Governments really dislike competition. And they dislike moral limits even more.
Just War Theory exists because states, left to their own devices, will always find reasons to justify force. The theory does not ask whether a target is good or evil. It asks whether the use of violence itself is morally licit. That distinction is fatal to the United States action against Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro is no saint. He governs an authoritarian regime accused by international observers of corruption, repression, and criminal activity. None of that is disputed here. Just War Theory does not require moral sympathy for the accused. It entails restraint by the accuser.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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By the classical standards articulated by St. Augustine of Hippo and systematized by St. Thomas Aquinas, the United States action fails.
Not marginally. Categorically.
This is not a close call. It is a total collapse of moral reasoning so complete that the only way to defend it is to deny that Just War Theory applies at all.
The Category Error
The United States treated criminal accusation as a warrant for war.
This is the foundational error from which every other
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