Trump: Injured Maduro Ops Soldiers 'in Good Shape'

ThatRobGuy said:

I think there are some quite objective metrics we can look at to make these sorts of determinations......

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"Evil" is not any kind of objective designation.

For example, your above list of atrocities can be designated similarly to Irans last shah. But who can say if they were equally evil. Or it one was 2 to 3 times as evil as the other? Or perhaps 4x ?

GoldenBoy89 said:

That’s what Trump wanted us to believe about Kim Jong Un which just shows regimes are evil only if they can’t fight back.

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I've heard plenty of people use that term to describe various regimes who could fight back.

People (since the cold war days and forward) have had no qualms with calling Russia evil, they're certainly powerful enough to fight back. The CCP has been called evil, they're certainly no slouch.

With regards to North Korea, I would suspect the reason why there hasn't been a global effort to get rid of that regime is due to allies in the region having concerns about where responsibilities would lie when it comes for who takes custody over the 30 million people currently living there who are, in essence, malnourished, under-educated, partially brainwashed, and have never known anything but 100% dependence on a government. That type of situation obviously has other very unique considerations to be taken into account.

Nithavela said:

When one side has over a hundred dead, including all combatants, and the other sides only has some minor wounded, that's not a battle.

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Paraphrase here...

"The goal is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his".

ThatRobGuy said:

Not comparing the two men in terms of "level of evil" obviously.

Just making a point about how soldiers themselves don't have to be "personally evil" in order to defend something that is evil.

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...as if the Cuban soldiers had any choice. I suppose they could have defected and started swiming for the U.S.....

durangodawood said:

"Evil" is not any kind of objective designation.

For example, your above list of atrocities can be designated similarly to Irans last shah. But who can say if they were equally evil. Or it one was 2 to 3 times as evil as the other? Or perhaps 4x ?

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The metrics we can use to make the designation are more objective, though.

For instance, if we agree that extrajudicial executions via secret government goon squads are and evil thing, and Maduro has ordered thousands of them, then that would seem like a pretty compelling case.

In terms of comparisons to the Shah, there are a few key distinctions to be acknowledged.

To my knowledge, while the Shah certainly censored the press, and made use of imprisonment... the extrajudicial killings under the Shah were measured in the dozens, while Maduro's racked up 15,000 according to the UN.

Or to put it another way, Maduro falsely executed more people than the Shah falsely imprisoned.


There's also the aspect of whether or not the person shows willingness to embrace needed reforms under domestic & international pressure.

The Shah did...in the later part of his reign, he made several modernizations that favored their middle class, expanded rights for previously marginalized groups, and later in his term, he appointed Bakhtiar to be the prime minister and tasked him with forming and overseeing a civilian government (Bakhtiar was a former labor minister under Mossadegh, and a member of their Social Democrat party). Of course, the Ayatollah ruined that, and exiled Bakhtiar too, and later had him killed)


Whereas, has Maduro ever shown that sort of compromising spirit?


If the carrot and the stick both fail, then it's time to find a new rabbit.

ThatRobGuy said:

The metrics we can use to make the designation are more objective, though.

For instance, if we agree that extrajudicial executions via secret government goon squads are and evil thing, and Maduro has ordered thousands of them, then that would seem like a pretty compelling case.

In terms of comparisons to the Shah, there are a few key distinctions to be acknowledged.

To my knowledge, while the Shah certainly censored the press, and made use of imprisonment... the extrajudicial killings under the Shah were measured in the dozens, while Maduro's racked up 15,000 according to the UN.

Or to put it another way, Maduro falsely executed more people than the Shah falsely imprisoned.


There's also the aspect of whether or not the person shows willingness to embrace needed reforms under domestic & international pressure.

The Shah did...in the later part of his reign, he made several modernizations that favored their middle class, expanded rights for previously marginalized groups, and later in his term, he appointed Bakhtiar to be the prime minister and tasked him with forming and overseeing a civilian government (Bakhtiar was a former labor minister under Mossadegh, and a member of their Social Democrat party). Of course, the Ayatollah ruined that, and exiled Bakhtiar too, and later had him killed)


Whereas, has Maduro ever shown that sort of compromising spirit?


If the carrot and the stick both fail, then it's time to find a new rabbit.

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Sounds like you wildly underestimate the brutality, both quantity and quality, of the Shahs secret police. Not that numbers even tell us who is more "evil" in the first place.

