I don’t think “do decapitation strikes work” was ever the right angle to approach it. The conditions in Venezuela took time to work to the point where a decap worked. That process happened slowly, the decap happened suddenly. A materialist approach would be to analyze how venezuela got to this point, where a country like Iran was so much more resilient.
In other words, decapitation strikes work. We cannot dismiss them as a useless gesture. Because you can set them up, and they can accomplish the goals you wish.
the mode is the default. decapitation strikes have worked once and not worked about 50 times so while they can work, they don’t usually work and if something doesn’t usually work we often simplify that to it doesn’t work.
Did you think what I was saying was “Decapitation strikes are always a valid option and should become the immediate standard tactic in all situations”?
Did you think my response was meant to litigate this question to begin with? Because it was meant to examine the conditions that lead to an effective decap so that we could form a better understanding rather than to focus on pat solutions like “they work” and "they don’t work ⸻ terminating thoughts that give us zero insight.
So what you’re saying here is that we are both saying that decapitation strikes are a thing that works, the argument you wished was simply one of when they work.
Well I would point out that other people saw our discussion and took from it that “It does not work” was a valid conclusion from it, so the onus is not entirely on me.
But yeah, sure, it is worth bearing in mind that decapitation strikes are much more likely to work when you have some sort of succession with legitimacy that is amenable to your goals. It is unlikely to do you much good if #2 hates you as much as #1 and wishes to follow the same plan.
I believe that to be an incorrect framing. The issue is not the strength of the state. Decapitation strikes have most famously failed against relatively weakly organised states. ISIS was not a very well organised system with robust infrastructure, biweekly assassination of their leadership did not change much in that regard. If not having a strong state was what mattered, then ISIS would have collapsed as soon as Baghdadi died, and all the various successor organisations would likewise have collapsed rather than now running Syria.
What matters is the incentive structures and the motivations of potential successors.
Removing Lincoln (Even if his assassination could not really be called a decapitation strike, he is nevertheless instructive) changed the trajectory of reconstruction and therefore American history, it did so not because the US was a particularly weak state, but because of who was put in charge and who was removed.
Venezuela has flaws, but it has a strong socialist tradition and believers in the Bolivaran revolution in various positions of local government. It has systems that were deliberately set up to act independently of a potential reactionary government. The idea that Venezuela is uniquely unable to withstand the US is just not a premise I accept. The leadership is choosing to go along with an American agenda. It may either be doing so because leaders of the government don’t really believe in the socialist project, it may be doing so out of fear of more kidnappings or other American reprisals. I can’t read thoughts.
Edit: Changed the wording to make it clear that you I don’t think you are incorrect on a factual basis, I just disagree.
It’s the same issue as we’ve seen in the past no? The revolutionaries at the time of the revolution are hardcore and would literally die for the cause but the following waves post-revolution are not fully committed on that level. When they’re faced with a situation where their life is at stake they capitulate.
Iran hasn’t crumbled to this because the religion has created subsequent generations of leadership that are still just as fully committed and willing to die for it.
Socialist states are failing to properly pass on that commitment. They failed in the soviet union, they failed in several african projects, they’ve failed in venezuela. They almost failed in China too, if it had been anyone other than Xi in charge we could have seen less drive for anti-corruption and a liberalisation of the country. Fortunately Xi is a true believer.
Venezuelan socialists will have to find those who have that true belief and decide whether they can be pushed through the existing system or whether they need to do something drastic.
If socialism fails unless our leadership forever consist of true believers, then I fear for our future.
But yes, we have a problem with passing on a revolutionary fervor. I would think the hope is that we can build incentive structures that result in everyone having motivation to continue building socialism. But on that I have no answers.
And as harsh as I am being on Rodriguez, I do not believe we can confidently say that Venezuelan socialism is yet a totally failed project (And if what you meant is that Venezuela has only failed in passing on the revolutionary fervor, I would say that there does seem to be some people committed to the cause, it just doesn’t seem to me to be their head of state). I can only say that removing Maduro has greatly been to the US’ benefit.
