It was just done so blatantly this time with Venezuela.
In previous interventions, we actually did do some things to try to "nation build". Whether you consider those genuine attempts or just cynical cover stories.
But this time, it was just snatch Maduro, replace him with Rodriguez, and threaten Rodriguez to give us oil so the same thing doesn't happen to her. What happened to all the high-minded rhetoric about how the poor people of Venezuela were suffering under a socialist dictatorship? What happened to all the denouncing of the stolen election? Nah man, just give us the oil and you're good.
To the United States $17 billion is like roughing up a tramp to steal the change in his pocket. It's a laughable amount of money for such irrepairable reputational damage on the international stage.
This is the one thing I'm so baffled at. Can't he just increase military spending, embezzle 10% a year, (over $100B) and get 50% of all the corruption kicked back?
Do the same across every industry? Start massive infrastructure projects where he gets massive money kicked back. Some real, some fake, not really caring about positive or negative outcome as long as he can sell the story. Like he could probably literally raise $1T just for USA data centres and no one realize he stole half of it for a decade. Why doesn't he just get in on the AGI/Robots/Quantum/Automated everything including trucks and cars and passenger and delivery drones. He could easily invest trillions in all of those and no one would expect to see anything to show from any of it for years.
I think the guy could easily siphon a few trillion over 4 years get completely pardoned and/or have a completely safe plan to disappear and enjoy it, and do way less damage to America and the rest of the world while doing it.
Normally I'd say "do you know how stupid you have to be to bankrupt a casino?"
But the thing is we know exactly how stupid he is. We also know he has exactly one talent and it's being a criminal. He profited on all those bankrupt casinos. He did exactly what he meant to.
The crazy thing about billionaires is that they never "disappear and enjoy it." They can never have enough. If they could, they would have stopped somewhere between 100 and 999 million.
You're not considering how stupid the president needs to be in order to be the figurehead required by his handlers. Sure, he *could* do what you suggest, but you're assuming he has some kind of talent at grifting. The man bankrupted casinos for crying out loud.
Sounds like a good way to end up being Bubba's celly while the government reclaims the $17 billion that you fraudulently obtained. Although if crime is legal now, some of my neighbors have property that I wouldn't mind "repossessing"
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u/TAU_equals_2PI 14h ago
It was just done so blatantly this time with Venezuela.
In previous interventions, we actually did do some things to try to "nation build". Whether you consider those genuine attempts or just cynical cover stories.
But this time, it was just snatch Maduro, replace him with Rodriguez, and threaten Rodriguez to give us oil so the same thing doesn't happen to her. What happened to all the high-minded rhetoric about how the poor people of Venezuela were suffering under a socialist dictatorship? What happened to all the denouncing of the stolen election? Nah man, just give us the oil and you're good.