Editorial: Remove the Dictator Nicolas Maduro Now

Tensions have been increasing between the "Bolivarian Republic" of Venezuela - under its Dictator Nicolas Maduro - and nearly all its neighbors, including the United States.

Maduro seized power in 2013 after having been named Vice President and heir-apparent by the prior dictator Hugo Chavez, who was dying of cancer.

The Maduro regime hasn't just been a dictatorship - it has been a kleptocracy that has stripped and sold-off the country's assets, leaving millions impoverished and forcing 1/3 of the Venezuelan people - over 8 million people - out as refugees - mostly to Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Guyana and the United States.

Maduro has jailed and tortured the members of former opposition parties, jailing thousands of political prisoners.  The once oil-rich country has seen oil production collapse from over 2 million barrels per day to 600 thousand - as regime thugs literally steal the oil equipment and siphon off and steal the oil.

Maduro works through criminal gangs - his enforcers - like the notorious Tren de Aragua - with over 10,000 "soldiers." The Tren was run out of the notorious Tocoron Prison, and does Maduro's bidding, like killing businessman Ronald Ojeda in Chile; or running sex trafficking and assassination rings in Colombia and Argentina.

Maduro has armed leftist guerillas to kill police and innocent people in Colombia, and has threatened to seize 2/3 of Guyana.  He even sent army troops into Guyana to occupy an island.

The UN has condemned Maduro's fraudulent elections - former Ambassador Edmundo Gonzalez beat Maduro 69% to 31% in the 2024 elections.  But Maduro just arrests and kills political opponents - Gonzalez had to flee the country with a Maduro bounty on his head.

The opposition leader Maria Machado - whom Maduro had "disqualified" from running in 2024 - was just awarded the Nobel Prize for her courageous fight for democracy in Venezuela.

No decent human being can support the Maduro dictatorship.  He is a brutal, torturing, sadistic scum.  The misguided efforts by a few Democrats in the US Congress to somehow aid their "brother socialist" are obscene.

The US has demanded that Maduro leave now - and not incur more bloodshed. He has refused. 

The forces of decency in the world - lead by the United States - need to remove Maduro now. By military strikes, covert action, or whatever will end the tyrrany.

Venezuela voted against Maduro - and the elected President and Congress were arrested, killed or exiled. Its time to return elected, legitimate government - made up of decent people - into power, for the good of Venezuela and all the people of the Americas.