That was lesson that (some) people took from stalin tbf, that purges don’t work by themselves, you have to rapidly divest power to the workers (not voters, workers, after you cleaned the bourgeoisie) (which in venezuela case would have been not having state deal with oil revenue, but rather people, but they didn’t even clean bourgeoisie so whatever, socdemery)
Removing Maduro didn’t do anything beyond appeasing the egos of American politicians. He was open to a lot of the stuff the current government is doing, but the US wouldn’t negotiate with him at all.
Honestly? I think he would have if they pressured it at the negotiating table. Once they started bombing Venezuelan civilians with no international response, it was over. That’s speculation on my part though
Not true, the kidnapping of Maduro also made a bunch of online armchair leftists immediately abandon dialectical materialist thinking in favour of an entirely vibes based approach where they read every western statement about Venezuela completely uncritically and get mad that Venezuela isn’t fighting the US down to every man, woman and child in the country.
All oil revenues go through a US controlled fund in Qatar, US writes checks and disburses oil money to Venezuela.
Venezuela released thousands of “political prisoners” aka comprador Gusano violent right-wingers and they deported Alex Saab back to the USA, who Maduro’s government negotiated to bring back to Venezuela
The government has begun instituting neoliberal policies and working with US government and US capitalists
Oil has been redirected, Venezuela no longer attempts to send anything to Cuba but instead sends it to the USA where it even has been seen to be immediately redirected to Israel
This isn’t vibes. You are projecting. We are the ones describing materialist things.
“If you’re openly taking meetings with the CIA where you plan to help them with clandestine ops and handing over Maduro’s cabinet members to the US in return for nothing, then you may be collaborating with the US” is not a"Vibes based approach" and if it is then I’ll take my “Vibes” over your “Actually collaborating with the US is good” based approach.
Why are you even a communist if you think every setback and issue a communist country has is proof of the US’s undying might? Seriously, why are you even here if you clearly think the US is eternal and undefeatable and every communist movement so fragile that any assault on them is just proof of their revolutionary movement collapsing? Communism clearly doesn’t work in your worldview, so why the fuck are you even here?
I was being far too hostile to you and attacking you for a position you don’t actually hold, I’ve seen way too many people act like this is some Great Man Theory nonsense and Delcy was some kind of sinister scheming vizier vying for the Throne of Venezuela, and that all it takes to destroy a socialist state is replacing a “good leader” with a “bad leader”, just complete lib ahistorical nonsense, which isn’t what you were saying. People acting like Venezuela just collapsed suddenly overnight the instant Maduro was captured as if the whole country relied solely on him.
But it’s not fair to attack you for a position you don’t actually hold, sorry for that.
Perhaps “do execution strikes work” is the wrong question compared to “in which situations and by which metrics do execution strikes work”… Hmmmm, yes, quite…
If there are circumstances under which decapitation strikes work, and those circumstances are capable of being set up by the Trump white house, then decapitation strikes cannot be dismissed as unworkable because of systemic factors.
His opening offer was to essentially cut off trade with other nations and tie Venezuela’s economy entirely to the US, and this was after they were already terror bombing random fishing boats. I doubt some kind of token anti-drug cooperation would’ve been off the table, which is exactly the kind of thing Trump loves.
Decapitation strikes work, when they can tip the balance in struggle between two or more relatively equal factions, and fail, when one faction is absolutely dominant.
Beyond saying “Maduro is still president” has Delcy Rodríguez done literally anything to oppose the US in any capacity since becoming acting president? Has she said “No” even once?
Realistically, what would you want her to do? She doesn’t have many options. I’m not saying she’s a great leader. Maybe she really is a rat, and in some years we’ll get reporting to confirm that. But for now, I;'m just seeing a leader/country in an impossible situation.
it’s possible the bolivarian revolution even comes out stronger because of this. The kidnapping hurt the legitimacy of the opposition, and if she’s able to get sanctions lifted while oil prices go back to Chavez-era prices, then the economy might recover.
