Venezuela

[Dr_Pangloss]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

You are Jeremy Corbyn, I claim my £5  

Labour List

Another example of Corbyn being a total buffoon.

[peterms]

 

[peterms]

 

[HanoiVillan]

What can possibly go wrong with this guy in charge of American policy?

 

[il_serpente]

Elliott Abrams was one of the vilest pieces of sh*t in the Reagan and GHW Bush administrations.  It's depressing that someone like him has had their reputation rehabilitated to the point that someone would consider him as the right person for anything other than shoveling fertilizer in a barn.

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, il_serpente said:

Elliott Abrams was one of the vilest pieces of sh*t in the Reagan and GHW Bush administrations.  It's depressing that someone like him has had their reputation rehabilitated to the point that someone would consider him as the right person for anything other than shoveling fertilizer in a barn.

Certainly I will not be accepting arguments that anyone in the Trump administration has a sincere concern for the welfare of Venezuelans motivating their actions.

[OutByEaster?]

In fairness, if you're wanting to orchestrate regime change in a South American country and install a brutal dictatorship that protects the rights of US money over and above any other national concern, you'd want to employ someone with as much experience in that as you can. He's absolutely the right choice for the job.

 

 

[blandy]

15 hours ago, peterms said:

 

Not addressed to you, particularly, Peter, but I wonder what people think should be done, if anything, and by who, in relation to what's happening in Venezuela.

There has been a corrupt, bribe taking, asset stealing government in place there for a long time. The current one is in place because of corrupt, illegitimate elections, and is fortified by oppressing people, brute force, and so on. Inflation is at staggering levels. Russia, China and I think Brazil's super-right wing government are supporting the current leadership.

The ordinary people there are largely opposed to the current regime.

So what should "the west" or anyone else do?

[peterms]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Not addressed to you, particularly, Peter, but I wonder what people think should be done, if anything, and by who, in relation to what's happening in Venezuela.

There has been a corrupt, bribe taking, asset stealing government in place there for a long time. The current one is in place because of corrupt, illegitimate elections, and is fortified by oppressing people, brute force, and so on. Inflation is at staggering levels. Russia, China and I think Brazil's super-right wing government are supporting the current leadership.

The ordinary people there are largely opposed to the current regime.

So what should "the west" or anyone else do?

The US instructed the opposition not to contest the elections, and threatened them with sanctions if they disobeyed.  It's more than hypocritical of them now to call the election illegitimate, when they are the cause of the uneven participation.

Brazil is supporting the US coup.

The ordinary people, I imagine, are massively concerned about the lack of food, medicine and other essentials.  The cause of this is the wideranging sanctions imposed by the US, which have been copied by other countries following US pressure.  I posted a link earlier which gives chapter and verse.  The UK for example is refusing to release large gold stocks owned by Venezuela and held in the UK, originally as security for a loan to Germany which has been repaid.  We have no basis for keeping this wealth, apart from acting as the US's lapdog, again.  Many countries have been withholding trade, or holding back funds.  The aim, as with Iraq and Syria, is to create enough hardship, death and misery to foment popular discontent so that a coup can be staged.

What we and everyone else should do is tell the US to piss off, give Venezuela back its money, and supply it with essentials.

On a political and diplomatic level, what countries should do is address any concerns in the normal way, and not support yet another bloody US coup which will do bugger all for the ordinary people, and lead to more asset-stripping, which of course is the aim.  Putting Abrams in his current position, a man who broke US laws to sell arms to Iran and fund death squads in central America, is at least honest in showing that the welfare of ordinary people is no part of the agenda whatever, though the rhetoric will say otherwise.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

So what should "the west" or anyone else do?

Stay out of another country's internal political dispute. 

[peterms]

Long piece here detailing what a vile, murderous little shit Abrams is.  Have only quoted the first bit.

