Just speculating, but I wonder if there is another purpose as well: To hand the military a story it can tell itself to assure they are still the "good guys" - i.e. ensuring "troop morale".

If you have thousands and thousands of servicemembers, not all of them might submit to drill or be motivated by money or career advancements or other personal goals - some people might ask questions about the bigger picture, about why they are doing an operation, etc. I imagine for situations like this, it's useful for an officer to have some ready-made answers available that they can use to counter those questions, even if the answers really don't make a lot of sense.

For all the personnel who executed the Maduro operation, the "we're just helping law enforcement to arrest a criminal" story was probably the practical reality for the last months, no matter how ridiculous it is in the larger context.