I see the Shahs behavior and failures as leading to the revolution. So in terms of achievements - no so great in the final analysis. And the evil, all for what?

Basically "evil" as a term thrown around by foreign policy officials is pure rhetoric. It has uses in generating motivational energy for actions that exceed what can be lawfully undertaken in a proper republic. "Can we tolerate structural limitations on our fight against evil???"

Aryeh Jay said:

Paraphrase here...

"The goal is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his".

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Patton if I recall correctly. It reminds me of the ancient debtes on usenet where the Euros like to proclaim their "contributions" to WW1 and WW2 by quoting our "inferior" bodycounts. SMH.

durangodawood said:

Sounds like you wildly underestimate the brutality, both quantity and quality, of the Shahs secret police. Not that numbers even tell us who is more "evil" in the first place.

I see the Shahs behavior and failures as leading to the revolution. So in terms of achievements - no so great in the final analysis. And the evil, all for what?

Basically "evil" as a term thrown around by foreign policy officials is pure rhetoric. It has uses in generating motivational energy for actions that exceed what can be lawfully undertaken in a proper republic. "Can we tolerate structural limitations on our fight against evil???"

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As noted, I'm well aware of the use of his secret police, censorship, and false imprisonment record, it wasn't good...

But the none of those are on par 15,000 extrajudicial executions.

And the other point I mentioned was his willingness to make adjustments and concessions that wee in the right direction as time went on.

Whereas, Maduro's tenure seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, he got worse as time went on (and was arguably worse than even his predecessor Chavez).

As I noted, some of the things the Shah did in his final 18 months before falling to the revolutionaries & exiled:

• Appointed Shapour Bakhtiar (from the Social Democratic party, connected to Mossadegh's administration) as Prime Minister
• Reversed previous measures by liberalizing press restrictions, released political prisoners
• Committed to free elections and constitutional reforms

All substantial concessions for a Monarch...

Khomeini (and his revolutionaries) spread propaganda labelling Bakhtiar a traitor, and disseminated false information exaggerating the extent to which the Shah was engaging in some of those human rights violations earlier in his tenure, actively sabotaging any reconciliation and reform efforts.

AI disclaimer for this next bit, but they used reliable sources like UN reports and reports from Amnesty International:

• Casualty figures - Revolutionary sources claimed tens of thousands killed by the Shah's regime. More careful historical research suggests the actual number of deaths from political repression over his entire reign was likely in the dozens to low hundreds - still serious, but significantly lower than revolutionary propaganda claimed.
• "Black Friday" - Revolutionary sources initially claimed thousands killed when security forces fired on protesters in Jaleh Square. More reliable estimates suggest around 60-70 deaths - still a massacre, but the exaggerated figures served to inflame public outrage.
• Prison population numbers - Claims about political prisoners were often inflated by tenfold to make the repression seem more systematic than it was.
• Torture accounts - While SAVAK definitely tortured prisoners (this is well-documented by Amnesty International and other sources), some accounts circulating during the revolution were highly embellished or fabricated for political effect.

All of that aside:

The key differentiator would be, is the entity receptive to reforms and willing to make changes when push comes to shove. In the case of the Shah, the answer was yes...he spent over a year trying to embrace some reforms and make some meaningful concessions, Khomeini's revolutionaries intentionally sabotaged those efforts to keep the public inflamed and not lose their opening for a power grab.

In the case of the Venezuelan regime (Chavez + Maduro), the answer has been no.

Multiple administrations have tried to work with them (administrations with very different leadership styles), and thus far, no approach has gotten them to loosen their grip on the "we gotta have socialism" idea.


And it's not as if it's simply been a "you gotta do things the US way, or else". That may be the Trump way for doing things, but like I said, he's not the only president who's tried.

There's other examples from right there on their own continent of better ways to do things that they could've taken note of.

ThatRobGuy said:

As noted, I'm well aware of the use of his secret police, censorship, and false imprisonment record, it wasn't good...

But the none of those are on par 15,000 extrajudicial executions.

And the other point I mentioned was his willingness to make adjustments and concessions that wee in the right direction as time went on.

Whereas, Maduro's tenure seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, he got worse as time went on (and was arguably worse than even his predecessor Chavez).

