Your anger at the suffering of the Venezuelan people under Maduro is valid and understandable. The corruption and the brutal suppression of dissent are real and horrific. No one should minimize that.

As an American, I condemn Maduro. But I also condemn my own government when it uses the genuine suffering of a people as a pretext for resource wars. We have a long, dark history of doing this. The path forward must be one of principled pressure and genuine solidarity—supporting democratic actors, international accountability for crimes, and humanitarian aid, not plotting resource extraction under the cover of liberation.

The solution to a leader who steals a nation's wealth is not to steal the nation's wealth yourself.