Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Newsmax on Tuesday that U.S. leaders should weigh the risks of pursuing regime change in Venezuela, warning that toppling authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro may not bring stability to the troubled South American nation.
On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Paul criticized the U.S. military’s targeting of alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean.
A deadly strike this week on another suspected Venezuelan drug vessel in the Caribbean signals a shift from Coast Guard interdictions to more lethal tactics similar to those used in the Middle East during the war on terror.
Paul, however, said he opposes the tactic of blowing up suspected drug vessels.
“About 25% of the time that the Coast Guard boards a vessel in the Caribbean looking for drugs, about 25% of the time, the boat that is boarded doesn’t have drugs,” he said.
“So we’ve blown up four boats. Statistically speaking, what are the odds that one of the boats didn’t have drugs?
“We haven’t heard the names of these drug dealers. How do you know for certain who they are before you kill them?” Paul said.
While he supports continued drug interdiction, he stressed that it should be carried out “methodically” and not through indiscriminate force.
When pressed on reports that the administration could be considering the removal of Maduro, Paul cited U.S. intervention in Libya and Iraq as cautionary examples.
“I would say it might be beneficial. For example, we took out [Moammar] Gaddafi, who was a dictator, and we’ve had 10 or 15 years of chaos since then. We have rival factions.
“We’ve had the spread of arms throughout sub-Saharan Africa. We’ve had more terrorism and more deaths,” Paul said.
“So regime change sometimes works; sometimes [it] doesn’t. When we took out Saddam Hussein, we also had a civil war that went on for years and years.
“Thousands of our soldiers died.”
He added: “Does it mean that you’re in favor of the regime? Just means we have to think things through before we think, oh, we’ll just come in and bring freedom, and everything will be good after that.
“It doesn’t always work out that way.”
Paul warned that an accident in the region could trigger a larger conflict.
“My concern is, with so much of our military ships and personnel down there, that there could be an accident, purposeful or not, that leads to war,” he said.
“War, the one thing we know about war is that a lot of innocent people die during war as well. It’s different if there’s an uprising and there’s a movement to overturn the government.
“But us getting involved and thinking regime change is always the answer — it hasn’t always been beneficial in the past.”
“If you want to have a war with a country, I think you declare a war on them. I don’t think that we need to go to war with Venezuela.
“I think they’re a failed state, failing rapidly, and I think the people ultimately will overthrow the government down there,” he said.
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