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Yes, there's been an enormous propaganda push to legitimize a future U.S. intervention - either a direct invasion, or igniting a full-blown civil war by arming

Yes, there's been an enormous propaganda push to legitimize a future U.S. intervention - either a direct invasion, or igniting a full-blown civil war by arming right-wing paramilitaries, as was the standard operating procedure throughout the 80's.

pfisch 7y ago
The inflation rate is 2688670%, they are refusing aid, they are having widespread electricity outages and food shortages, it seems like their leader has become a despot. At what point is it reasonable for an outside intervention?
- danemacaulay 7y ago
  the aid is a charade :)
  - pfisch 7y ago
    Even if it is, which I doubt, that is like the least important thing that I listed.
    - crispinb 7y ago
      Probably true, but let's face it, there are few good actors in this story. The Venezuelan government is not remotely interested in the actual welfare of its citizens. The US foreign policy establishment is concerned as always only with Empire (the aid story is a lie: https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-believe-in-the-u-s-agenda-in-venezuela-haiti-and-egypt/ https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-bel...). The nation itself is riven. Picking a 'side' here could not possibly be done in good faith. And thinking that armed citizens would improve matters is beyond absurd.
      - rjf72 7y ago
        I completely agree with you, with one exception. It's easy to see the absurdity of an armed population against a government with a military at its back. Of course the United States was founded by this very contradiction in intuition, but a more modern event is probably a better example. We destroyed Iraq without difficulty, yet never managed to control it. The full force of the US military backed by literally billions of dollars a day, and the best training money can buy, was unable to stabilize control against disparate groups of poorly trained, poorly funded, insurgents armed with little more than 50s eras rifles and some rudimentary homemade explosives. Think about how remarkable it is that these disparate individuals managed to force our military to huddle into small isolated 'green zones'. The point here is that there's a difference between destroying a location and controlling it. Of course an armed population is not going to stop aerial bombardment and mass destruction, but at the same time it's practically impossible to control a territory when there is a hostile armed population. And there are also morale issues. The government doesn't own the military. Even the military doesn't own the military. The military is made up of real people who, though trained to act as a group, are still independent actors. And when there is real resistance between a population and a government, you can't rely on the military to behave as you might like. Once again - Iraq and the general failure of the Iraq military to enforce western interests is a perfect example here. Ultimately there is a reason that governments who expect there may be major resistance to future actions tend to work to ban gun ownership. Mao took control of the government by arming a population, and then went to every effort to disarm that very population before engaging in actions leading to the deaths of tens of millions. Shortly after the Bolsheviks overthrew czarist Russia through force of arms - they began working to seize arms from the people. Stalin was already well entrenched in the nation and his actions, once taking absolute control, would come to cost the lives of tens of millions. And perhaps the most well publicized example - Hitler seized all arms from Jews in 1938. The holocaust started 3 years later. Venezuela banned gun ownership/sales in 2012. This was likely done at the behest of then vice president Maduro. Chavez was terminally ill and would die several months later. It was supposedly done to combat Venezuela's rising murder rate. This [1] is that murder rate. It didn't stop the criminals from having guns, but it did stop the citizenry. Despotism and gun control are invariably tightly linked. So, at the minimum, I think we would be in a different place today if Venezuela did have an armed citizenry. While it's impossible to predict exactly what effect this would have culminated in, I do not find it absurd to suggest it would have been better than the present. [1] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/1998_to_2013_Venezuela_Murder_Rate.png/400px-1998_to_2013_Venezuela_Murder_Rate.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/19...
