Matt

i think you have completely misunderstood the entire point here? i am not arguing that code pink is not terrible, i am asking why there is no alternative from mainstream liberal politics to these groups.

we are also not ready to hit them directly.

that is not a moral case against war, it is a procedural one

there is a level of plausibly deniable behavior which both parties engage in to keep the conflict low stakes.

you are, yeah.

this is predicated on the assumption we do not hit them. both sides assume neither will escalate.

US military bases abroad, hitting US vessels at sea, nuclear strikes on ukraine

they are not ready to hit us directly. that’s why they arent hitting us directly. like how are you this fucking obtuse

you keep trying to turn this into an abstraction, it is literally about opposing the proposed war with venezuela. i am asking why there is no prominent democrat making a moral case against war.

“ask for permission from congress before you murder civilians, sir”

you are arguing with me, not with code pink

the US could provide more offensive weaponry, push ukraine to relative parity in the conflict and bring russia to the table. we do not need to directly bomb russian troops to help ukraine win

these are not the only two options!

exhibit b (this is about maduro):

i am frequently reminded why i am not a deontologist by the liberals on here

no. i am worried because it would not be wwiii. it is not a conflict, like say US-China over the strait, where there is relative parity. the US would almost certainly win quickly, russia would need to secure their own domestic legitimacy by hitting back with the options they have

if the US bombed russian troops in ukraine, russia would need to retaliate for regime survival and they would hit soft(er) targets, they wouldnt devote all their resources to go after next gen fighters. like come on, play this scenario out

strategic ambiguity would have been a good idea *before* the war broke out, but doing this now would guarentee escalation.

a US intervention could easily escalate to something existential for the Russian government

i like liberal currents and specifically am thinking of someone like them when i imagine a left-liberal foreign policy but they’re still a tiny academicish publication

like that’s precisely the problem

the democratic party has no firm stance on this!

you want the US to go to war with russia?

i do not think this

what genocide is ongoing in venezuela right now?

what’s the good center left alternative to this program that isnt widely infiltrated by campists? genuinely asking. i would like to know

this is a compositional problem. if you oppose intervention in venezuela, what movement do you join? who do you organize with? who protest do you attend? who do you donate to?

the thing is that distancing yourself from anti-war protests with iraq in 2003 or pro palestinian protests right after 10/7 at least made sense politically. intervention in venezuela is like the most unpopular political idea currently being floated in DC.

the anti war coalition (anti war w/re venezuela) is polling at 70-30 while it has virtually no major democratic backing. there’s some pushback on legality of the maritime strikes and on whether a land invasion would fit into the current aumf, nobody is arguing this is on principle a bad thing.

i think they prefer not to touch it because they are instinctually supportive of an interventionist foreign policy, even while the body of evidence thus far on these types of military operations should inspire the opposite