1. The country is only a minor contributor to America’s drug problem; the necessary violence of war cannot be Biblically justified to protect American citizens
2. Both rural and urban terrain would be a nightmare for modern warfare
3. Venezuela’s forces are built for decades-long guerrilla war, not conventional defense
4. Logistics would be slow, vulnerable, and expensive
5. The out-of-order oil fields are unwinnable battlefields: sinkholes of corruption, sabotage, and ecological collapse.
6. Occupation would lead to political and economic chaos, not stability
7. The loss of young American infantry could easily surpass that of Vietnam
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."
US Marine General Smedley Butler, reflecting on his 35-year career as a soldier
“Fact check; not locking down at all (like Sweden) would have saved lives in UK. Hard to believe how much money the UK spent on its sham covid inquiry.”
--Jay Bhattacharya
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry cost millions. It finally released the core political chapters of its long-awaited report. After nearly three years of hearings, millions of documents, and tens of millions of pounds spent on legal fees, the conclusion is now unmistakably clear.
They’ve learned nothing, even while watching millions suffer from lockdowns and vaccination.
Worse, they may not want to learn. The Inquiry’s structure, its analytical frame, even its carefully curated narrative all point in the same direction: away from the possibility that Britain’s pandemic response was fundamentally misguided.
Bill Madden writes, "Refusing illegal orders in the military is difficult to do because they normally are generated high in the chain of command and very few officers in the chain really know what is or is not a legal order. Immediate superiors can be very demanding and the orders are usually given in high pressure environments. Refusing an illegal military order is tantamount to whistleblowing and, as much good as it does for the concept of truth, the whistleblower’s life is made miserable as a punishment for his honesty and a warning to others."
I watched this happen with Army Spec Michael New during the Clinton years. He disobeyed an illegal Clinton order, was arrested on base in Germany, was then given an unjust, unconstitutional trial, and then a Bad Conduct Discharge. But he stood his ground the whole time and has been proven right since.