Two U.S. F-18 fighter jets flying in tandem entered Venezuelan airspace around noon Tuesday, circling over the Gulf of Venezuela in the latest show of force against the regime of Nicolás Maduro.
The flyover — carried out despite the Venezuelan regime’s possession of a number of Russian-made anti-aircraft batteries — took place less than 100 miles northeast of Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city. Thousands of Venezuelans tracked the aircraft online through specialized tracking websites, watching as the jets traced a bow-tie-shaped pattern over the gulf.
The fighters remained inside Venezuelan airspace for at least 40 minutes at an altitude of roughly 25,000 feet before heading north and leaving the area.
Blatant provocation by imperialist warmongers.
I am curious what was in the pilot’s mind at this moment? I Know, militaires have to follow order, but here they’re flying illegally over a foreign country, which has (cold War era but still) air-defence, in a non stealth plane while keeping transponder/ADS-B active.
Looks like not only illegal but also betting that Venezuela will stay calm enough to do anything about them
A lot of US military pilots are genuine pieces of racist shit.
They all reinforce their conservative views in flight school.
And those that aren’t openly and knowingly racist are still nationalist and authoritarian, of the “might makes right” variety in particular. You don’t thrive in that environment otherwise.
Militaries don’t “have to” follow orders. They accept full responsibility for these orders. They can refuse orders and will have to accept responsibility for not following them.
Evaluation of the legality of the order happens in court, both entail respect of the constitution AND international treaties the country has signed, both use judges, lawyers and prosecutors. Are formalised to the extreme.
Following orders of such an unpopular government is the biggest long term threat on any soldier. Most understand this, I hope.
Trump is trying to get an F-18 shot down, just the same as he was praying a nat’l guard member would get shot down, so he can justify doing whatever the fuck he wants.
He’ll do whatever the fuck he wants, regardless. And it doesn’t require much effort for him to lie.
Can’t he just have one thrown overboard instead? I hear it’s a traditional way of dealing with them.
This is all correct. It’s insulting to the intelligence of foreign governments though.
The “I’m not touching you” harassment in the hopes of getting the fight you want without the blame for starting it. I remember this coward’s tactic from bullies in grade school.
We just took one of their toys: an oil tanker.
The trump regime trying to start a war with the people of venezuela, illegally entered their airspace for 40 minutes to continue to threaten and harass after murdering several of their citizens on the high seas.
Our own nation is collapsing and Americans can’t afford to live, but we can terrorize other nations no problem?
The orange pedophile REALLY wants to distract from his failures. Namely child rape.
They want to use a war as an excuse to keep Trump is power.
Trump will launch nukes before ever admitting to fucking kids.
He doesn’t see the child rape as his failure. It was getting caught.
Russia has been doing that on eastern and northern europe countries several times per year, even against “friendly” countries like pre-NATO Finland. And before that, they did it as Soviet Union.
But of course the current US administration holds those scumbags as role models.
Your defiant flyover is my illegal violation of sovereignty.
China may decide to step up and ally with South America as the US military is headed by a old deranged moron and the military is now under the command of an udder clown.
China doesn’t need to directly confront the US but may provide critical information to defenders of Venezuela.I really like the mental image of an udder clown.
Do with Venezuela/South America what the US has done with Taiwan for the last decade?
I wish someone would bomb strike all of these asshole american soldiers in the Caribbean
Disgusting US imperialism. The EU needs to get as far from the US as possible ASAP, leaving NATO is an imperative at this point.
I hope one of the nations that we are bullying will defend themselves. I’d LOVE to see a US F18 go down. Shit, I’d like to see a carrier go down.
Escalation is exactly what they’re looking for
I know. I just want some one to figure out a way to defend themselves against us.
I also wish us (the US) bad things right now, my person. The piggish nature of America will only be seen by our ignorant civilians when they experience personal pain and suffering. We joke about how republikkkans only care when something affects them directly, but I’m starting to realize just how directly and how much of an impact it actually has to make for even that much to be true
The Afghans did a pretty decent job.
Poor nations don’t have to ‘beat’ the US. They just need to wear it down until it’s no longer worth the resources to continue fighting.
I mean, yes, but this “victory” came at the cost of two hundred thousand dead, God knows how many wounded, twenty years they could’ve used to develop their country and even tighter Taliban control than before the US invasion. Afghans managed to kick the US out, but they did not succeed at defending anything. If I was Venezuelan my lesson from this would be “absolutely don’t get into war with the US,” because such a war would leave their country in ruin just like Afghanistan.
I guess. It’s frustrating that it takes so long and involves so much suffering.
Despite the deep pockets and general indifference to casualties, I think that the American populace will react to sudden large losses. Like, we collectively don’t seem to care if 3 thousand US troops are killed during a prolonged engagement lasting years. But if 3 thousand died in a single event, like a ship sinking, people would be fucking pissed. A lot of that anger would be channeled into a desire for retaliation. Some of it would also be directed at the leadership that put that ship in harms way.
If they do that will you protect them from the wrath of the US war machine? Exactly.
Isn’t that like almost exactly how USA got involved in the Vietnam war? They parked a ship just in provocation range then bombed the ever living hell out of the general area when they tried to defend themselves?
Close. The retaliation was faked, tho.
Yeah that! I didn’t realize that the false flag was confirmed though. Was trying to stay semi factual lol
I hope one of the nations that we are bullying will defend themselves.
your country is deliberately targetting countries that cannot do that
I agree. We fucking suck. Maybe some kind of coalition of nations can build a meaningful opposition to us.
