Subject: Re: As Albaby says...
But your point is wrong.

No.
You keep taking the contrarian stance on pretty much everything. That's fine. But if you're going to do that, then you have to consider the totality of the scenario before narrowly limiting the parameters under which it operates.

Let's take Venezuela. Sure, if we forgot that China, Russia and Iran were using it as a base to

-Train terrorists
-Ship drugs north
-Use as a money laundering station
-Use as a port of call for hostile navies
-Use as a launching point for disrupting other South and Central American countries
-Use as a listening station for communications

...if we forget all that stuff, then yes: there's zero reason to knock over Maduro much less invest a dime in Venezuela. Your point would be perfectly valid: none of those oil companies have any incentive to deal with Venezuela's heavy crude (which is harder to process IIRC).

But we don't live in that world. We live in the one where all those bullet point occur. Therefore, the scenario is a bit more complicated and there are many other factors at play here.

You're also doing to left wing two-step again: Trump does a thing, you guys say It's Just Turrible and then turn around and ask why it's not a spectacular success mere hours after The Turrible Thing happens. That's a neat way to have it both ways. Problem is the time scale is usually months to see it play out.

Back to the full-context point: Sure the oil companies have no ordinary incentives to do anything. Neither of us knows exactly what Trump is saying to them in the Oval Office nor what other incentives that Trump could be proposing. Or what their willingness to "take one for the team" in the name of national security is.

As an aside: One reason why the left stinks at foreign policy is because its first assumption is that We Can't Do Anything But Watch Stuff Get Bad and thus takes any kind of bold move off the table.

It would be interesting to hear why you think this operation will actually lead to a material change in Venezuela - to hear you address the point we're actually making - rather than keep asserting that we're missing the point on how important China is. We know how important China is. We just don't think that this action materially affects Venezuela's posture via China.

That's because I'm busy pointing out the gamesmanship and constant contrarianism absent alternative policies. It should be patently obvious that kicking China and Russia out of the Southern Hemisphere is something we should do but maybe that's not self-evident.

Love also how the clear language of earlier posts never means what it means, it only acquires the "the point we're actually making" 10 or 15 posts later after the flaws are highlighted and the "akkkshully..." starts.

You keep saying nothing's changed in Venezuela. That's wrong on stilts. Who's controlling their oil flows now? What's happening to all the ghost fleet ships that have been under international sanction for years - and acting as Russia's lifeline - but no one had done anything about?

You're no doubt going to reply with But we didn't need to do the raid... but you'll miss the fact that by removing the head of their government we sent a very clear and simple message: Don't F with us. During this operation we told their pilots in Spanish on their guard frequencies to land, pronto. They actually scrambled fighter jets, did you know that? The minute they went up they were told to turn around and land. Most did. A few enterprising pilots tried to follow the helicopters back...and learned right quick that continuing down that path meant BOOM for them. So they turned around also.

The Cuban guards? We whacked a lot of them. How many more do the Cubans want to send knowing they have no chance (and might be needed at home).

Rodriquez? She gets to sleep with one eye open wondering when Trump decides to bundle her a$$ on a helicopter and park her in a cell next to Maduro.

There's more than that, but that's enough for now. Rodriquez, after pounding the table about this and that has largely kept her trap shut. She hasn't done anything other than complain about Trump's "acting President" joke.