This is just a facile thing to say in the context of the US floundering in Iran. It is also just generally facile. “Yes sir mr. great satan sir” isn’t an inevitable and incontrovertible axiom to which all politics are subject.
The idea that no resistance is possible and that we must all bow before the great hegemon is…
I mean it’s pathetic? Beyond being pathetic it’s also just totally dismissive of all the resistance that is actually happening all across the world.
Realistically, what would you want her to do?
Not hand over people the US just released to your custody, not allow the US to tell Venezuela where the oil goes, not meet up with the leader of the CIA to set up strategic partnerships.
You know, basic shit.
This is just a facile thing to say in the context of the US floundering in Iran.
Iran has a much bigger, more experienced military, more territory, more people, and is significantly farther from the US than venezuela. The US is floundering because of rockets and drones, not words.
Not hand over people the US just released to your custody, not allow the US to tell Venezuela where the oil goes, not meet up with the leader of the CIA to set up strategic partnerships. You know, basic shit.
Again, it’s been less than 6 months. if they’re still doing all these concessions the rest of the year, then I might join you in declaring US victory.
And of course there is absolutely no middle ground between open collaboration with the CIA, handing over control of your country’s oil exports and delivering prisoners to the US on one hand and defeating the US militarily on the other. Those are your only options.
Also no one except Iran has done any resistance, there are no smaller groups that have resisted US imperalism under much worse conditions to draw upon for the types of resistance you could do except shoot at them, no one except Iran has ever told Trump no. And hey, the DPRK isn’t real, and the Houthis are imaginary while we’re at it.
The idea that decapitation strikes don’t work because of systemic forces has been totally disproved by Maduro.
I don’t think “do decapitation strikes work” was ever the right angle to approach it. The conditions in Venezuela took time to work to the point where a decap worked. That process happened slowly, the decap happened suddenly. A materialist approach would be to analyze how venezuela got to this point, where a country like Iran was so much more resilient.
In other words, decapitation strikes work. We cannot dismiss them as a useless gesture. Because you can set them up, and they can accomplish the goals you wish.
Decapitation strikes can work.
A distinction that doesn’t matter. All tools that work have conditions under which they work and under which they do not.
Guns can work, provided they are loaded, the safety is off, and the gun is functional. In other words, guns work.
the mode is the default. decapitation strikes have worked once and not worked about 50 times so while they can work, they don’t usually work and if something doesn’t usually work we often simplify that to it doesn’t work.
A semantic distinction that implies something completely different.
Did you think what I was saying was “Decapitation strikes are always a valid option and should become the immediate standard tactic in all situations”?
Did you think my response was meant to litigate this question to begin with? Because it was meant to examine the conditions that lead to an effective decap so that we could form a better understanding rather than to focus on pat solutions like “they work” and "they don’t work ⸻ terminating thoughts that give us zero insight.
So what you’re saying here is that we are both saying that decapitation strikes are a thing that works, the argument you wished was simply one of when they work.
Well I would point out that other people saw our discussion and took from it that “It does not work” was a valid conclusion from it, so the onus is not entirely on me. But yeah, sure, it is worth bearing in mind that decapitation strikes are much more likely to work when you have some sort of succession with legitimacy that is amenable to your goals. It is unlikely to do you much good if #2 hates you as much as #1 and wishes to follow the same plan.
They work on weak states with fundamental flaws, yes.
They clearly do not work on strong states.
I believe that to be an incorrect framing. The issue is not the strength of the state. Decapitation strikes have most famously failed against relatively weakly organised states. ISIS was not a very well organised system with robust infrastructure, biweekly assassination of their leadership did not change much in that regard. If not having a strong state was what mattered, then ISIS would have collapsed as soon as Baghdadi died, and all the various successor organisations would likewise have collapsed rather than now running Syria.
What matters is the incentive structures and the motivations of potential successors.
Removing Lincoln (Even if his assassination could not really be called a decapitation strike, he is nevertheless instructive) changed the trajectory of reconstruction and therefore American history, it did so not because the US was a particularly weak state, but because of who was put in charge and who was removed.
