The End of Chavismo - Part 5 - Warships at the Door

 ^{[Source](https://apnews.com/article/trump-venezuela-destroyers-maduro-drug-cartels-e33794ebc24d9031e536d132ce205b4c)} It's been over a year since the massive electoral fraud that put our situation back in the international spotlight and things have kept moving. The chavista regime has set up two more sham elections since then, dividing regional and local administrations amongst themselves with the help of so-called opposition leaders who have finally shown their true colors at last, and proven their worth (or rather lack thereof) for all Venezuelans to see. The last veils of lies have started to fall and most of my fellows are aware of the degree of corruption and the uselessness of the political system here, so that even María Corina Machado, the current head of the transition, has been shown to be ineffective and detached from everyday reality. We still need her as the identifiable face of the process, but we need to pay a lot of attention to her actions when she comes to power as the factual ruler of the country. The black market dollar has been going crazy for a few months now. Chevron, the American oil giant, lost its license to operate in Venezuela early this year, but subsequently returned, albeit with conditions far less accommodating for the regime, and bringing with it a bunch of US intelligence and anti-drug agents that have been wreaking havoc on chavismo's direly diminished operational capabilities. Now, the Trump administration has increased the price on Nicolás Maduro's head to $50 million and is currently seizing all sorts of properties and assets from the infamous figureheads of high-ranking cronies with the help of other governments, notably the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. Most importantly, the US military has deployed a veritable battlefront of warships and aircraft in the Caribbean that are very close to our coastline, a tour de force unlike anything we've seen in decades. Doubtlessly, Donald Trump and his own cronies, eager for an easy victory and the very real possibility of getting a friendlier administration more open to business, are willing to go in for the kill, so to speak. I know many people might think that this kind of intervention is another horrible example of US imperialism, but we Venezuelans don't share that concern, we want these guys gone, whatever it takes. Strangely, however, I don't really feel excited. Too many failures in the past have left me and my countrymen devoid of strong expectations. My own personal position, the one that I've been sharing with people on social media, is to focus on individual responsibility and to deal with my camp, letting the big players do their thing and hoping for the best. Any trust that I could've had on politicians has faded, and I certainly don't believe in the US and their army, I just want these guys gone for good so that Venezuela can truly start healing from the damage they caused. What I see in the world right now, not just in our particular situation but everywhere, is a big war of criminal gangs, mobsters in suits playing their money games, bypassing and changing all the rules, destroying millions of lives with zero regard for the consequences. The only difference that I see in my country's situation is that the thugs that have ruled here for over two decades have been enormously destructive on their own, and they'll continue to be unless they're removed. We don't have the capacity to remove them, so we have no choice but to let a bigger bully take care of them. For most of its history, the US has positioned itself as the greatest warmonger of the world, a threat to any power that deals in blood, and the chavista regime understands nothing but violence, so... it is what it is. I have no idea how this military incursion will turn out, but I know for a fact that Diosdado Cabello, Nicolás Maduro and the rest of the assholes that have sequestered power in this country as scared shitless of these guys, and they have every reason to be terrified. They've been making huge mistakes for many years, and they see traitors everywhere at this point; I just want their criminal (dis)organization to collapse entirely, as soon as possible. My country needs to move on.