words Definition Propaganda - propaganda, dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion. It is often conveyed through mass media.
It is a fact that I am a Member of a Military family. I had 11 family members served in WWII and here is a family photo of them in Dayton Ohio>
This is not propganda it is fact. It was men and women that you see in that
photo that we won WWII. My Mother is in that photo and her two brothers and father served in WWII. And I use my REAL NAME because of my family and who they are and what they did. My Grandfather, mothers side, executive officer in Air Force in charge of Operation Paper Clip out of Wright Patterson AF Base end of WWII. The Germans were brought back to Wright Patterson then finally down to Huntsville Alabama for the Missile Program.
Nick, no one says it's "unique," they say it's "wrong." Your logical says our government has done bad things in the past, so we should just keep doing them. In addition to being ridiculous, how exactly is this America First? Salud is correct here, but he's still a hypocrite. You are too black and white.
I asked my cousin who is a raging Regressive “ Biden put a 25 MM bounty on Maduro but was too incompetent to do anything about it. Aren’t you and your friends happy that somebody, anybody, followed through on the bounty Democrats placed on Maduro?” Her answer: “But Trump!” That’s always their answer. Nobody cares anymore.
Military Cooperation: Signing security agreements to enhance intelligence sharing and conducting joint naval exercises between the U.S. Navy and Guyana.
Economic Pressure: Implementing severe sanctions and tariffs on countries that imported Venezuelan oil, aiming to dismantle the regime’s financial lifeblood.
Strategic Alliances: Promoting Guyana as a key partner to wean the Caribbean off Venezuelan energy, effectively neutralizing Maduro’s regional influence.
Meanwhile, Maduro’s then-vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, maintained that Venezuela would never cede its claim.
Thank you for the article very informative and spot on. It’s crazy how a liberal left just because of their hate for Trump. All said they’re all supporting a dictator. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Theo, This is the sinister manipulation they do on here. They (understandably) don't like reactionary terms like 'racist' 'fascist' or 'homophobe' to shut down a conversation, but they are quick to call out 'liberal' 'the left' or 'conspiracy theorist' to anyone they disagree with. Worse, they show no shame in their abject hypocrisy.
Where do you get that idea? What I said was that some people have reservations about the snatch and grab (was it legal, constitutional, against international law, in good taste, whatever) but none have said anything in support of the target himself. The people celebrating have something to celebrate and if some of them turn a blind eye to the potential implications, that's their business.
People are happy because they can have food and toilet paper without standing in line everyday.
They don't care about the political implications.
Biden had a bounty on Maduros head but he was too weak to do anything about it. He also release many of Maduros family members who were in Jail from smuggling drugs.
Why would they turn a blind eye to the dictator that denied them basic rights and kept them living in poverty even though their country is so rich in Oil.
You live a provlesges place with so many freedoms and have no idea how other people live that don't have these luxuries.
And being so consumed with your TDS that you can't even see beyond that and what the reality of the situation is.
I wasn't talking about people in Venezuela. I'm sure that there were many there quietly celebrating, and many who "didn't see" what Maduro was doing because they were doing okay themselves. But I was talking about people in the US celebrating a return to gunboat diplomacy and turning a blind eye to the implications. People who suffer from TDS (i.e., fanatic Trump supporters who get in your face with their MAGA hats) and don't see the constitutional damage being done.
I wonder if Hillary followed the Constitution when she let our troops be killed in Benghazi or when any other president dealt with a dictator such as Noriega or Hussein or Bin Laden.
Hi Burton. I think you may be right in one respect that some folks might have been leery about how the situation could have become "unpleasant" had things not gone right, but I also think that if Trump wasn't the one who lead the command and it was Biden in charge, the main stream media would be hailing him as a hero and the politicians in the democrat party would be partying.
The thing is Biden would not have called for this type of dangerous unnecessary action. Putting the lives of our military servicemen and women in danger just so he could keep a promise to his oil buddies. Trump used the drug rhetoric just to get everybody wound up thinking he was doing a good thing, he doesn’t care about the drugs he wanted the oil.
I don't particularly agree, although the response among politicians would have been reversed, with more favourable responses from some Democrats, and more critical responses from some Republicans. From what I've seen it hasn't been about the possibility of things going wrong, rather the basic idea of the whole thing--although there have been precedents.
The strategic lens: oil, China, and zero‑sum power
There is another way to view the Maduro operation that many critics prefer not to talk about out loud.
As my friend and attorney Michael G. Romano has argued, one way to understand the Maduro operation is as an extraordinarily fast, low‑casualty seizure of a major energy asset in a zero‑sum contest with China. In his words, the United States has “effectively seized Venezuela and the largest proven oil reserves in the world,” using drug charges that function less as a neutral process than as a pretext for what is, in substance, a military‑backed regime change.
Whether that is legal is a fair and necessary question. But it is, in a sense, not the only—or even the most important—question. The larger strategic question is whether this move was sound.
On that front, the case for “yes” is uncomfortable but straightforward. Over the next century, only two countries are plausible contenders to dominate global power: the United States and China. The outcome will turn on four intertwined levers: artificial intelligence, military capability, commerce, and energy. Access to energy underwrites the rest. Whoever controls enough cheap, reliable energy can power data centers for AI, sustain advanced militaries, and move goods around the world.
From that perspective, a lightning‑fast operation that topples a hostile regime, leaves the physical infrastructure largely intact, and places a major oil producer back inside the American sphere of influence looks, to many strategists, like ruthlessly rational statecraft. There was minimal destruction, limited bloodshed, and no conventional war. A key energy asset that China was openly courting is now much less available as a bargaining chip for Beijing.
You do not have to like that logic to acknowledge that it exists. You do not even have to endorse the operation to see why many in Washington now frame Venezuela in terms of energy dominance rather than democracy promotion. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, no one is seriously pretending this is about rebuilding a nation or reshaping a culture. The sales pitch is not “freedom.” It is leverage.
Mr Koonce perfect analysis. "There was minimal destruction, limited bloodshed, and no conventional war. A key energy asset that China was openly courting is now much less available as a bargaining chip for Beijing"
I agree Howard - Nick has a good read on the major problem - who's gonna wind up top dog, China or the U.S.? As long as Trumpy's in charge we have nothin' to worry about - I love his 'trigger-finger'.
The strategic case for the Maduro operation rests on a premise that sounds compelling until you examine the actual energy landscape: "Whoever controls enough cheap, reliable energy can power data centers for AI, sustain advanced militaries, and move goods around the world."
If that's the standard, then the United States has already lost this war.
China doesn't just participate in renewable energy—it dominates it. Chinese companies control roughly 80% of global solar panel manufacturing, 60% of wind turbine production, and nearly the entire supply chain for battery storage. In 2023, China added more renewable energy capacity than the entire United States has installed cumulatively in its history.
And here's the part that undermines the entire Venezuela oil seizure thesis: nothing is cheaper than renewables on both operating expenditure (OpEx) and capital expenditure (CapEx). Solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of new electricity generation virtually everywhere on Earth. The levelized cost of energy for utility-scale solar is around $30-40/MWh. New natural gas plants run $50-70/MWh. Oil-fired generation? Forget it—it's not even economically viable for baseload power anymore.
If the 21st-century competition hinges on "cheap, reliable energy," seizing Venezuelan oil reserves is like cornering the whale oil market in 1890. You're fighting yesterday's war with yesterday's commodity.
Let's talk about what actually powers AI and data centers, since the author treats this as the strategic linchpin. In the data center world, there's a standard unit of measurement called a "U" (rack unit). It's 1.75 inches tall. Width is standardized at either 19 or 21 inches—computers started at 19", telecom was 21", and 21" is effectively the norm now. A standard rack is 42U high. Data centers have thousands of these racks. The largest has 400,000 racks.
Here's where the numbers get interesting:
2003: A typical rack pulled 2 kWh, with some high-density installations reaching 5 kWh
Today: Racks routinely pull close to 100 kWh
Near future: Specs are coming quickly to hit 200 kWh per rack
5-year horizon: Designs are targeting 1,000 kWh per rack
Read that last number again. One thousand kilowatts per rack. That's not a data center anymore—that's a small power plant's worth of demand concentrated in 42U of space.
This is very, very, very hard to do with renewables or any power source that's shared through a utility grid. The grid infrastructure simply cannot deliver that kind of power density to individual facilities without massive, cost-prohibitive upgrades. You can't just plug a 1,000 kWh rack into the wall and hope the local utility can handle it, regardless of country.
This is why companies are pivoting to SMRs—Small Modular Reactors. Look into NuScale and similar technologies. These are factory-built nuclear reactors designed to be installed on-site at data centers, providing dedicated, reliable power without depending on grid infrastructure.
Once that transition happens—and it's already beginning—the entire grid-based energy concern becomes irrelevant. Data centers will power themselves with dedicated nuclear generation. The strategic value of controlling oil reserves for "powering AI" evaporates completely.
Even if we pretend oil remains strategically critical (it doesn't, but let's humor the argument), the numbers still don't work.
China's proven reserves: ~26 billion barrels (roughly 5 years of domestic consumption)
U.S. proven reserves: ~48 billion barrels (roughly 6.25 years of domestic consumption)
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves at roughly 300 billion barrels. Sounds impressive until you realize:
Much of Venezuela's oil is heavy crude that requires extensive refining
Venezuela's production capacity has collapsed from 3.5 million barrels/day in the 1990s to under 800,000 barrels/day today due to decades of mismanagement
Rebuilding that infrastructure will take years and tens of billions of dollars
Even at full capacity, Venezuela's production barely moves the needle on global supply (global consumption is ~100 million barrels/day)
So the "strategic seizure" narrative falls apart: we've captured a degraded asset that will take years to restore, produces a difficult-to-refine product, and addresses a resource (oil) that's becoming less strategically relevant every quarter as the world electrifies and data centers pivot to dedicated nuclear power.
If energy dominance is genuinely the strategic imperative, the United States is pursuing exactly the wrong approach. China is building the infrastructure for the energy economy that will actually matter in 2050: renewable generation, battery storage, electric vehicle supply chains, and grid-scale energy management.
Meanwhile, we're executing regime change operations to seize oil fields that will be stranded assets within 20 years, using legal pretexts that undermine international norms and set precedents that will be used against us.
That's not "ruthlessly rational statecraft." That's strategic confusion wrapped in the language of realism. The author wants us to admire the efficiency of seizing Venezuela's oil while ignoring that we're fighting over the wrong resource in the wrong century.
