Even though the overthrow of the dictator was formally illegal under international law, it represents a morally entirely justified action. Over 90% of the approximately 8 million Venezuelan exiles who left the country during his rule greeted the arrest with great jubilation. Even those who remained in the country are 70 to 80% on the side of the opposition, which they believe was cheated in the elections (AI research by Grok on X). Even without a ballot, the will of the nation is clear; the intervention is an objective liberation. In this context, reference should be made to the first sentence of the US Constitution, which begins with the words "We the people…" and indicates who the legitimate sovereign is in a democratic state: the people, the citizens.
Trump's decisive intervention, like no other realistic measure, has given effect to the democratic will of the 39 million Venezuelans at home and abroad after years of oppression. Therefore, the critics' formally correct accusation that the American intervention violated Venezuela's sovereignty is, in essence, representing a vacuum. Maduro was not authorized by the country's sovereign to represent Venezuela. Venezuela, correctly viewed as the democratic nation, the people, was not attacked by the Trump administration, but liberated. According to research by the AI Grok on X, Maduro's violations of the rule of law during his 13-year rule led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people. In addition, there were hundreds of thousands of indirect deaths due to increased mortality, particularly among children, resulting from catastrophic economic and medical conditions, as well as accidents during the dangerous escape. In contrast, the liberation from this tyranny caused fewer than a handful of civilian casualties.
After Trump successfully ended Netanyahu's dangerous 12-day war against Iran in June 2025 with a short tough and respect-demanding strike, his minimally invasive overthrow of Maduro shows how an external liberation from tyranny can be achieved without war.
The Maduro case is bringing the world to a crossroads. The decision is between endless wars and civil wars with ever increasing destruction potential or the pursuit of their substitution by peaceful solutions as already propagated in the Preamble of the 1945 UNO Charter. For recognizing the present huge chance as such it is necessary to become conscious of the immense threat which free civilization is facing in case of continuing on the previous suicidal path. In the year 2003, like now Donald Trump in Venezuela, then President George W. Bush violated Iraq’s sovereignty without a declaration of war or authorization from the UN Security Council.
But beyond the formally similar start, that attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq developed into a nightmare. For our free civilization, it is a matter of survival to avoid a repetition in Venezuela under all circumstances. This requires a catching up learning from this disaster, which until recently was widely unknown to the Western public:
- The justification for the 2003 intervention was based on misinformation from the CIA and military leadership regarding the alleged deposits of weapons of mass destruction.
- The operation, announced by George W. Bush as a liberation of the Iraqi people, turned out to be a brutal conquest and occupation lasting almost nine years until 2011, costing around one trillion dollars.
- The Iraqi security forces, after been ‘trained’ by the CIA and the US military, were notorious for inhumane abuses, including torture.
- While mainstream media presented the British-American military strikes as a precise elimination of the enemy's defenses, in reality, a massive destruction of civilian housing and infrastructure (bridges, power plants, industry) took place.
- Approximately 4.2 million people lost their homes; almost half of them fled the country.
- The callous treatment of the civilian population, with constant checks, suspicions, arrests, and restrictions, created a polarizing atmosphere that was completely counterproductive to the promotion of liberal democratic values.
- The widespread frustration created fertile ground for anti-Western radicalization, which also gave rise to ISIS.
- Overall, the nearly nine years of the ‘liberation’ war and occupation in Iraq cost almost as many Iraqi lives as Saddam Hussein's 24-year rule (war casualties not included).
- Western nations also suffered at large scale, as their reputation and role model status in the Islamic world were severely damaged.
That the irresponsible cover-up of these outrageous events by uncritical mainstream media could later be exposed is widely due to the whistleblower platform WikiLeaks. The unlawful practices employed in the persecution of its idealistic founder Julian Assange over around 15 years have confirmed the serious threat which the American intelligence services and military constitute for authentical freedom and rule of law.
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange
The danger of such militaristic developments was already foreseen by presidents of the founding decades of the United States, most notably Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams. The latter issued a stark warning against a violent path that democratic America must oppose with all its spiritual and moral strength:
"It could become the dictator of the world. It would no longer be the master of its own spirit." https://jqas.org/jqas-monsters-to-destroy-speech-full-text/
Now, it depends primarily on Maduro's followers and the military in Venezuela whether they accept the microsurgical intervention that removed Maduro from his usurped office as the first step towards a democratic new beginning, or whether they plunge the country even deeper into chaos through irrational resistance than the dictator has already done.
Trump should bear in mind that the administrations of his predecessors severely damaged the reputation of the US in Latin America for decades, following the same pattern that was later repeated under George W. Bush in his counterproductive military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq – because the media failed in their role as guardians of freedom and democracy on a gigantic (the word is still too weak) scale. https://www.frieden-freiheit-fairness.com/en/blog/neglected-defence-free-press There was always understanding when the CIA once again overthrew an elected president and replaced him with a dictator. And every effort was made to distract the public from always the same winners of American military policy, mainly huge corporations like the former United Fruit Company, the oil multinationals, and the arms industry. To the civilian population in contrast, US interventions brought immeasurable suffering. A common strategy was to arm supposedly pro-Western rebels who, after training by the CIA, behaved even more brutally. Since decisive and conclusive military strikes were the exception, the fighting and suffering continued for years, if not decades. The Guatemalan Civil War lasted 36 years and left behind a country plagued by poverty, corruption, and organized crime.
In his transition management in Venezuela, Donald Trump must take into account the psychological wounds inflicted in Latin America by decades of counterproductive American militarism and corporate protectionism. This requires a clear distancing from the policies of his predecessors and the proclamation of a new, genuine democratic partnership. The announcement of providing investment opportunities for American oil companies in Venezuela was at least premature. It is essential that Maduro’s overthrow is perceived as a minimally invasive operation which opens the path towards a peaceful, free and fair future – and has nothing to do with the overthrow of, for example, elected President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, whose replacement by a dictatorship plunged the country into the aforementioned civil war in 1960.
Equally crucial for a peaceful transition in Venezuela is that Trump resolutely continues his purge of the unreliable CIA and the US military, which has performed ineffective and even counterproductive since the Vietnam War.
With all due respect to the arguments and reservations of all those who question the legitimacy of Maduro’s overthrow, a strong warning must be issued against any emotionalization of this disagreement. An escalation would embolden armed resistance forces and pave the way for a civil war. This would represent a relapse into the inhumane militarism during millenniums under autocratic rule, when soldiers were sacrificed for their King’s or emperor’s power expansion.
Venezuela is a testcase for other conflict sites, the next of which is already looming in Iran. Just as the vast majority of Venezuelans felt betrayed by Maduro, so the vast majority of Iranians feel betrayed by their Islamist regime. The Islamic Republic promised to them in 1979, soon proved to be an Ayatollah dictatorship that sacrifices the interests of the Iranian nation to its global Islamization agenda. https://www.mei.edu/publications/iranian-revolution-february-1979