What the military actually did was a raid which captured Maduro and his wife, and likely took out some of Venezuela’s anti-air capabilities—for all the good they did them—in the process. As far as we know, that was the intent. Actually establishing control is an occupational effort.
I see your argument, and I think it is even defensible but I think it falls short. An actual resolution to this question may require a judge to weigh in on the contract.
"Actually establishing control is an occupational effort."
Not quite.
They're trying to establish control by threatening to kill or imprison the leaders and by blockade.
Venezuela apparently handed over a lot of oil, it seems like they've been able to do something.
That said - we don't really know how much 'control' that is.
If I were Polymarket, I wouldn't say that the US has control either, but, it's entirely plausible.
We'll see.
This could go the way of DOGE or the Trade War aka just a trailing mess of ongoing concerns that people forget about, though to play my own devil's advocate, ICE is consistently ramping up.
I understand that he made that claim, but until we see something that effectively substantiates that claim, it’s just words. Right now Maduro is in custody and being tried for the charges, but the regime he built is still in place, and as far as we know, not feeling any warm feelings about cooperating with us.
Now realistically no one in that regime is any safer than Maduro was, but it’s also a possibility they resist and carry on without Maduro. It’s only been since Saturday. I’m not saying there’s no world where Trump & Rubio are correct today or when they said it over the weekend, I’m saying that there is no public information substantiating those claims. Near as I can tell, it’s a “listen to us or else” kinda deal, which could be enough, but then we would see the effects of that through cooperation with the Trump Administration.
The claim doesn’t need to be substantiated, because it doesn’t matter whether they actually will control Venezuela, it only matters that it was their intent to do so, which Rubio and Trump have both admitted.
Like I said, I think your position is defensible but I think it falls short so I still disagree. If the people who bought into this contract can get it in front of a judge though, the judge might agree with you.
I am prepared to be wrong on this one, but I just don’t think that Trump & Rubio’s words after the fact are enough.
Except neither Trump or Rubio are credible sources. Their actions and words are notoriously unreliable.
In fact, citing them as an authority leads to the transitive property applying to credibility in an argument.
All of us here know Trump is an unreliable person, why is he being cited to support definitive claims? And Yes His unreliably most certainly extends to his own aims, there is no question on that.
You can for the most part evaluate intent based on actions. There are some actions which can have multiple possible intents behind them, where things get trickier. But in most situations, there is one primary consequence of something, and the action needs to be taken with deliberation, hence you can state with high certainty what the intention was, based purely on what was done. Consversely, if a person has complete freedom to complete some action, but chooses not to, then we can say their intention wasn't to do that thing.
The Chavez Museum was also destroyed...but no it wasn't an invasion. It didn't control land which is the definition in this case. The blockade provides de facto control which is what Trump is referring to.
I see your argument, and I think it is even defensible but I think it falls short. An actual resolution to this question may require a judge to weigh in on the contract.