More Shades of Gray: What Are We Really Doing in Venezuela?
As the U.S. detains Nicolás Maduro, partisan reflexes are replacing serious debate about risks, legality, and what comes next.
“We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators”
– Dick Cheney
We cannot even agree on what to call the military’s forced extraction of Nicolás Maduro, the man acting as Venezuela’s leader. Was it an act of war—or a law-enforcement action carried out abroad?
That question, along with the risks involved and what comes next, has been pushed aside in favor of familiar red-and-blue narratives. We are, once again, avoiding the shades of gray that decisions of this magnitude demand.
Few world leaders could generate less sympathy than Maduro when it comes to being removed from office. Venezuelans attempted to do it themselves at the ballot box during the July 28, 2024, presidential election. Independent observers reported that opposition candidate Edmundo González defeated Maduro by a wide margin, with some saying his support was as high as 68.74%.
Venezuela’s National Election Council (CNE) announced a dramatically different outcome. Without ever providing any underlying data, the CNE declared Maduro the winner with 51.95% of the vote. Facing threats of arrest, González fled to Spain while Maduro was sworn in for a third term.
As the White House notes on its website, many Democratic leaders condemned the fraudulent election result. As an example, frequent Trump critic Rep. Jamie Raskin is quoted as saying that “the democratic world must stand up for the rule of law in Venezuela and oppose Maduro’s assault on the electoral process and free speech”.
With Maduro now in American custody, the Trump administration argues that the mission is accomplished and that the Democratic leadership should be congratulating him for scoring “another remarkable foreign policy triumph.” Instead, the opposition party is calling Trump’s actions “an illegal act of war to replace Maduro.” The administration complains that this is a “furious hypocrisy” brought on by “their unhinged hatred of President Trump.”
This dramatic rhetoric forestalls any ability to understand why Democrats are opposing these actions. It replaces explanation with performance, and persuasion with score-keeping. In the process, politics becomes a game where the only thing that matters is which side “wins.”
One does not have to go back very far in history to see that the toppling of a despotic leader is the easy part. It took only 20 days to overtake Baghdad and another eight months to capture Saddam Hussein when we invaded Iraq in 2003. This success was initially welcomed by many Iraqis, but it was not long before the leader’s absence created a vacuum that left us bogged down in the country for eight years.
Could the actions taken in Venezuela result in a similar quagmire? The possibility only increases if we are not united around a common goal. With a war bump in the polls failing to materialize and 52% of Americans already disapproving of the action in Venezuela, it does not seem that the President will be able to depend on public opinion to drive momentum.
At least in Iraq, we were actively trying to prop up a government to succeed Hussein’s regime. While Trump wants credit as a liberator, the Venezuelan government that helped sustain Maduro’s rule is still in power, and it is still ruling the people with an iron fist. Trump has not made any public moves to ensure that the results of the 2024 election are respected. He has also refused to back opposition leader María Corina Machado, reportedly because she accepted “the Nobel Peace Prize rather than declaring that Trump deserved it more.”
Trump has also not made a case that he took action because of support for democracy. Initially, the reason given for removing Maduro was his alleged involvement in the drug trade, but prosecutors have had to change their initial indictment because the Cartel de Los Soles, the drug cartel Maduro was said to have led, did not really exist.
The focus since the military action has been Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, which are now supposedly under our control. This focus complicates any claim of humanitarian or democratic intent.
According to Trump, we now control Venezuela and will do so “for years.” However, without boots currently on the ground and no announced plans to deploy them, it is not clear how much power he actually holds. The claim is certainly undermined by the American government encouraging United States citizens to evacuate the country immediately due to threats by armed militias and the risks, “including wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure.”
As this situation risks spiraling out of control, it is time for Americans to leave their red and blue silos and debate the issue honestly—inside the gray space where consequences live. Failure to do so risks pushing the country toward a broader conflict, with the ultimate cost borne by kids from both sides of the political aisle.
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Carl Petersen is a former Green Party candidate for the LAUSD School Board and a longtime advocate for public education and special needs families. Now based in Washington State, he writes about politics, culture, and their intersections at TheDifrntDrmr.
About the Creator
Carl J. Petersen
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for students with SpEd needs and public education. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Opinions are his own.
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