Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
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User ID: 1226
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
The legal question is regrettably rather immaterial. The odds that a federal agent is going to be held accountable by the current (or any) administration is quite low, and doubly so for Steven Miller's specialest boys. However, Noem is currently asserting not merely that the shooting was legally justified but that the victim was actually a domestic terrorist attempting to murder ICE agents, which is very obviously false.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
The goal is to spike the cannons so that when the counterattack succeeds, the enemy will no longer be able to use those weapons. This will permanently tilt the board in the direction of preferred policies and against disfavored policies, even after the exposed salient is lost.
If you ever find yourself thinking something is 4D chess, just remember: it's never 4D chess. If someone is acting crazy and stupid, it's almost certainly because they're crazy and stupid.
As I noted in a different comment, Marco Rubio is trying to run a more-or-less normal conservative foreign policy, which is not consistent with a strategy of deliberate sabotage. If you want to, e.g. build an anti-China coalition, you need to not piss off everyone you want to join the coalition. Conversely, if you wanted to signal that the US is crazy and unreliable, excluding everybody sane and reputable would be an important part of that. You wouldn't pick Rubio as SoS. You'd find another bellicose lackey like Hegseth or Patel. It's conceivable that Rubio was imposed on Trump behind the scenes, or that they feel the need to include someone who isn't a complete fool/lunatic, but considering the way Trump has completely whipped the GOP in other respects, that seems unlikely.
Instead you've got a three(ish) way split between the normiecons trying to run something approximating a real foreign policy, far-right authoritarians who think they're waging civilizational warfare, and a mad king who loves grandstanding and has the preferences of the last person to talk to him. The closest I think you get to the sabotage angle is that I suspect people in the far-right camp think the US stands to benefit from a collapse of the global order - that might makes right and it is better to be king of the Americas than primus inter pares of the free world. But that's not a policy of sabotage, it's just doing the stuff you want to do.
The federal government is, for a lawyer or researcher or engineer, no longer a reliable partner.
Much like with the Hmong, the Kurds, and countless other one-time allies hung out to dry by the United States, you don't work with the US government because it's reliable. You work with the USG because there isn't an alternative. It doesn't matter that the USG is erratic, it's still signing most of the checks. This is especially true for specialists who work in fields that are of limited interested in private employers, or who prefer public service.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
This woman used her vehicle to impede ICE officers
If people have evidence of this, they should present it. So far, I've seen people assume this out of instinctive deferrence to authority, but I haven't seen it substantiated (and, again, given ICE's history of lying to justify their undisciplined and aggressive behavior, I see no reason to trust them).
It is legal for the federal government to enforce immigration and borders.
This is the slippery slope I mentioned, where "we require certain authority to do our job" becomes "we can do whatever we claim is necessary." ICE has a specific job that doesn't really them to send out masked goons like this.
I find it fairly unlikely ICE agents thought they had a real reason to try and detain her, rather than thinking they were going to put an obnoxious protestor in their place. And why not? There's no way they're going to be held accountable. Just loudly proclaim you bagged a domestic terrorist.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
Today's case makes it clear to me if this exact situation from 2019 was re-played but it was an ICE agent instead of a police resource officer it would be seen as a murder by every Democrat.
There's an obvious point here where ordinary cops have a real job maintaining public order, whereas nothing about what ICE does requires them to act the way they do other than the appetite for ostentatious thuggery.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
Personally, I find accosting and murdering innocent people and then calling them domestic terrorists to be anti-social and anti-civic, and it ought to be possible to crack down on it in some fashion. Maybe if law enforcement suffered consequences more often for abusing their power, it would happen less often.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
I don't think that clearly shows that at all, and other close-up footage makes it pretty clear that any contact was incidental at most (the guy who was allegedly injured is clearly fine).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
I pretty clearly spell out what I think happened in the second paragraph of my post.
It appears she had parked her car perpendicularly on a small road, presumably to block or otherwise obstruct ICE activity
She is doing a piss-poor job, then, because another car passes in front of her shortly before ICE agents approach her. It looks more to me like she got stopped in the middle of a three point turn.
I have a strong suspicion that ICE deliberately hemmed her in, given that there are ICE vehicles on either side of her. Likely doing the thing they often do where they stop and harass people for observing them. Only this time, the observer panicked and so did ICE.
