Tag Archives: Nicolas Maduro

“Very Dangerous”: US Seizes Venezuela Oil Assets, Renews Threat of Military Action, by Jessica Corbett

Posted on January 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

The US government attempts yet another regime change. This won’t end any better than it’s other recent efforts. From Jessica Corbett at theantimedia.org:

(CD) — The Trump administration intensified its interference in politically-fractured Venezuela on Monday by announcing the seizure of billions of dollars in assets connected to the nation’s state-owned oil company, a move critics decried as part of a “dangerous” U.S. policy to help opposition forces overthrow elected president Nicolás Maduro.

National Security Adviser John Bolton and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the sanctions imposed via executive order against Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA)—a primary source of income and foreign currency for the country—at a White House press briefing on Monday afternoon. They were joined by Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council.

Mnuchin vowed the United States “will continue to use all of our diplomatic and economic tools” to back Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself Venezuela’s “interim president.” The secretary made clear that “the path to sanctions relief for PdVSA is through the expeditious transfer of control to the interim president or a subsequent, democratically-elected government.”

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Imperialism, Politics, Uncategorized

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If the Army Stands With Maduro, What Is Plan B? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on January 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

As in most dictatorships, or call it an authoritarian regime if you’d like, the military plays the essential role in Venezuela. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

“Pay the soldiers. The rest do not matter.”

This was the deathbed counsel given to his sons by Roman Emperor Septimius Severus in A.D. 211.

Nicolas Maduro must today appreciate the emperor’s insight.

For the political survival of this former bus driver and union boss hangs now upon whether Venezuela’s armed forces choose to stand by him or to desert him and support National Assembly leader Juan Guaido.

Wednesday, Guaido declared Maduro’s election last May to a second six-year term to be a sham, and had himself inaugurated as acting president.

Thursday, the defense minister and army chief General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, with his top brass, dismissed the 35-year-old Guaido as a U.S. puppet, and pledged allegiance to Maduro.

Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the U.N. Security Council: “Now it is time for every other nation to pick a side. … Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem.”

By Friday, however, the world had already taken sides.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military

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Venezuela – A Case Of Socialist-Organized Theft, by Daniel Lacalle

Posted on January 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

Setting aside the issue of whether or not the US should be trying to force regime change in Venezuela, the economy there is a disaster and would be even in the absence of economic sanctions from the US. From Daniel Lacalle at dlacalle.com:

Much has been written about the economic disaster perpetrated by the Maduro-Chavez regime in Venezuela. The magnitude of it is simply difficult to match. A sad global example of how to destroy a rich country.

The mistake that many make is to think that this wreck has been caused by a combination of incompetence and folly. And they are wrong. The Venezuelan socialist regime has carried out the largest organized robbery in history and has done so with a perfectly designed plan.

The plan was always to expropriate the wealth of the whole country for the benefit of a few political leaders through plundering, destruction of currency and decapitalizacón of the state oil company

What has happened to Venezuela is not a disaster or a coincidence, it is socialism.

It is important to start by debunking the lies of the regime propaganda:

The nonexistent blockade. The United States is one of Venezuela’s largest trading partners. Trade between the United States and Venezuela in 2018 grew by more than 9%. Venezuela has bilateral trade agreements with more than 70 countries. Chavismo, like the Castro regime in Cuba, manipulates its followers by calling the sanctions against members of the regime and the fraudulent use of the country’s funds a “blockade”. The only blockade suffered by Venezuela is that of Chavismo against its citizens.

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Posted in Business, Debt, Economy, Energy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Taxes, Trade

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Trump’s Venezuela Fiasco, by Ron Paul

Posted on January 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

Trump’s Venezuela adventure will certainly not put America first. It could end up being the latest in a long line of US regime change disasters. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

Last week President Trump announced that the United States would no longer recognize Nicholas Maduro as president of Venezuela and would recognize the head of its national assembly, Jose Guaido, as president instead. US thus openly backs regime change. But what has long been a dream of the neocons may well turn out to be a nightmare for President Trump.

Why did Trump declare that the Venezuelan president was no longer the president? According to the State Department, the Administration was acting to help enforce the Venezuelan constitution. If only they were so eager to enforce our own Constitution!

It’s ironic that a president who has spent the first two years in office fighting charges that a foreign country meddled in the US elections would turn around and not only meddle in foreign elections but actually demand the right to name a foreign country’s president! How would we react if the Chinese and Russians decided that President Trump was not upholding the US Constitution and recognized Speaker Nancy Pelosi as US president instead?

