The Maduro regime is authoritarian, militarized, and ready to kill civilians to maintain power.
Socialist autocrats are generally willing to spill blood to stay in power in defiance of such calls.
My question is what will Brazil and Colombia do? Will we provide logistics support if they act while keeping our military ready to defend diplomatic facilities against Maduro's retaliation?
If this scenario takes place, will this be hailed as an example of "leading from behind?" Or will Maduro kill his way to staying in power? Heck, will Maduro cave in to pressure and hop on a Russian plane to Moscow?
I just don't know. But I did not assume this would be easy. Yet the alternative of looking away as Maduro clings to power illegally hardly seems a better policy.
The authors cite Obama's toothless call for Assad to step aside on the assumption Assad was doomed. That is relevant.
But they oddly cite Bush's "mission accomplishment" speech although that speech following major combat operations that actually toppled Saddam's regime and so has nothing to do with the issue at hand of pressuring a tyrant to leave.
Equally oddly, the authors do not mention the hopes the Obama administration had that the 2011 Libya operation would be over quickly--or that at least America's role would be over quickly after kicking the door down, leaving Europeans to go the rest of the way. That would be a good example, no?
But the authors only mention Libya in passing to slam Trump on the assumption that this might be his "blood for oil" war. Amazing.
I find it almost humorous that the authors want the UN to solve the problem:
The United Nations Security Council should oversee such a solution. Chapter VII of the UN Charter gives the Security Council the mandate to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to take actions to “restore international peace and security.”
Under Chapter VII of the UN charter when that provision requires someone else to enforce their decision. And in only two cases applied--in defense of South Korea and Kuwait--it was America that organized and led the enforcement measure. Will the authors accept Trump as the enforcing agent of the United Nations which embodies the sainted international community? (Now where did I put my deed to that bridge in Brooklyn?)
Of course, that suggestion is at the apex of lucidity by comparison to Russia's offer to "help" us resolve the Venezuela crisis. Russia offered to
I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is a lot to dislike about Trump as a person. But the opposition to him in and out of the media is so deranged in how it talks about Trump policy (and making stuff up about him as a person when that field is already bountiful without flights of fancy) that it makes it easy to support Trump rather than their side.
And that reflexive rejection of Trump should certainly not lead people to support Maduro just because Trump wants him to step down. It must be a terrible dilemma for Democrats to wonder whether they should support Maduro because Trump opposes him or to reject Maduro because the now-hated Russians support Maduro. I suspect the former will easily emerge on top.
Is that where this is heading? Will we fail to defeat and send into exile a socialist thug who will, even if temporarily ejected from office, return decades later to abuse his own people? I mean, will we do it again?
Nicaragua has been in a deep political crisis since President Daniel Ortega attempted social security reform last April, leading to massive protests. The ensuing chaos put the poor Central American nation in recession.
Ortega, a Cold War-era former guerrilla fighter elected in 2006, unleashed a government crackdown. Some 320 people were killed and more than 600 imprisoned, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Honestly, there will be trouble whether Maduro stays or goes now. And I don't know which outcome would be worse in the long run. A clash is surely coming. Can we prevent the trouble from being double?
UPDATE: Nearly 600 Venezuelan security troops have defected from Maduro:
While CNN has not been able to verify the video, the scene is now a common one in Colombia, from a steady drip of Venezuelan soldiers that have given themselves over to Colombian immigration officials over the past week. As of Thursday, an astounding total of 567 had defected.
Will this trend escalate and doom Maduro?