If this operation is really about energy and AI dominance, then someone should tell the strategists that the war they think they're winning is already over—and China won it by building solar factories while we were planning coups over oil fields.
Partially agree on the lower relevance of oil, but I suspect that Trump-think remains stuck on oil (he certainly is dismissive of sustainable power). There's a former military intelligence guy who posts on Medium (Wes O'Donnell) who, without taking a political stance, pointed out what really ought to scare China, Russia, and Iran about the operation. That is that it involved a seamless integration across army, navy, air force, intelligence, and FBI in a brilliant example of force integration and performance, something he suggests that only the US and NATO are capable of doing well.
If the criteria are the whole military plus covert (CIA,etc.) I'd agree with you. But wouldn't you say Russia is pretty damn good at these exercises? There were cases in the UK where they poisoned someone. I would also put Israel and Saudi Arabia on that list.
I can't remember anything with Iran or China, though. Iran, imo, does not belong at the same level as China, the US, and even Russia. Iran has shown to be like a little tiny dog, snaps at ankles :)
Nick, very good question—but you're conflating two different strategic calculations.
I said Venezuela's oil reserves are strategically irrelevant to the energy dominance argument. That doesn't mean Venezuela as a geopolitical asset is irrelevant. Let me clarify the distinction. I am assuming you are talking about China, Russia, and Iran.
China has extended roughly $100 billion in loans to Venezuela. But this isn't about the oil per se—it's about the Belt and Road Initiative.
The BRI is China's global strategy to build economic influence through infrastructure investment and debt relationships. It's essentially the 21st-century version of what the US did with military bases during the Cold War—except China uses ports, railways, and loan agreements instead of aircraft carriers.
Venezuela represents a foothold in Latin America, which has been uncontested US sphere of influence since the Monroe Doctrine. China doesn't need Venezuelan oil for energy (they're building the renewable infrastructure that actually matters). They want Venezuela as a client state in America's backyard. That's about geopolitical positioning, not energy dominance.
Just look at a map. America's enemies are kept at bay by the oceans.
Russia used a similar playbook—loans, military equipment sales, and geopolitical alignment. Russia wants to complicate US decision-making and stretch American attention across multiple theaters. Venezuela serves that purpose. It's a relatively low-cost way to create a persistent irritant in the Western Hemisphere.
Iran and Venezuela share a common enemy (the US) and both operate under heavy sanctions. The relationship is built on solidarity and practical cooperation to evade those sanctions. Iran doesn't care about Venezuelan oil—they have plenty of their own. They care about having an aligned partner in the Americas.
Our adversaries are interested in Venezuela for debt leverage, regional positioning, and political alignment—not because controlling Venezuelan oil fields is the key to winning the energy competition of the 21st century.
The original argument was that seizing Venezuela represents "extraordinarily fast seizure of a major energy asset" critical to powering AI and military dominance. That's the claim I'm refuting. Venezuelan oil is not strategically critical to that competition because:
1. Renewables are cheaper than oil for power generation
2. Data centers are moving to dedicated SMR nuclear, not grid power
3. China already dominates the renewable supply chain that actually matters
4. Venezuela's heavy crude is expensive to refine and their production capacity is degraded
Adversary interest proves Venezuela has geopolitical value—but it doesn't validate the specific "energy dominance" rationale being offered to justify this operation. Those are different strategic frameworks, and conflating them obscures what's actually happening here.
So you could argue that it is in the US' best interest to keep the adversaries off land that is connected to the US.
You're entitled to your perspective that the response was AI, but you would be wrong.
These aren't theoretical AI-generated claims—they're operational realities I work with directly.
I've spent considerable time in the NAP of the Americas dealing with exactly these power consumption challenges. I work regularly with Dell engineers who are building out these systems and confronting these problems in real-time. The constraints I'm describing aren't speculation—they're the barriers they are actively solving.
Here's a concrete example: Why are most major AI data centers being built in France?
There's a specific reason companies are consolidating their AI infrastructure there, and it directly validates the power thesis. France generates roughly 70% of its electricity from nuclear power—the most reliable, highest-density baseload generation available. French nuclear provides consistent power at scale without the intermittency issues that plague renewable-dependent grids. For data centers pulling 100+ kWh per rack and scaling toward 1,000 kWh, that nuclear backbone is exactly what's needed.
This isn't an abstract energy policy debate. This is the world I operate in professionally. When I describe the move toward SMRs and on-site generation, that's not a prediction—it's the solution set the industry is already implementing because grid infrastructure cannot meet the power-density requirements of modern AI compute.
David, honestly, you have to put some actual engineering rigor behind these responses. You had one diamond nugget in all these posts, SMRs are the future. You had me with the SMRs, then you went back to fantasy land, talking about China's renewables.
You’re mixing correct observations with incorrect conclusions.
You’re right that AI depends on cheap, reliable energy, and you’re also right that SMRs are coming. But that actually undercuts your own argument. If hyperscale data centers move to dedicated nuclear, then grid-scale renewables are not what’s powering AI dominance.
China’s advantage isn’t renewables. It’s systems engineering. They still generate 60% of their electricity from coal, are aggressively building nuclear (25 more plants under construction), and they’ve set an explicit 10% curtailment cap because beyond that, renewables become uneconomic. Solar LCOE at the panel is cheap; system-level solar is not, once you include transmission, curtailment, backup, and grid services. Not to mention the fact that thousands of TW/h capable long-duration battery storage facilities DO NOT exist. Let me repeat that, long-duration batteries DO NOT exist. Not IN CA. Not in China. Not on Earth. Not even in Narnia.
Renewables don’t replace firm power, they sit on top of it. China knows this. California pretends otherwise. China isn’t betting on one form of energy, they’re hedging everything.
Plus, all the renewables you want for the entire globe requires 3-4x more transmission. Where are you getting all the copper? Are you reopening mines and harvesting them with your battery-operated solar machinery? And every renewable system needs 5X overbuild to compensate for its actual low efficiency.
There are only two ways today on Earth and CA to maintain baseload power - fossil fuels or nuclear.
The reason you’re saying renewables are “cheaper per kWh” is because you’re using LCOE, which prices a panel, not a power system.
LCOE ignores availability, transmission, curtailment, backup generation, grid services, and storage beyond a few hours. A kWh at noon in April is not the same as a kWh at 7pm in August, but LCOE pretends they are.
If renewables were actually cheaper at the system level, the places with the most renewables would have the lowest prices. They don’t. California and Germany have high prices, negative pricing at noon, and scarcity pricing at night. There's also no O&M improvement over traditional power when you normalize for actual delivered power with the scaled-up system for the capacity factor.
You are cherry-picking data without context.
Also, boiling this down to “AI energy” is overly myopic. Oil isn’t just about electricity. It underwrites raw material extraction, manufacturing, agriculture, shipping, aviation, military logistics, and nearly every global supply chain on Earth. Even the renewable build-out you’re advocating depends heavily on oil at every stage: mining, fabrication, transport, construction, and maintenance.
You're conflating engineering constraints with business decisions. Let's separate them.
Engineering vs. Business Reality
You're correct on several technical points: LCOE doesn't capture system costs, renewables require overbuild and backup, and long-duration storage doesn't exist at scale yet. I'm not disputing any of that.
But here's where you're missing the forest for the trees: businesses don't optimize for engineering purity—they optimize for speed to deployment, capital efficiency, regulatory approval, and risk management.
The Hyperscale Data Center Reality Check
Let me walk through a real-world scenario. I'm building a hyperscale AI data center:
20,000 racks at 1 MW each = 20 GW demand
Plus cooling, operations, redundancy = ~25 GW total
Water requirement: ~7 million gallons per MW annually = 140 billion gallons/year
Now, what are my options?
Option 1: Nuclear (SMR or Large-Scale)
NuScale SMR: 920 MW per 35-acre site → I need ~28 sites of 40-50 acres each
Large-scale nuclear: I need ~25 new plants
Timeline: 10-15 years for approval and construction
CapEx: Highest of all options
OpEx: Highest of all options
Political approval: Near-impossible in most jurisdictions
Water sourcing: 140 billion gallons/year for a single location? Good luck.
Option 2: Distributed Renewables + Storage + Gas Backup
Timeline: 3-5 years to first power delivery
CapEx: Lower than nuclear
OpEx: Lower than nuclear, gas plants run at 10% baseline, ramp to 90% when needed
Political approval: Easier than nuclear
Physical footprint: Larger, but distributed across multiple sites solves water scarcity
Which option does the businessman choose? The one that gets power flowing in 3 years, not 15.
The Redundancy argument actually supports my point. You correctly note that no single energy source is reliable enough for 24/7/365 uptime. Agreed. That's exactly why the businessman builds:
Solar + battery for daytime baseline
Natural gas plants running at 10% baseline, ready to ramp
Grid interconnection for redundancy
Geographic distribution to hedge weather/disaster risk
This isn't "renewables win because they're perfect." It's "renewables win because they're fast, modular, and financeable."
California's High Costs ≠ Renewables Don't Work
You're cherry-picking California as proof that renewables fail. Let's add context:
California's transmission costs are high because of geography (mountains, distance, land scarcity)
California still has legacy fossil/nuclear infrastructure with stranded costs baked into rates
California's regulatory structure (PG&E's bankruptcy, fire liability) adds billions to rates
California imports power from other states because of political restrictions on in-state buildout, not because renewables are inherently expensive
Compare to Texas, which has aggressively built renewables with minimal geographic barriers and different regulatory structures. Their wholesale prices are lower, and they're adding battery storage rapidly.
China Isn't betting on ONE thing—they're hedging everything. You're absolutely right that China is 60% coal and building 25 nuclear plants. You know what else they're doing? Leading the world in solar, wind, and battery manufacturing. They're not ideologically committed to renewables—they're building everything that works because they need energy security and they know fossil fuels are geopolitically risky.
That's not a refutation of renewables. That's smart portfolio management.
Yes, massive renewable buildout requires 3-4x more transmission and enormous amounts of copper, rare earths, and other materials. You know what also requires massive material inputs? Every other energy source. Nuclear needs uranium, concrete, steel, and rare earths. Fossil fuels need drilling rigs, pipelines, refineries, and tankers. The difference is: Oil extraction for materials ≠ burning oil continuously for power generation.
Mining copper once to build a solar farm is categorically different from burning coal or gas every single day to generate electricity. One is a one-time material cost. The other is an ongoing operational cost with geopolitical and environmental externalities.
