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Comment by pqtyw

4 days ago

Reagan something very similar twice and it worked out reasonably(ish) fine.

Of course Venesuela isn't that similar to Panama or Granada in various ways. Given the massive amounts of internal issues, and insanely high levels of crime/murder removing the government and washing your hands might turn it into something like Haiti...

Fundamentally on the moral level removing oppressive tyrants like Sadam, Maduro, Gaddafi etc. is the right thing to do. Of course nobody ever figured out how to prevent the situation from getting even worse in the aftermath..

17 comments

pqtyw

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macNchz  4 days ago

Examples of US-facilitated regime change that resulted in lasting stability/democracy are more the exception than the rule, when you look at the track record overall.

t-3  4 days ago

Why aren't we getting rid of the Saudi, Qatari, Emirati, Egyptian, etc. governments?

  • Aloha  4 days ago

    So I dont think we should but doing regime change - however the ones you cited appear to have broad popular support in their respective lands and are at most minor nuisances to their neighbors - they're also participants in the international community too.

    • markdown  4 days ago

      > the ones you cited appear to have broad popular support in their respective lands

      So you're saying that authoritarianism works and is just fine. The implication is that Venezuala is a shithole and it's people are unhappy with their leader because of sanctions, not because of the lack of democracy.

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  • SauntSolaire  4 days ago

    Ostensibly the difference lies in the monroe doctrine, though of course the real issue is practicality.

adriand  4 days ago

> Fundamentally on the moral level removing oppressive tyrants like Sadam, Maduro, Gaddafi etc. is the right thing to do.

If the issue was what was “right” then Trump wouldn’t have cozied up to Putin and abandoned Ukraine, or cozied up to MBS and waved away his murder of a US journalist, and on and on it goes. This administration has zero moral credibility. I don’t know what will happen in Venezuela but we should all be skeptical of fruit from a poisonous tree.

mikkupikku  4 days ago

I do concede that it is possible the situation will deescalate from here on out, but there is no possible way to be sure of that. Right now the situation is very volatile and could very easily spiral into a huge mess. MAGA people don't want to acknowledge that possibility, because they want to believe Trump is honest and competent.