As I noted, some of the things the Shah did in his final 18 months before falling to the revolutionaries & exiled:

• Appointed Shapour Bakhtiar (from the Social Democratic party, connected to Mossadegh's administration) as Prime Minister
• Reversed previous measures by liberalizing press restrictions, released political prisoners
• Committed to free elections and constitutional reforms

All substantial concessions for a Monarch...

Khomeini (and his revolutionaries) spread propaganda labelling Bakhtiar a traitor, and disseminated false information exaggerating the extent to which the Shah was engaging in some of those human rights violations earlier in his tenure, actively sabotaging any reconciliation and reform efforts.

AI disclaimer for this next bit, but they used reliable sources like UN reports and reports from Amnesty International:

• Casualty figures - Revolutionary sources claimed tens of thousands killed by the Shah's regime. More careful historical research suggests the actual number of deaths from political repression over his entire reign was likely in the dozens to low hundreds - still serious, but significantly lower than revolutionary propaganda claimed.
• "Black Friday" - Revolutionary sources initially claimed thousands killed when security forces fired on protesters in Jaleh Square. More reliable estimates suggest around 60-70 deaths - still a massacre, but the exaggerated figures served to inflame public outrage.
• Prison population numbers - Claims about political prisoners were often inflated by tenfold to make the repression seem more systematic than it was.
• Torture accounts - While SAVAK definitely tortured prisoners (this is well-documented by Amnesty International and other sources), some accounts circulating during the revolution were highly embellished or fabricated for political effect.

All of that aside:

The key differentiator would be, is the entity receptive to reforms and willing to make changes when push comes to shove. In the case of the Shah, the answer was yes...he spent over a year trying to embrace some reforms and make some meaningful concessions, Khomeini's revolutionaries intentionally sabotaged those efforts to keep the public inflamed and not lose their opening for a power grab.

In the case of the Venezuelan regime (Chavez + Maduro), the answer has been no.

Multiple administrations have tried to work with them (administrations with very different leadership styles), and thus far, no approach has gotten them to loosen their grip on the "we gotta have socialism" idea.


And it's not as if it's simply been a "you gotta do things the US way, or else". That may be the Trump way for doing things, but like I said, he's not the only president who's tried.

There's other examples from right there on their own continent of better ways to do things that they could've taken note of.

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You are doing an admirable job rehabilitating the Shah. And while he may have cleared the very low bar set by Maduro, he certainly countenanced "evil" acts - if we're going to use that word.

The most important thing I want to leave on this sub-topic is, to reiterate:
"Evil" as a term thrown around by politicians and foreign policy officials is pure rhetoric. It has uses in generating motivational energy for actions that exceed what can be lawfully undertaken in a proper republic. "Can we tolerate structural limitations on our fight against evil???"

durangodawood said:

You are doing an admirable job rehabilitating the Shah. And while he may have cleared the very low bar set by Maduro, he certainly countenanced "evil" acts - if we're going to use that word.

The most important thing I want to leave on this sub-topic is, to reiterate:
"Evil" as a term thrown around by politicians and foreign policy officials is pure rhetoric. It has uses in generating motivational energy for actions that exceed what can be lawfully undertaken in a proper republic. "Can we tolerate structural limitations on our fight against evil???"

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There's really no rehabilitating the actual Shah, he famously died in exile decades ago. (although, his son seems to be a good guy)
...but that aside, and onto your bolded question.


What would those limitations or that ideal framework be that would be both practical (in terms of operational efficacy) and exists somewhere on the "incentive structure spectrum" between sanctions, and what just happened?

From what I can tell, we don't currently have a mechanisms on that spectrum between "sanctions" and "war" apart from "forcible personnel change".

** and when I refer to practical operational efficacy, I'm referring to situations of "we have time sensitive intel we need to act on in the next hour or we lose our window of opportunity"


While I know people have brought up the "notify the gang of eight" aspect before. What practical purpose does that actually serve or what outcomes does that actually change? Can Chuck Schumer, or Mike Johnson, or Tom Cotton, or Hakeem Jeffries tell him he's not allowed to do it? Or do they have any sort of special insight into the nature of special forces missions? If it's just 8 people in a room where no recording or notetaking is allowed, and they're sworn to secrecy, and have no authority to stop it from happening, then what practical purpose is it serving?

And even if it had happened, would that change anyone's perception of the events that took place?

