Timothy Birdnow

I think this is a foolish mistake by the President.

His theory seems to be that if he pushes the old, illegitimate regime out there will be civil war and it would "destablilize" the region. But who has been destabilizizing the region all along? It wa Maduro who sought to export the revolution.

The fact is the opposition was duly elected but cheated out of power - and the current junta has no legitimacy to the People of Venezuela nor before the world .

Leave the Communists in power and they will destabilize the region without any help from us

I'm not arguing for an American military intervention with boots on the ground, but we certainly have shown we can take out leaders and force a weakened government out if we choose just using drones and air strikes and covert operations

You don't make deals with the devil but Trump seems to believe he can do so in this instance.

This isn't Iraq. Our problem in Iraq stemmed from the long time lag between Bush threatening invasion and the actual process, which allowed Saddam Hussein to set up a covert network to use guerilla fighting techniques and to move all of his weapons out of country. Also, Iraq because a cause celebre' for jihadists all over the world who poured into Iraq to fight the infidels' and we did nothing about that. Iran poured all sorts of people and weaponry into Iraq, their being a next-door neighbor And Iraq was fought using Rumsfeld's "light footprint" notion which didn't work; the war only turned around when we surged more troops into the region

Venezuela is completely different. No American boots will be on the ground Venezuela has just two friends in the region - Cuba and Nicaragua - and both would have to send aid overseas, a place we have complete control over. Unlike Iraq which could move oil north into Russia the Venezuelans have nowhere to go with it, and oil is the lifeblood of their economy.

And as I pointed out the regime in power has no legitimacy, having stolen the last election. There are a LOT of angry Veezuelans who were disenfranchised. There was no popular rebel movement in Iraq and it was easy to spin it as American imperialism to the public.

Also there is a different cultural and religious outlook in the two countries Iraq was Muslim and Americans were kaffirs, infidels, and as such even those who hated Hussein still couldn't bring themselves to support such as we. Venezuelans are either Christian or non believers and while Hispanic culture is a bit different from ours it's got the same basic roots. They may not like Anglos all that much but it's a completely different mindset. We're just Gringos to them, not enemies of Allah as the Muhammedans see us.

And remember this is a popular uprising; the CIA didn't manufacture it. In fact I suspect the CIA is pushing Trump to take just this course of action.

I get it; Trump has a lot on his plate and probably fears taking on such a big project. But it has to be done at some point. It may be he's waiting until after the elections when he needn't fear a temporary oil price spike hurting the GOP in the midterms.

Oh, and it turns out Maduro was being guarded by Cuban regulars, not Venezuelans. That illustrates just how weak the Communist grip on the country truly is. A medium-sized push will topple it.

Trump stated:

Uh, how is that going to work when you are leaving the Communists in power? Communists never made any country work except for themselves, and they always export their errors because the only way Communism will succeed in their minds is if everyone is doing it. They know in their hearts their rotten system can't compete with free markets.

This is rather like taking out Adolf Hitler and letting Goehring run Germany; the infection is still there and as hot as ever. You need to sterilize it, denazify. Taking Maduro was a good thing but history is going to judge Mr. Trump harshly for taking such a half-measure. The Communists need to go.

I know there are many good conservatives who want us out of all foreign entanglements, period. But we have NEVER been out of all foreign entanglements; James Monroe, for instance, had the Monroe Doctrine, which committed the U.S. to fight foreign powers intervening in the Western Hemisphere. We had the War of the Barbary Pirates under Jefferson, which the paleocons would be horrified by if Trump were to do the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. We invaded Canada during the War of 1812, Mexico during the Mexican War, and Cuba and other Caribbean islands plus the Philippines during the Spanish American war. Intervention isn't necessarily bad, nor does it necessarily lead to disaster. We have just overused it in recent years, and often on the wrong people.

But Venezuela is in our hemisphere, and it poses a threat to the stability of the region. Trump has a golden opportunity to kick the Communists out and he's blowing it.

History isn't kind to people when they blow it.

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