Guest Post by Pat Buchanan
“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.
Russia and China stood by Maduro, as did NATO ally Turkey, with President Erdogan phoning his support. Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia were also with Maduro.
Backing Guaido are Venezuela’s neighbors Ecuador, Brazil and Colombia, the U.S. and Canada, and the Organization of American States.
Britain, France, Germany and Spain have sent Maduro a diplomatic ultimatum: Agree in eight days to new elections or we back the 35-year-old Guaido, who, until this year, was an unknown.
All options are on the table, says President Donald Trump. But Russia called Guaido’s action a “quasi-coup” and warned that intervention could result in “catastrophic consequences.” Vladimir Putin also phoned Maduro with his support.
The stakes for all sides here are huge. Russia has contractors in Venezuela and has lent the regime billions. In a show of solidarity, Putin recently flew two strategic bombers to Venezuela.
China has loaned Venezuela tens of billions, with Caracas paying Beijing back in oil.
Cuba has sent military and intelligence officers to maintain internal security. Hugo Chavez had seen in Fidel Castro a father figure and modeled his new Venezuela on Castro’s Cuba — with similar results.
Where hundreds of thousands fled Castro’s revolution in the 1960s, three million Venezuelans have fled to Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia and other South American countries and the USA.
The economy is in a shambles. Though Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on earth, production is a fraction of what it once was. Cronyism and corruption are endemic. Inflation has destroyed the currency. There is poverty, malnutrition and shortages of every necessity of modern life.
Yet, still, the crucial question: What will the soldiers do? And if the military stands with Maduro, and Maduro refuses to go, what do the Americans do to force him out?
Invade? That would invite disaster. Venezuela is not Panama, Haiti or Grenada. Larger than Texas, its population is more than 30 million. And U.S. forces are already committed around the world.
A blockade and sanctions would magnify and deepen the suffering of the people of Venezuela long before they would bring down the regime. Would our allies support a blockade? And if years of suffering by the Venezuelan people have not shaken Maduro’s hold on power, what makes us believe more of the same would persuade him?
Maduro and his army are being offered amnesty if they peacefully depart. But what would Maduro’s fate be if he flees?
If he gives up power under U.S. threat, he is finished and disgraced as a coward. Would he not prefer to go down fighting?
And if the leadership of the army should abandon Maduro, there are younger ambitious officers who would surely see a rewarding future in fighting to save the regime.
Are we inviting a civil war in Venezuela? Should the shooting start in Caracas, what do we do then?
Did anyone think this through?
Maduro is an incompetent brutal dictator whose ideology has helped to destroy a nation. But if he can change the narrative from a confrontation between a tyrant and his persecuted people to that of an embattled defender of Venezuela being attacked by Yankee imperialists and their domestic lackeys, that could resonate among the masses in Latin America.
And from all indications, Maduro intends to defy the U.S. and rally the radicals and anti-Americans in the hemisphere and the Third World.
Guiado’s constitutional claim to the presidency of Venezuela was a scheme cooked up in collusion with Washington, made in the USA, with Secretary of State Pompeo, John Bolton and Sen. Marco Rubio signing on, and President Trump signing off. This was Plan A.
But if Plan A does not succeed, and Maduro, with America’s prestige on the line, defies our demand that he yield, what do we do then? What is Plan B?
“Assad must go!” said Barack Obama. Well, Assad is still there — and Obama is gone.
Will the same be said of Maduro?
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
This is nothing more than a corporate takeover from the corporatocracy (US) masquerading as spreading democracy and freedom. Venezuela lacks in democracy and freedom but the U.S. government and it’s 4th branch of government (U.S. corporations) do not care about democracy and freedom. This is under almost the exact same conditions as Iran in 1953 and outlined in John Perkins “Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man”. This is why as the author states, “Russia has contractors in Venezuela and has lent the regime billions.”. The plan is to get Russia’s contractors out and the US contractors in. The U.S. and it’s 4th branch of government is nothing more than a plunderer and pirate nation.
