La Crisis Venezolana: The Crisis in Venezuela

[Cedoria]

There are no reasons to believe the opposition has any interest in democracy whatsoever when it's tactics since 2002 have essentially been to sponsor a coup or foreign invasion, or in recent times, outright assassination via drone murder. These are not the tactics of democrats.

Saying anything is better then the current regime is easy when you won't have to live with the consequence of whatever hellish death squad puppet will be thrown in if the country is invaded. And ten years from now, we could have this same discussion again, with you insisting that the Venezuela thing was an abberation and the next war will totally bring democracy in this country this time. Please.

Get over it, Venezuela is not a US plaything, and it's issues, such as they are, must be solved internally. We came up with concepts of national self-determination for very good reasons. I know the US hasn't a lot of interest in such things when it doesn't directly apply to itself, but at least go ahead and admit you are utterly shanking your own principles by participating in this shambolic attempt at a coup.

And Panama was a thuggish operation which needlessly butchered a few thousand people to capture one minor thug who was charged for crimes he committed while on your payroll. If that's your example of a successful and well-intended intervention, it's utterly pathetic. Especially when you consider the publicly expressed reason for the intervention (Noriega beginning to explore ties to Castro. In other words, nothing to do with actual democracy).


This one example beings our best is testament to the whole sheer foolishness of the regime change crowd, this time will be different they say, and have to keep on saying every time when they are wrong.


A five minute glance at the history of the entire region shows you why the US should stay home. Grow up and let others sort out their own problems without economic warfare for a change.

Not everyone in opposition to Maduro is a hive mind.
Again stop deflecting and explain the 2015 Parliamentary elections.

Shifting the goal posts. Panama became a successful democracy after we removed Noriega.
Proving your “interventions never create Democracy claim was false.

It cannot solve its problems purely internally, when soldiers shoot people for wanting food, Parliamentary elections suspended, and there is massive Russian, Chinese and Cuban involvement.

We cannot just abandon the region to our enemies.

I am not in favor of an invasion. But the idea we should just stand back and do nothing while our enemies do things is absurd.

And just leaving people to starve raises many other issues.

Righto, I see how it is. I must provide sourcing for every claim, no matter how minor and well-known or I'm lying, but you can make whatever absurd claims you like and not be expected to. That's fine.

Russian Chinese and Cuban involvement on a massive scale? Evidence, thanks.

As for your enemies, the entire region is your enemy, and for damned good reason, if you'd screwed me around as badly, I'd be your enemy too. Maybe if you stopped going around making enemies, this wouldn't be a discussion we were having.


And no, Panama intervention did not result in democracy until after you left, and the democracy you credit yourselves with 'rescuing' was only dead because you killed it to begin with. This is like if I killed your first child, and then expected thanks when I introduced you to a woman who gave you a second one. This is sick and twisted stuff that's being peddled to justify this. It's absurd, even for the usual imperialist apologetics.


Oh you're not in favour of people starving now? OK, fine, call off the sanctions and economic warfare, and turn over the aid initiative to the UN rather then running your own operation in parallel to it while sneaking weapons into the opposition. That's the best contribution the US can make to anti-starvation measures, if that's what it's interested in doing. The fact it does neither thing speaks volumes.

[Cedoria]

As might you, who openly call for coups and invasions.

I never said that a military invasion is the 1st choice. Even if I did say that, I don't see how that equates to supporting dictators as Guaidó is calling for democratic elections and has been acting in accordance with the constitution.

To be frank, I have no idea what Maduro would do in such circumstance

You already do know, as that's the reality now. He could challenge Guaidó in an internationally observed election with the likely chance that there would be peace afterwards, but instead he chooses to cling on to power whatever the cost while crying crocodile tears about "free Venezuala".

nor do I really care. I don't really care if he stays in power, so long as he's removed by the will of his people, not by a military force armed and financed by a superpower that's been conducting literal economic warfare on the country for almost two decades now.

The "will of his people" will be getting a raw deal without foreign help, as currently the Venezuelan people can't change things democratically since they don't have a real vote, and they can't change things forcibly as most of the army is supporting Maduro. So you're basically saying- 'The best way is that the people solve this internally..just as long as they don't have any means to do so."

As for "economic warfare on the country" I think Maduro/Chavez have been doing that well enough themselves.

I mean, if my record on that were as bad as that, I'd be a little embarrassed to declare myself on democracy's side. I am pleased that your sense of shame is not so acute, though perhaps it's moral principles that need adjusting.

Would you care to explain what I should be ashamed of?

Come back and blather at me

I believe that I've been quite clear. Infact on this forum I edit my posts almost to the point of OCD. If you think that I was unclear about something then I'd be happy to hear what that was.

about supporting democracy when you're not supporting people who've openly called for violent coups, and already attempted drone murder as well as exacerbated the poverty and deprivation by sanctions and prior withholding of aid. Until then, I'm quite as comfortable in my conviction as I am in ignoring the silliness of yours. By your own logic, you're supporting a dictatorship as well, if merely one you favour.

