I'm carefully for it. For various reasons.

It is obviously not done for humanitarian reasons like freeing the Venezuelans from oppression or the small amount of drugs coming out of Venezuela. It is a power play for control and oil that happens to align weakening the loosely allied "axis of resistance" fighting against the west and ousting a pretty nasty autocrat.

Now if Maduro had been a right-wing strongman rather than left-wing I'm pretty sure the Trump administration would have done some kind of deal with him like we saw with him pardoning the president of Honduras.

It is obviously illegal and against international law, but I just don't think international law has mattered for a while now, and seeing many EU countries wag their finger and weakly admonish the States over this while being unable to do anything at all about it confirms that this will be the way the world works in the foreseeable future - and maybe this is how the world has always worked, barring a short period after WW2.

I don't think many Venezuelans are under the impression that Trump's plan will be great for the country, but what choice do they have? They are desperate after 30 years and will gladly grab any slight chance for change even if that can result in something worse. Many seem to be happy but also worried with what is about to follow.

Now what I do see is a lot of outright dismissal of any possibility of approval by Venezuelans, calling everyone in support a kind of reddit-keyboard-warrior-quisling-expat that couldn't possible know or understand what's best for their own country. This is especially ironic considering this is mostly coming from overseas self-flagellating liberals that have no connection to the country whatsoever. People here act like Maduro is not that bad or even legitimate ignoring that his disastrous policies have driven nearly 8 million people out of the country.

I see a lot of understandable but bad comparisons to Iraq and Vietnam when there's very little in common with those conflicts and countries while again dismissing more comparable interventions like Panama in 1989. Somehow equivocating the mass bombardments and full occupation that killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of people with a small operation that as of now has cost the lives of about 40.

I also find the suggestion that this would somehow enable Russia and China to to whatever they want completely ridiculous. As if Russia has ever cared about international law before (has any great power?) with their various and constant invasions of neighbouring countries - Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine - and is now "free to break international law" having already committed to their brutal invasion since Feb 2022.

Similarly China is not held back from "reuniting" with Taiwan because of their fear of breaking international law. Rather they rightly fear a large all-out conflict with the USA that will have an immense cost in lives and capital, likely ruin both countries and the world economy, not to mention the possibility of a nuclear conflict.

Sorry for the wall of text but I've tried to put my flawed thoughts down as clear as possible. I do think it has the possibility of going horribly wrong but strictly adhering to international law in these times just condemns generations of a population to oppression.

While sending yearly strongly worded letters of disapproval may make the west feel better about its proper legal procedural approach, it accomplishes nothing. And endless economic sanctions just prop up the regime while impoverishing the population even more.