However there was an agent on the hood of her car that she certainly did hit.
Where? The agent in front of her was some ways off and she unambiguously turns away from him.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
9d ago
The claim that the victim was trying to run an agent over is not only not true, video footage clearly shows that it isn't. That won't stop DHS from lying (again) and claiming that ICE agents were victims instead of perpetrators (again). It's thoroughly unclear why they were trying to stop this woman in the first place, and given ICE's pattern of lying, I have zero confidence in their testimony (see also: Chicago)
The slippery slope for me
The slippery slope here is one we've already slid down: "law enforcement needs certain authority to do their job" has become "law enforcement can do whatever they want if it's allegedly part of their job and it's a spin of the roulette wheel whether they'll ever face consequences." The best you can realistically hope for is an order telling them to stop violating your rights, which is of limited utility when you're dead. Maybe you'll get lucky and there will be earth-shattering protests, but more likely the taxpayers will get stuck footing the bill while nothing of consequence results for the actual perpetrators.
If I had to sum up the difference between Team Rubio and Team Vance
I agree with this, but let me rephrase this conclusion: Rubio is running a relatively classically (in an American sense) conservative foreign policy. They think Europe is weak and prissy, they don't trust international institutions, and they believe in unilateral action if allies are uncooperative, but their assessment of who US friends and enemies are is fairly conventional. Vance is pushing an extremely online The-West-Has-Fallen foreign policy. Openly worrying about the immigration policy and demographics of another continent is very peculiar from a normal security perspective, but makes significantly more sense as an expression of the not-so-subtly-white-supremacist faction of the Trumpist coalition. However, it's not really clear to me how much actual influence Vance wields in foreign policy versus being a dancing monkey for certain elements of the base.
Trump is, of course, drunkenly careening around doing whatever crosses his mind in the moment and leaving his subordinates to try and pick up the pieces (we're apparently back to threatening to invade our allies). This doesn't really help either faction - Rubio et al want the EU to cooperate in the anti-China coalition, which is significantly less likely if Trump insists on pissing directly into their mouth, while the Vance/Miller faction has to worry about Trump's behavior negatively polarizing European voters against the RW populist parties they're trying to promote (see also: the Poilievre collapse in Canada).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
12d ago
I am suggesting that you are badly overestimating their competence.
Also, you haven't really articulated why it's a win for America that Trump's cronies get license to loot Venezuela (assuming that even pans out).
Outside of white societies and some East Asians how many successful Democracies are there?
Other than, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Others have already answered you on this, but let me turn it around. Where are the successful autocracies? Every country people want to live in is a liberal democracy and that is not a coincidence. Democracies are institutionally more capable of reform and less prone to corruption. Even democracies with serious corruption problems (e.g. in Latin America or Eastern Europe) are generally better off than their authoritarian counterparts.
Have you heard about the natural resource curse?
The resource curse is a meme. Insofar as it is a thing, it is a thing where natural resources allow incompetent authoritarian regimes to prop themselves up well past the point where they would otherwise collapse. With a few exceptions in one direction or the other (e.g. Japan, Norway), developed countries generally have both excellent natural resource endowment and economies which do not depend on natural resource extraction.
KSA and the other Gulf States lucked into sitting on top of an enormous share of a critical resource while having proportionally small populations (KSA has fewer people than CA, and the other Gulf States are even smaller). Natural resource extraction is generally a low-tier economic activity. These states could never function as they do without oil wealth.
KSA isn't even doing particularly well compared to other oil states. It's bigger, in both land area and population, but MBS has an insatiable love of expensive vanity megaprojects rather than serious economic diversification.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
12d ago
I'm specifically talking about perception and the role that plays in legitimizing the actions, per the comment I was replying to. I've little doubt that the raid itself was meticulously planned and rehearsed.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
The comparison crossed my mind.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
I considered putting in a disclaimer because I knew some smartass would make a comment like this. Venezuela has severe problems, but it still has a long way to go before it hits rock bottom.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
The ideal would be a Pinochet or MBS. A get shit done guy
I'm confused. Do you want a 'get shit done' guy or not?