Which dictatorship is that? Do you mean the guy who's acting in accordance with the constitution and is calling for immediate and (presumably) fair elections?

It's very easy to call the elections 'fair' when you'll be conducting them supported by a military coup and/or foreign military force and with the country under the threat of starvation and complete economic blockade if it dares vote for someone else. But only a complete totalitarian could possibly call an election under such circumstances, free and fair. If Guaido believes such elections will be anything other then a vote with a loaded gun barrel pointed at the heads of everyone in the country, he's either deranged or hopelessly naive. Only an unreconstructed Stalinist or a complete moron thinks that's going to lead to fair elections.


Unless of course, your definition of free elections is 'the candidate I favour wins', in which case, yeah, you'll probably call them fair.


You know perfectly well that military takeovers and invasions are recipes for despots, not democrats, yet are knowingly supporting it anyway. The whole of this 'we must intervene because democracy' shtick is blather. It's not that you were unclear about what your position is. It's that it's nonsense.

[Novus America]

Not everyone in opposition to Maduro is a hive mind.
Again stop deflecting and explain the 2015 Parliamentary elections.

Shifting the goal posts. Panama became a successful democracy after we removed Noriega.
Proving your “interventions never create Democracy claim was false.

It cannot solve its problems purely internally, when soldiers shoot people for wanting food, Parliamentary elections suspended, and there is massive Russian, Chinese and Cuban involvement.

We cannot just abandon the region to our enemies.

I am not in favor of an invasion. But the idea we should just stand back and do nothing while our enemies do things is absurd.

And just leaving people to starve raises many other issues.

Righto, I see how it is. I must provide sourcing for every claim, no matter how minor and well-known or I'm lying, but you can make whatever absurd claims you like and not be expected to. That's fine.

Russian Chinese and Cuban involvement on a massive scale? Evidence, thanks.

As for your enemies, the entire region is your enemy, and for damned good reason, if you'd screwed me around as badly, I'd be your enemy too. Maybe if you stopped going around making enemies, this wouldn't be a discussion we were having.


And no, Panama intervention did not result in democracy until after you left, and the democracy you credit yourselves with 'rescuing' was only dead because you killed it to begin with. This is like if I killed your first child, and then expected thanks when I introduced you to a woman who gave you a second one. This is sick and twisted stuff that's being peddled to justify this. It's absurd, even for the usual imperialist apologetics.


Oh you're not in favour of people starving now? OK, fine, call off the sanctions and economic warfare, and turn over the aid initiative to the UN rather then running your own operation in parallel to it while sneaking weapons into the opposition. That's the best contribution the US can make to anti-starvation measures, if that's what it's interested in doing. The fact it does neither thing speaks volumes.

People were starving long before the limited sanctions, which do not apply to food and medicine.
Sanctions are not the issue.

And we should not be giving money to a hostile, incompetent regime.
And we have every right to ensure any aid we send gets directly delivered to the people who need it, and that the government has no control over how it is distributed.
Otherwise the will only give it to Maduro regime cronies.

And you have yet to show the UN aid is actually getting in to the people who need it.

I never said Cuban, Russian and Chines involvement on a massive scale is occurring.
Just that they are involved
https://www.cfr.org/article/maduros-all ... lan-regime

And no, the whole region is NOT our enemies.

The vast majority of the region supports us on this. Most countries in the region have good relations or are close allies.

Sure our interventions are not always good. Many were bad. But the point is not everything the US does is bad.

[Cedoria]

Righto, I see how it is. I must provide sourcing for every claim, no matter how minor and well-known or I'm lying, but you can make whatever absurd claims you like and not be expected to. That's fine.

Russian Chinese and Cuban involvement on a massive scale? Evidence, thanks.

As for your enemies, the entire region is your enemy, and for damned good reason, if you'd screwed me around as badly, I'd be your enemy too. Maybe if you stopped going around making enemies, this wouldn't be a discussion we were having.


And no, Panama intervention did not result in democracy until after you left, and the democracy you credit yourselves with 'rescuing' was only dead because you killed it to begin with. This is like if I killed your first child, and then expected thanks when I introduced you to a woman who gave you a second one. This is sick and twisted stuff that's being peddled to justify this. It's absurd, even for the usual imperialist apologetics.


Oh you're not in favour of people starving now? OK, fine, call off the sanctions and economic warfare, and turn over the aid initiative to the UN rather then running your own operation in parallel to it while sneaking weapons into the opposition. That's the best contribution the US can make to anti-starvation measures, if that's what it's interested in doing. The fact it does neither thing speaks volumes.

People were starving long before the limited sanctions, which do not apply to food and medicine.
Sanctions are not the issue.

