I think people are overindexed on the US's failures to turn Islamic theocracies into democracies. The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
Venezuela had a democracy for decades. It's the US that has been trying to destroy it for decades because the venezuelans voted for the wrong guy. It's funny how we forgot that the US also tried to remove the previous elected leader of venezuela.
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney (but I'm sure it'll work out this time)
There is a whole lot of directions this can go after we arrest the dictator, but a liberal democracy magically immediately popping isn't on my list. There might be one in the future but there will be a lot of chaos and violence between now and then.
For some reason he thought it would apply to Islamic theocracies and it clearly didn't. Pattern matching Venezuela against Iraq or Afghanistan is an obvious mistake.
(tho not sure how much we can really trust what he says)
Those countries were actually being liberated from a foreign power that had invaded them just a few years prior.
There are very few examples where a foreign nation overthrowing the indigenous government (no matter how despised that government may be) are greeted as liberators, and in those select few instances the sentiment is almost universally short lived.
Let’s assume for a second this is true, and the US is genuinely helping by removing a dictator.
Why Venezuela? Why not one of the other dozens of countries in the world this is the case?
Hint: oil.
So Venezuela has to vote correctly otherwise it will get "freed" again
Don’t forget I mentioned other resources too. Venezuela has more than oil.
I think you are trying to force an incorrect simplistic narrative on the situation. Obtaining natural resources is not an important motivation for US military action with the possible exception of US intervention in the Persian Gulf during the Cold War (and even there I see no evidence that the US was trying to get out of paying the going international rate for the oil as opposed to merely ensuring that willing sellers in the Gulf could continue to transport their oil over the ocean). Venezuela's cooperation with Moscow and Beijing is a much more likely motivation, i.e., US national security.
If that’s the case why pootin got a red carpet in Alaska instead of orange jumpsuit?
Why if ruzzia is such a “threat to national security”, current government of “no new wars” doesn’t help Ukraine?
Don’t forget that eliminating (or reducing its influence to nothing) ruzzia - would hurt China immensely. Two birds with one stone and all… also with a benefit of a true legitimacy of helping Ukraine and destroying ruzzian totalitarianism.
What oil was stolen? Whose oil was stolen?
Check out the capacity of the Alaska pipeline, and how much goes down it each day. Literally the least possible to keep it well maintained.
Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
The oil produced in Texas is easy to refine. Some of it is exported as crude, and an approximately equal amount of heavy crude is imported because US refiners have a competitive advantage in refining it. It is not that US refiners cannot refine Texas crude: they make more money refining the heavy stuff or stuff with a high load of contaminants.
>Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
But the US is not going to take it, just like they never took oil from Iraq after conquering that country. The value of all the oil produced worldwide in 2023 was about $1.7 trillion. Of course it cost a lot of money to extract the oil. That year the IRS collected over $4.7 trillion in tax revenue. The US government has easier ways of getting money than invading oil-rich countries.
The US does not want any country or economy in the Western Hemisphere to be stragically dependent on Russia or China, so kicking Chinese or Russians out of the oil industry in Venezuela might have been one goal of the current military action.
How convenient.
That doesn't rub well to the ruthless capitalist ideals of America. That's the reason why the US has destabilized the region again and again.
It's much easier and cheaper to extract resources from a balkanized region.