Even those who would like to see a change of government in Venezuela should reject any notion that the change must be “helped” by the United States. According to press reports, Vice President Mike Pence was so involved in internal Venezuelan affairs that he actually urged Guaido to name himself president and promised US support. This is not only foolish, it is very dangerous. A Venezuelan civil war would result in mass death and even more economic misery!

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US Follows Ukraine, Syria Roadmap for Venezuelan Regime Change, by Whitney Webb

Posted on January 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

The US government is basically following the blueprint it laid out in Ukraine and Syria. Unfortunately, neither of those has turned out particularly well, and prospects don’t look any better in Venezuela. From Whitney Webb at theantimedia.org:

Since the decision of the Trump administration on Wednesday to recognize a member of the Venezuelan opposition, Juan Guaidó, as an unelected “interim president,” the situation in the South American country has become increasingly tense, with efforts to force the current government of Venezuela — led by Nicolás Maduro — out of power having grown in intensity over the past few days.

Despite the enormous pressure, his government faces from both local and international sources, Maduro has managed to maintain his position thanks to a combination of factors. These include the loyalty of the country’s well-armed military, in addition to popular support from Venezuelans who recently voted for Maduro, as well as Venezuelans who may not like Maduro but prefer him to a politician hand-picked and foisted upon them by the United States.

Yet, the long-standing campaign of the United States to effect regime change in Venezuela — a campaign that has been ongoing ever since Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, was elected in 1998 — has shown time and again that the U.S. is unwilling to let go of its dream of installing a “friendly” government in the world’s most oil-rich country.

For that reason, if the Trump administration’s attempt to simply install a Venezuelan president fails to produce the intended result (regime change), there is substantial concern that the U.S. will turn to other means to bring about a change in government, including the instigation of a new proxy war.

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Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Imperialism, Insurrection, Media, Military, Politics

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Top 5 Dumbest Arguments Defending Trump’s Venezuela Interventionism, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on January 27, 2019 | 1 comment

There are substantial reasons not to intervene in Venezuela, and so far nobody has made a compelling case why the US should. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

Ever since the Trump administration announced that it was no longer recognizing the legitimacy of the elected government of Venezuela I’ve been arguing with people on social media about this president’s brazen coup attempt in that country. The people arguing with me in favor of Trump’s interventionism are almost exclusively Trump supporters, with leftists and antiwar libertarians more or less on my side with this issue and rank-and-file centrists mostly preferring to sit this one out except to periodically mumble something about it being a distraction from the Mueller investigation.

I engage in these arguments not because I enjoy fighting with strangers on the internet, but because it helps me get an idea of what propaganda narratives have been seeded throughout various political sectors. Take a stand online and you’ll quickly have people running up to you saying, in effect, “My media echo chamber told me I’m supposed to disagree with you about that,” and spelling out what they’ve been told to believe.

I have not received a single robust argument in favor of Trump’s Venezuela interventionism, but I have received a whole lot of really, really stupid ones. Here are the top five most common and most astonishingly idiotic of them:

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Posted in Collapse, Energy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Insurrection, Politics

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Trump Betrays MAGA Over Venezuela, by Tom Luongo

Posted on January 25, 2019 | 4 comments

It looks like the US government-backed coup in Venezuela is coming a cropper and the US won’t get its hands on Venezuela’s oil this go around. That doesn’t mean it won’t keep trying. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

The U.S. backed a coup in Venezuela that has failed. And President Trump was the architect of it. This is a farce surrounding an intrigue contained within a tragedy.

What has happened in Venezuela is tragic. Nicolas Maduro is a comical figure straight out of central casting for a South American leader of a junta. But it has been the U.S.’s designs on Venezuela’s oil and gas reserves (the largest proven in the world as of 2017) that is the real story behind this week’s events.

For anyone still harboring doubts as to who Trump truly is Venezuela should end them. Trump’s Energy Dominance policy is at the core of his foreign policy. And he will do whatever it takes to secure that policy and deliver a long-standing order to the U.S. and European oligarchy to gain control over Venezuela.