Quote

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations who is closely associated with neoconservative foreign policy advocacy,[1] including the campaign to push war in Iraq even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.[2] Although often cited in the press as a “respected” foreign policy analyst,[3] Abrams is arguably best known for being convicted on charges of withholding information from Congress concerning the Reagan administration’s role in the Iran-contra scandal and for defending perpetrators of mass human rights violations—including genocide—during the Central American conflicts of the 1980s.[4]

Abrams, who was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, subsequently served as an adviser on Mideast policy at the National Security Council (NSC) during the George W. Bush presidency, where he was a key advocate for an aggressive “war on terror” after 9/11.

From his perch at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which includes his CFR blog “Pressure Points,” Abrams frequently comments on critical U.S. foreign policy issues and discusses political problems in the Middle East, often with a view to encouraging U.S. intervention, promoting a right-wing Israel-centric agenda, and launching rhetorical broadsides against regimes he does not favor.[5]

A long-standing neoconservative ideologue, Abrams is the son-in-law of former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz and writer Midge Decter, the trailblazing couple who helped shape neoconservatism in the 1970s.[6] His spouse, Rachel Abrams, who passed away in 2013, was an activist based at the Emergency Committee for Israel. Abrams has supported or worked for a large number of neoconservative groups and campaigns, including the Project for the New American Century, the Center for Security Policy, the Hudson Institute, and the Ethics and Pubic Policy Center, where he served as president for several years.

Like other neoconservative figures, Abrams has unabashedly employed accusations of anti-Semitism to smear people he disagrees with over Middle East policy, including patently non-anti-Semitic figures like former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.[7] .....

 

[Dr_Pangloss]

Maduro's dictatorship, phoney elections and basket case economy (following in Chavez steps) versus a US led coup, interesting.

[peterms]

Comment on sanctions

Quote

The first UN rapporteur to visit Venezuela for 21 years has told The Independent the US sanctions on the country are illegal and could amount to “crimes against humanity” under international law.

Former special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas, who finished his term at the UN in March, has criticized the US for engaging in “economic warfare” against Venezuela which he said is hurting the economy and killing Venezuelans...

 

 

[peterms]

The American Conservative

Quote

Pompeo named Elliott Abrams as special envoy for Venezuela Friday. The Guardian reminds us of Abrams’ awful career serving in previous Republican administrations:

    "Abrams is widely remembered in Central America, but particularly from his time in the Reagan administration, when he tried to whitewash a massacre of a thousand men, women and children by US-funded death squads in El Salvador, when he was assistant secretary of state for human rights.

    He shrugged off the reports as communist propaganda, and insisted: “The administration’s record in El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.”

    Abrams also helped organise the covert financing of Contra rebels in Nicaragua behind the back of Congress, which had cut off funding. He then lied to Congress about his role, twice. He pleaded guilty to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned by George HW Bush.

    More than a decade later, working as special Middle East adviser to former president George W Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate of the Iraq invasion. He was in the White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002 against Hugo Chavez. The Observer reported that Abrams gave the green light to the putsch, another an inspector general enquiry found no “wrongdoing” by US officials.

    That was not enough to erase his reputation as the assistant secretary of dirty wars. The message sent by his return to the front rank of US diplomacy will not missed in Caracas."

Putting Abrams in charge of any aspect of U.S. foreign policy is a horrible mistake. Putting someone with such a well-known, appalling record in charge of a regime change effort in Latin America confirms critics’ worst suspicions about this intervention in another country’s internal political dispute. It is a measure of how completely hard-liners now dominate Trump administration foreign policy that a vocal Trump critic can be brought on to lead a high-profile foreign policy initiative. Venezuela policy has been designed by Rubio and Pompeo, both of whom are notoriously hawkish, and it is going to be carried out by a neoconservative with one of the bloodiest and ugliest foreign policy records of anyone that has served in government over the last forty years. All the while, Bolton couldn’t be happier with what has been happening. Trump is letting his foreign policy be conducted by some of the very worst people in the Republican Party, and it is just a matter of time before it blows up in his face at great cost to the U.S.