And we should not be giving money to a hostile, incompetent regime.
And we have every right to ensure any aid we send gets directly delivered to the people who need it, and that the government has no control over how it is distributed.
Otherwise the will only give it to Maduro regime cronies.

And you have yet to show the UN aid is actually getting in to the people who need it.

I never said Cuban, Russian and Chines involvement on a massive scale is occurring.
Just that they are involved
https://www.cfr.org/article/maduros-all ... lan-regime

And no, the whole region is NOT our enemies.

The vast majority of the region supports us on this. Most countries in the region have good relations or are close allies.

Sure our interventions are not always good. Many were bad. But the point is not everything the US does is bad.

"There is massive Russian, Chinese and Cuban involvement".

You literally said it in the post before that one. Now you're lying so blatantly that you're ignoring the post you made only 12 hours ago. Nice to know the shamelessness is so blatant.

None of your interventions in Latin America were 'good' for anybody except yourselves. I did not claim 'everything the US does is bad' and will not be diverted by your attempt to introduce irrelevancies into the conversation with responses to arguments I haven't made.


Fact is, the opposition has demonstrated not the slightest shred of concern for democracy in Venezuela or the integrity of its political process and people for almost two decades. This has been a massive and well-documented fact from the coup attempt against Chavez back in 02 right to up the drone strike a while back and now right up to the outright calls for foreign invasion and military coup, which any decent despot would have responded to by arresting those who committed treason in such a way, as would most democracies.


As for 'good relations', it's easy to pretend such when you've consistently destroyed anybody who might be tempted to be anything other then your 'friend'. But it's hardly something likely to be mistaken for genuine friendship by anybody whose not totally insane.

And no, you don't have a right to just bring stuff into somebody else's country and demand you just be allowed to pass it around. If someone did that to you, you wouldn't claim they had that right, especially when said country has openly tried to overthrow you with covert and overt military force and outright claims the right to supply weapons to anybody who might use them for that purposes, and has repeatedly done so throughout the entire region for decades. No, of course you don't have a 'right', anymore then anybody else could do to you. The international aid effort would be quite happy to run the operation if humanitarianism was what you cared about, which of course you don't.

[Cedoria]

US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Washington “will consider sanctions off-ramps for any Venezuelan senior military officer that stands for democracy and recognizes the constitutional government of President Juan Guaido.”
“If not, the international financial circle will be closed off completely,” Bolton said on Twitter, urging the officers to “make the right choice.”

Now we see the nub of it. If they support Guaido, sanctions will be lifted for key military officers as a financial incentive to participate in the coup while the rest of the population goes to an 'election' under threat of total economic blockade if they elect an unapproved candidate.


Yeah, totally interested in democracy here.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Has anything significant happened yet or is it still just "I'm the President!"/"No, I am!"

[Cedoria]

Has anything significant happened yet or is it still just "I'm the President!"/"No, I am!"

Pretty much this still.

[Novus America]

People were starving long before the limited sanctions, which do not apply to food and medicine.
Sanctions are not the issue.

And we should not be giving money to a hostile, incompetent regime.
And we have every right to ensure any aid we send gets directly delivered to the people who need it, and that the government has no control over how it is distributed.
Otherwise the will only give it to Maduro regime cronies.

And you have yet to show the UN aid is actually getting in to the people who need it.

I never said Cuban, Russian and Chines involvement on a massive scale is occurring.
Just that they are involved
https://www.cfr.org/article/maduros-all ... lan-regime

And no, the whole region is NOT our enemies.

The vast majority of the region supports us on this. Most countries in the region have good relations or are close allies.

Sure our interventions are not always good. Many were bad. But the point is not everything the US does is bad.

"There is massive Russian, Chinese and Cuban involvement".

You literally said it in the post before that one. Now you're lying so blatantly that you're ignoring the post you made only 12 hours ago. Nice to know the shamelessness is so blatant.

None of your interventions in Latin America were 'good' for anybody except yourselves. I did not claim 'everything the US does is bad' and will not be diverted by your attempt to introduce irrelevancies into the conversation with responses to arguments I haven't made.


Fact is, the opposition has demonstrated not the slightest shred of concern for democracy in Venezuela or the integrity of its political process and people for almost two decades. This has been a massive and well-documented fact from the coup attempt against Chavez back in 02 right to up the drone strike a while back and now right up to the outright calls for foreign invasion and military coup, which any decent despot would have responded to by arresting those who committed treason in such a way, as would most democracies.


As for 'good relations', it's easy to pretend such when you've consistently destroyed anybody who might be tempted to be anything other then your 'friend'. But it's hardly something likely to be mistaken for genuine friendship by anybody whose not totally insane.

Okay, if I said massive involvement that was an possibly exaggeration.
And I did not lie, simply made a mistake.
Of course “massive” is a vague subjective term anyways.

