My concern for Venezuelans is precisely what makes me believe "removing Maduro good" even though things are more nuanced and complex than those three words.
Destabilizing the country and/or installing a US puppet or just allowing the power vacuum to fill itself is likely not to the betterment of their people.
Maduro lost elections. 8 millions of exilees can't love him. And I interact daily with exilees. There are already videos of people celebrating all around the world. You can disagree. It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Surely Maduro is bad, but that doesn't mean the next phase won't be worse. Trump has never shown any interest in spreading democracy or human rights. I would not be surprised if the mission involved a side deal with someone in Maduro's inner circle to let them become the new dictator who is willing sell oil leases to the US and who will be as bad or worse to the Venezuelan populace. We have absolutely no idea what happens next and Trump has not given any indication of strategy beyond wanting oil.
Does anyone believe that the US regime, an entity that utterly ignores the needs of its masses in favor of a relative handful of lobbyists, is really going to install a representative government that exists to improve the lives of Venezuelans instead of enriching the same powers that it's beholden to?
