The Chinese are heavily invested in the US stock-market. So they also profited from the increase in the DOW overnight. I look forward to you explaining how they should redistribute some of that to the Venezuelan... or perhaps their slave Uyghur population. Double standards?

Of course the Chinese have been instrumental in helping the Maduro regime sell their oil overseas to enrich themselves while impoverishing the Venezuelan people. But that's ok , eh Paul.

The Cubans are also complaining that over 30 of their soldiers were killed in the US raid. The Cubans were there as a body guard for Maduro. Venezuela was already under foreign occupation and that's fine by the TDS crowd.

You’ve just demonstrated exactly the problem I was pointing to, mhaze.

I didn’t ask for certainty about the future. No serious policy argument ever does. I asked for grounds for believing that US-led regime change plausibly improves outcomes, based on evidence, precedent, or institutional analysis. That’s what “informed extrapolation” actually rests on.

What you’ve done instead is three things:

First, you reframed my question into a demand for prediction, then mocked it. That’s a dodge. Policymakers, analysts, and governments routinely justify action on probabilistic reasoning. If that standard is illegitimate, then all foreign-policy advocacy collapses with it, including yours.

Second, you quietly retreated from your earlier framing. You now concede that a democratic outcome is “highly unlikely.” That matters. You’ve shifted from arguing that this intervention restores democracy to arguing that it may merely be less horrific than the status quo. Those are not the same claim, and they require different justification.

Third, you substituted moral horror for causal argument. Maduro’s brutality, torture, and repression are not in dispute. I explicitly acknowledged that. But demonstrating that a regime is evil is not evidence that this intervention produces better outcomes. That bridge is precisely what you have not crossed.

What’s missing is any engagement with the historical record of comparable interventions, where regime removal without robust institutions frequently produces prolonged instability, factional violence, or new forms of repression. You may believe Venezuela will be different. But belief is not evidence, and outrage is not analysis.

Finally, the attempt to collapse this back into caricatures about “communist heroes” is just a return to motive-attribution once the substantive question proves uncomfortable. It doesn’t address the issue at hand.

To be clear, one can believe Maduro’s regime is criminal and remain sceptical that US-led regime change improves outcomes. That position isn’t moral evasion. It’s methodological caution.

If you want to argue that this intervention is justified despite high uncertainty and historical risk, say that. But don’t pretend you’ve answered a question about effectiveness when you haven’t.

Oh so when you asked for evidence you weren't asking for evidence. Ahem.

"You now concede that a democratic outcome is “highly unlikely.”"

Concede? Do you believe this rubbish or do you just say it for effect?

FYI, I was pointing out that the democracy that will probably eventuate won't look like Western Democracy. But democracy nonetheless. Think South Korea, Japan, Chile, Argentina. A dirty democracy by our standards but still offering freedom to their people.

This attitude that unless we can be sure that the change will be perfect then we should leave the tyrants in place pending surety has been used for a century to oppose ousting dictatorships.

"What’s missing is any engagement with the historical record of comparable interventions"

Yes I agree that I sometimes get this wrong by assuming others have a marginal historic understanding of the past century. Think South Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy, Philippines, Argentina, Chile, Thailand. Democracies all of which don't meet our levels but which nonetheless offer the rights and freedoms that people like the Venezuelans crave. Sorry JD but I'm not going to educate you on this very wide subject at this time...or ever.

"To be clear, one can believe Maduro’s regime is criminal and remain sceptical that US-led regime change improves outcomes. That position isn’t moral evasion. It’s methodological caution"

Yes you can and do. But its not a reason to oppose the attempt.

Personally I have higher hopes based on history.

This reply actually clarifies the disagreement nicely, mhaze.

When I asked for evidence, I was asking for grounds for believing an intervention plausibly improves outcomes, not certainty about the future. That distinction hasn't changed, even if you keep collapsing it into a straw demand for prediction.

You've now done two things that matter.

First, you've redefined "democracy" mid-discussion. What began as claims about democratic restoration has become "a dirty democracy by our standards", broad enough to include almost any post-regime arrangement. Once success is defined that loosely, the claim becomes unfalsifiable.

Second, you’ve changed what you’re actually arguing. Earlier this was about whether these kinds of interventions work. Now it’s about whether they’re worth trying anyway. That’s a moral judgement about risk and responsibility, not evidence that the outcome is likely to be better.

The historical examples you list don't resolve this. They span radically different contexts, costs, timelines, and pathways, many involving prolonged repression before eventual liberalisation. Citing endpoints without addressing those trajectories is precisely why scepticism exists in the first place.

So we're clear: one can agree that Maduro's regime is criminal, accept that post-intervention outcomes are uncertain, and still argue that action is morally justified. But that is an argument about values and risk tolerance, not about evidence-based confidence.

That distinction isn't pedantry. It's the core of responsible foreign-policy reasoning.

I can understand why the US doesn't want a nihilistic neighbour attacking the US. It might not be it's lack of democracy that is the real issue but it's willingness to hurt world stability, and their willingness to join forces with a regime China that killed 60 million of their own people, and the ideology Marxism that killed 100 million people. Several political philosophers have analysed and classified political/ social/ community/ civilizational structures.

1. Aristotle said that 1. a good structure ruled for everyone not just the sovereign 2. Rule of Law has the potential to be less arbitrary, 3. A danger of democracy is democratic despotism. See arbitrary law. But you can be too tied to law like the Hebrew Pharisees.

2. Hobbes said that laws should have a mandate of the people. No legislation without representation.

3. Plato said that those that seek power shouldn't have it because they abuse it.

4. The US Declaration says that a government should be of a people, by a people, for a people- This means that multiculturalism is invasion (I'm taking some liberties ;o) here).

5. Catholic European subsidiarity said that power should generally be held low in the hierarchy, and peoples should keep their own traditions.

6. Gustav Le Bonn said that 1. the public seek stability in government and find slavery 2. Non-European states won't accept European institutions because they aren't European.

7. Machiavelli compared Asia Minor's Universal Authoritarian Rotating Officials Model (this is very similar to Marxism) with Europes Catholic Parochial Aristocratic Subsidiarity Model, based on natural animal hierarchical group behavior. Some say that this caused development of advanced technology in Europe. Some say family based Confucianism is closer to the European model but Confucianism was interpreted under a repressive imperial structure.

8. Plato said that masters of 'abstract thought' were masters of truth, whereas, Aristotle said that masters of 'experience' were masters of truth. Perhaps both abstraction and experience are necessary. But leadership is more a practical skill than abstract- so leaders should learn some abstract knowledge but shouldn't be blinded by it.

This is similar to Existentialism vs Rationalism.

9. Alexis De Touqueville in Letter to America talked about democratic despotism.

10. Two conceptions of freedom Virtue (Aristotle) vs Nihilistic Virtueless Harm Principle (John Stewart Mill).

11. Many other principles.

Powerful people will try and subvert good governance for their own benefit- wise leaders understand that you don't need position to have influence. Wise leaders understand one person cannot know everything and so delegation is necessary. Those that forget their limitations are doomed.

It's more about good governance than 'democracy', but they have been used interchangeably in recent history- perhaps unwisely.

One problem with democracy is that it requires an electorate that has the will and the capability to develop their understanding- perhaps we are asking too much- perhaps this is why many advise a hybrid political structure.