System-Level Costs: You're Right, But Missing the Business Calculus
Yes, LCOE is misleading when it ignores availability, transmission, storage, and grid services. Agreed.
But system-level costs also include:
Time value of money: Power delivered in 3 years is worth more than power delivered in 15 years
Financing costs: Renewables are modular and can generate revenue incrementally; nuclear is all-or-nothing
Decommissioning costs: Nuclear has expensive back-end liabilities that aren't reflected in upfront pricing
When you run the full NPV calculation, renewables + storage + gas backup often wins on total cost of ownership, even accounting for overbuild and inefficiency.
The Bottom Line
Engineering in a vacuum says: "Nuclear is denser, more reliable, and doesn't depend on weather."
Business in reality says: "Can I get financing? Can I get regulatory approval? Can I get power online before my competitors? Can I hedge my risks?"
Renewables win not because they're perfect, but because they're deployable. And in a world where AI compute is the new oil, the company that gets power first wins the race.
As Pat Riley once stated, "The best ability is availability."
This is the rhetorical equivalent of a toddler throwing alphabet blocks at a chalkboard and declaring he's written a sonnet.
Let me trace the decomposition of your argument:
You open with "worthless babies" and "vocabulary"—an admission that you find coherent sentences threatening. This is the intellectual equivalent of a man who, having lost at chess, accuses his opponent of "using too many pieces."
Then comes the swerve into fever-dream paranoia: "Zionist leaders" controlling power grids to enforce vaccines and orchestrate depopulation. This is not an argument. This is what happens when 4chan and your uncle's Facebook feed have a baby and drop it on its head. You've managed to invoke three separate conspiracy theories in a single clause, which would be impressive if coherence weren't a prerequisite for persuasion.
"People like you who produce Jack" is my favorite fragment—a broken bit of idiom that has wandered away from its proper home and gotten lost in the tangle of your rage. I assume you meant "people like you who produce jack shit," but the phrase arrived stillborn, which is appropriate given the context.
And then the grand finale: "Move to Caracas and help rebuild their garbage infrastructure."
This is extraordinary. You've spent the entire thread arguing that seizing Venezuela is strategically essential, that its infrastructure and resources are valuable enough to justify regime change—and now, when pressed, you dismiss the same country as worthless garbage not worth saving. You've argued both that Venezuela is a prize worth taking and that it's a hellhole no one should care about. Orwell would recognize this trick: the enemy is simultaneously too strong to ignore and too weak to matter, depending on which sentence you're currently writing.
What you've produced here is not a rebuttal. It's a primal scream formatted as text—rage in search of a point, conspiracy theories in search of a theory, insults in search of an argument. You haven't engaged with a single substantive claim about international law, energy economics, or strategic precedent. You've simply vomited a word salad of grievances, slurs, and non-sequiturs, then hit "send" as if volume could substitute for coherence.
Nabokov once wrote that "mediocrity thrives on 'ideas.'" You haven't even achieved mediocrity. You've offered a seething, inarticulate howl dressed up with proper punctuation. It's the rhetorical equivalent of a man trying to win a knife fight by screaming and flailing: alarming to witness, but not actually dangerous to anyone capable of sidestepping.
If you'd like to make an actual argument—one with premises, logic, and a conclusion that doesn't require decoding through conspiracy forums—I'm here. Until then, you've demonstrated quite conclusively that when substance fails, you retreat into the fever swamps where facts are optional and caps lock is king.
David, bravo! So refreshing to read sound and well-structured logic in this generally inept forum. So rare! My only regret is that I perused today's edition too late to read "Rick's" comments before they were conspicuously removed. I was kinda hoping to read about the fifth anniversary of January 6 through the revisionists' lenses of the S.B. Current's Q-sters. "It was a lovefest!"
I'm against the United States conducting regime change operations so that American companies can profit from seized resources—and your counterargument is to call me "insecure"?
If you have a substantive response to the legal, strategic, or precedent concerns I've raised, I'm listening. Otherwise, ad hominem attacks aren't a substitute for addressing the argument.
Here we have a man who believes the proper response to technical arguments about energy infrastructure is to tell another man to "bang females." I have seen this rhetorical strategy before. It never works, but people keep trying it anyway. This is very human.
Let me address the substance, such as it is: On nuclear disasters: Yes, nuclear power has risks. Chernobyl killed perhaps 4,000 people over decades. Fukushima killed one person from radiation. These are tragedies. I mention them because they happened.
Coal power, by comparison, kills about 800,000 people per year through air pollution. Every year. But we don't call those disasters because they happen slowly and don't make good television. This is also very human.
On being nerdy: Guilty as charged. I prefer data to feelings when discussing infrastructure. This makes me boring at parties, but useful when designing power grids. My therapist says this is fine.
On Star Wars: I saw it. It was okay. The Ewoks were a bridge too far. This has nothing to do with Small Modular Reactors, but I appreciate you bringing it up anyway.
On higher education: You're right that I've had "too much higher ed." I learned things like math, physics, and how to calculate whether a data center can pull 1,000 kilowatt-hours from a municipal grid without causing a brownout. (It can't.) These are boring skills that make boring infrastructure work. Society runs on boring infrastructure built by boring people who did boring calculations. Poetry and passion are wonderful, but they don't keep the lights on.
On growing nuts and banging females: I'm not sure how sexual conquest relates to energy policy, but I admire your ability to connect disparate topics. This is creative thinking. It's wrong, but it's creative.
Here's what I notice: You're angry at computers, AI, nuclear power, education, and statistics—which is to say, you're angry at the entire apparatus of modern civilization. That's exhausting. You're going to give yourself a heart attack.
And here's the thing—the thing that makes me a little sad when I read messages like yours: The lights stay on in your house because boring nerds did boring math about boring infrastructure. The computer you used to call me a nutless nerd was designed by nerds who never banged anyone until their thirties, if ever. The internet that delivered your insult exists because people with "too much higher ed" built packet-switching networks instead of lifting weights and proving their manhood.
You live in a civilization built entirely by the people you're mocking, using tools designed by people you despise, to argue against the very systems that make your comfortable modern life possible.
That's irony. Vonnegut would have appreciated it.
I don't need to "grow nuts." I have a comfortable life built on understanding how things work. You, on the other hand, seem very angry about things you don't understand, which you've replaced with bravado about sexual prowess and contempt for learning.
Yeah this "CHINA!" fear mongering of yours is unserious.
China is your foe, not mine. They're an annoying continuation of the Chinese Soviet Republic and the successor to the opponents of the Nationalist Republican Government of China, but as someone whose loyalty is to the Church, and not America it's irrelevant what China does in Venezuela. Hey I don't like the CCP, i wish Chiang Kai Shek won the Civil War, but China isn't going to "take over the world".
"If the Chinese "control" Venezuela-"
What do I care if the Chinese "own" Venezuela? What does that actually achieve? Nothing substantial- you have to actually transport materials across the ocean to China, and a simple blockade shuts down that entirely. You're not going to be able to transport oil in a war time situation when the Panama Canal and the Artic ocean [Cape of Good Hope] are cut off by Amcerican warships.I don't know what you are politically, but it certainly isn't traditional.
Why is this "great power" competition even if interest to you? It's the same nonsense that caused Europe to destroy itself in World War 1, where petty material interests, "balances of power", and competition led to the largest slaughter of young men in modern history.
Rick thinks he's tough. Someone please get this old geezer a smoothie and take away his phone. Whenever a man invokes manliness as an argument you know bro should not be allowed to cook - revoke his license and keep him away from the kitchen.
Although I would agree that a terrorist leader and a dictator and drug cartel head are not equivalent, I do believe the latter has contributed to more deaths in the US than the former. Of course, we’ve had decades of gaslighting to make some believe that “victimless” crimes should go unpunished.
The line about Trump’s style cuts to the core: too many simply can’t get past his style to see that some/much of what he does has a positive impact. Arresting Maduro, and setting the table for a shift from a drug cartel to a production based economy for millions, and at the same time reducing drug related deaths in the US is a positive.
Can I compare the Maduro and Bin Laden grab? I think it's an apples and oranges comparison. From my memory, everyone was happy Bin Laden was dead. And I believe taking Maduro in custody is great, too. Of course, anything intelligent Trump does pains the Dems which involve themselves with corruption and fraud. The Dems should be happy Trump's government people aren't shooting them like Obama shot Bin Laden.
This is truth but Bin Laden did not act alone. Our presidents and the various agencies within our government that have a less-than-wholesome outlook on the citizens in this country acted to encourage and facilitate that 911 outrage. Which is becoming more and more understood to be less of a foreign operation and more of an internal one. Obama probably did what he did to discourage a day in court where all sorts of funny business would have potentially crawled out. Obama was, and is a puppet. He did what he was told. Looks like his predecessors were, too. Trump doesn’t have any current ties with Venezuela more than likely. So nothing to fear in court. Others in our system might, though so it will be interesting to see how long this guy stays alive. And they have a handy scapegoat - Trump - if he doesn’t show up for court some morning.
Thanks to everyone who has engaged with this piece in good faith. I genuinely welcome disagreement, criticism, and even some friendly banter when it’s grounded in arguments rather than insults. Thoughtful pushback and kind‑spirited opposing views are exactly the kind of discourse I’d like to see more of here.
A smaller subset of comments has gone in a different direction: ad hominem attacks, antisemitic tropes, and attempts at character assassination whose only real purpose seems to be to stir up hostility. That sort of thing says far more about the writer’s insecurities and emotional state than it does about the ideas in the article.
For the record: I don’t feed trolls. If your main contribution is personal abuse, conspiracy‑hunting, or trying to bait me into a shouting match, you will not be rewarded with my time or attention. I sincerely hope some of those folks find better outlets — including, if needed, professional help in working on the emotional maturity they keep trying to outsource to strangers on the internet.
Everyone else who wants to wrestle with the substance, even sharply, is very welcome here.
This piece commits a fundamental category error by treating Osama bin Laden and Nicolás Maduro as equivalent cases. They are not, and the differences matter far more than the author admits.
Bin Laden was a terrorist leading a non-state actor. Maduro was an elected head of state.
Whether you accept the legitimacy of Venezuela's elections or not, Maduro held the position of president through an electoral process. He commanded a military, ran a government, and was recognized by numerous countries as Venezuela's leader. Bin Laden commanded a terrorist network from caves. The international order—imperfect as it is—distinguishes between these categories for good reason. When the United States can simply abduct any head of state it declares "corrupt" and try them in American courts under American law, that precedent applies equally to American presidents. Would we accept China abducting a U.S. president to face trial in Beijing for war crimes? The author wants us to ignore this asymmetry.
