This time around they didn’t even bother to bring out a glass vial containing fentanyl or coke into UN meeting like Colin Powell which shows how little consent manufacturing matters with current day American hogs as they don’t care one single bit.

To me it feels like Libya with the surgical strike on the head of state, minus the nato involvement/arming isis. What’s to be seen is if the country will fall into civil war like they did, no doubt though they’re about to get the old shock doctrine.

I don’t think it’s entirely similar. Bush was riding a massive wave of popularity at the time thanks to 9/11 and there was a massive campaign to manufacture evidence from both the media and the Bush administration itself, plus of course American hogs were incredibly bloodthirsty. The Trump admin is neither as popular as Bush was at the time nor is it competent enough to execute that kind of media campaign.

At the time, there also seemed to be this undercurrent, a remnant of the end of history 90s, that the US could and should act as a “world police”.

I need to see how it plays out over the next few weeks. I was too young to participate, but the Iraq War protests were one of my first radicalising experiences because everyone around me turned into a flag-fucking Khorne cultist. Yellow ribbons were ubiquitous on every house and hog, while the worst opposition allowed in public discourse was “I am waiting to see the WMDs before supporting the invasion but I do support our troops”. Maybe on par with 9/11 and the initial bombing of Afghanistan, most liberals I saw were pro-Bush until the first phase of the invasion was over.

Right now the media is falling in line and seems very reminiscent of 2003, along with the . I already know there won’t be any consequences for the architects, pirates, or kidnappers participating in the Special Military Operation. I’m expecting most officials to support it until something goes wrong because the kidnapping was a success in a decades-long string of failures.

The main psychosocial thing that’s up in the air for me is public opinion and how enthusiastic normal people will be about the mission and losses. I don’t think that will parallel Iraq as strongly or as long. The main group calling for it outside of oil companies is the gusanos, and they’re legally on par with refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan now as far as ICE is concerned. It remains to be seen whether the liberal hatred of non-white people will outweigh their hatred of Trump.

Yeah, but in some ways worse. Like, we don’t have the mass troop invasion (yet) and there’s the possibility here of international pressure keeping the post-kidnapping government from becoming a complete puppet state.

But, Iraq happened in the shadow of 9/11 which had put the whole country into a manic state. The neocons leveraged that to create a hyper potent manufactured consent. This time though, there’s no mass bloodlust campaign, Venezuela is nowhere close to being anyone’s top concern, and they’re completely phoning in the manufactured consent routine this time around. Which oddly feels more disheartening as TPTB not even caring if they sway the masses or not speaks to the fascist decline.

I’ve been having 2003 flashbacks for months, it doesn’t help that all the kids are dressing that way. Jon Stewart is back, pop girls are back, at this rate we’re going to get the next half life soon

It won’t be like Iraq

The US has no desire or appetite for such a conflict again, and they probably don’t need to do such a thing again

They’ll execute Maduro or imprison him for life, then help install some pro west sycophant that will let them suck the country dry

Yep, but minus the horrorific casual islamophobia and racism that permeated the entire amerikkkan political and media landscape. From South Park episodes to Flash animations on Newgrounds. Obviously islamophobia hasn’t disappeared, but the way how widespread it was back then even among your average lib was scary.

Yeah, big time

First as farce, and then again as an even dumber farce.

1000%. Watching the explosions in Caracas on the news last night took me straight back to watching that night-vision footage of “shock and awe” (i.e. mass murder) in 2003

Oh yeah. This is PNAC v2 for sure.

Oddly enough I don’t feel as worried about it all this time around. The PNAC crowd were certainly as brutal as Trump&co, but they were also unified by a competent cabal, and facing a non-unified world with dramatically inferior military capabilities. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bolton and the rest had a single vision and had practical plans to try to accomplish it.

Trump&co are just winging it. No plan, just vibes. They’re also facing off against a less dis-unified world that’s also in far better shape to oppose the United States.

I wish I could go on strike but I’m broke and surrounded by Americucks who will complain but never anything else 🤢

the lack of 9/11 behind it makes a real difference but they’re running a lot of the same plays

Been having bush era flashbacks for a while now