      - rStar 7y ago
        I pick the side of the Venezuelan people over the US empire. I, as a US citizen, am horrified to watch an oil war play out in real time. Similar to how the US uses siege warfare(a war crime) in Yemen, we are using sanctions against Venezuela to install our dictator of choice. The people of Venezuela decided their leader in free and fair elections. We need to leave them be.
- auto4ppl 7y ago
  Given the history of previous U.S.-sponsored coup attempts against the Venezuelan government, and given that the U.S. special envoy for Venezuela was responsible for running guns to right-wing death squads in Central America in the 80's, and given that the "outside interventions" in Iraq and Libya killed hundreds of thousands of people and left those countries as smoking husks, I'd say the appropriate time for an invasion is never. Incidentally, the Venezuelan government is not refusing aid delivered by genuine humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross - they were refusing "aid" delivered by agencies of the U.S. government, on behalf of an insurrectionist leader currently attempting a coup d'etat. This refused aid was later burned down by the paramilitary arm of the rebels. Imagine that the Iranian government declared that it was recognizing a random U.S. congressman as the legitimate president and then demanded that the Revolutionary Guard be permitted to deliver aid to this congressman's new government. That's basically the situation
  - pfisch 7y ago
    >Imagine that the Iranian government declared that it was recognizing a random U.S. congressman as the legitimate president and then demanded that the Revolutionary Guard be permitted to deliver aid to this congressman's new government. That's basically the situation No, it isn't. The situation is that a despot is in control of Venezuela and it has failed in its contract with the people to provide the basic services required of government, so it is no longer a legitimate government regardless of your rationalizations of the situation. If Trump refused to cede control, our inflation rate was over 100000%, and there were rampant food shortages and electricity failures then I hope there would be a revolution.
  - auto4ppl 7y ago
    >> No, it isn't. The situation is that a despot is in control of Venezuela and it has failed in its contract with the people to provide the basic services required of government, so it is no longer a legitimate government regardless of your rationalizations of the situation. That's up to the people of Venezuela, who by and large have continued to stand by the Maduro government, which is why the opposition has resorted to attempting to incite a foreign invasion to seize power. It's really pretty disgusting that you're so callously willing to condemn the Venezuelan people to the horrifying fates suffered by Iraqis and Libyans after the United States destroyed their countries. It's not your decision to make, it's not the decision of the United States government, and it's certainly not the decision of a cluster of Reagan-era war criminals with long histories of supporting right-wing Latin American death squads.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- peisistratos 7y ago
  They are not refusing food aid, the Red Cross etc. have been let on all along. The US announced the Venezuelan government had no sovereignty over their border and sent "aid" trucks in, which were blocked. Incidentally, "humanitarian aid" is how the person the USA convicted as a criminal - Elliot Abrams - sent weapons to contras in and out of Nicaragua.
  - brianpgordon 7y ago
    They absolutely are refusing food aid. Sources below. What is your stake in denying this? Are you pro-Maduro? https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/americas/venezuela-aid-blocked-bridge-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/americas/venezuela-aid-blocke... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-millions-of-dollars-of-us-aid-stuck-at-the-venezuelan-border-what-happens-next/2019/02/08/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-diplomacy-lima-gro/u-s-threatens-new-sanctions-on-venezuela-if-aid-convoys-blocked-official-idUSKCN1QC00I https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-diplom...