Killing bin Laden removed one terrorist leader. His organization was already fractured, operating in hiding, and represented no state apparatus. His death did not collapse a government, displace a population, or create a power vacuum that could plunge a nation into civil war.
Removing Maduro—regardless of how brutal his regime—overthrows the government of a country of 28 million people. Venezuela now faces potential civil conflict, regional refugee flows, and the question of what comes next. The author handwaves this away as "helping to uproot a corrupt regime," as if regime change operations have a sterling track record. Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan suggest otherwise. Even if Maduro is a dictator, his removal by foreign military action carries consequences that extend far beyond one man's fate.
The author celebrates that Maduro "will get a lawyer, a docket number, and his day in court" as if this represents some meaningful improvement over killing bin Laden. This is absurd.
A Venezuelan citizen, abducted from Venezuelan soil by American forces, will be tried in an American court, under American law, by American prosecutors, before American judges, with American jurors. How exactly is this a "fair trial"? What jurisdiction does the United States have to prosecute the domestic crimes of Venezuela's leader against Venezuelan citizens? The author assumes American courts are the natural venue for adjudicating the sins of foreign leaders, which is precisely the kind of imperial presumption that undermines any claim to moral high ground.
This isn't justice—it's a show trial with better production values. At least the bin Laden raid didn't pretend to be something it wasn't. It was a military operation against a terrorist. This is legal theater designed to launder regime change through the American judicial system.
The author argues this "nudges us toward a healthier norm" of trials over killings. But the actual precedent being set is far more dangerous: that the United States can abduct foreign heads of state, transport them to American soil, and prosecute them in American courts whenever it deems their governance sufficiently objectionable.
If this is the standard, then every American president, every European leader, every head of state who has presided over military actions, civilian casualties, or policies that another nation considers criminal is now fair game for abduction and trial. The author cannot explain why this precedent applies only one direction.
The piece mentions that the bin Laden raid "violated Pakistani sovereignty" in passing, then moves on. But this violation was operational—an incursion to target a terrorist. The Maduro operation violates Venezuelan sovereignty in a far more fundamental way: it removes the head of their government and substitutes American judgment for Venezuelan political processes.
Pakistan's sovereignty was compromised for a few hours. Venezuela's sovereignty has been nullified indefinitely. These are not comparable.
The author wants us to celebrate that Maduro gets a "trial" as if the trappings of due process obscure the underlying reality: one country has abducted another country's leader to face judgment in its courts. That Maduro is corrupt doesn't change what this represents. That Venezuela's elections were rigged doesn't grant the United States jurisdiction over Venezuelan domestic affairs.
If your standard is "bad leaders should face justice," then you need an international framework, not unilateral American action dressed up in legal formality. If your standard is "the United States can remove any foreign leader it considers sufficiently monstrous," then at least admit you're defending might-makes-right, not rule of law.
The bin Laden raid was a military operation against a terrorist. It can be defended or criticized on those terms. The Maduro abduction is regime change disguised as prosecution. Pretending a trial makes this more legitimate than killing bin Laden requires ignoring every meaningful difference between the two cases.
Yeah and he terrorized his Citizens and just like Mexico,it is run by Cartels.during Biden admin many family members have already been brought to justice and jailed
Feigned outrage because it was Trump. Know your facts and share with your friends
Narco-nephews: Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, were arrested in 2015 in Haiti. They were caught attempting to transport over 800 kilograms of cocaine to the U.S.
Conviction: In 2016, they were convicted in New York for drug trafficking and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
U.S. Government Actions
Clemency Granted: In October 2022, President Biden granted clemency to the two nephews as part of a prisoner swap. This exchange involved the release of seven Americans, including oil executives from Citgo, who had been detained in Venezuela.
Sanctions: Following their release, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on the nephews in December 2025, citing their continued involvement in drug trafficking activities.
Current Status
As of 2025, the nephews are believed to have returned to Venezuela and are reportedly still engaged in drug-related activities, despite previous U.S. efforts to negotiate their release and address the Maduro regime's actions.
This situation reflects ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela, particularly regarding drug trafficking and human rights issues.
I distinctly recall clowning on you Brian back in March of 2025, I experienced similarly dismissive comments even though you were the one who made the foolish error of calling me a liberal.
I read this Solid Civil Rights Article by Nick Koonce tilted "The Nicolas Maduro Affair" and I quote from same "Maduro will get his day in court. Some of us might use the occasion to put our own double standards under a bit of cross examination too."
Mr. Koonce is a Long-Time ADA Advocate shown below>
OsamaBin Laden attacked and killed on American soil. Have you already forgotten 9/11? Added, he also continually threaten our American way of life with Jehad.
With Medrano, there was no congressional approval given. Trump clearly overreached his power. The fentyl drug numbers don’t support Trumps wildly inaccurate claims. They were going down, down, down.
But this is most important. I think you hope no one will speak up or remember. The attack on an ultimate killing of Osama bin Laden was approved by Congress.
Oh, and let’s not forget, Trump broke the War Powers Act of 1973. He should be facing impeachment.
"The United States helped uproot a corrupt regime and capture its leader."
Why is it the authority of the United States to remove corrupt officials of foreign governments? I don't care about Maduro, but since when is it the right of another nation to remove someone for being corrupt? Like it or not Maduro was leading Venezuela- just being corrupt doesn't annihilate his claim to power. As for him not winning an election, I don't believe power comes from the people as a monarchist [I don't care about such processes] so the point is moot
Let's look at Trump's rhetoric concerning Venezuela; "Venezuela, thus far, has been very nice. But it helps to have a force like we have,” Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One. “If they don’t behave, we will do a second strike.” This man is seriously over here threatening a much smaller nation for not complying with American interests, even if they have nothing to do with Venezuela's interests? Where are the nationalists and populists protests against Trump?
"The Trump administration is demanding that Venezuela’s interim leader take several pro-U.S. actions that her predecessor refused if she wants to avoid a similar fate."
This is just using power to bully other nations around, this is pagan and nietzschean in essence, Trump isn't concerned with truth, justice, or goodness - all he's doing is leveraging the overwhelming military superiority to force a smaller state into submission.
"Trump also said U.S. oil companies need "total access" to the country's vast reserves and suggested that an influx of Venezuelan emigrating to the United States also factored into the decision to capture Maduro." For anyone who remembers history, the Yanqui's similarly had access to Mexican Oil - where American businesses siphined off wealth from Mexico by extracting, processing, and selling it's oil while Mexico saw next to no material prosperity for it's own citizens, which didn't end until the President Lazaro Cardenas's has the nations oil nationalized from Standard Oil and Shell.
"U.S. officials have told Delcy Rodriguez that they want to see at least three moves from her: cracking down on drug flows; kicking out Iranian, Cuban and other operatives of countries or networks hostile to Washington; and stopping the sale of oil to U.S. adversaries, according to a U.S. official familiar with the situation and a person familiar with the administration’s internal discussions."
"You're a sovereign leader, but you must do what we, a foreign government tells you unless you want to get packed up-" this man is insane, no other way around it.
I mean sure I want all of Latin America to have still been under the authority of Spain, and for the whole world to be Spanish - this however is just bullying.
Process, power, and selective outrage
If you think the Maduro grab is unique in its disregard for sovereignty or international norms, you have forgotten a long history of American and non‑American regime change operations. What is genuinely distinctive here is not the willingness to interfere in another country’s politics. It is the combination of two things at once:
A brutally honest strategic motive—energy and great‑power rivalry, not humanitarian uplift.
A procedural choice to bring the captured leader into a courtroom instead of leaving a body in a ditch.
You can see this dynamic even in our own backyard. Local coverage of Representative Salud Carbajal’s swift condemnation of the operation has leaned heavily on tone—outrage, alarm, the obligatory denunciations—while skating past the harder comparisons. The same voices that can barely spare a sentence for the legal gray zone around bin Laden’s killing suddenly discover an elaborate conscience once the target is Maduro and the president is Trump. While the Angry Poodle gave its obligatory partisan growl to Carbajal’s denouncement, a more attentive watch dog has a more tactical response.
Hello Nick Koonce "What is genuinely distinctive here is not the willingness to interfere in another country’s politics. It is the combination of two things at once"
The Cuban Intelligence has been ingrained with Venz. and Maduro for a long time
and are interfering if you want to call it that. Maduro relied on Cuban security forces and Maduro trusted them more than he did his own people. The people Killed during the action were thought to be Cuban Security Forces. My neighbor was a former CIA Operations officers and lived in Latin America until retirement. It is a mess down there.
You forgot to mention you are from a military family. Don't forget to follow your propaganda script.
Constructive.
L. Angel, poor use of words Definition Propaganda - propaganda, dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion. It is often conveyed through mass media.
It is a fact that I am a Member of a Military family. I had 11 family members served in WWII and here is a family photo of them in Dayton Ohio>
https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/franklin-business-with-100-year-dayton-ties-plans-expansion/NWUQIND2URBSDJTH3PYD76BY4I/
This is not propganda it is fact. It was men and women that you see in that
photo that we won WWII. My Mother is in that photo and her two brothers and father served in WWII. And I use my REAL NAME because of my family and who they are and what they did. My Grandfather, mothers side, executive officer in Air Force in charge of Operation Paper Clip out of Wright Patterson AF Base end of WWII. The Germans were brought back to Wright Patterson then finally down to Huntsville Alabama for the Missile Program.
https://www.nasa.gov/people/wernher-von-braun/
https://alabamareflector.com/2025/08/12/at-huntsville-missile-defense-conference-golden-dome-lurks-in-the-background/
This is History not Propaganda like the FAKE NEWS that is everywhere.
Very well said Mr. Koonce. I think you are hired!!!
SB Current what say you????
Nick, no one says it's "unique," they say it's "wrong." Your logical says our government has done bad things in the past, so we should just keep doing them. In addition to being ridiculous, how exactly is this America First? Salud is correct here, but he's still a hypocrite. You are too black and white.
Is this directed at me or another commenter?
Either way, it's uncalled for.
Nick Koonce, every word you stated is point-on-solid analysis.
Hope SB Current starts having you write more articles and in
fact I am seeking someone to help me write a book.
I asked my cousin who is a raging Regressive “ Biden put a 25 MM bounty on Maduro but was too incompetent to do anything about it. Aren’t you and your friends happy that somebody, anybody, followed through on the bounty Democrats placed on Maduro?” Her answer: “But Trump!” That’s always their answer. Nobody cares anymore.
