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Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts)
Sat Mar 22, 2014, 06:43 PM Mar 2014

Obama wrong to isolate Venezuela

Obama wrong to isolate Venezuela
By Oliver Stone and Mark Weisbrot | March 22, 2014

The George W. Bush administration had a stated policy of trying to isolate Venezuela from its neighbors, and the strategy ended up isolating Washington instead. President Obama, in his first meeting with hemispheric leaders in Trinidad in 2009, promised to turn a new page. But today, his administration finds itself even more isolated than that of his predecessor, and for much the same reasons.

Consider the lopsided vote on Venezuela at the Organization of American States earlier this month. Not only did the OAS reject Washington’s attempt to get the organization to intervene in Venezuela, but to add insult to injury, 29 countries passed a resolution expressing their solidarity with the government of President Nicolás Maduro, with only 3 against. It is hard to imagine a more resounding diplomatic defeat in a body where the US government still has a disproportionate influence.

The Obama administration seems surrealistically unaware that this is a different hemisphere than it was 15 years ago. Governments representing the majority of Latin America are now from the left, including Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Venezuela in South America and El Salvador and Nicaragua in Central America. These governments emphatically reject Washington’s depiction of the recent events in Venezuela as a government trying to “repress peaceful protesters.” Instead, they share Maduro’s view that the protests are an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government, which has been the stated goal of the protest movement’s leadership from the beginning. Even President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, who is reluctant to criticize Washington, used the word “destabilization” to describe the protests. These governments see that Washington is using its muscle to support this effort.

They have seen this movie before. In 2002, the Bush administration “provided training, institution building, and other support to individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the military coup” that briefly overthrew then-President Hugo Chávez, according to the State Department. After the coup failed, Washington stepped up funding to opposition groups, which has continued to this day.

More:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/03/21/obama-wrong-isolate-venezuela/XCiOn7e7R4M7pSq93J5LeI/story.html




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Marksman_91

(2,035 posts)
2. According to Maduro's claims that are not backed by any solid evidence at all, that is not the case
Sun Mar 23, 2014, 09:00 PM
Mar 2014

See, it's actually a coalition between Álvaro Uribe, the US, and the CIA who have actually paid millions to students to start revolting against the government. All the supposed reasons that the protests are happening, like the food scarcity, the out-of-control crime rate, the yearly inflation rate of over 50%, the total cease of national production, the blackouts that leave half the country without power, etc., are all fabricated by right-wing controlled media, and if there's video footage incriminating National Guard and pro-government colectivos armed to the teeth who are repressing and killing protesters, they're actually hired goons by the Venezuelan Neo-Fascist Movement to dress up like those individuals to pin the blame on the government.

I think that covers about everything.

delrem

(9,688 posts)
3. Well, for the right wing "history sucks" is the slogan of the century.
Sun Mar 23, 2014, 11:49 PM
Mar 2014

What kind of outlook on politics requires a 15 minute attention span?

What kind of outlook on the politics of Latin America requires absolute and unqualified ignorance of recent history of *all* US involvement? That requires a pretence that history never existed and isn't simply continuing.

What kind of outlook is that?

What kind of outlook requires that one totally ignore the substance of an OP which provides an account of how 29 of 32 OAS countries voted in solidarity with Venezuela, rejecting an US call for intervention. The outliers: USA, Canada, Panama.

 

Marksman_91

(2,035 posts)
4. I'd say the "outliers" are more than those 3
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 12:42 AM
Mar 2014

Recently Maria Corina Machado was given a spot by Panama to speak up about the situation in Venezuela in the OAS space in DC, but of course, some of these countries' representatives there wanted to keep these declarations private, hidden from public eye, so the representatives resorted to a vote to see if the session would be public or private. The ones who voted for it to be public were the 3 you mentioned plus the following:
-Chile
-Colombia
-Costa Rica
-Guatemala
-Honduras
-Mexico
-Paraguay
-Peru

with an abstention from Barbados

All the rest of the OAS countries voted to keep it private. I honestly don't see the need to keep the session private, were they afraid about what MCM might say? If such an important leader of the "right-wing neofascists" supposedly has such low credibility, what's the problem with allowing her declarations regarding the Venezuelan situation to be seen and heard live by the public? Then again we have to remember most of the countries who voted in favor of the private session all have received a pretty nice petro-paycheck from the Venezuelan government, so it's really no surprise. I really wonder if they'll change their mind once the Venezuelan petro-teat runs out of cash to keep giving to 'em.

delrem

(9,688 posts)
6. Wow. Some innuendo, that:
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 01:03 AM
Mar 2014

considering that you're attempting to contradict the results of the actual vote.

Now that is SLY!