Venezuela has flaws, but it has a strong socialist tradition and believers in the Bolivaran revolution in various positions of local government. It has systems that were deliberately set up to act independently of a potential reactionary government. The idea that Venezuela is uniquely unable to withstand the US is just not a premise I accept. The leadership is choosing to go along with an American agenda. It may either be doing so because leaders of the government don’t really believe in the socialist project, it may be doing so out of fear of more kidnappings or other American reprisals. I can’t read thoughts.
Edit: Changed the wording to make it clear that you I don’t think you are incorrect on a factual basis, I just disagree.
It’s the same issue as we’ve seen in the past no? The revolutionaries at the time of the revolution are hardcore and would literally die for the cause but the following waves post-revolution are not fully committed on that level. When they’re faced with a situation where their life is at stake they capitulate.
Iran hasn’t crumbled to this because the religion has created subsequent generations of leadership that are still just as fully committed and willing to die for it.
Socialist states are failing to properly pass on that commitment. They failed in the soviet union, they failed in several african projects, they’ve failed in venezuela. They almost failed in China too, if it had been anyone other than Xi in charge we could have seen less drive for anti-corruption and a liberalisation of the country. Fortunately Xi is a true believer.
Venezuelan socialists will have to find those who have that true belief and decide whether they can be pushed through the existing system or whether they need to do something drastic.
If socialism fails unless our leadership forever consist of true believers, then I fear for our future. But yes, we have a problem with passing on a revolutionary fervor. I would think the hope is that we can build incentive structures that result in everyone having motivation to continue building socialism. But on that I have no answers.
And as harsh as I am being on Rodriguez, I do not believe we can confidently say that Venezuelan socialism is yet a totally failed project (And if what you meant is that Venezuela has only failed in passing on the revolutionary fervor, I would say that there does seem to be some people committed to the cause, it just doesn’t seem to me to be their head of state). I can only say that removing Maduro has greatly been to the US’ benefit.
That was lesson that (some) people took from stalin tbf, that purges don’t work by themselves, you have to rapidly divest power to the workers (not voters, workers, after you cleaned the bourgeoisie) (which in venezuela case would have been not having state deal with oil revenue, but rather people, but they didn’t even clean bourgeoisie so whatever, socdemery)
Removing Maduro didn’t do anything beyond appeasing the egos of American politicians. He was open to a lot of the stuff the current government is doing, but the US wouldn’t negotiate with him at all.
I don’t think Maduro would be deporting people he received in prisoner exchanges with the US back to the US like the current gov is doing.
Honestly? I think he would have if they pressured it at the negotiating table. Once they started bombing Venezuelan civilians with no international response, it was over. That’s speculation on my part though
Not true, the kidnapping of Maduro also made a bunch of online armchair leftists immediately abandon dialectical materialist thinking in favour of an entirely vibes based approach where they read every western statement about Venezuela completely uncritically and get mad that Venezuela isn’t fighting the US down to every man, woman and child in the country.
All oil revenues go through a US controlled fund in Qatar, US writes checks and disburses oil money to Venezuela.
Venezuela released thousands of “political prisoners” aka comprador Gusano violent right-wingers and they deported Alex Saab back to the USA, who Maduro’s government negotiated to bring back to Venezuela
The government has begun instituting neoliberal policies and working with US government and US capitalists
Oil has been redirected, Venezuela no longer attempts to send anything to Cuba but instead sends it to the USA where it even has been seen to be immediately redirected to Israel
This isn’t vibes. You are projecting. We are the ones describing materialist things.
“If you’re openly taking meetings with the CIA where you plan to help them with clandestine ops and handing over Maduro’s cabinet members to the US in return for nothing, then you may be collaborating with the US” is not a"Vibes based approach" and if it is then I’ll take my “Vibes” over your “Actually collaborating with the US is good” based approach.
