Imagine if Hitler was removed before... Instead, foreign powers favored appeasement and trade; conservative elites thought they could control him, Nazi propaganda and terror consolidated power, and Germans were disillusioned with democracy after WW1.
I'm still not convinced removing Hitler before his invasion of Poland would have been a good idea, it seems possible someone like Himmler would be just as capable of picking up Mein Kampf as an ideological framework to continue imperialism and kick off genocide. "Look what the Jews and communists did when we tried to stand up to them, they killed the leader of our movement," etc etc.
Once the genocide started though I do thing all considerations, including national stability and continuity, are lower priority than ending the genocide as fast as possible.
Basically, "leave it to the population to sort out themselves, even if they've lost the democratic means to do so," up until a government has gone so insane it's massacring its people, or other people.
So we should have done a much bigger intervention in Syria, much earlier? We should intervene in Sudan right now? We should finally intervene in Russia where they slaughter their own children and Ukrainians in a genocidal war of aggression? We should finally intervene in Palestine and destroy Hamas (and in Iran and destroy their Mullah-sponsors) who've committed a genocide on October 7th, killing thousands of Israelis and ten thousands of Palestinians?
From a purely moral standpoint, my answer would be "yes, absolutely." Unfortunately, most of these interventions are not practically possible. Taking out a dictator in US's backyard is so much easier (and easier to do bloodlessly) than any of these examples.
I think WW2 had a little bit more justification than whatever this is.
Then maybe you should rephrase your comment, because this is what I've replied to:
> every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.
Imagine if Hitler was removed before... Instead, foreign powers favored appeasement and trade; conservative elites thought they could control him, Nazi propaganda and terror consolidated power, and Germans were disillusioned with democracy after WW1.
I shouldn't bite but are you seriously saying Maduro had Hitler-like potential to ignite global war if we didn't stop him?
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I'm still not convinced removing Hitler before his invasion of Poland would have been a good idea, it seems possible someone like Himmler would be just as capable of picking up Mein Kampf as an ideological framework to continue imperialism and kick off genocide. "Look what the Jews and communists did when we tried to stand up to them, they killed the leader of our movement," etc etc.
Once the genocide started though I do thing all considerations, including national stability and continuity, are lower priority than ending the genocide as fast as possible.
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It’s quite reductionist to compare this Maduro situation to WW2.
Genocide being the exception, perhaps.
Basically, "leave it to the population to sort out themselves, even if they've lost the democratic means to do so," up until a government has gone so insane it's massacring its people, or other people.
So we should have done a much bigger intervention in Syria, much earlier? We should intervene in Sudan right now? We should finally intervene in Russia where they slaughter their own children and Ukrainians in a genocidal war of aggression? We should finally intervene in Palestine and destroy Hamas (and in Iran and destroy their Mullah-sponsors) who've committed a genocide on October 7th, killing thousands of Israelis and ten thousands of Palestinians?
From a purely moral standpoint, my answer would be "yes, absolutely." Unfortunately, most of these interventions are not practically possible. Taking out a dictator in US's backyard is so much easier (and easier to do bloodlessly) than any of these examples.
Yes, perhaps, as well as Netanyahu to stop his genocide of the Palestinians.