This is a Hegelian dialectic, Problem, Reaction, and Solution tactic that is orchestrated by the U.S. The State Dept. say’s “The United States is holding accountable those responsible for Venezuela’s tragic decline”. So that would make the US responsible then wouldn’t it, for the decline? After all it was the USA that imposed the economic and political sanctions that have made the lives of the people of Venezuela so difficult to this day, more so than the two previous dictators.
Now maybe the U.S. will invade another country that does not attack us or threaten us, once again, out of that age old neoliberal, imperial, neocon playbook reference . As we have seen in the Middle East, the U.S. doesn’t have a foreign policy, it only has a energy+war policy.
Maybe this is the reason for the troop withdrawal from Syria.
https://southfront.org/boltons-mysterious-5000-troops-to-colombia-us-invasion-in-venezuela/
Yes, US is example of theory and practice of oligarchical collevtivism
Stuckey just posted the ‘plan B’…….no worries, the freemasons just following their plan for a new order for the ages.
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum-stamped right on the petrodollar !
It will probably start as civil unrest or civil war and then some false flag or human crisis will provide an excuse for sending troops…. Same script. Assholes.
Americans insist that they live in a free country and just shrug when they are given overwhelming proof that the US is a police state.
““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.”
—- Pompous Pompeo
Oh, God. Not again!!! Nooooooooo!
[img
[/img]
The bombings will commence shortly. Good luck, Venny peoples.
Pat asks:
Did anyone think this through?
Uncontrolled hilarity ensues.
It gives amatuer hour a bad name.
Abrams is working off a 1980’s play book with many pages missing-it did not work then and will not work now.
Plan B:
-Demonization of Maduro by the mainstream media (already well underway)
-Fear mongering by carefully selected government “influencers” (already underway)
-Fear mongering by key non-governmental “influencers” (likely being selected)
-Multi-phase provocations (gold confiscation, sanctions, blockades, etc. – already underway)
-False flag event (likely already being planned – who knows how many innocent Americans will die in this one)
-Promises of greetings with rose petals and cheering crowds
-Demonization of anyone who objects to our benevolent plans for “liberation”
-Destruction from a safe distance (as always, included of course, the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Venezuelans who of course should have done something about their horrible government, so they had it coming anyway…the bastards)
-Invasion
-Occupation (followed by thousands of deaths of American troops)
-Seizure of the oil fields for American and British oil companies
-Construction of dozens of US military bases – and the accompanying handouts of trillions of dollars to Halliburton and other well-connected government “friends.”
-Seizure of all existing coca plants and the cultivation of new coca plants to offset losses of CIA opium poppy fields in Afghanistan
-Creation of new crack epidemic in US to fuel demand for new coca supplies
-Use of new bases to launch new wars against the rest of central and South American countries that don’t fall into line with our tyranny and to transport massive quantities of cocaine into the US (Clinton’s old Mena, AK airfields put back into service)
Greetings,
In the same manner that medications that cost thousands of dollars here in the US cost pennies in other countries, soldiers and weapons systems can be had for practically next to nothing outside of the US – especially in S. America. To make matters worse, Venezuela has the support of the other two nations that happen to produce weapons on the cheap.
The United States military, like most, is not a forward thinking military. It has spent the last 25 years fighting in deserts and now has a desert fighting machine. Sure, we can bomb them from the air but only so long as Venezuela doesn’t agree to trade oil for S-400 anti-aircraft systems. That means boots on the ground – very expensive boots.
We’ll be fighting something like FARC and I see no benefit to it.
They’ll do in Venezuela (and all of Latin America), what was done in the Middle East, and the (((usual suspects))) will use the refugees as macro biological warfare agents against America – as the muslims have been used against western Europe.
We need that fucking wall, and we need it now – from ocean to ocean,