Why are you even a communist if you think every setback and issue a communist country has is proof of the US’s undying might? Seriously, why are you even here if you clearly think the US is eternal and undefeatable and every communist movement so fragile that any assault on them is just proof of their revolutionary movement collapsing? Communism clearly doesn’t work in your worldview, so why the fuck are you even here?
You should build Communism — precisely because it’s impossible.
I’m literally the person arguing that you can and should resist the hegemon and acquiescence isn’t inevitable.
Do you read posts before you respond, or do you just go off your inherent belief that you’re the one true communist?
And how do you even square your belief that you’re the one true communist with your seeming belief that actually revisionism isn’t worth criticising?
I was being far too hostile to you and attacking you for a position you don’t actually hold, I’ve seen way too many people act like this is some Great Man Theory nonsense and Delcy was some kind of sinister scheming vizier vying for the Throne of Venezuela, and that all it takes to destroy a socialist state is replacing a “good leader” with a “bad leader”, just complete lib ahistorical nonsense, which isn’t what you were saying. People acting like Venezuela just collapsed suddenly overnight the instant Maduro was captured as if the whole country relied solely on him.
But it’s not fair to attack you for a position you don’t actually hold, sorry for that.
Was Maduro proposing letting the US set up a CIA “partnership” with Venezuela?
Perhaps “do execution strikes work” is the wrong question compared to “in which situations and by which metrics do execution strikes work”… Hmmmm, yes, quite…
If there are circumstances under which decapitation strikes work, and those circumstances are capable of being set up by the Trump white house, then decapitation strikes cannot be dismissed as unworkable because of systemic factors.
His opening offer was to essentially cut off trade with other nations and tie Venezuela’s economy entirely to the US, and this was after they were already terror bombing random fishing boats. I doubt some kind of token anti-drug cooperation would’ve been off the table, which is exactly the kind of thing Trump loves.
Decapitation strikes work, when they can tip the balance in struggle between two or more relatively equal factions, and fail, when one faction is absolutely dominant.
The abduction was less than 6 months ago. Way too early to declare victory for the US.
Beyond saying “Maduro is still president” has Delcy Rodríguez done literally anything to oppose the US in any capacity since becoming acting president? Has she said “No” even once?
lol. Hegemons hate this one simple trick
Realistically, what would you want her to do? She doesn’t have many options. I’m not saying she’s a great leader. Maybe she really is a rat, and in some years we’ll get reporting to confirm that. But for now, I;'m just seeing a leader/country in an impossible situation.
it’s possible the bolivarian revolution even comes out stronger because of this. The kidnapping hurt the legitimacy of the opposition, and if she’s able to get sanctions lifted while oil prices go back to Chavez-era prices, then the economy might recover.
This is just a facile thing to say in the context of the US floundering in Iran. It is also just generally facile. “Yes sir mr. great satan sir” isn’t an inevitable and incontrovertible axiom to which all politics are subject. The idea that no resistance is possible and that we must all bow before the great hegemon is… I mean it’s pathetic? Beyond being pathetic it’s also just totally dismissive of all the resistance that is actually happening all across the world.
Not hand over people the US just released to your custody, not allow the US to tell Venezuela where the oil goes, not meet up with the leader of the CIA to set up strategic partnerships. You know, basic shit.
Iran has a much bigger, more experienced military, more territory, more people, and is significantly farther from the US than venezuela. The US is floundering because of rockets and drones, not words.
Again, it’s been less than 6 months. if they’re still doing all these concessions the rest of the year, then I might join you in declaring US victory.
And of course there is absolutely no middle ground between open collaboration with the CIA, handing over control of your country’s oil exports and delivering prisoners to the US on one hand and defeating the US militarily on the other. Those are your only options.
Also no one except Iran has done any resistance, there are no smaller groups that have resisted US imperalism under much worse conditions to draw upon for the types of resistance you could do except shoot at them, no one except Iran has ever told Trump no. And hey, the DPRK isn’t real, and the Houthis are imaginary while we’re at it.
oh ok
I mean those must be your fucking beliefs, otherwise what you said is a pile of nonsense.