Rewritten

There was no dancing in the streets of Venezuela’s cities the morning after Nicolas Maduro was dragged from his home by US commandos.

- ALEX MAGNO

Everywhere else abroad, Venezuelan expatriates celebrated wildly.There is a reason Venezuela’s streets were silent: the brutal regime Maduro personified very much exists. His partisans, his secret police and his militia were all in place. The regime Hugo Chavez put together and Maduro inherited was not uprooted.

Donald Trump did not hesitate to use a sledgehammer to kill a fly. But he appears reluctant to support transfer of power in Venezuela to the democratic opposition that overwhelming won the 2024 elections Maduro stole.

War is easy. Rebuilding a country is hard. Trump does not seem wont to do the hard part. There are reports he is ready to cut a deal with Maduro’s vice-president - now acting president — and the entire apparatus that brought misery to what was once South America’s wealthiest economy.

All Donald Trump is interested in is extracting Venezuela’s vast oil wealth — the world’s largest confirmed oil deposits.

This is what makes Trump's military assault on Venezuela truly brutal: it was not intended to liberate an oppressed people. It was not guided by redeeming civilizational values. The pot at the end of this blatant intervention is one brimming with fossil fuels that will further enrich an industry that contributed generously to Trump’s electoral campaign.