Point remains there are other forces at work here.
You cannot pretend Russia, China and Cuba are not involved.
That even if the US did nothing, Venezuelans alone would decide the outcome.

And no some did good, do you think France’s occupations of Mexico was good?
Or it was wrong of us to oppose it?

Sure they might sometimes be good for us too. That does not necessarily make it bad.

Sure some were bad, and went badly.

And we have hardly destroyed anyone not our friend.
Bolivia and Ecuador are not really friends right now, but we are not openly hostile with each other either.

Considering lesss friendly governments can and do get elected in the region, your claim is false.
Many people in many of the countries are fine with the US.
Some are not. And Latin American politics are dynamic.

We do have a right to determine how our aid is distributed.
We are not going to give it to the government which would not help the people.
And we have not forced them to take it, obviously.
They have not taken it.

Humanitarian concerns are a concern. They are not the only concern though.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Has anything significant happened yet or is it still just "I'm the President!"/"No, I am!"

Pretty much this still.

The fact an uprising hasn't thrown Maduro out of office yet is saddening to say the very least.

[Cedoria]

"There is massive Russian, Chinese and Cuban involvement".

You literally said it in the post before that one. Now you're lying so blatantly that you're ignoring the post you made only 12 hours ago. Nice to know the shamelessness is so blatant.

None of your interventions in Latin America were 'good' for anybody except yourselves. I did not claim 'everything the US does is bad' and will not be diverted by your attempt to introduce irrelevancies into the conversation with responses to arguments I haven't made.


Fact is, the opposition has demonstrated not the slightest shred of concern for democracy in Venezuela or the integrity of its political process and people for almost two decades. This has been a massive and well-documented fact from the coup attempt against Chavez back in 02 right to up the drone strike a while back and now right up to the outright calls for foreign invasion and military coup, which any decent despot would have responded to by arresting those who committed treason in such a way, as would most democracies.


As for 'good relations', it's easy to pretend such when you've consistently destroyed anybody who might be tempted to be anything other then your 'friend'. But it's hardly something likely to be mistaken for genuine friendship by anybody whose not totally insane.

Okay, if I said massive involvement that was an possibly exaggeration.
And I did not lie, simply made a mistake.
Of course “massive” is a vague subjective term anyways.

Point remains there are other forces at work here.
You cannot pretend Russia, China and Cuba are not involved.
That even if the US did nothing, Venezuelans alone would decide the outcome.

And no some did good, do you think France’s occupations of Mexico was good?
Or it was wrong of us to oppose it?

Sure they might sometimes be good for us too. That does not necessarily make it bad.

Sure some were bad, and went badly.

And we have hardly destroyed anyone not our friend.
Bolivia and Ecuador are not really friends right now, but we are not openly hostile with each other either.

Considering lesss friendly governments can and do get elected in the region, your claim is false.
Many people in many of the countries are fine with the US.
Some are not. And Latin American politics are dynamic.

Massive was the precise term you used, as you well know. It wasn't an exaggeration, it was a lie. Elseways you wouldn't have used it as you know.


All your interventions have been utterly destructive to the people of the entire region, yes, I would include your example. What other nations may or may not do is irrelevant unless we're on a thread topic relevant to their atrocities. If you want to divert attention away from the proven monstrous and horrific record of US 'democracy promotion' efforts in Latin America, find a fish who wants to bite your bait.


And when less friendly governments do get elected, this sort of thing happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chil ... 7%C3%A9tat


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Vene ... at_attempt


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Braz ... 7%C3%A9tat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guat ... 7%C3%A9tat


A few of literally whole reams of paper worth of examples. Which is my whole point to begin with. People do elect such governments, but don't pretend your response to them is to do anything other then undermine and destroy them, no matter how democratically elected they were, or what the cost of human suffering is. Denying the horrific record of atrocities in Latin America can be done only by a liar or an idiot. Since I don't think you are either, stop trying to do so.

[Novus America]

Okay, if I said massive involvement that was an possibly exaggeration.
And I did not lie, simply made a mistake.
Of course “massive” is a vague subjective term anyways.

Point remains there are other forces at work here.
You cannot pretend Russia, China and Cuba are not involved.
That even if the US did nothing, Venezuelans alone would decide the outcome.

And no some did good, do you think France’s occupations of Mexico was good?
Or it was wrong of us to oppose it?

Sure they might sometimes be good for us too. That does not necessarily make it bad.

Sure some were bad, and went badly.

And we have hardly destroyed anyone not our friend.
Bolivia and Ecuador are not really friends right now, but we are not openly hostile with each other either.

Considering lesss friendly governments can and do get elected in the region, your claim is false.
Many people in many of the countries are fine with the US.
Some are not. And Latin American politics are dynamic.

Massive was the precise term you used, as you well know. It wasn't an exaggeration, it was a lie. Elseways you wouldn't have used it as you know.


