Why Must Venezuela Be Destroyed? Dmitri Orlov, Information Clearing House. Feb. 1, 2019.
Last week Trump, his VP Mike Pence, US State Dept. director Mike Pompeo and Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton, plus a bunch of Central American countries that are pretty much US colonies and don’t have foreign policies of their own, synchronously announced that Venezuela has a new president: a virtual non-entity named Juan Guaidó, who was never even a candidate for that office, but who was sorta-kinda trained for this job in the US. Guaidó appeared at a rally in Caracas, flanked by a tiny claque of highly compensated sycophants. He looked very frightened as he self-appointed himself president of Venezuela and set about discharging his presidential duties by immediately going into hiding.
His whereabouts remained unknown until much later, when he surfaced at a press conference, at which he gave a wishy-washy non-answer to the question of whether he had been pressured to declare himself president or had done so of his own volition. There is much to this story that is at once tragic and comic, so let’s take it apart piece by piece. Then we’ll move on to answering the question of Why Venezuela must be destroyed (from the US establishment’s perspective).
Venezuela: Let’s Cut to the Chase. Pepe Escobar via The Saker. Feb. 4, 2019.
Venezuela: The US’s 68th Regime Change Disaster. Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, AntiWar.com. Feb. 6, 2019.
How Chrystia Freeland Organized Donald Trump’s Coup in Venezuela. Eric Zeusse, Strategic Culture Foundation. Feb. 7, 2019.
This is how ‘democracy’ now functions. It’s not democracy — it is fascism. The euphemisms for it are “neoliberalism” and “neoconservatism.”
Regardless of whether or not the Trump-Freeland-Luna program for Venezuela succeeds, democracy and human rights won’t be advanced by it; but, if it succeeds, the fortunes of US-and-allied billionaires will be. It’s part of their global privatization program.
Canada needs a history lesson. Andrew Mitrovica. Jan. 28, 2019.
Let's remember the time when Charles de Gaulle meddled in our affairs, the way we today meddle in Venezuela's.
Apparently, Canada's prime minister and foreign minister require a short, instructive history lesson in light of their fulsome, almost giddy, support for the attempted coup d'etat unfolding in Venezuela.
It's not at all surprising that Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland have conveniently forgotten when, several decades ago, top Canadian politicians - including Trudeau's late father, Pierre - were livid after a foreign head of state stuck his big, signature nose into Canada's tricky, delicate business, as they go about sticking their pretty, petite noses into Venezuela's tricky, delicate business.
This amnesia is, of course, de rigueur among Western political dilettantes whose diplomatic modus operandi still reflects a grating, colonial-like attitude that dictates to "developing" countries - there's one set of international rules for us, and quite another set for you. So, take heed, rather than suffer the potentially brutish consequences.
While Venezuela and its fractured people rest dangerously on the precipice, Trudeau and Freeland - a pair of so-called liberals - have elected to stand literally shoulder-to-shoulderwith renowned "populists" like Donald Trump and Brazil's new president, Jair Bolsonaro, as they prop up their youthful marionette, Juan Guaido, as the country's "interim" president.
Now, while it's plain that scores of Venezuelans back Guaido, millions more want the imperious Yankees and Canucks to pack up their sanctimonious lectures about liberty, democracy and human rights and go home.
Watching Trudeau and Freeland scoff at the right of Venezuelans to determine the political destiny of their own country without the familiar "regime change" subterfuge and rhetoric oozing from Washington, DC and Ottawa, I was reminded of another indelible scene when an apoplectic Canada declared former French president, Charles de Gaulle, in effect, persona non grata for attempting to split the fragile country in two.
Your Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times’ Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin America. Adam H. Johnson, TruthDig. Jan. 29, 2019.
If Every Debate About US Interventionism Was About Godzilla Instead. Caitlin Johnstone. Feb. 25, 2019.
Person A: Wow, things are looking really bad in Venezuela right now.
Person B: Yeah.
Person A: All that poverty and unrest!
Person B: I know, it’s terrible.
Person A: You know what we should do?
Person B: Please don’t say send in Godzilla.
Person A: What? Why not??
Person B: Because he always makes things worse! You know that! Every time we send in Godzilla to try and solve problems in the world, he just ends up trampling all over the city, knocking down buildings and killing thousands of people with his atomic heat beam.
Person A: Maybe this time would be different though!
Person B: Why in God’s name would this time be different?? You said it would be different in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria. What happened there?
Person A: He trampled all over the cities, knocked down the buildings and killed people with his atomic heat beam.
Person B: Exactly! So what makes you think sending in Godzilla would be any different this time?
Person A: Well we can’t just do nothing!
Person B: Dude, doing nothing would be infinitely better than sending in Godzilla to do the thing he literally always does.