Very true. Read that also.
I wonder how long it’ll be before trump claims the bounty.
for “adventurism” and aggression.
Rubio’s strategy included:
Military Cooperation: Signing security agreements to enhance intelligence sharing and conducting joint naval exercises between the U.S. Navy and Guyana.
Economic Pressure: Implementing severe sanctions and tariffs on countries that imported Venezuelan oil, aiming to dismantle the regime’s financial lifeblood.
Strategic Alliances: Promoting Guyana as a key partner to wean the Caribbean off Venezuelan energy, effectively neutralizing Maduro’s regional influence.
Meanwhile, Maduro’s then-vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, maintained that Venezuela would never cede its claim.
Thank you for the article very informative and spot on. It’s crazy how a liberal left just because of their hate for Trump. All said they’re all supporting a dictator. Craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Not everyone who opposes this move is part of the "liberal left", Matt.
Theo, This is the sinister manipulation they do on here. They (understandably) don't like reactionary terms like 'racist' 'fascist' or 'homophobe' to shut down a conversation, but they are quick to call out 'liberal' 'the left' or 'conspiracy theorist' to anyone they disagree with. Worse, they show no shame in their abject hypocrisy.
Many have reservations about the operation, none are "supporting a dictator."
But you're not supporting the people who are celebrating because they know what this creature has done to them.amd their families.
Where do you get that idea? What I said was that some people have reservations about the snatch and grab (was it legal, constitutional, against international law, in good taste, whatever) but none have said anything in support of the target himself. The people celebrating have something to celebrate and if some of them turn a blind eye to the potential implications, that's their business.
People are happy because they can have food and toilet paper without standing in line everyday.
They don't care about the political implications.
Biden had a bounty on Maduros head but he was too weak to do anything about it. He also release many of Maduros family members who were in Jail from smuggling drugs.
Why would they turn a blind eye to the dictator that denied them basic rights and kept them living in poverty even though their country is so rich in Oil.
You live a provlesges place with so many freedoms and have no idea how other people live that don't have these luxuries.
And being so consumed with your TDS that you can't even see beyond that and what the reality of the situation is.
I wasn't talking about people in Venezuela. I'm sure that there were many there quietly celebrating, and many who "didn't see" what Maduro was doing because they were doing okay themselves. But I was talking about people in the US celebrating a return to gunboat diplomacy and turning a blind eye to the implications. People who suffer from TDS (i.e., fanatic Trump supporters who get in your face with their MAGA hats) and don't see the constitutional damage being done.
Or when Obama ordered a drone strike at wedding?? Probably not following the Constitution on that one.
Yet no complaints from the Libs.
I wonder if Hillary followed the Constitution when she let our troops be killed in Benghazi or when any other president dealt with a dictator such as Noriega or Hussein or Bin Laden.
Hi Burton. I think you may be right in one respect that some folks might have been leery about how the situation could have become "unpleasant" had things not gone right, but I also think that if Trump wasn't the one who lead the command and it was Biden in charge, the main stream media would be hailing him as a hero and the politicians in the democrat party would be partying.
The thing is Biden would not have called for this type of dangerous unnecessary action. Putting the lives of our military servicemen and women in danger just so he could keep a promise to his oil buddies. Trump used the drug rhetoric just to get everybody wound up thinking he was doing a good thing, he doesn’t care about the drugs he wanted the oil.
You're putting "Biden in charge" in a sentence? That putz couldn't tie his own shoes w/o assistance.
If he was awake for that long or not on Vacation.
Biden couldn't stay awake that long to accomplish anything that's why the auto pen did it for him
I don't particularly agree, although the response among politicians would have been reversed, with more favourable responses from some Democrats, and more critical responses from some Republicans. From what I've seen it hasn't been about the possibility of things going wrong, rather the basic idea of the whole thing--although there have been precedents.
The strategic lens: oil, China, and zero‑sum power
There is another way to view the Maduro operation that many critics prefer not to talk about out loud.
As my friend and attorney Michael G. Romano has argued, one way to understand the Maduro operation is as an extraordinarily fast, low‑casualty seizure of a major energy asset in a zero‑sum contest with China. In his words, the United States has “effectively seized Venezuela and the largest proven oil reserves in the world,” using drug charges that function less as a neutral process than as a pretext for what is, in substance, a military‑backed regime change.
Whether that is legal is a fair and necessary question. But it is, in a sense, not the only—or even the most important—question. The larger strategic question is whether this move was sound.
On that front, the case for “yes” is uncomfortable but straightforward. Over the next century, only two countries are plausible contenders to dominate global power: the United States and China. The outcome will turn on four intertwined levers: artificial intelligence, military capability, commerce, and energy. Access to energy underwrites the rest. Whoever controls enough cheap, reliable energy can power data centers for AI, sustain advanced militaries, and move goods around the world.
From that perspective, a lightning‑fast operation that topples a hostile regime, leaves the physical infrastructure largely intact, and places a major oil producer back inside the American sphere of influence looks, to many strategists, like ruthlessly rational statecraft. There was minimal destruction, limited bloodshed, and no conventional war. A key energy asset that China was openly courting is now much less available as a bargaining chip for Beijing.
You do not have to like that logic to acknowledge that it exists. You do not even have to endorse the operation to see why many in Washington now frame Venezuela in terms of energy dominance rather than democracy promotion. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, no one is seriously pretending this is about rebuilding a nation or reshaping a culture. The sales pitch is not “freedom.” It is leverage.
Next on the 'leverage' block will be Taiwan. Well, after Russia has Ukraine.
Mr Koonce perfect analysis. "There was minimal destruction, limited bloodshed, and no conventional war. A key energy asset that China was openly courting is now much less available as a bargaining chip for Beijing"
I agree Howard - Nick has a good read on the major problem - who's gonna wind up top dog, China or the U.S.? As long as Trumpy's in charge we have nothin' to worry about - I love his 'trigger-finger'.
The strategic case for the Maduro operation rests on a premise that sounds compelling until you examine the actual energy landscape: "Whoever controls enough cheap, reliable energy can power data centers for AI, sustain advanced militaries, and move goods around the world."
If that's the standard, then the United States has already lost this war.
China doesn't just participate in renewable energy—it dominates it. Chinese companies control roughly 80% of global solar panel manufacturing, 60% of wind turbine production, and nearly the entire supply chain for battery storage. In 2023, China added more renewable energy capacity than the entire United States has installed cumulatively in its history.
And here's the part that undermines the entire Venezuela oil seizure thesis: nothing is cheaper than renewables on both operating expenditure (OpEx) and capital expenditure (CapEx). Solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of new electricity generation virtually everywhere on Earth. The levelized cost of energy for utility-scale solar is around $30-40/MWh. New natural gas plants run $50-70/MWh. Oil-fired generation? Forget it—it's not even economically viable for baseload power anymore.
If the 21st-century competition hinges on "cheap, reliable energy," seizing Venezuelan oil reserves is like cornering the whale oil market in 1890. You're fighting yesterday's war with yesterday's commodity.
Let's talk about what actually powers AI and data centers, since the author treats this as the strategic linchpin. In the data center world, there's a standard unit of measurement called a "U" (rack unit). It's 1.75 inches tall. Width is standardized at either 19 or 21 inches—computers started at 19", telecom was 21", and 21" is effectively the norm now. A standard rack is 42U high. Data centers have thousands of these racks. The largest has 400,000 racks.
Here's where the numbers get interesting:
2003: A typical rack pulled 2 kWh, with some high-density installations reaching 5 kWh
Today: Racks routinely pull close to 100 kWh
Near future: Specs are coming quickly to hit 200 kWh per rack
5-year horizon: Designs are targeting 1,000 kWh per rack
Read that last number again. One thousand kilowatts per rack. That's not a data center anymore—that's a small power plant's worth of demand concentrated in 42U of space.
This is very, very, very hard to do with renewables or any power source that's shared through a utility grid. The grid infrastructure simply cannot deliver that kind of power density to individual facilities without massive, cost-prohibitive upgrades. You can't just plug a 1,000 kWh rack into the wall and hope the local utility can handle it, regardless of country.
This is why companies are pivoting to SMRs—Small Modular Reactors. Look into NuScale and similar technologies. These are factory-built nuclear reactors designed to be installed on-site at data centers, providing dedicated, reliable power without depending on grid infrastructure.
Once that transition happens—and it's already beginning—the entire grid-based energy concern becomes irrelevant. Data centers will power themselves with dedicated nuclear generation. The strategic value of controlling oil reserves for "powering AI" evaporates completely.
Even if we pretend oil remains strategically critical (it doesn't, but let's humor the argument), the numbers still don't work.
Current consumption:
China: ~16 million barrels per day
United States: ~21 million barrels per day
Now look at domestic reserves https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-oil-reserves-by-country-in-one-visualization/
China's proven reserves: ~26 billion barrels (roughly 5 years of domestic consumption)
U.S. proven reserves: ~48 billion barrels (roughly 6.25 years of domestic consumption)
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves at roughly 300 billion barrels. Sounds impressive until you realize:
Much of Venezuela's oil is heavy crude that requires extensive refining
Venezuela's production capacity has collapsed from 3.5 million barrels/day in the 1990s to under 800,000 barrels/day today due to decades of mismanagement
Rebuilding that infrastructure will take years and tens of billions of dollars
Even at full capacity, Venezuela's production barely moves the needle on global supply (global consumption is ~100 million barrels/day)
So the "strategic seizure" narrative falls apart: we've captured a degraded asset that will take years to restore, produces a difficult-to-refine product, and addresses a resource (oil) that's becoming less strategically relevant every quarter as the world electrifies and data centers pivot to dedicated nuclear power.
If energy dominance is genuinely the strategic imperative, the United States is pursuing exactly the wrong approach. China is building the infrastructure for the energy economy that will actually matter in 2050: renewable generation, battery storage, electric vehicle supply chains, and grid-scale energy management.
Meanwhile, we're executing regime change operations to seize oil fields that will be stranded assets within 20 years, using legal pretexts that undermine international norms and set precedents that will be used against us.
That's not "ruthlessly rational statecraft." That's strategic confusion wrapped in the language of realism. The author wants us to admire the efficiency of seizing Venezuela's oil while ignoring that we're fighting over the wrong resource in the wrong century.
If this operation is really about energy and AI dominance, then someone should tell the strategists that the war they think they're winning is already over—and China won it by building solar factories while we were planning coups over oil fields.
