Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts
Today (April 17) I heard a NPR “news” report that desribed the democratically elected president of Venezuela as “the Venezuelan dictator Maduro.” By repeating over and over that a democratically elected president is a dictator, the presstitutes create that image of Maduro in the minds of vast numbers of peoples who know nothing about Venezuela and had never heard of Maduro until he is dropped on them as “dictator.”
Nicolas Maduro Moros was elected president of Venezuela in 2013 and again in 2018. Previously he served as vice president and foreign minister, and he was elected to the National Assembly in 2000. Despite Washington’s propaganda campaign against him and Washington’s attempt to instigate violent street protests and Maduro’s overthrow by the Venezuelan military, whose leaders have been offered large sums of money, Maduro has the overwhelming support of the people, and the military has not moved against him.
What is going on is that American oil companies want to recover their control over the revenue streams from Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Under the Bolivarian Revolution of Chavez, continued by Maduro, the oil revenues instead of departing the country have been used to reduce poverty and raise literacy inside Venezuela.
The opposition to Maduro inside Venezuela comes from the elites who have been traditionally allied with Washington in the looting of the country. These corrupt elites, with the CIA’s help, temporarily overthrew Chavez, but the people and the Venezuelan military secured his release and return to the presidency.
Washington has a long record of refusing to accept any reformist governments in Latin America. Reformers get in the way of North America’s exploitation of Latin American countries and are overthrown.
With the exceptions of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua, Latin America consists of Washington’s vassal states. In recent years Washington destroyed reform governments in Honduras, Argentina and Brazil and put gangsters in charge.
According to US national security adviser John Bolton, a neoconservative war monger, the governments in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua will soon be overthrown. New sanctions have now been placed on the three countries. Washington in the typical display of its pettiness targeted sanctions against the son of the Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. https://www.rt.com/news/456841-bolton-russia-venezuela-threat/
Ortega has been the leader of Nicaragua since for 40 years. He was president 1985-1990 and has been elected and reelected as president since 2006.
Ortega was the opponent of Somoza, Washington’s dictator in Nicaragua. Consequently he and his movement were attacked by the neoconservative operation known as Iran-Contra during the Reagan years. Ortega was a reformer. His government focused on literacy, land reform, and nationalization, which was at the expense of the wealthy ruling class. He was labeled a “Marxist-Leninist,” and Washington attempted to discredit his reforms as controversial leftist policies.
Somehow Castro and Ortega survived Washington’s plots against them. By the skin of his teeth so did Chavez unless you believe it was the CIA that gave him cancer. Castro and Chavez are dead. Ortega is 74. Maduro is in trouble, because Washington has stolen Venezuela’s bank deposits and cut Venezuela off the international financial system, and the British have stolen Venezuela’s gold. This makes it hard for Venezuela to pay its debts.
The Trump regime has branded the democratically twice-elected Maduro an “illegitimate” president. Washington has found a willing puppet, Juan Guaido to take Maduro’s place and has announced that the puppet is now the president of Venezuela. No one among the Western presstitutes or among the vassals of Washington’s empire finds it strange that an elected president is illegitimate but one picked by Washington is not.
Russia and China have given Maduro diplomatic support. Both have substantial investments in Venezuela that would be lost if Washington seizes the country. Russia’s support for Maduro was declared by Bolton today to be a provocation that is a threat to international peace and security. Bolton said his sanctions should be seen by Russia as a warning against providing any help for the Venezuelan government.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo and vice president Pence have added their big mouths to the propaganda against the few independent governments in Latin America. Where is the shame when the highest American government officials stand up in front of the world and openly proclaim that it is official US government policy to overthrow democratically elected governments simply because those governments don’t let Americans plunder their countries.
How is it possible that Pompeo can announce that the “days are numbered” of the elected president of Nicaragua, who has been elected president 3 or 4 times, and the world not see the US as a rogue state that must be isolated and shunned? How can Pompeo describe Washington’s overthrow of an elected government as “setting the Nicaraguan people free?”
The top officials of the US government have announced that they intend to overthrow the governments of 3 countries and this is not seen as “a threat to international peace and security?”
How much peace and security did Washington’s overthrow of governments in Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and the attempted overthrow of Syria bring?
Washington is once again openly violating international law and the rest of the world has nothing to say?
There is only one way to describe this: The Triumph of Evil.
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” — William Butler Yeats
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The next honest election Venezuela has will be its first. Anyone thinking the starving citizens voted for Maduro is crazier than AOC.
Great graphic. Photos of Theresa May always make me throw up in my mouth a little, though. And when I see her, then I remember how she’s betrayed the brits and it makes me angry. Bloodlines, the ruling class, tyranny and subjugation. (sigh…)
That’s because of the shock to your system seeing a vile troll in the flesh. “Theresa May Will Be a Formidable PM and a True Friend of Israel”. -From an article in the Renegade Tribune. Very interesting, indeed.
“If I had to characterize the current international situation using only one word, the word “chaos” would be a pretty decent choice (albeit not the only one). Chaos in the Ukraine, chaos in Venezuela, chaos everywhere the Empire is involved in any capacity and, of course, chaos inside the US. But you wouldn’t know that listening to the talking heads and other “experts” who serve roughly the same function for the Empire as the orchestra did on the Titanic: to distract from the developing disaster(s) for a long as possible.”
http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-saker-interviews-dmitry-orlov/
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum- the ‘chaos’ will only increase……
FLASHBACK!!
Trump’s Middle East Policy Is To Confiscate/Steal Oil, He Said So Himself: In hindsight, ‘We should have kept the oil in Iraq!’
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/01/21/trump-iraq-should-have-kept-oil/SwZlr5SwQeG5AkYf4NZelK/story.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/how-donald-trump-is-making-things-harder-for-the-us-military/514514/
In Syria too!
https://www.businessinsider.com/r-trumps-plan-for-islamic-state-put-a-ring-around-it-2015-8
FAST FORWARD!!
Here’s John Bolton had to say about the ongoing sanctions being imposed by the Trump Administration (5 minute 15 second):
“We’re looking at the oil assets, that’s the single most important income stream that the government of Venezuela. We’re looking at what to do to that. We want everybody to know that we’re looking at all of this seriously. We don’t want any American businesses or investors caught by surprise.”
When asked about Citgo, one of America’s largest gasoline retailers that is owned by state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (aka PdVSA) this is what Mr. Bolton had to say (5 minute 50 second mark):
“We’re in conversation with major American companies now that are either in Venezuela or in the case of Citgo, here in the United States. I think we’re trying to get to the same end result here. Venezuela is one of the three countries I called the Troika of Tyranny. It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. Be good for the people of Venezuela, be good for the people of the United States. We both have a lot at stake here making this come out the right way.”
I often agree with PCR, but on Latin America in general and Venezuela in particular, I’m at a total loss to understand his viewpoint. Anyone who believes that Argentina’s last government (Nestor Kirchner and our very own Hillary Clinton) was a “reform” government… As those here know, the Kirchner mafia made the Corleone family look like the Brady Bunch.
No oil, no heart