 

Marksman_91

(2,035 posts)
5. And I don't deny the US was involved in the past when it came to toppling down certain governments
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 12:55 AM
Mar 2014

But for this case right now in Venezuela, there is yet to be a single piece of credible evidence that there is some kind of foreign intervention causing the destabilization of the country. All you have are the baseless claims of government enchufados and nothing more. They always claim some bullshit story like some "mercenary" (whose name or face has not yet even been revealed to the public, insinuating pure fabrication) getting caught with a humongous arsenal when the "photoevidence" they showed of the so-called arsenal was a neatly assemble collection of airsoft guns (the idiots didn't even bother covering the orange tips). And this was a claim done by one of the Madurista governors (Tareck El Aissaimi, governor of Aragua state). And don't even get me started on the picture of the arsenal provided by Diosdado Cabello which supposedly depicted the weapons in General Angel Vivas's house, a picture which has existed long before this whole situation got out of hand which could be easily found on a simple google image search again, and was not even a picture of a collection of real weapons, but again, one of airsoft guns which still had the orange tips still quite visible.

delrem

(9,688 posts)
7. ...yada...yada... "but for this case right now..." Marksman_91 makes an exception.
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 01:06 AM
Mar 2014

In what I'd call an excruciating number of words.

eta:
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06CARACAS3356_a.html

Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts)
8. You really yearn to take a good hot shower with lots of soap after reading this "memo"
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 02:40 AM
Mar 2014

from squirmy, shabby, congenitally twisted, slimy William Brownfield. He's simply too low down and dirty for our planet, just right for a carnival side-show, not some country's State Department.

William Brownfield, there's someone looking for you!

[center][/center]
Thank you for this wildly misleading, utterly contemptible look at Brownfield's "innocent" communique. What a born deviant.

I guess we have to assume his name isn't William Brownfield, either! He probably lies about that, too!

Isn't it quaint they all couch their language to "home base" in propagandese? As if that will cover their asses. They try to assign loving, humane values to the damage they do by pretending to be fighting for the cause of the greater good, which is based upon wildly twisted yarns.

[font size=7]DIRTBALLS![/font]

delrem

(9,688 posts)
9. I have no doubt that my correcting the person's narrative
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 07:25 PM
Mar 2014

by pointing out some factual evidence, will make no difference whatsoever to the person's narrative.

The person will simply proceed to post ever more inflammatory material according as the above linked memo describes the US plan.

Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts)
10. It's been so odd, watching them perform here.
Mon Mar 24, 2014, 09:59 PM
Mar 2014

The squeals of mock outrage, the ludicrous, pompous pretension of haughtiness as they recoil in mock horror over their yarns about the Venezuelan people's support for their elected government are simply bogus.

They have absolutely no compassion for human beings whatsoever. They would approve the lowest, dirtiest, most vicious acts possible in pursuit of their intention to steal the government, and destroy all the progress made up to now, just as the US fascists are attempting right here in the US of A.

It's their destructive, degrading nature: grab all the power, all the money, then pay and coerce part of the people to control by lethal force the rest of the population.

Simple, stupid, evil. Easy to remember for people like them.

Oele

(128 posts)
11. "The Venezuelan People" ?
Tue Mar 25, 2014, 06:39 AM
Mar 2014
The squeals of mock outrage, the ludicrous, pompous pretension of haughtiness as they recoil in mock horror over their yarns about the Venezuelan people's support for their elected government are simply bogus.

What about the protesters on the streets? Aren't they part of "the Venezuelan people"? What about the half of the population that didn't vote for Maduro? Aren't they part of "the Venezuelan people"? What about my Venezuelan friends and their families, some living in Venezuela and some here in the Netherlands, who are all worried about the future of their country? Aren't they part of "the Venezuelan people"? Are all these people fascists?

Democracy is more than elections. You don't get elected to start repressing the part of the population that didn't vote for you.

They have absolutely no compassion for human beings whatsoever. They would approve the lowest, dirtiest, most vicious acts possible in pursuit of their intention to steal the government, and destroy all the progress made up to now, just as the US fascists are attempting right here in the US of A.

What's with this misuse of the word 'fascist'? Do you even know what it means? It is not a synonym for 'opposition', you know.

Please stop trying to dehumanize your opponents. The fact that we don't agree with you doesn't mean that we "have absolutely no compassion for human beings whatsoever".

It's their destructive, degrading nature: grab all the power, all the money, then pay and coerce part of the people to control by lethal force the rest of the population.

Sounds like a good description of what Chavism has become today.

Judi Lynn

(160,545 posts)
12. We, the U.S. American people, have only history itself to inform us
Tue Mar 25, 2014, 01:58 PM
Mar 2014

of the pattern, method, tactics used by this country, when they have been used relentlessly, over and over, in overthrowing governments they don't like.

You will never mislead one living soul in this world regarding the nature and the goals of these operations against democratically elected leftist leaders who will not put the interests of the U.S. first, before the interests of their own countries' great masses of poor people, as they struggle to bring them out of the shrieking poverty and helplessness where the right-wing parasites have thrown them in their rush to earn the favors of the US government and its rapacious, murderous corporations.

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