Partially agree on the lower relevance of oil, but I suspect that Trump-think remains stuck on oil (he certainly is dismissive of sustainable power). There's a former military intelligence guy who posts on Medium (Wes O'Donnell) who, without taking a political stance, pointed out what really ought to scare China, Russia, and Iran about the operation. That is that it involved a seamless integration across army, navy, air force, intelligence, and FBI in a brilliant example of force integration and performance, something he suggests that only the US and NATO are capable of doing well.
If the criteria are the whole military plus covert (CIA,etc.) I'd agree with you. But wouldn't you say Russia is pretty damn good at these exercises? There were cases in the UK where they poisoned someone. I would also put Israel and Saudi Arabia on that list.
I can't remember anything with Iran or China, though. Iran, imo, does not belong at the same level as China, the US, and even Russia. Iran has shown to be like a little tiny dog, snaps at ankles :)
Very insightful and I don’t necessarily disagree but… if Venezuela is strategically irrelevant, why are all our adversaries so interested?
Nick, very good question—but you're conflating two different strategic calculations.
I said Venezuela's oil reserves are strategically irrelevant to the energy dominance argument. That doesn't mean Venezuela as a geopolitical asset is irrelevant. Let me clarify the distinction. I am assuming you are talking about China, Russia, and Iran.
China has extended roughly $100 billion in loans to Venezuela. But this isn't about the oil per se—it's about the Belt and Road Initiative.
The BRI is China's global strategy to build economic influence through infrastructure investment and debt relationships. It's essentially the 21st-century version of what the US did with military bases during the Cold War—except China uses ports, railways, and loan agreements instead of aircraft carriers.
Venezuela represents a foothold in Latin America, which has been uncontested US sphere of influence since the Monroe Doctrine. China doesn't need Venezuelan oil for energy (they're building the renewable infrastructure that actually matters). They want Venezuela as a client state in America's backyard. That's about geopolitical positioning, not energy dominance.
Just look at a map. America's enemies are kept at bay by the oceans.
Russia used a similar playbook—loans, military equipment sales, and geopolitical alignment. Russia wants to complicate US decision-making and stretch American attention across multiple theaters. Venezuela serves that purpose. It's a relatively low-cost way to create a persistent irritant in the Western Hemisphere.
Iran and Venezuela share a common enemy (the US) and both operate under heavy sanctions. The relationship is built on solidarity and practical cooperation to evade those sanctions. Iran doesn't care about Venezuelan oil—they have plenty of their own. They care about having an aligned partner in the Americas.
Our adversaries are interested in Venezuela for debt leverage, regional positioning, and political alignment—not because controlling Venezuelan oil fields is the key to winning the energy competition of the 21st century.
The original argument was that seizing Venezuela represents "extraordinarily fast seizure of a major energy asset" critical to powering AI and military dominance. That's the claim I'm refuting. Venezuelan oil is not strategically critical to that competition because:
1. Renewables are cheaper than oil for power generation
2. Data centers are moving to dedicated SMR nuclear, not grid power
3. China already dominates the renewable supply chain that actually matters
4. Venezuela's heavy crude is expensive to refine and their production capacity is degraded
Adversary interest proves Venezuela has geopolitical value—but it doesn't validate the specific "energy dominance" rationale being offered to justify this operation. Those are different strategic frameworks, and conflating them obscures what's actually happening here.
So you could argue that it is in the US' best interest to keep the adversaries off land that is connected to the US.
I’ll bet your AI spit that response out in nothing flat
Nope.
Amazing that you had no response to the information.
I live in the world that I described.
You mean the one that your computer spit out for you. You’re not fooling anyone.
You're entitled to your perspective that the response was AI, but you would be wrong.
These aren't theoretical AI-generated claims—they're operational realities I work with directly.
I've spent considerable time in the NAP of the Americas dealing with exactly these power consumption challenges. I work regularly with Dell engineers who are building out these systems and confronting these problems in real-time. The constraints I'm describing aren't speculation—they're the barriers they are actively solving.
Here's a concrete example: Why are most major AI data centers being built in France?
There's a specific reason companies are consolidating their AI infrastructure there, and it directly validates the power thesis. France generates roughly 70% of its electricity from nuclear power—the most reliable, highest-density baseload generation available. French nuclear provides consistent power at scale without the intermittency issues that plague renewable-dependent grids. For data centers pulling 100+ kWh per rack and scaling toward 1,000 kWh, that nuclear backbone is exactly what's needed.
This isn't an abstract energy policy debate. This is the world I operate in professionally. When I describe the move toward SMRs and on-site generation, that's not a prediction—it's the solution set the industry is already implementing because grid infrastructure cannot meet the power-density requirements of modern AI compute.
Heck, this is why Texas is pushing hard for SMR. They realize that without this, businesses will chase where they can get the power to feed it. There is no shortage of capital to build these data centers. There is a lack of power. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-ceo-says-the-company-doesnt-have-enough-electricity-to-install-all-the-ai-gpus-in-its-inventory-you-may-actually-have-a-bunch-of-chips-sitting-in-inventory-that-i-cant-plug-in
Bingo ha ha.
David, honestly, you have to put some actual engineering rigor behind these responses. You had one diamond nugget in all these posts, SMRs are the future. You had me with the SMRs, then you went back to fantasy land, talking about China's renewables.
You’re mixing correct observations with incorrect conclusions.
You’re right that AI depends on cheap, reliable energy, and you’re also right that SMRs are coming. But that actually undercuts your own argument. If hyperscale data centers move to dedicated nuclear, then grid-scale renewables are not what’s powering AI dominance.
China’s advantage isn’t renewables. It’s systems engineering. They still generate 60% of their electricity from coal, are aggressively building nuclear (25 more plants under construction), and they’ve set an explicit 10% curtailment cap because beyond that, renewables become uneconomic. Solar LCOE at the panel is cheap; system-level solar is not, once you include transmission, curtailment, backup, and grid services. Not to mention the fact that thousands of TW/h capable long-duration battery storage facilities DO NOT exist. Let me repeat that, long-duration batteries DO NOT exist. Not IN CA. Not in China. Not on Earth. Not even in Narnia.
Renewables don’t replace firm power, they sit on top of it. China knows this. California pretends otherwise. China isn’t betting on one form of energy, they’re hedging everything.
Plus, all the renewables you want for the entire globe requires 3-4x more transmission. Where are you getting all the copper? Are you reopening mines and harvesting them with your battery-operated solar machinery? And every renewable system needs 5X overbuild to compensate for its actual low efficiency.
There are only two ways today on Earth and CA to maintain baseload power - fossil fuels or nuclear.
The reason you’re saying renewables are “cheaper per kWh” is because you’re using LCOE, which prices a panel, not a power system.
LCOE ignores availability, transmission, curtailment, backup generation, grid services, and storage beyond a few hours. A kWh at noon in April is not the same as a kWh at 7pm in August, but LCOE pretends they are.
If renewables were actually cheaper at the system level, the places with the most renewables would have the lowest prices. They don’t. California and Germany have high prices, negative pricing at noon, and scarcity pricing at night. There's also no O&M improvement over traditional power when you normalize for actual delivered power with the scaled-up system for the capacity factor.
You are cherry-picking data without context.
Also, boiling this down to “AI energy” is overly myopic. Oil isn’t just about electricity. It underwrites raw material extraction, manufacturing, agriculture, shipping, aviation, military logistics, and nearly every global supply chain on Earth. Even the renewable build-out you’re advocating depends heavily on oil at every stage: mining, fabrication, transport, construction, and maintenance.
You're conflating engineering constraints with business decisions. Let's separate them.
Engineering vs. Business Reality
You're correct on several technical points: LCOE doesn't capture system costs, renewables require overbuild and backup, and long-duration storage doesn't exist at scale yet. I'm not disputing any of that.
But here's where you're missing the forest for the trees: businesses don't optimize for engineering purity—they optimize for speed to deployment, capital efficiency, regulatory approval, and risk management.
The Hyperscale Data Center Reality Check
Let me walk through a real-world scenario. I'm building a hyperscale AI data center:
20,000 racks at 1 MW each = 20 GW demand
Plus cooling, operations, redundancy = ~25 GW total
Water requirement: ~7 million gallons per MW annually = 140 billion gallons/year
Now, what are my options?
Option 1: Nuclear (SMR or Large-Scale)
NuScale SMR: 920 MW per 35-acre site → I need ~28 sites of 40-50 acres each
Large-scale nuclear: I need ~25 new plants
Timeline: 10-15 years for approval and construction
CapEx: Highest of all options
OpEx: Highest of all options
Political approval: Near-impossible in most jurisdictions
Water sourcing: 140 billion gallons/year for a single location? Good luck.
Option 2: Distributed Renewables + Storage + Gas Backup
Timeline: 3-5 years to first power delivery
CapEx: Lower than nuclear
OpEx: Lower than nuclear, gas plants run at 10% baseline, ramp to 90% when needed
Political approval: Easier than nuclear
Physical footprint: Larger, but distributed across multiple sites solves water scarcity
Which option does the businessman choose? The one that gets power flowing in 3 years, not 15.
The Redundancy argument actually supports my point. You correctly note that no single energy source is reliable enough for 24/7/365 uptime. Agreed. That's exactly why the businessman builds:
Solar + battery for daytime baseline
Natural gas plants running at 10% baseline, ready to ramp
Grid interconnection for redundancy
Geographic distribution to hedge weather/disaster risk
This isn't "renewables win because they're perfect." It's "renewables win because they're fast, modular, and financeable."
California's High Costs ≠ Renewables Don't Work
You're cherry-picking California as proof that renewables fail. Let's add context:
California's transmission costs are high because of geography (mountains, distance, land scarcity)
California still has legacy fossil/nuclear infrastructure with stranded costs baked into rates
California's regulatory structure (PG&E's bankruptcy, fire liability) adds billions to rates
California imports power from other states because of political restrictions on in-state buildout, not because renewables are inherently expensive
Compare to Texas, which has aggressively built renewables with minimal geographic barriers and different regulatory structures. Their wholesale prices are lower, and they're adding battery storage rapidly.
China Isn't betting on ONE thing—they're hedging everything. You're absolutely right that China is 60% coal and building 25 nuclear plants. You know what else they're doing? Leading the world in solar, wind, and battery manufacturing. They're not ideologically committed to renewables—they're building everything that works because they need energy security and they know fossil fuels are geopolitically risky.
That's not a refutation of renewables. That's smart portfolio management.
