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Venezuela & Columbia | US Kinetic Indicators & Warnings | Aug. 28th/Dec 4th, 2025 | | DISCUSSIONS

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Yingyang said:
Didn't state he was. ???
Simply stated opinions can change with age . It is possible .
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Sorry, you stated "Your perspective is based" due to his young age. Did I misunderstand what you meant?
Yingyang said:
#159 may clear things better .
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Yup, thank you.

I completely agree that opinions change with age and experience. I used to be a Republican in the Reagan era. Then the Republicans moved too far right for my tastes and I switched to Democrat. Then they moved too far left so I switched to Libertarian. Then they just went bat-shit crazy, so now I'm an independent. There is currently no party in the US that represents me.
 
RiffRaff said:
Sorry, you stated "Your perspective is based" due to his young age. Did I misunderstand what you meant?

Yup, thank you.

I completely agree that opinions change with age and experience. I used to be a Republican in the Reagan era. Then the Republicans moved too far right for my tastes and I switched to Democrat. Then they moved too far left so I switched to Libertarian. Then they just went bat-shit crazy, so now I'm an independent. There is currently no party in the US that represents me.
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That is, IMHO, a perfect description of the current body politic.
 
Publius said:
I don’t support a major military engagement or occupation of Venezuela. I support impending the trade of cartels and anything that can be done within reason to see a change of government in Venezuela.
I don’t see this administration initiating any major military activity inside Venezuela. Strikes on cartel sites and if possibly needed if the people of Venezuela rise up to take their nation back maybe some dirty deeds done that always seem to be done.

It is as I said part of a larger picture that was declared at the beginning of this year.
But we’ll see.
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Problem here is escalation and spiraling, but as long as it's drone strikes and air strikes at cartel sites there is no reason for a land war to occur. However, one may also look to the fact that a pure air campaign has practically never caused a country's government to change, and I doubt Maduros would in this case. If that's just the secondary goal then the risk of a land war is low, but if the goal becomes regime change (and especially) if US servicemen die as a result of hostilities, a land war becomes more likely when it would turn more into a war and less than a conflict.
 
Peter Griffin said:
Boomers lived throughout the easiest and most peaceful time in human history, built off the labors off their fathers who actually knew the cost of REAL war. This notion that you all lived through awful times throughout the 50s -90s is actually so damn laughable.
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Coming from someone born 2001 here, lemme nuance this a bit. Not awful, but certainly not peachy either. Maybe better economically in some sense, but not always, and then there's inflation to look at. Sure, housing market was miles better and there was less polarization (to a degree). But there was a much larger threat of nuclear war, the Vietnam and Korean war, etc. If you were born around the economic jump in the 50s you'd also likely be drafted to Vietnam. In general I think my view is that the times were hard in a different way than today, the instability was more due to outside factors more often than not, but no social media meant that the problems related to that didn't exist.
 
Yingyang said:
24 yrs old. Your perspective is based on this at a guess. This will change with 3 more decades again with 5.
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Probably. The world will also look, very, very different. I would also say that the flow of information and access to that there of is much more than what it once was, I really don't see myself swinging back over the political aisle or into any pre defined label of party politics anytime soon. Like Oreid has said before, we live under a uniparty. They just like to keep us talkative so we don't look under the hood. We'll see how things are in 50-70 years from now.
 
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Cilvilt_beredskap said:
Coming from someone born 2001 here, lemme nuance this a bit. Not awful, but certainly not peachy either. Maybe better economically in some sense, but not always, and then there's inflation to look at. Sure, housing market was miles better and there was less polarization (to a degree). But there was a much larger threat of nuclear war, the Vietnam and Korean war, etc. If you were born around the economic jump in the 50s you'd also likely be drafted to Vietnam. In general I think my view is that the times were hard in a different way than today, the instability was more due to outside factors more often than not, but no social media meant that the problems related to that didn't exist.
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The huge difference is we (GenX) were blissfully ignorant of how bad things were because the internet as we know it did not exist. I accessed the internet for the first time in 1985 from the computer lab at school. All text, no graphics. We didn't really start getting instantaneous worldwide information until about 15 years ago or so. So, MSM was our only source of what was going on in the world. Hence, our ignorance.
 
