>there is no moral win here other than saying "our hands could
>be clean"

Yeah, and the counter-argument would be that our hands are filthy as fuck because we have a Syria next door just like we have a Sarajevo next door in Colombia 30 years ago. Our involvement there was not pretty--touched off a human rights crisis and we continue to neglect lighter touches that would help immensely--but in the end the country is in a much, much better position today. Whether or not we intervene isn't even a question in my mind, it's *how* we intervene. A boots on the ground war seems unlikely in any case but that's just the most basic thing to be avoided in the interest of both sides, particularly Venezuela.

>there's a power struggle at the top and there are no good
>actors there

Exactly, now the problem, again, is if there are good actors on an international stage and if they will be the ones to get involved. I am pessimistic and I feel like the pueblo is as well, but at this is reaching a breaking point to where damn near anything would be preferable to the situation continuing to deteriorate.

>VZ is fucked with or without our intervention bc a ton of our
>intervention is based on blocking the other bad actor's
>intervention

Shades and degrees of fucked vary though.

>yes, it makes us self-interested hypocrites because that's
>what we are

Sure, I mean we haven't changed overnight and much less with the Boltons and Pompeos of the world in charge. But can we give them something sustainable, livable and with some possibility of growth? Maybe. Unequivocally, Maduro cannot.

>Doing nothing gives us the moral superiority we feign but
>basically just passes the reins to folks who will leverage it
>in ways to fuck us at every turn

I don't even think it gives us moral superiority. We stood by and did nothing. That doesn't seem moral to me. I am not an interventionist overall, in fact my first instinct is repugnance, but we also have to learn from our lack of involvement on rigid, isolationist rationales in the past.

>i'm not suggesting it can't be done more competently...i
>mean...this administration is a joke but i honestly can't sit
>here and say...doing nothing is fine
>
>it's obvious who we're backing and why...and i even get the
>sanctions...i don't think this helps VZ at all though...
>
>China and Russia are basically taking their oil in exchange
>for their already crippling debt so with the
>sanctions...they're pretty much fucked on any liquidity coming
>through

Yup, they are trying to get gold out to Russia now and we know how cut-throat the Russians are. That's another issue, the longer we let this go, the more likely Russia is to exploit the fuck out of them for economic and military protection.

>But if VZ seems ill-equipped to fix the issues, Russia and
>China just sitting back piling on the interest fees while it
>collects the oil...just doing nothing is basically subbing
>those 2 in at every turn. I view our intervention as a
>pandora's box type of issue...that box can't be unopened...i'd
>prefer we set our sights on the important victories and cede
>the ones that we can afford to

Really wanna thank you for this post, best one in the thread so far, I hope people who really want to know read it. Touched on a lot of key points in succinct terms and in a colloquial tone.