Yes, massive renewable buildout requires 3-4x more transmission and enormous amounts of copper, rare earths, and other materials. You know what also requires massive material inputs? Every other energy source. Nuclear needs uranium, concrete, steel, and rare earths. Fossil fuels need drilling rigs, pipelines, refineries, and tankers. The difference is: Oil extraction for materials ≠ burning oil continuously for power generation.
Mining copper once to build a solar farm is categorically different from burning coal or gas every single day to generate electricity. One is a one-time material cost. The other is an ongoing operational cost with geopolitical and environmental externalities.
System-Level Costs: You're Right, But Missing the Business Calculus
Yes, LCOE is misleading when it ignores availability, transmission, storage, and grid services. Agreed.
But system-level costs also include:
Time value of money: Power delivered in 3 years is worth more than power delivered in 15 years
Regulatory risk: Nuclear projects routinely get canceled mid-construction (Vogtle, VC Summer)
Financing costs: Renewables are modular and can generate revenue incrementally; nuclear is all-or-nothing
Decommissioning costs: Nuclear has expensive back-end liabilities that aren't reflected in upfront pricing
When you run the full NPV calculation, renewables + storage + gas backup often wins on total cost of ownership, even accounting for overbuild and inefficiency.
The Bottom Line
Engineering in a vacuum says: "Nuclear is denser, more reliable, and doesn't depend on weather."
Business in reality says: "Can I get financing? Can I get regulatory approval? Can I get power online before my competitors? Can I hedge my risks?"
Renewables win not because they're perfect, but because they're deployable. And in a world where AI compute is the new oil, the company that gets power first wins the race.
As Pat Riley once stated, "The best ability is availability."
This is the rhetorical equivalent of a toddler throwing alphabet blocks at a chalkboard and declaring he's written a sonnet.
Let me trace the decomposition of your argument:
You open with "worthless babies" and "vocabulary"—an admission that you find coherent sentences threatening. This is the intellectual equivalent of a man who, having lost at chess, accuses his opponent of "using too many pieces."
Then comes the swerve into fever-dream paranoia: "Zionist leaders" controlling power grids to enforce vaccines and orchestrate depopulation. This is not an argument. This is what happens when 4chan and your uncle's Facebook feed have a baby and drop it on its head. You've managed to invoke three separate conspiracy theories in a single clause, which would be impressive if coherence weren't a prerequisite for persuasion.
"People like you who produce Jack" is my favorite fragment—a broken bit of idiom that has wandered away from its proper home and gotten lost in the tangle of your rage. I assume you meant "people like you who produce jack shit," but the phrase arrived stillborn, which is appropriate given the context.
And then the grand finale: "Move to Caracas and help rebuild their garbage infrastructure."
This is extraordinary. You've spent the entire thread arguing that seizing Venezuela is strategically essential, that its infrastructure and resources are valuable enough to justify regime change—and now, when pressed, you dismiss the same country as worthless garbage not worth saving. You've argued both that Venezuela is a prize worth taking and that it's a hellhole no one should care about. Orwell would recognize this trick: the enemy is simultaneously too strong to ignore and too weak to matter, depending on which sentence you're currently writing.
What you've produced here is not a rebuttal. It's a primal scream formatted as text—rage in search of a point, conspiracy theories in search of a theory, insults in search of an argument. You haven't engaged with a single substantive claim about international law, energy economics, or strategic precedent. You've simply vomited a word salad of grievances, slurs, and non-sequiturs, then hit "send" as if volume could substitute for coherence.
Nabokov once wrote that "mediocrity thrives on 'ideas.'" You haven't even achieved mediocrity. You've offered a seething, inarticulate howl dressed up with proper punctuation. It's the rhetorical equivalent of a man trying to win a knife fight by screaming and flailing: alarming to witness, but not actually dangerous to anyone capable of sidestepping.
If you'd like to make an actual argument—one with premises, logic, and a conclusion that doesn't require decoding through conspiracy forums—I'm here. Until then, you've demonstrated quite conclusively that when substance fails, you retreat into the fever swamps where facts are optional and caps lock is king.
I'll be here when you're ready to try again.
David, bravo! So refreshing to read sound and well-structured logic in this generally inept forum. So rare! My only regret is that I perused today's edition too late to read "Rick's" comments before they were conspicuously removed. I was kinda hoping to read about the fifth anniversary of January 6 through the revisionists' lenses of the S.B. Current's Q-sters. "It was a lovefest!"
Let me make sure I understand this correctly.
I'm against the United States conducting regime change operations so that American companies can profit from seized resources—and your counterargument is to call me "insecure"?
If you have a substantive response to the legal, strategic, or precedent concerns I've raised, I'm listening. Otherwise, ad hominem attacks aren't a substitute for addressing the argument.
Rick is 76 years old. I think he's missing some of bodily functions from back in the day.
So it goes.
Here we have a man who believes the proper response to technical arguments about energy infrastructure is to tell another man to "bang females." I have seen this rhetorical strategy before. It never works, but people keep trying it anyway. This is very human.
Let me address the substance, such as it is: On nuclear disasters: Yes, nuclear power has risks. Chernobyl killed perhaps 4,000 people over decades. Fukushima killed one person from radiation. These are tragedies. I mention them because they happened.
Coal power, by comparison, kills about 800,000 people per year through air pollution. Every year. But we don't call those disasters because they happen slowly and don't make good television. This is also very human.
On being nerdy: Guilty as charged. I prefer data to feelings when discussing infrastructure. This makes me boring at parties, but useful when designing power grids. My therapist says this is fine.
On Star Wars: I saw it. It was okay. The Ewoks were a bridge too far. This has nothing to do with Small Modular Reactors, but I appreciate you bringing it up anyway.
On higher education: You're right that I've had "too much higher ed." I learned things like math, physics, and how to calculate whether a data center can pull 1,000 kilowatt-hours from a municipal grid without causing a brownout. (It can't.) These are boring skills that make boring infrastructure work. Society runs on boring infrastructure built by boring people who did boring calculations. Poetry and passion are wonderful, but they don't keep the lights on.
On growing nuts and banging females: I'm not sure how sexual conquest relates to energy policy, but I admire your ability to connect disparate topics. This is creative thinking. It's wrong, but it's creative.
Here's what I notice: You're angry at computers, AI, nuclear power, education, and statistics—which is to say, you're angry at the entire apparatus of modern civilization. That's exhausting. You're going to give yourself a heart attack.
And here's the thing—the thing that makes me a little sad when I read messages like yours: The lights stay on in your house because boring nerds did boring math about boring infrastructure. The computer you used to call me a nutless nerd was designed by nerds who never banged anyone until their thirties, if ever. The internet that delivered your insult exists because people with "too much higher ed" built packet-switching networks instead of lifting weights and proving their manhood.
You live in a civilization built entirely by the people you're mocking, using tools designed by people you despise, to argue against the very systems that make your comfortable modern life possible.
That's irony. Vonnegut would have appreciated it.
I don't need to "grow nuts." I have a comfortable life built on understanding how things work. You, on the other hand, seem very angry about things you don't understand, which you've replaced with bravado about sexual prowess and contempt for learning.
One of us is happy. It isn't you.
So it goes.
"Bang females-" okay you're just a degenerate, stop thr nonsense old man.
A man like you would have been publicly laughed at in 1571 for being so debased.
E-x-c-e-l-l-e-n-t.
Some people don't care for such nonsense Nick, not everyone is a materialistic or pragmatist.
And they may not mind having to learn Cantonese!
Yeah this "CHINA!" fear mongering of yours is unserious.
China is your foe, not mine. They're an annoying continuation of the Chinese Soviet Republic and the successor to the opponents of the Nationalist Republican Government of China, but as someone whose loyalty is to the Church, and not America it's irrelevant what China does in Venezuela. Hey I don't like the CCP, i wish Chiang Kai Shek won the Civil War, but China isn't going to "take over the world".
"If the Chinese "control" Venezuela-"
What do I care if the Chinese "own" Venezuela? What does that actually achieve? Nothing substantial- you have to actually transport materials across the ocean to China, and a simple blockade shuts down that entirely. You're not going to be able to transport oil in a war time situation when the Panama Canal and the Artic ocean [Cape of Good Hope] are cut off by Amcerican warships.I don't know what you are politically, but it certainly isn't traditional.
Why is this "great power" competition even if interest to you? It's the same nonsense that caused Europe to destroy itself in World War 1, where petty material interests, "balances of power", and competition led to the largest slaughter of young men in modern history.
Rick thinks he's tough. Someone please get this old geezer a smoothie and take away his phone. Whenever a man invokes manliness as an argument you know bro should not be allowed to cook - revoke his license and keep him away from the kitchen.
Grandpa, stop. The war is over. This isn't Nam.
Although I would agree that a terrorist leader and a dictator and drug cartel head are not equivalent, I do believe the latter has contributed to more deaths in the US than the former. Of course, we’ve had decades of gaslighting to make some believe that “victimless” crimes should go unpunished.
The line about Trump’s style cuts to the core: too many simply can’t get past his style to see that some/much of what he does has a positive impact. Arresting Maduro, and setting the table for a shift from a drug cartel to a production based economy for millions, and at the same time reducing drug related deaths in the US is a positive.
Can I compare the Maduro and Bin Laden grab? I think it's an apples and oranges comparison. From my memory, everyone was happy Bin Laden was dead. And I believe taking Maduro in custody is great, too. Of course, anything intelligent Trump does pains the Dems which involve themselves with corruption and fraud. The Dems should be happy Trump's government people aren't shooting them like Obama shot Bin Laden.
This is truth but Bin Laden did not act alone. Our presidents and the various agencies within our government that have a less-than-wholesome outlook on the citizens in this country acted to encourage and facilitate that 911 outrage. Which is becoming more and more understood to be less of a foreign operation and more of an internal one. Obama probably did what he did to discourage a day in court where all sorts of funny business would have potentially crawled out. Obama was, and is a puppet. He did what he was told. Looks like his predecessors were, too. Trump doesn’t have any current ties with Venezuela more than likely. So nothing to fear in court. Others in our system might, though so it will be interesting to see how long this guy stays alive. And they have a handy scapegoat - Trump - if he doesn’t show up for court some morning.
Thanks to everyone who has engaged with this piece in good faith. I genuinely welcome disagreement, criticism, and even some friendly banter when it’s grounded in arguments rather than insults. Thoughtful pushback and kind‑spirited opposing views are exactly the kind of discourse I’d like to see more of here.