The message that the Abrams appointment sends is the worst imaginable that the U.S. could send right now. Here is an official with a long record of supporting violent abuses, civil wars, and coups in Latin American countries and a backer of forcible regime change in other parts of the world, and he is being put in charge of an effort to “restore democracy” to Venezuela. That should be setting off every alarm bell there is. Pompeo could scarcely have chosen a person with a worse, more sullied reputation in the region, and by putting him charge of Venezuela policy he has all but announced that our policy is the cynical and destructive one that its opponents have feared it will be.

 

[peterms]

Venezuela regime change big business opportunity: John Bolton

Quote

White House national security adviser John Bolton said it’s in America’s best interest to declare Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro illegitimate.

“We want to be sure that everyone on the political level around the world and at the business level, anybody who has interest in the Western Hemisphere, this is a potential major step forward to a lot of progress in our part of the world,” Bolton told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Thursday...

...Bolton added that the United States is “looking at all options” but “making sure” to find ways to deliver revenue streams “to the legitimate constitutional authorities in Venezuela.”

 

[sne]

At least 40 people dead in violent clashes these last few days.

 

[Xann]

 

[villakram]

On 27/01/2019 at 07:23, blandy said:

Not addressed to you, particularly, Peter, but I wonder what people think should be done, if anything, and by who, in relation to what's happening in Venezuela.

There has been a corrupt, bribe taking, asset stealing government in place there for a long time. The current one is in place because of corrupt, illegitimate elections, and is fortified by oppressing people, brute force, and so on. Inflation is at staggering levels. Russia, China and I think Brazil's super-right wing government are supporting the current leadership.

The ordinary people there are largely opposed to the current regime.

So what should "the west" or anyone else do?

 

The last election was a shambles, but there is no evidence that the result was ridiculously fabricated, though it certainly was manipulated in Maduro's favor. I am personally careful in interpreting reports from the usual sources. There is a genuine breakdown in society there and this can be traced all the way back to how the wealthy reacted to Chavez winning a democratic election. You can see similar tactics in the UK with respect to Corbyn and in how the DMC rigged an election over here to keep Sanders out of play.

There is plenty of theft and incompetence on the government but is that any different to various gulf dictatorships or similar types of systems in Russia and to a somewhat lesser extent in China? Chavez made a very bad decision when he decided to poke the USA. It's taken them much longer than they would have liked, but in a dollar world, you can only work around it for so long even with insane oil wealth. Venezuela's location means it will always need to pay head to the local US/Brazilian power centers, and it does not have the trade corridors available to Iran.

The solution is anything but clear. I mean look at Egypt. The last lot were a bunch of religious intolerants who were democratically elected and we were all happy to see them ousted and now look at things. Oh that's right, Egypt is on our side, so dictatorship is fine for them. Also, very little comment on the regularly rigged Afghan elections in recent years, directly by the occupying power.

Guido was making statements this morning that he would do "whatever was necessary" to ensure democracy for Venezuela. I'm not sure I would support that as I generally think murdering people for their political beliefs leads to bad places. Just like Syria, us sticking our nose in will lead to much spilling of blood, so we can blather about democracy, while they suffer it's consequences.

What a mess.

[chrisp65]

Good to say Sanchez, the Spanish PM declare that the democratic will of the people has to be enforced in Venezuela.

No doubt he believes the same should happen for the Catalan people. 

 

[peterms]

The whole thing is quite astonishing.  Guiado is prancing around organising a coup, or rather fronting up a US coup long in the planning.  If someone did the same in the US, they would be in Guantanamo right now, being waterboarded.

Our media have swallowed the official line, and C4 is an especial disgrace.

People like Jeremy "Hunt" speak of ballot box stuffing, when Jimmy Carter pronounced the 2015 election the most rigorous he had seen (compare the corrupt US system, btw).

Everyone knows it's all about seizing natural resources for US firms and benefitting a corrupt elite who have been displaced.  Everyone knows the shortages are caused by US sanctions and blockades and pressure on other countries to follow suit.  And yet no-one publicly acknowledges this.

Astonishing.