All your interventions have been utterly destructive to the people of the entire region, yes, I would include your example. What other nations may or may not do is irrelevant unless we're on a thread topic relevant to their atrocities. If you want to divert attention away from the proven monstrous and horrific record of US 'democracy promotion' efforts in Latin America, find a fish who wants to bite your bait.


And when less friendly governments do get elected, this sort of thing happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chil ... 7%C3%A9tat


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Vene ... at_attempt


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Braz ... 7%C3%A9tat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guat ... 7%C3%A9tat


A few of literally whole reams of paper worth of examples. Which is my whole point to begin with. People do elect such governments, but don't pretend your response to them is to do anything other then undermine and destroy them, no matter how democratically elected they were, or what the cost of human suffering is. Denying the horrific record of atrocities in Latin America can be done only by a liar or an idiot. Since I don't think you are either, stop trying to do so.

Meh, why fight over a subjective term?

Sure we did bad things, I never said we did not.
Many of our interventions were bad, or had bad results.
But that does not make everything we ever did in Latin America all bad.

Also it is true we have supported coups in the past.
But see contrary to popular belief, there is no magical coup button at Langley.

We can only support a coup and it can only succeed if a large enough number of local people go along. We can support coups. We cannot cause a coup were not significant discontent exists.

But again you ignore all the less friendly governments we did absolutely nothing to stop.
Which is most less friendly governments.

[SD_Film Artists]

I never said that a military invasion is the 1st choice. Even if I did say that, I don't see how that equates to supporting dictators as Guaidó is calling for democratic elections and has been acting in accordance with the constitution.



You already do know, as that's the reality now. He could challenge Guaidó in an internationally observed election with the likely chance that there would be peace afterwards, but instead he chooses to cling on to power whatever the cost while crying crocodile tears about "free Venezuala".



The "will of his people" will be getting a raw deal without foreign help, as currently the Venezuelan people can't change things democratically since they don't have a real vote, and they can't change things forcibly as most of the army is supporting Maduro. So you're basically saying- 'The best way is that the people solve this internally..just as long as they don't have any means to do so."

As for "economic warfare on the country" I think Maduro/Chavez have been doing that well enough themselves.



Would you care to explain what I should be ashamed of?



I believe that I've been quite clear. Infact on this forum I edit my posts almost to the point of OCD. If you think that I was unclear about something then I'd be happy to hear what that was.



Which dictatorship is that? Do you mean the guy who's acting in accordance with the constitution and is calling for immediate and (presumably) fair elections?

It's very easy to call the elections 'fair' when you'll be conducting them supported by a military coup and/or foreign military force and with the country under the threat of starvation and complete economic blockade if it dares vote for someone else. But only a complete totalitarian could possibly call an election under such circumstances, free and fair. If Guaido believes such elections will be anything other then a vote with a loaded gun barrel pointed at the heads of everyone in the country, he's either deranged or hopelessly naive. Only an unreconstructed Stalinist or a complete moron thinks that's going to lead to fair elections.

I'm not an expert on Guaido but I haven't seen anything yet to suggest that he'll rig the elections. There could be international observers and not just from the Lima group. And even if it is as bad as you claim it'll be, that's still a pretty good deal; "Vote for a progressive, relatively centrist democratic government, or vote for this other fairly nice party, or vote to keep with the pre-2019 status quo." Oh the humanity!! It reminds me of the climate change cartoon of- "What if it's all fake and we end up creating a better world for nothing??"

You know perfectly well that military takeovers and invasions are recipes for despots, not democrats, yet are knowingly supporting it anyway. The whole of this 'we must intervene because democracy' shtick is blather. It's not that you were unclear about what your position is. It's that it's nonsense.

WW2?
Sierra Leone Civil War?

It just sounds like you're being pessimistic.

[Cerinda]

May I just remind everyone that America is only doing this to gain access to Venezuela's oil, not because they genuinely care about the people, they even said it themselves:



If the US actually cared about Democracy and human rights then they wouldn't support regimes like Saudi Arabia.

[Cedoria]

Massive was the precise term you used, as you well know. It wasn't an exaggeration, it was a lie. Elseways you wouldn't have used it as you know.


All your interventions have been utterly destructive to the people of the entire region, yes, I would include your example. What other nations may or may not do is irrelevant unless we're on a thread topic relevant to their atrocities. If you want to divert attention away from the proven monstrous and horrific record of US 'democracy promotion' efforts in Latin America, find a fish who wants to bite your bait.


And when less friendly governments do get elected, this sort of thing happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chil ... 7%C3%A9tat


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Vene ... at_attempt


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Braz ... 7%C3%A9tat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guat ... 7%C3%A9tat


A few of literally whole reams of paper worth of examples. Which is my whole point to begin with. People do elect such governments, but don't pretend your response to them is to do anything other then undermine and destroy them, no matter how democratically elected they were, or what the cost of human suffering is. Denying the horrific record of atrocities in Latin America can be done only by a liar or an idiot. Since I don't think you are either, stop trying to do so.