ThatRobGuy said:

There's really no rehabilitating the actual Shah, he famously died in exile decades ago. (although, his son seems to be a good guy)
...but that aside, and onto your bolded question.

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I said rehabilitate, not resurrect.

ThatRobGuy said:

What would those limitations or that ideal framework be that would be both practical (in terms of operational efficacy) and exists somewhere on the "incentive structure spectrum" between sanctions, and what just happened?

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One structural limitation is imposed by our own constitution: congress, not the president, declares war. Think how much quicker and simpler it could be if the commander in chief of the military was the one who got to decide on his own when to initiate acts of war.

Others might be laws against torture, against military ops on US domestic targets, against going after terrorists families, etc etc.

The case for bypassing all that is easier to make when the battle is framed more cosmically.

ThatRobGuy said:

From what I can tell, we don't currently have a mechanisms on that spectrum between "sanctions" and "war" apart from "forcible personnel change".


** and when I refer to practical operational efficacy, I'm referring to situations of "we have time sensitive intel we need to act on in the next hour or we lose our window of opportunity"

While I know people have brought up the "notify the gang of eight" aspect before. What practical purpose does that actually serve or what outcomes does that actually change? Can Chuck Schumer, or Mike Johnson, or Tom Cotton, or Hakeem Jeffries tell him he's not allowed to do it? Or do they have any sort of special insight into the nature of special forces missions? If it's just 8 people in a room where no recording or notetaking is allowed, and they're sworn to secrecy, and have no authority to stop it from happening, then what practical purpose is it serving?

And even if it had happened, would that change anyone's perception of the events that took place?

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^^^your case for the constitutions inadequacy.

durangodawood said:

^^^your case for the constitutions inadequacy.

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Is the gang of eight concept even from the the constitution?

My understanding is that it was a more recent concoction

ThatRobGuy said:

If the carrot and the stick both fail, then it's time to find a new rabbit.

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I think the parable is about a donkey and not a rabbit.

ThatRobGuy said:

Is the gang of eight concept even from the the constitution?

My understanding is that it was a more recent concoction

Gang of Eight (intelligence) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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I dont believe its in the constitution. Mainly I think its just an acknowledgement that the congress is supposed to be the branch who initiates acts of war.

ThatRobGuy said:

Is the gang of eight concept even from the the constitution?

My understanding is that it was a more recent concoction

Gang of Eight (intelligence) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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It is federal reporting law.

durangodawood said:

I dont believe its in the constitution. Mainly I think its just an acknowledgement that the congress is supposed to be the branch who initiates acts of war.

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If we're going to set the bar for "what constitutes war" was any US presence in any place where they may not want us there, then I would think the very existence of the CIA run afoul of that would it not?

If I were to take a guess, I'd wager that we had spies scattered out across 50 different countries at any given time.

ThatRobGuy said:

If we're going to set the bar for "what constitutes war" was any US presence in any place where they may not want us there, then I would think the very existence of the CIA run afoul of that would it not?

If I were to take a guess, I'd wager that we had spies scattered out across 50 different countries at any given time.

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So now espionage and acts of war are all the same?

Other countries even plant or recruit spies here in the USA, and we dont consider that acts of war against us. No Rob, your attempted murder of reasonable categories is absurd - even if theres a grey area of certain actions where they may overlap a bit.

ThatRobGuy said:

If we're going to set the bar for "what constitutes war" was any US presence in any place where they may not want us there, then I would think the very existence of the CIA run afoul of that would it not?

If I were to take a guess, I'd wager that we had spies scattered out across 50 different countries at any given time.

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Rob, some of the things under "acts of war" may be hard to understand or keep straight for those of us who haven't served or studied international law, but some are pretty clear.

Sending in hundreds of men with helicopters and firing explosive munitions into military facitilies is quite simply an act of war. It is exactly the kind of thing that Congress have every right to know about and oversee.

Hans Blaster said:

Rob, some of the things under "acts of war" may be hard to understand or keep straight for those of us who haven't served or studied international law, but some are pretty clear.

Sending in hundreds of men with helicopters and firing explosive munitions into military facitilies is quite simply an act of war. It is exactly the kind of thing that Congress have every right to know about and oversee.

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He discussed it with the oil executives, that's gotta count for something.

Aryeh Jay said:

He discussed it with the oil executives, that's gotta count for something.

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the three branches of government: the oligarchs, the Democrats, and Trump.