“Let them speak for themselves” is doing a lot of work here. Which Venezuelans? The ones in Miami and Doral? The ones still in Caracas who’ll live with whatever comes next? The ones who’ll be caught in the crossfire if this destabilizes into civil war?

> I prefer living in a world where a country I’m more aligned with can enforce their morality on the world effectively.

So does everyone. The problem is that China and Russia feel the same way. Rules exist precisely because “let the powerful enforce their values” is a race to the bottom.

You’re comfortable with this because you trust the current enforcer. But frameworks outlast administrations. You’re not just endorsing this action, you’re endorsing the principle that whoever has the most power gets to decide. Hope you still like that principle when the power shifts.

Enforcement without wisdom is just violence with good PR.

The US has claimed the capacity to make this evaluation before, repeatedly, and has been wrong in ways that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe we're not the ones who should be deciding this unilaterally.

"Oh, but this time is different", you might say. "Maduro is an unambiguous dictator who stole an election, caused 7 million refugees, and was already under indictment. This isn't like Iraq, where we invented WMDs."

The justification was "real and documented" for Libya too (Gaddafi was about to massacre Benghazi, remember?). The result: Libya was rated as the Fragile State Index's "most-worsened" country for the 2010s decade, with ISIS using the country as a hub to coordinate regional violence and Libya becoming the main exit point for migrants trying to get to Europe. The intervention may have also made nuclear nonproliferation harder, since Gaddafi had already given up his nuclear program and then been overthrown anyway. Iran and North Korea both noted that "the Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson".

The issue isn't whether Maduro is bad; he obviously is. It's whether US military intervention produces better outcomes than the alternative. I honestly hope it does this time. I truly hope it's a case of "a broken clock is right twice a day". But am I holding my breath? Absolutely not.

One is a matter of internal policy, the other is a matter of international law and order. One the USA had complete and total control over for decades, the other is a delicate and precarious matter which requires significant planning, oversight, congressional approval, and international engagement.

> Why? Those are two completely different things.

These are different things, yes, but the problem is exactly that: the same methods and justification will be applied in either case, despite deserving totally different treatment. I believe this is the consequence of permitting brazen realpolitik principles into government.

The sovereign governments who agree to take in refugees. It's not a complicated answer. They get to decide what happens within their sovereignty.