Meh, why fight over a subjective term?

Sure we did bad things, I never said we did not.
Many of our interventions were bad, or had bad results.
But that does not make everything we ever did in Latin America all bad.

Also it is true we have supported coups in the past.
But see contrary to popular belief, there is no magical coup button at Langley.

We can only support a coup and it can only succeed if a large enough number of local people go along. We can support coups. We cannot cause a coup were not significant discontent exists.

But again you ignore all the less friendly governments we did absolutely nothing to stop.
Which is most less friendly governments.

To paraphrase Cicero

"That, Senators, is what a favour from gangs amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him!"


When your response to your horrifying record of atrocities in this region is 'but what about when we didn't do that?' you know you've degenerated into complete absurdity.

It's very easy to call the elections 'fair' when you'll be conducting them supported by a military coup and/or foreign military force and with the country under the threat of starvation and complete economic blockade if it dares vote for someone else. But only a complete totalitarian could possibly call an election under such circumstances, free and fair. If Guaido believes such elections will be anything other then a vote with a loaded gun barrel pointed at the heads of everyone in the country, he's either deranged or hopelessly naive. Only an unreconstructed Stalinist or a complete moron thinks that's going to lead to fair elections.

I'm not an expert on Guaido but I haven't seen anything yet to suggest that he'll rig the elections. There could be international observers and not just from the Lima group. And even if it is as bad as you claim it'll be, that's still a pretty good deal; "Vote for a progressive, relatively centrist democratic government, or vote for this other fairly nice party, or vote to keep with the pre-2019 status quo." Oh the humanity!! It reminds me of the climate change cartoon of- "What if it's all fake and we end up creating a better world for nothing??"

You know perfectly well that military takeovers and invasions are recipes for despots, not democrats, yet are knowingly supporting it anyway. The whole of this 'we must intervene because democracy' shtick is blather. It's not that you were unclear about what your position is. It's that it's nonsense.

WW2?
Sierra Leone Civil War?

It just sounds like you're being pessimistic.

Once again, it doesn't even have to be Guiado. A country which goes to an election under threat of economic blockade from it's largest trading partner on whom it is economically dependant if it elects the wrong candidate is not having a free election. Guiado needn't do anything in that scenario.

You didn't intervene in World War II to support Democracy either. You gave jack about it till Pearl Harbour. and openly subverted the democratic processes of Western Europe after the war ended by reconstituting many of the old Nazi death squads, Klaus Barbie among them.

Once again, this is a truly pathetic reach of an example.

[Novus America]

May I just remind everyone that America is only doing this to gain access to Venezuela's oil, not because they genuinely care about the people, they even said it themselves:

(Image)

If the US actually cared about Democracy and human rights then they wouldn't support regimes like Saudi Arabia.

It is not only about oil. If it was why did we stop buying their oil?
The US is going to be a net oil exporter by 2020.
Oil is something that is taken into account.
Not the sole reason at all.

The US does care about democracy and human rights, but does not place them above all other concerns either, that is true.

Though we would much rather Saudi Arabia improve in those areas, and quite often criticize them on it.
Sure the US can be hypocritical, and does not always make human rights number 1 priority.

[SD_Film Artists]

May I just remind everyone that America is only doing this to gain access to Venezuela's oil, not because they genuinely care about the people, they even said it themselves:

(Image)

During both world wars America only started to help once the conflicts started to directly effect America, yet it was still good that they joined the war effort. If making a better Venezuela comes at the price of giving contracts to some oil firms then I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

[Novus America]

Meh, why fight over a subjective term?

Sure we did bad things, I never said we did not.
Many of our interventions were bad, or had bad results.
But that does not make everything we ever did in Latin America all bad.

Also it is true we have supported coups in the past.
But see contrary to popular belief, there is no magical coup button at Langley.

We can only support a coup and it can only succeed if a large enough number of local people go along. We can support coups. We cannot cause a coup were not significant discontent exists.

But again you ignore all the less friendly governments we did absolutely nothing to stop.
Which is most less friendly governments.

To paraphrase Cicero

"That, Senators, is what a favour from gangs amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast that they have spared him!"


When your response to your horrifying record of atrocities in this region is 'but what about when we didn't do that?' you know you've degenerated into complete absurdity.

I'm not an expert on Guaido but I haven't seen anything yet to suggest that he'll rig the elections. There could be international observers and not just from the Lima group. And even if it is as bad as you claim it'll be, that's still a pretty good deal; "Vote for a progressive, relatively centrist democratic government, or vote for this other fairly nice party, or vote to keep with the pre-2019 status quo." Oh the humanity!! It reminds me of the climate change cartoon of- "What if it's all fake and we end up creating a better world for nothing??"