Of course, the odds of getting something like that are vanishingly rare anyway. The central lie of authoritarianism is that it's effective. It's not. KSA is a shithole that's able to paper over the flaws due to sheer natural resource wealth enabling them to hire foreign experts to manage everything important despite incredible waste and corruption. The likely outcome of Trump cutting a deal with a replacement authoritarian is that the new leader pays off Trump and dials up the repression.
Exxon etc returning to Venezuela because they trust the regime. A significant portion of the Venezuela diaspora returning would be a win. Let’s say 5 years out 4-5 million barrels of oil production.
Why should I or any other American who isn't an Exxon shareholder care about this? My interests and the interests of a handful of nominally American multinational oil and gas companies are not closely aligned (they are, in fact, negatively aligned).
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
One thing I find interesting about these threads is how the speed itself became part of the legitimacy.
"There's three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!"
"Isn't that the wrong way?"
"Yeah, but faster!"
Or, perhaps more charitable and tropically: "I took the canal zone and let Congress debate."
The cult of action is not a new thing. It is, I suspect, a deep rooted psychological type. Speed, brutality, decisiveness - action for the sake of action - are conflated with effectiveness by certain kinds of people, while caution, planning, and introspection are viewed with contempt. Of course, it's hardly a universal perspective. You have plenty of people with pretty much the opposite view.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
What’s the end game for Venezuela that you would agree is “winning”?
A stable, reasonably* democratic Venezuela, reasonably traceable to Trump's actions/policies. That is to say, if Trump negotiates free and fair democratic elections, that's a win. If Trump negotiates for another authoritarian figure to take over who is subsequently toppled by a popular uprising, that's not a win. Likewise if the country devolves into a dysfunctional narco-state where the government doesn't actually control a large share of its territory.
Half a year to a year is probably too short to tell if it is successful, though it may be long enough to say if it failed.
*it doesn't need to be topping democracy index charts, but it does need to have real elections. I'll give partial credit for a pragmatic, competent authoritarian who unfucks things, but incompetence is the default state of authoritarian so I don't see much reason to expect that.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
Red Sea/Houthis, North Korea, getting repeatedly rug-pulled by Putin, fumbling trade wars and getting played by China, surrendering to the Taliban...
Even the things his supporters tout as 'successes' (e.g. strikes on Iranian nuclear program) are very much in the too soon to tell category, but he can reliably count on his supporters having a short attention span and forget about them by the time any consequences come due. After all, we're more respected than ever before.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
It's less that Trump wins and more that Trump is very good at persuading his supporters to forget when he loses.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
Was anyone expecting any different? Trump has always preferred gangster foreign policy and now we've got a direct statement that we won't be supporting Machado (and that we are, somehow, going to be running Venezuela). Right now it looks like pure racketeering.
Preliminary prediction: no substantive change in Venezuela. Maduro is a bad guy, but he's not any sort of political keystone and the authoritarian machinery is still in place. Long-term impact is that US further cements its reputation as being erratic and untrustworthy for the sake of Big Dick maneuvers. Increases the odds of nuclear proliferation as well.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but unless the US is about to actually invade Venezuela to install Machado I don't see why the Venezuelan regime wouldn't just put one of their own in the big chair.
Aside: unclear what the legal basis for this is beyond "my own party is too cowardly to hold me accountable". I've seen people draw comparisons to Just Cause or Urgent Fury for obvious reasons, but in the former case Panama declared war and in the latter case it was always kind of dodgy and at least had the figleaf of urgency regarding protection of US citizens. I guess they're going to try and spin this as law enforcement?
edit: wow, Trump does not sound okay in this presser. Also, apparently we're going to run Venezuela.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
13d ago
Maybe it's a redemption arc for murdering a bunch of Korean fishermen?
How did it go from "stop drug smuggling" to "regime overthrow"?
Marco Rubio really wanted to do it, and sold it to Trump as a big dick move.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
14d ago
Good thing that problem only afflicts Them, not Us!
Rather unfortunately, actually. The general illiteracy of even relatively high status conservatives is a major part of the right-wing crank problem. The US could use a serious conservative movement rather than the current crop of grifters and conspiracy theorists.
Yes, I spent a fair amount of time yesterday evening looking for longer, unedited footage that might clarify the origin of the confrontation.
So far I have hearsay or inference, frequently from people who openly endorse violence against protesters.
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