Person A: Hey, inaction has consequences too you know! You probably don’t even talk to Venezuelans. My brother’s co-worker’s dentist is Venezuelan, and he says a Godzilla rampage is just what they need. You should listen to Venezuelans.
Person B: No matter how many Venezuelans I talk to, it will still be an indisputable fact that Godzilla rampages are always disastrous and always make things worse.
Person A: Why are you such a Maduro apologist?
Person B: What?!? I’m not a Maduro apologist! This has nothing to do with Maduro. I just remember what Godzilla is and the things he always does when we summon him up from the bottom of the sea to try and solve problems.
Person A: Look, I understand that Godzilla has made a mess of things in the past, that doesn’t mean you have to go around supporting Maduro.
Person B: I don’t support Maduro! Why do you always do this?? With Iraq you called me a Saddam apologist, with Libya you called me a Gaddafi supporter, with Syria I was an Assadist, and all I’m saying is that Godzilla is a giant nuclear monster that destroys everything in its path!
Person A: So I guess you just don’t care about the people of Venezuela then.
Person B: Of course I care about the people of Venezuela! That’s why I don’t want them to be trampled to death beneath the feet of a destructive nuclear behemoth!
Person A: Yeah but Venezuela is in dire straits right now. It’s not like sending in Godzilla could make things any worse.
Person B: Sending in Godzilla can definitely make things worse! Are you kidding me?? Have you seen Libya lately?
Person A: Oh, right, everything was so perfect in Libya before we sent in Godzilla to kill Gaddafi, I forgot. It was a perfect utopian paradise!
Person B: Nobody’s saying Libya was perfect under Gaddafi, but it was a hell of a lot better before Godzilla went on a chaotic rampage trampling and burning everything in sight. Now it’s a lawless humanitarian disaster!
Person A: You’re just a Godzilla-hating, Maduro-loving socialist.
Person B: This isn’t about socialism. It’s an established fact that sending in Godzilla literally always makes things worse and literally never makes things better. The only reason you keep shifting between straw man arguments and ad hominem attacks is because you know you’ve got no case. All you can do is keep calling me a Maduro supporter, saying I don’t care about the Venezuelan people, and saying it’s because I love socialism, when you know damn well I’m telling it like it is. Honestly, what do you think happens when we send in Godzilla again? Do you think he’s just going to be a cuddly wuddly nice guy all of a sudden and start solving problems with surgical precision?
Person A: Uhh… maybe?
Person B: He won’t! He never will! You keep hoping it will be different and it never, ever is! How do you keep making this same stupid mistake over and over again??
Person A: Well the TV told me this time it’s different.
Person B: They tell you that every time! It’s a narrative advanced by Godzilla rampage profiteers!
Person A: Hey, maybe it won’t even come to that. Maybe Mothra can sort of gently blow Maduro out?
Person B: Mothra hurts civilians too!
Person A: Nuh-uh. Her wind gusts are laser-targeted to solely affect Maduro and Venezuelan oligarchs.
Person B: That’s not even true! Anyway what happens when Mothra starts killing civilians?
Person A: Nothing a bit of Godzilla couldn’t fix.
Person B: Of course. Awesome. Excuse me, I need to go slam my head in the car door.
Kashmir, not Korea, is the world's most dangerous border. India and Pakistan rattle their nuclear sabres. Eric Margolis. Feb. 23, 2019.
Years of Warnings, Then Death and Disaster. How the Navy failed its sailors. Robert Faturechi, Megan Rose and T. Christian Miller. ProPublica. Feb. 7, 2019.
The End of Our World Order Is Imminent. Alfred McCoy, The Nation. Feb. 28, 2019.
At least 200 empires have risen and fallen over the course of history, and the United States will be no exception.Doomsday Clock. Skip Kaltenheuser, via nakedcapitalism. Feb. 2, 2019.
Tick Tock. The good folks at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have returned to wind their Doomsday Clock. Last Thursday at the National Press Club a group of well-credentialed speakers, including former California Governor Jerry Brown and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, underscored the organization’s warning that we have established residence in “the new abnormal.” Watch the press conference and supportive videos here.
The Doomsday Clock was set last year at a two-minutes until midnight, (midnight being the endgame), and there it now remains. There’s little comfort to be had in standing on what University of Chicago astrophysicist Robert Rosner characterized as a precipice we’d best quickly leap back from. Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson stressed that the clock remaining where it is, the closest it has been to world catastrophe, is not stability, but “a stark warning to leaders and citizens around the world.”
William Perry said the organization views our current situation as precarious as it was in 1953, in the gloom of the Cold War while the Korean War still raged. Jerry Brown said, “The blindness and stupidity of the politicians and their consultants is truly shocking in the face of nuclear catastrophe and danger….the business of everyday politics blinds people to the risk, we’re playing Russian Roulette with humanity,” with the danger of an incident that will kill millions if not igniting a conflict that will kill billions.
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