This was just naked imperialism, straight up international gangsterism by the biggest, baddest, and most ruthless gang on the planet: the United States Government. This is no different than the mafia shaking down a successful business, the owner refusing to pay, and then that owner suddenly having a "mysterious accident" or going missing. All this nonsense about Maduro being some sort of criminal or running a drug cartel is just that; this was blatantly just a power play. They did it simply because Venezuela has something they wanted, and they calculated that they could take it without much difficulty.
The long-term fallout of this operation is of course impossible to predict (i.e. a Venezuelan migrant crisis, a possible Venezuelan civil war or prolonged insurgency, similar regime change operations undertaken in other countries), but in the short term a success like this always looks like a win. I wouldn't have supported something like this based on principles of non-intervention, so all I can do is shake my head. But the reality is that this is simply what international power politics looks like, and has always looked like. There is no morality among great powers, nor are there principles. There are only interests and capabilities. One dog or another will always be the biggest and the meanest on the block, and he will do as he pleases to the others, until another dog takes his place. And if you are that big, mean dog, and you don't take advantage of your strength while you have it, you are doing yourself a disservice. It's very easy to disapprove of a lot of the things Trump has been doing lately, but he seems to at least recognize this basic fact of great power politics, for better or worse.