pfisch 7y ago

The inflation rate is 2688670%, they are refusing aid, they are having widespread electricity outages and food shortages, it seems like their leader has become a despot. At what point is it reasonable for an outside intervention?

danemacaulay 7y ago
the aid is a charade :)
- pfisch 7y ago
  Even if it is, which I doubt, that is like the least important thing that I listed.
  - crispinb 7y ago
    Probably true, but let's face it, there are few good actors in this story. The Venezuelan government is not remotely interested in the actual welfare of its citizens. The US foreign policy establishment is concerned as always only with Empire (the aid story is a lie: https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-believe-in-the-u-s-agenda-in-venezuela-haiti-and-egypt/ https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-bel...). The nation itself is riven. Picking a 'side' here could not possibly be done in good faith. And thinking that armed citizens would improve matters is beyond absurd.
    - rjf72 7y ago
      I completely agree with you, with one exception. It's easy to see the absurdity of an armed population against a government with a military at its back. Of course the United States was founded by this very contradiction in intuition, but a more modern event is probably a better example. We destroyed Iraq without difficulty, yet never managed to control it. The full force of the US military backed by literally billions of dollars a day, and the best training money can buy, was unable to stabilize control against disparate groups of poorly trained, poorly funded, insurgents armed with little more than 50s eras rifles and some rudimentary homemade explosives. Think about how remarkable it is that these disparate individuals managed to force our military to huddle into small isolated 'green zones'. The point here is that there's a difference between destroying a location and controlling it. Of course an armed population is not going to stop aerial bombardment and mass destruction, but at the same time it's practically impossible to control a territory when there is a hostile armed population. And there are also morale issues. The government doesn't own the military. Even the military doesn't own the military. The military is made up of real people who, though trained to act as a group, are still independent actors. And when there is real resistance between a population and a government, you can't rely on the military to behave as you might like. Once again - Iraq and the general failure of the Iraq military to enforce western interests is a perfect example here. Ultimately there is a reason that governments who expect there may be major resistance to future actions tend to work to ban gun ownership. Mao took control of the government by arming a population, and then went to every effort to disarm that very population before engaging in actions leading to the deaths of tens of millions. Shortly after the Bolsheviks overthrew czarist Russia through force of arms - they began working to seize arms from the people. Stalin was already well entrenched in the nation and his actions, once taking absolute control, would come to cost the lives of tens of millions. And perhaps the most well publicized example - Hitler seized all arms from Jews in 1938. The holocaust started 3 years later. Venezuela banned gun ownership/sales in 2012. This was likely done at the behest of then vice president Maduro. Chavez was terminally ill and would die several months later. It was supposedly done to combat Venezuela's rising murder rate. This [1] is that murder rate. It didn't stop the criminals from having guns, but it did stop the citizenry. Despotism and gun control are invariably tightly linked. So, at the minimum, I think we would be in a different place today if Venezuela did have an armed citizenry. While it's impossible to predict exactly what effect this would have culminated in, I do not find it absurd to suggest it would have been better than the present. [1] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/1998_to_2013_Venezuela_Murder_Rate.png/400px-1998_to_2013_Venezuela_Murder_Rate.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/19...
    - rStar 7y ago
      I pick the side of the Venezuelan people over the US empire. I, as a US citizen, am horrified to watch an oil war play out in real time. Similar to how the US uses siege warfare(a war crime) in Yemen, we are using sanctions against Venezuela to install our dictator of choice. The people of Venezuela decided their leader in free and fair elections. We need to leave them be.
auto4ppl 7y ago
Given the history of previous U.S.-sponsored coup attempts against the Venezuelan government, and given that the U.S. special envoy for Venezuela was responsible for running guns to right-wing death squads in Central America in the 80's, and given that the "outside interventions" in Iraq and Libya killed hundreds of thousands of people and left those countries as smoking husks, I'd say the appropriate time for an invasion is never. Incidentally, the Venezuelan government is not refusing aid delivered by genuine humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross - they were refusing "aid" delivered by agencies of the U.S. government, on behalf of an insurrectionist leader currently attempting a coup d'etat. This refused aid was later burned down by the paramilitary arm of the rebels. Imagine that the Iranian government declared that it was recognizing a random U.S. congressman as the legitimate president and then demanded that the Revolutionary Guard be permitted to deliver aid to this congressman's new government. That's basically the situation
- pfisch 7y ago
  >Imagine that the Iranian government declared that it was recognizing a random U.S. congressman as the legitimate president and then demanded that the Revolutionary Guard be permitted to deliver aid to this congressman's new government. That's basically the situation No, it isn't. The situation is that a despot is in control of Venezuela and it has failed in its contract with the people to provide the basic services required of government, so it is no longer a legitimate government regardless of your rationalizations of the situation. If Trump refused to cede control, our inflation rate was over 100000%, and there were rampant food shortages and electricity failures then I hope there would be a revolution.
- auto4ppl 7y ago
  >> No, it isn't. The situation is that a despot is in control of Venezuela and it has failed in its contract with the people to provide the basic services required of government, so it is no longer a legitimate government regardless of your rationalizations of the situation. That's up to the people of Venezuela, who by and large have continued to stand by the Maduro government, which is why the opposition has resorted to attempting to incite a foreign invasion to seize power. It's really pretty disgusting that you're so callously willing to condemn the Venezuelan people to the horrifying fates suffered by Iraqis and Libyans after the United States destroyed their countries. It's not your decision to make, it's not the decision of the United States government, and it's certainly not the decision of a cluster of Reagan-era war criminals with long histories of supporting right-wing Latin American death squads.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
peisistratos 7y ago
They are not refusing food aid, the Red Cross etc. have been let on all along. The US announced the Venezuelan government had no sovereignty over their border and sent "aid" trucks in, which were blocked. Incidentally, "humanitarian aid" is how the person the USA convicted as a criminal - Elliot Abrams - sent weapons to contras in and out of Nicaragua.
- brianpgordon 7y ago
  They absolutely are refusing food aid. Sources below. What is your stake in denying this? Are you pro-Maduro? https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/americas/venezuela-aid-blocked-bridge-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/americas/venezuela-aid-blocke... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-millions-of-dollars-of-us-aid-stuck-at-the-venezuelan-border-what-happens-next/2019/02/08/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-diplomacy-lima-gro/u-s-threatens-new-sanctions-on-venezuela-if-aid-convoys-blocked-official-idUSKCN1QC00I https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-diplom...