Energy Dominance

As Alistair Crooke succinctly put it last year at Strategic Culture:

The US – were energy dominance to succeed – simply would control the tap to the economic development – or its lack thereof – for rivals China, and Asia. And the US could squeeze Russia’s revenues in this way, too. In short, the US could put a tourniquet on China’s and Russia’s economic development plans. Is this why JCPOA was revoked by President Trump?
Here then, is the squaring of that circle (more US power, yet less empire): Trump’s US aims for ‘domination’, not through the globalists’ permanent infrastructure of the US defence umbrella, but through the smart leveraging of the US dollar and financial clearing monopoly, by ring-fencing, and holding tight, US technology, and by dominating the energy market, which in turn represents the on/off valve to economic growth for US rivals. In this way, Trump can ‘bring the troops home’, and yet America keeps its hegemony. Military conflict becomes a last resort.

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Posted in Energy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Imperialism, Military, Politics

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Five Reasons Why the US-Led Crusade Against Venezuela Will Probably Fail, by Elias Marat

Posted on January 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

Maduro will probably remain in power. From Elias Marat at themindunleashed.com:

Events in Venezuela shook the world on Wednesday, with many left wondering if January 23 was the beginning of the end for the government of President Nicolas Maduro and the beginning of a new chapter of U.S. interventionism.

Here are five reasons why it’s unlikely that this latest drama in the South American nation is the “endgame” that the mainstream media is hyping up.

1. “Interim president” … who, what?

On Wednesday, amid massive anti-government mobilizations, the U.S. and a number of Latin American states – along with Canada and some regional organizations such as the Organization of American States – all recognized National Assembly leader Juan Guaido’s self-proclamation that he would thereby be the “interim president” of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

A relatively unknown 35-year-old member of the opposition-held National Assembly can’t simply snap his fingers and assume the presidency, even if he has the diplomatic nods of some powerful countries in the region or across the globe.

To illustrate the absurdity of the move, a comparison would be like Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responding to “not my president” chants at a Women’s March by declaring herself “interim President of the United States of America Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces” – with the consecration of Russia, Turkey, Iran and El Salvador. Such a move to recognize an unelected president as the legitimate leader of the country would fly in the face of the Constitution as well as international law – and such is the case in Venezuela as much as it would be in the U.S.

Guaido only entered the fractured world of opposition lawmakers – who’ve seen a carousel of leaders come and go – in 2015, and was only pulled from relative obscurity into the national and international limelight in the past couple months.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Insurrection, Military, Trade

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Venezuela’s Great Dream Was Always a Scam… by Bill Bonner

Posted on January 24, 2019 | Leave a comment

The regime the US government is trying to replace in Venezuela hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory. It deserves to be replaced, although preferably by the actions of the Venezuelans themselves, not the usual US spooks and goons. From Bill Bonner at bonnerandpartners.com:

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – “Soldiers revolt…”

“Millions on verge of starvation…”

“Biggest mass exodus in history of the Americas…”

What a glorious show! Right before our eyes… a real-life, real-time experiment…

…all the conceits… the pretensions… the balderdash… the claptrap…

…all laid out for the world to see. And now, stretched out in front of us like a drug dealer in the morgue, is a Great Dream busted up so thoroughly that there can be no doubt – it was a scam from the get-go.

You put a pot on the burner. Eventually, it boils. And Caracas was boiling last night. Earlier in the day, a direct challenge to Nicolás Maduro’s presidency. Juan Guaidó – president of Venezuela’s National Assembly – declared himself the legitimate president of the country.

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Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, History, Politics, Trade

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Socialism Always Ends in Destruction, by Virginia Fidler

Posted on December 4, 2018 | Leave a comment

Taking legitimately earned money from those who produce it and “redistributing” it to those who don’t, with the government of course taking a hefty cut, is a surefire recipe for ruin, and nothing more. From Virginia Fidler at goldtelegraph.com:

Every attempt at socialism has failed miserably. Venezuela is only the latest country that has tried to implement a socialist paradise, only to inevitably crumble and crash before our eyes. Socialism, and its natural progression, communism, has caused the deaths of 100 million people since its inception 100 years ago.

Just a few decades ago, Venezuela had massive oil reserves and an abundance of other resources. It enjoyed wealth and an excellent standard of living. Today, Venezuelans have no food, no medicine, and the country is driven by corruption and fear. While a starving population is in despair, many are desperately trying to flee paradise. The army, supported by President Madero, is in the street, ready to brutalize any dissenters. Madero and the military are not starving.

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