A smaller subset of comments has gone in a different direction: ad hominem attacks, antisemitic tropes, and attempts at character assassination whose only real purpose seems to be to stir up hostility. That sort of thing says far more about the writer’s insecurities and emotional state than it does about the ideas in the article.
For the record: I don’t feed trolls. If your main contribution is personal abuse, conspiracy‑hunting, or trying to bait me into a shouting match, you will not be rewarded with my time or attention. I sincerely hope some of those folks find better outlets — including, if needed, professional help in working on the emotional maturity they keep trying to outsource to strangers on the internet.
Everyone else who wants to wrestle with the substance, even sharply, is very welcome here.
The people of Venezuela,who had to wait in line for toilet paper and other essentials,are dancing in the streets over Maduros arrest.
That should be all you need to know.
Whataboutisms seem to justify anything DJT’s criminal organization does. For some Americans, wrong is wrong no matter the political players or party.
This piece commits a fundamental category error by treating Osama bin Laden and Nicolás Maduro as equivalent cases. They are not, and the differences matter far more than the author admits.
Bin Laden was a terrorist leading a non-state actor. Maduro was an elected head of state.
Whether you accept the legitimacy of Venezuela's elections or not, Maduro held the position of president through an electoral process. He commanded a military, ran a government, and was recognized by numerous countries as Venezuela's leader. Bin Laden commanded a terrorist network from caves. The international order—imperfect as it is—distinguishes between these categories for good reason. When the United States can simply abduct any head of state it declares "corrupt" and try them in American courts under American law, that precedent applies equally to American presidents. Would we accept China abducting a U.S. president to face trial in Beijing for war crimes? The author wants us to ignore this asymmetry.
Killing bin Laden removed one terrorist leader. His organization was already fractured, operating in hiding, and represented no state apparatus. His death did not collapse a government, displace a population, or create a power vacuum that could plunge a nation into civil war.
Removing Maduro—regardless of how brutal his regime—overthrows the government of a country of 28 million people. Venezuela now faces potential civil conflict, regional refugee flows, and the question of what comes next. The author handwaves this away as "helping to uproot a corrupt regime," as if regime change operations have a sterling track record. Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan suggest otherwise. Even if Maduro is a dictator, his removal by foreign military action carries consequences that extend far beyond one man's fate.
The author celebrates that Maduro "will get a lawyer, a docket number, and his day in court" as if this represents some meaningful improvement over killing bin Laden. This is absurd.
A Venezuelan citizen, abducted from Venezuelan soil by American forces, will be tried in an American court, under American law, by American prosecutors, before American judges, with American jurors. How exactly is this a "fair trial"? What jurisdiction does the United States have to prosecute the domestic crimes of Venezuela's leader against Venezuelan citizens? The author assumes American courts are the natural venue for adjudicating the sins of foreign leaders, which is precisely the kind of imperial presumption that undermines any claim to moral high ground.
This isn't justice—it's a show trial with better production values. At least the bin Laden raid didn't pretend to be something it wasn't. It was a military operation against a terrorist. This is legal theater designed to launder regime change through the American judicial system.
The author argues this "nudges us toward a healthier norm" of trials over killings. But the actual precedent being set is far more dangerous: that the United States can abduct foreign heads of state, transport them to American soil, and prosecute them in American courts whenever it deems their governance sufficiently objectionable.
If this is the standard, then every American president, every European leader, every head of state who has presided over military actions, civilian casualties, or policies that another nation considers criminal is now fair game for abduction and trial. The author cannot explain why this precedent applies only one direction.
The piece mentions that the bin Laden raid "violated Pakistani sovereignty" in passing, then moves on. But this violation was operational—an incursion to target a terrorist. The Maduro operation violates Venezuelan sovereignty in a far more fundamental way: it removes the head of their government and substitutes American judgment for Venezuelan political processes.
Pakistan's sovereignty was compromised for a few hours. Venezuela's sovereignty has been nullified indefinitely. These are not comparable.
The author wants us to celebrate that Maduro gets a "trial" as if the trappings of due process obscure the underlying reality: one country has abducted another country's leader to face judgment in its courts. That Maduro is corrupt doesn't change what this represents. That Venezuela's elections were rigged doesn't grant the United States jurisdiction over Venezuelan domestic affairs.
If your standard is "bad leaders should face justice," then you need an international framework, not unilateral American action dressed up in legal formality. If your standard is "the United States can remove any foreign leader it considers sufficiently monstrous," then at least admit you're defending might-makes-right, not rule of law.
The bin Laden raid was a military operation against a terrorist. It can be defended or criticized on those terms. The Maduro abduction is regime change disguised as prosecution. Pretending a trial makes this more legitimate than killing bin Laden requires ignoring every meaningful difference between the two cases.
Yeah and he terrorized his Citizens and just like Mexico,it is run by Cartels.during Biden admin many family members have already been brought to justice and jailed
Feigned outrage because it was Trump. Know your facts and share with your friends
Come on any foreign country! Please!
Trump has terrorized his citizens with the National Guard.
He is a cartel that demands payoffs.
Take Trump and bring him to trial!
Thanks for the great idea.
Those aren't citizens,BTW. And he followed the law,hence why they weren't removed.
And then let's bring all the past presidents to trial also for their heinous crimes against the people and killing US soldiers in Benghazi.
Hillary is my first choice.
It’s getting tiresome reading the dissenters AI responses. I hope this is obvious to others as well
Do you even know what an AI response is? You seem to suspect anyone you don't agree with who can put together more than a sentence response AI.
I don't think so
You are making assumptions.
I suppose, if you want to argue that MS Word and Grammarly are AI.
And who was President in 2015 and arrested Maduros family members for drug trafficking...
This AI but source is NBC News
Overview of Maduro's Family Legal Issues
Background on Arrests
Narco-nephews: Efrain Antonio Campo Flores and Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, were arrested in 2015 in Haiti. They were caught attempting to transport over 800 kilograms of cocaine to the U.S.
Conviction: In 2016, they were convicted in New York for drug trafficking and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
U.S. Government Actions
Clemency Granted: In October 2022, President Biden granted clemency to the two nephews as part of a prisoner swap. This exchange involved the release of seven Americans, including oil executives from Citgo, who had been detained in Venezuela.
Sanctions: Following their release, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on the nephews in December 2025, citing their continued involvement in drug trafficking activities.
Current Status
As of 2025, the nephews are believed to have returned to Venezuela and are reportedly still engaged in drug-related activities, despite previous U.S. efforts to negotiate their release and address the Maduro regime's actions.
This situation reflects ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela, particularly regarding drug trafficking and human rights issues.
I distinctly recall clowning on you Brian back in March of 2025, I experienced similarly dismissive comments even though you were the one who made the foolish error of calling me a liberal.
No, I called you, Theo the muckraker !😁
Why is blud calling me "God"?
What's the point of being President of the US if you can't bring bad guys to justice?
I sincerely hope that Maduro is convicted on all charges, but what happens if he is not? What if he is found not guilty?
The lead defense attorney is excellent at his job, and could prevail.
I read this Solid Civil Rights Article by Nick Koonce tilted "The Nicolas Maduro Affair" and I quote from same "Maduro will get his day in court. Some of us might use the occasion to put our own double standards under a bit of cross examination too."
Mr. Koonce is a Long-Time ADA Advocate shown below>
https://muckrack.com/nick-koonce
Mr. Koonce knows all-too-well about the Obliteration of the Civil Rights of the Disabled in
this God-For-Saken Town. I think he needs to write some more articles for SB Current.
Howard Walther, Member of a Military Family
OsamaBin Laden attacked and killed on American soil. Have you already forgotten 9/11? Added, he also continually threaten our American way of life with Jehad.
With Medrano, there was no congressional approval given. Trump clearly overreached his power. The fentyl drug numbers don’t support Trumps wildly inaccurate claims. They were going down, down, down.
But this is most important. I think you hope no one will speak up or remember. The attack on an ultimate killing of Osama bin Laden was approved by Congress.
Oh, and let’s not forget, Trump broke the War Powers Act of 1973. He should be facing impeachment.
Yeah for what protecting his citizens from terrorists.
No, you're wrong. The raid and killing of Osama bin Ladin was never approved by Congress.
"The United States helped uproot a corrupt regime and capture its leader."
Why is it the authority of the United States to remove corrupt officials of foreign governments? I don't care about Maduro, but since when is it the right of another nation to remove someone for being corrupt? Like it or not Maduro was leading Venezuela- just being corrupt doesn't annihilate his claim to power. As for him not winning an election, I don't believe power comes from the people as a monarchist [I don't care about such processes] so the point is moot
Let's look at Trump's rhetoric concerning Venezuela; "Venezuela, thus far, has been very nice. But it helps to have a force like we have,” Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One. “If they don’t behave, we will do a second strike.” This man is seriously over here threatening a much smaller nation for not complying with American interests, even if they have nothing to do with Venezuela's interests? Where are the nationalists and populists protests against Trump?
"The Trump administration is demanding that Venezuela’s interim leader take several pro-U.S. actions that her predecessor refused if she wants to avoid a similar fate."
This is just using power to bully other nations around, this is pagan and nietzschean in essence, Trump isn't concerned with truth, justice, or goodness - all he's doing is leveraging the overwhelming military superiority to force a smaller state into submission.
"Trump also said U.S. oil companies need "total access" to the country's vast reserves and suggested that an influx of Venezuelan emigrating to the United States also factored into the decision to capture Maduro." For anyone who remembers history, the Yanqui's similarly had access to Mexican Oil - where American businesses siphined off wealth from Mexico by extracting, processing, and selling it's oil while Mexico saw next to no material prosperity for it's own citizens, which didn't end until the President Lazaro Cardenas's has the nations oil nationalized from Standard Oil and Shell.
"U.S. officials have told Delcy Rodriguez that they want to see at least three moves from her: cracking down on drug flows; kicking out Iranian, Cuban and other operatives of countries or networks hostile to Washington; and stopping the sale of oil to U.S. adversaries, according to a U.S. official familiar with the situation and a person familiar with the administration’s internal discussions."
"You're a sovereign leader, but you must do what we, a foreign government tells you unless you want to get packed up-" this man is insane, no other way around it.
I mean sure I want all of Latin America to have still been under the authority of Spain, and for the whole world to be Spanish - this however is just bullying.
The Maduro raid killed about 80 persons. But perhaps the ends justifies the means.
How many did Hillary and Obama kill on Afghanistan? Those were actually our troops
I don't think any US troops were killed.
How about 911,how many US citizens were killed?