After the Applause Fades: Why External “Liberation” Is Just Another Trap

In the immediate aftermath of Nicolás Maduro’s removal, I am seeing something painfully familiar: relief mistaken for clarity.

Some Venezuelans are celebrating. I understand why. Years of hardship, repression, shortages, and despair create a hunger for anything that looks like change. When suffering becomes unbearable, even a foreign bomb can look like hope.

But relief is not liberation. And Trump is not a savior.

He has already told us what he wants.

When a U.S. president openly says he expects America to be “very strongly involved” in another country’s oil industry after a military intervention, there is nothing left to interpret. That is not altruism. That is acquisition. That is exploitation, spoken without shame.

The Dangerous Illusion of External Rescue

History offers no shortage of warnings, yet humanity keeps repeating the same mistake: mistaking power for benevolence.

When an external force removes a leader for you, it does not restore your sovereignty—it confiscates it. The language may change (“justice,” “democracy,” “stability”), but the structure is always the same. Decisions move outward. Control moves upward. Resources move away.

People celebrate in the streets, unaware that the invoice has already been written.

The question is not whether Maduro was corrupt, authoritarian, or destructive. The question is who has the right to decide, and who pays the price afterward.

That decision belonged to Venezuelans. Period.

Why Change Cannot Be Imported

Real change is not something a nation can outsource. It is slow, painful, internal work. It requires reckoning, organization, responsibility, and—most importantly—ownership.

When change is imposed from outside, that process never happens.

The structures that produced the original suffering remain intact. The population never gets the chance to understand how power works inside their own society. Instead, power simply changes hands—from a domestic oppressor to a foreign one, often more sophisticated and far less accountable.

This is why externally engineered “liberation” so often collapses into chaos, dependency, or long-term instability. It is not a failure of the people. It is the predictable outcome of bypassing truth.

The Emotional Trap: Relief as Manipulation

Relief is one of the most exploitable emotional states. It silences critical thinking. It creates gratitude where caution is needed. It makes populations vulnerable to manipulation.

Those celebrating Maduro’s fall today may later realize—too late—that Trump did not remove a dictator to free Venezuela. He removed an obstacle.

And obstacles, once removed, are rarely replaced with dignity.

A Pattern Too Old to Ignore

This is not new. It is the same pattern the U.S. has repeated across Latin America, the Middle East, and beyond:

• Demonize a leader

• Moralize the intervention

• Use law and media to justify force

• Secure strategic resources

• Leave behind a fractured society

The names change. The language adapts. The outcome rarely does.

What makes this moment especially dangerous is not just the violence, but the normalization. The absence of pretense. The casual tone with which sovereignty is dismissed. The public admission that oil interests are central.

This is imperialism without embarrassment.

Final Thought

If Venezuela is to heal—truly heal—it will not be through American bombs, Trump’s ego, or corporate contracts.

It will come, if it comes at all, from Venezuelans reclaiming agency, truth, and responsibility for their own future. That process cannot be rushed, bought, or imposed.

Any “freedom” delivered by force from the outside is temporary.
Any “change” that bypasses truth is fragile.
And any leader who arrives as a rescuer with an eye on your resources is not there for you.

The applause will fade.
The consequences will remain.

Author’s Note:
This essay is a direct continuation of “The Narcoterrorism Illusion: Why the U.S. Needs Venezuela to Be the Enemy.” Readers arriving here first may wish to read that earlier post, which examines how the language of “narco-terrorism” is used to manufacture moral consent for intervention. Together, the two pieces expose the same pattern from different angles: how enemies are constructed, how relief is manipulated, and how external “liberation” often masks resource extraction and loss of sovereignty.

This essay was written in collaboration with artificial intelligence (ChatGPT) as a tool for reflection, synthesis, and articulation. The responsibility for the ideas and interpretations expressed here remains my own.