WW2?
Sierra Leone Civil War?

It just sounds like you're being pessimistic.

Once again, it doesn't even have to be Guiado. A country which goes to an election under threat of economic blockade from it's largest trading partner on whom it is economically dependant if it elects the wrong candidate is not having a free election. Guiado needn't do anything in that scenario.

You didn't intervene in World War II to support Democracy either. You gave jack about it till Pearl Harbour. and openly subverted the democratic processes of Western Europe after the war ended by reconstituting many of the old Nazi death squads, Klaus Barbie among them.

Once again, this is a truly pathetic reach of an example.

See you can straw man all you want. I openly said we did some bad things.
I am not denying we did wrong.
I am simply saying we did not only do wrong.
The world is not always black and white you know.

Good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and most people have good and bad aspects.

We did not go to war in WWII just for democracy of course.
But us going to war was better than us not. Despite us doing bad things during the war.
Are you saying our participation in WWII was all bad?

And the is NO economic blockade on Venezuela!

We simply stopped buying and selling oil and weapons..

We have placed zero restrictions on other products.
And we have ever right to choose who we sell what to and buy what from.

[SD_Film Artists]

Once again, it doesn't even have to be Guiado. A country which goes to an election under threat of economic blockade from it's largest trading partner on whom it is economically dependant if it elects the wrong candidate is not having a free election. Guiado needn't do anything in that scenario.

What Novus America said.

Also it takes real skill to screw up a country like Chavez/Maduro did. You give America too much credit.

You didn't intervene in World War II to support Democracy either. You gave jack about it till Pearl Harbour.

We declared war on Germany as soon as Poland was invaded.
As for America, I agree with you on that as I mentioned with Cerinda's post.

and openly subverted the democratic processes of Western Europe after the war ended by reconstituting many of the old Nazi death squads, Klaus Barbie among them.

Actually the post-WW2 Germany is seen as a model for winning the peace. In Iraq and Libya the opposite approach was taken; doing little or nothing and then being surprised when a civil war breaks out after the invasion. But that's beside the point.

[Cerinda]

May I just remind everyone that America is only doing this to gain access to Venezuela's oil, not because they genuinely care about the people, they even said it themselves:

(Image)

If the US actually cared about Democracy and human rights then they wouldn't support regimes like Saudi Arabia.

It is not only about oil. If it was why did we stop buying their oil?
The US is going to be a net oil exporter by 2020.
Oil is something that is taken into account.
Not the sole reason at all.

The US does care about democracy and human rights, but does not place them above all other concerns either, that is true.

Though we would much rather Saudi Arabia improve in those areas, and quite often criticize them on it.
Sure the US can be hypocritical, and does not always make human rights number 1 priority.

The reason they stopped buying oil is because they are giving money to a government they despise and want to overthrow, so why would they do that? And sure America "criticizes" Saudi Arabia but they won't actually do anything to stop the suffering of the people there, if the US actually gave a damn then they would stop buying Saudi oil and stop selling weapons to the Saudi government which they are using to bomb innocent civilans in Yemen and giving to terrorist organastions like Al Qadeda.

May I just remind everyone that America is only doing this to gain access to Venezuela's oil, not because they genuinely care about the people, they even said it themselves:

(Image)

During both world wars America only started to help once the conflicts started to directly effect America, yet it was still good that they joined the war effort. If making a better Venezuela comes at the price of giving contracts to some oil firms then I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

Well that's a competely different scenario, both the enemies America was fighting was a geniune threat to the United States, Madruo is not. America has no right to invade another country, topple it's government, then take it's natural resources, that's called imperialism. And I'm pretty sure the people of Venezuela would want the oil to benefit them and not some billionaire Tycoons in Washington.

[SD_Film Artists]

During both world wars America only started to help once the conflicts started to directly effect America, yet it was still good that they joined the war effort. If making a better Venezuela comes at the price of giving contracts to some oil firms then I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

Well that's a competely different scenario, both the enemies America was fighting was a geniune threat to the United States, Madruo is not. America has no right to invade another country, topple it's government, then take it's natural resources, that's called imperialism. And I'm pretty sure the people of Venezuela would want the oil to benefit them and not some billionaire Tycoons in Washington.

An unstable Venezuela is still bad for America even if it's not a full-scale military threat. For example drug traffickers are increasingly taking advantage of the political situation there as a base to go into the Caribbean and onwards to America. Plus there's the migrants who will make it to America despite not sharing a land boarder.
America has been invited by the closest thing that Venezuela has to a democratic leader. And even if it wasn't, the term "Imperialism" is so overused and lost in hypocrisy nowadays that it's basically lost all meaning. I don't know many Venezuelans, but I suspect that they care more about ending the hyper-inflation and other dire socio-economic issues rather than getting worried about "billionaire Tycoons".