RiffRaff said:
The huge difference is we (GenX) were blissfully ignorant of how bad things were because the internet as we know it did not exist. I accessed the internet for the first time in 1985 from the computer lab at school. All text, no graphics. We didn't really start getting instantaneous worldwide information until about 15 years ago or so. So, MSM was our only source of what was going on in the world. Hence, our ignorance.
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I'm gonna suggest the modern public (at least in the USA) knows less about what is going on in the world than the previous generation did circa 1985 - even though they probably believe otherwise.

The proliferation of social media echo chambers, weaponized state-sponsored propaganda campaigns, and good ol' cockamamie fake news produces a Dunning-Kruger effect where huge masses now believe in idiotic lies and think themselves well informed. That's a net negative, and it compares unfavorably to the late 20th century when most people got their info from MSM (which tended to vet their stories and adhere to professional ethics codes).

You know what's worse than useless? Useless and oblivious!
- House, MD
 
Well now we’ve concluded that everyone’s right and no one’s wrong. Except the other guy of course.

People believe what they WANT to believe irrespective of facts.
Cognitive dissonance, our own personal worldview will always filter shape the information we assimilate.

rule #1. no one including myself are immune to it.

rule #2. Some indeed many will seek to manipulate our inherent biases all the time.

rule #3 always allow for the possibility that you yourself might be wrong.
If you can enter a conversation without asking yourself what might I learn here. Then you just talking and waiting to talk again.
 
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So is the US going to invade Venezuela? If so what exactly points to that

I still maintain no! No actual invasion force present or called up. No amount of air or sea power and two marine brigades are going to launch an invasion.
No indication the administration talking to Congress about getting a declaration of war.

1 It is strikes against the cartels and a reclassification of them as a terrorist org.
2 it is definitely a pressure campaign against Maduro. The change in power in Venezuela will ultimately be up to Venezuelans. I give it a 50/50 chance

Would the Caribbean, Latin American, and ultimately Venezuela be better off if Maduro and his gov were deposed.
As long as it is Venezuelans leading it. I can’t see much of a down side that could be worse than the Chavismo’s
 
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I personally would say on ground operations as Trump has proclaimed to authorize, to encourage regime change is an invasion, but I guess it’s a special military operation.
 
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DEFCON Warning System said:
An invasion is a major military operation. There is no sign of such a buildup.
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Earlier this month Reuters made a report of the current build up

There has been some build up, perhaps not enough for a complete full scale invasion, but definitely makes it easier to rapidly build up a force that could invade Venezuela. Especially if the US feels it would be easy.

I won’t rule out an invasion, I just suppose we can rule it out over the next 2 weeks to a month.
 
teekay99 said:
There isn't sufficient ground forces in place to execute an invasion and hold territory. It's mostly naval and air units that have been deployed.
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Yes, but those same units speed up the process. I doubt it would take us very long at all to get a ground force in place.
 
intel-bank said:
Yes, but those same units speed up the process. I doubt it would take us very long at all to get a ground force in place.
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Perhaps. But that's a mighty big mobilization to keep discreet if it is meant to complement existing forces quickly. I'm not saying it can't be done; I just think there would be more signs of ground forces mobilizing if that was the case.
 
teekay99 said:
Perhaps. But that's a mighty big mobilization to keep discreet if it is meant to complement existing forces quickly. I'm not saying it can't be done; I just think there would be more signs of ground forces mobilizing if that was the case.
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I think that’s what they know you’d be expecting. I think if they wanted to invade, they’d want to be unpredictable as possible.

I think that rhetoric + any force build up is cause to be concerned about it. Just probably not happening tomorrow
 
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