Has Venezuelan President Maduro Gone Insane?

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/27/has-venezuelan-president-maduro-gone-insane.html

His regional warmongering may be a ploy by a desperate politician, but the successor to Hugo Chavez has grown so erratic some are calling him “the South American Hitler.”


Is Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, once a mild-mannered bus driver, steering the world's 13th largest oil producer straight off a cliff?

Within the last few weeks he’s come to the brink of war with not one but two neighboring countries. A dispute last month with Colombia resulted in tens of thousands of refugees scrambling from a border region and caused one local politician to label him “The South American Hitler." Last week saw Maduro accused of plotting to invade Guyana, his neighbor to the east.

While experts warn that such risky behavior could destabilize the entire region, Maduro himself accuses Bogotá and Washington of being in league to overthrow him—and also boasts of having spies in the White House.


Hand-picked by the late socialist strongman Hugo Chavez as his replacement in 2013, Maduro has overseen the swift and profound decline of Venezuela—from an oil-rich, leftist powerhouse under Chavez to an Orwellian dystopia, complete with the highest inflation rate in the world. When oil prices were high and revenues extravagant, that cushioned the people to some extent from the incompetence of the government. But that buffer is long gone.

[GGJohn]

1. I think Maduro has an ego problem.

He knows he can't measure up to Chavez in any way, he has no charisma, no common sense and a deeply corrupt govt..
If he tries anything with Colombia, his military would be quickly crushed, and in the case of Guyana, if he tries to invade them, I suspect that Colombia would quickly come to the aid of Guyana and, again, crush VN's military.

[Marksman_91]

3. Not just Colombia, but pretty much all of the Caribbean and maybe South America would come to aid

There's already been declarations for support for Guyana in Caricom, for example. And as previously said, Colombia would easily crush Venezuela's military. They're supported both technologically and disciplinarily by the US, while Venezuela has a bunch of Russian and Chinese-made junk that is poorly maintained and its military personnel is filled with corruption and malandros (Venezuelan slang term for street thugs.)

[Bacchus4.0]

5. Who runs in place of Maduro next go around?

I am simply assuming the election this year will be canceled unless it can be effectively rigged for chavistas. There is no way chavistas give up power.

[Marksman_91]

2. And for some reason his fan club here think he's a dignified leader worthy of following

Then again, fanatics from both sides of the spectrum, left or right, don't care about facts. They're too ideologically blinded to accept reality as it is.

[GGJohn]

4. Yep,

they're so ideologically invested that they can't admit to themselves that they were wrong and have to defend this corrupt govt to the end, and even when Maduro does fall, they'll blame the US/CIA for his fall because they just can't believe that their favorite dictator is hated by the people.

[Bacchus4.0]

7. Yeah, although I don't think they care for Maduro much, its just blind loyalty to Hugo nt

[Bacchus4.0]

6. Loyalty the chavez and cause. Just claim you are a leftist and hate the US and you are a hero nt