[dwood_dev]

Let me preface this one with the statement that I am completely against regime change wars.

This is one scenario where it might actually have a positive outcome. Maduro looks to have barely won his reelection in 2018. The 2024 election he lost, badly. All the individual precinct results had him at 30-40%. Conveniently, the central election database was "hacked" and they lost all the final numbers. But not to worry, Maduro definitely won!

Was the CIA/USAID involved? Almost certainly, and in 2018 it was barely hidden. The U.S. has been meddling in Venezuela long before Chavez came to power, and has not helped the situation in any way.

Even given all that, the Venezuelan people want Maduro gone. The help of the U.S. to remove the regime might actually have a positive end. This isn't like other countries where the U.S. foisted democracy upon a population that had never experienced it. Venezuela has been imploding, for years. Nearly 8 million people have left in the last decade. The diaspora represents nearly 1/4 of all Venezuelans.

[foogazi]

> This is one scenario where it might actually have a positive outcome.

LOL - this is how they always do it

[mmooss]

Also,

> the Venezuelan people want Maduro gone. The help of the U.S. ...

They don't want us to invade their country, shoot their family and neighbors, bomb their cities .... Imagine how you would feel to have a foreign military on your streets, with guns, tanks, etc. Remember that Venezualan soldiers are family of other Venezualans.

When the US military has 'helped', it hasn't turned out well for civilians. Conservatively, 100,000 died in Iraq. Militaries aren't for helping; they are for destroying things and killing people and only appropriate for self-defense.

Most wars since WWII have ended badly for the US: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan ... Korea ended in stalemate. Wars are political actions - enacted through violence - and only end with political outcomes. What is the peaceful political outcome in Venezuala?

[tim333]

I don't know what the Venezuelan people want but the US removal of General Manuel Noriega from Panama seemed popular.

>Polls show that the Panamanian people overwhelmingly supported the invasion. According to a CBS News poll, 92% of Panamanian adults supported the invasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...

guess it depends a bit if you can shift the dictator without killing too many people.

I guess the peaceful political option would be kick out Maduro, put Edmundo González Urrutia in power (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/19/venezuelan-pre...)

Apparently Urrutia got about 2/3 of the votes in the 2024 election but Maduro claimed victory and wouldn't go.

The US has offered $50m for information leading to Maduros arrest and the Miami Herald said a 'source' said "there is now more than one general willing to capture and hand him over" so maybe the US is hoping that kind of thing will happen?

[mmooss]

> According to a CBS News poll, 92% of Panamanian adults supported the invasion

In the cited Wikipedia article, most of the descriptions of Panamanian reactions are negative. It also says CBS polled 158 people ... and that 20,000 people were displaced, etc. I don't put much stock in Wikipedia; my point is that citing only that poll seems like cherry-picking.

People don't like armed soldiers threatening them, especially from other countries, especially killing their own people.

> without killing too many people

Killing a few people is fine, then - how many? Might makes right.

[azernik]

Why do you think USAID of all groups was involved in election meddling? Their involvement in US foreign policy is usually along the lines of PR and sometimes being used as cover.

[dwood_dev]

The entire point of USAID was to be a central clearinghouse for funding U.S. government pet projects so that the CIA/DoD/DoS stopped funding opposite sides against each other. Didn't always work (See the Middle East), but that's why it exists.

[azernik]

That was not, in fact, the point of USAID. Nor its function in reality.

[apexalpha]

Would you approve of unilateral military action against the US, including extrajudicial murders by Venezuelan armed forces off the coast of California, if Trump fucks with the next election?