[Cerinda]

Well that's a competely different scenario, both the enemies America was fighting was a geniune threat to the United States, Madruo is not. America has no right to invade another country, topple it's government, then take it's natural resources, that's called imperialism. And I'm pretty sure the people of Venezuela would want the oil to benefit them and not some billionaire Tycoons in Washington.

An unstable Venezuela is still bad for America even if it's not a full-scale military threat. For example drug traffickers are increasingly taking advantage of the political situation there as a base to go into the Caribbean and onwards to America. Plus there's the migrants who will make it to America despite not sharing a land boarder.
America has been invited by the closest thing that Venezuela has to a democratic leader. And even if it wasn't, the term "Imperialism" is so overused and lost in hypocrisy nowadays that it's basically lost all meaning. I don't know many Venezuelans, but I suspect that they care more about ending the hyper-inflation and other dire socio-economic issues rather than getting worried about "billionaire Tycoons".

The Venezuelan government has actually done a lot to crackdown on drug cartels and traffickers, a lot more than most Latin American governments. Migrants come all over the world to America, doesn't mean the US should intervene and overthrow their governments does it. Guaidó is not the closest thing Venezuela has to a democratic leader, he's just some random guy who America likes because he serve their interests. What you are advocating is the literal definition of imperialism. I'm fairly certain that most Venezuelans don't want their country invaded and their natural resources stolen to serve some rich people in another country. Maybe the US government should actually care for their own people, like in Flint, Michigan for example; and not intervene in a country that is 2799 miles away.

[Novus America]

An unstable Venezuela is still bad for America even if it's not a full-scale military threat. For example drug traffickers are increasingly taking advantage of the political situation there as a base to go into the Caribbean and onwards to America. Plus there's the migrants who will make it to America despite not sharing a land boarder.
America has been invited by the closest thing that Venezuela has to a democratic leader. And even if it wasn't, the term "Imperialism" is so overused and lost in hypocrisy nowadays that it's basically lost all meaning. I don't know many Venezuelans, but I suspect that they care more about ending the hyper-inflation and other dire socio-economic issues rather than getting worried about "billionaire Tycoons".

The Venezuelan government has actually done a lot to crackdown on drug cartels and traffickers, a lot more than most Latin American governments. Migrants come all over the world to America, doesn't mean the US should intervene and overthrow their governments does it. Guaidó is not the closest thing Venezuela has to a democratic leader, he's just some random guy who America likes because he serve their interests. What you are advocating is the literal definition of imperialism. I'm fairly certain that most Venezuelans don't want their country invaded and their natural resources stolen to serve some rich people in another country. Maybe the US government should actually care for their own people, like in Flint, Michigan for example; and not intervene in a country that is 2799 miles away.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel_of_the_Suns

[Cerinda]

The Venezuelan government has actually done a lot to crackdown on drug cartels and traffickers, a lot more than most Latin American governments. Migrants come all over the world to America, doesn't mean the US should intervene and overthrow their governments does it. Guaidó is not the closest thing Venezuela has to a democratic leader, he's just some random guy who America likes because he serve their interests. What you are advocating is the literal definition of imperialism. I'm fairly certain that most Venezuelans don't want their country invaded and their natural resources stolen to serve some rich people in another country. Maybe the US government should actually care for their own people, like in Flint, Michigan for example; and not intervene in a country that is 2799 miles away.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel_of_the_Suns

Might I just add that all this is allgeded therefore there's no real evidence. America has also been alleged to have committed drug trafficking, does this mean we should topple the US government? I also love how you didn't address my other points.

[Greater La Habana Cuba and Miami Shores]

Euro Deputy Beatriz Becerra, Vice President of the Sub Commission on Human Rights of the European Parliament. on Twitter:

I am posting this post on my Cuba thread as well because it relates to my Cuba thread as well. We have a historical responsibility, the responsibility to protect. It's not that it can #Venezuela end up like #Cuba: It can end up much worse. We must be next to Venezuelans and those who defend them.
https://twitter.com/beatrizbecerrab

I second this Tweet.

[Novus America]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel_of_the_Suns

Might I just add that all this is allgeded therefore there's no real evidence. America has also been alleged to have committed drug trafficking, does this mean we should topple the US government? I also love how you didn't address my other points.

There is more than just allegations. To members of the First Lady’s family have been convicted.

I am not advocating we invade, however it is clear we have reasons to care about the situation in Venezuela.
Colombia, one of our closest allies is facing serious issues, including a massive refugee crisis.
Cuba, China and Russia are involved as well.

Guaido is not some random dude, he is the leaders of the democraticly elected legislative that the Maduro regime has illegally stripped of power.

So while I am not saying we should invade, we do have reasons to be working with our allies to put pressure on the regime.