DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY “B”
U.S. rejects claim by Venezuela's Maduro that U.S. envoys engaged in conspiracy - Reuters - May 22 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it rejected accusations by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that two top U.S. diplomats were engaged in what Maduro called a “military conspiracy” or had been meddling in the country’s economic and political issues.Maduro earlier on Tuesday ordered the expulsion of U.S. charge d’affaires Todd Robinson and another senior diplomat, Brian Naranjo, ordering them to leave Venezuela within 48 hours.
As the saying goes: "Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied." The above denial confirmed Nicolas Maduro's claim of U.S. coup attempts against the Venezuelan government. A new report reconfirms the plot and reveals some new details of the still unwritten larger story.
Trump Administration Discussed Coup Plans With Rebel Venezuelan Officers - New York Times - September 8 2018
The Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military officers from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, according to American officials and a former Venezuelan military commander who participated in the talks.
...
The administration initially considered dispatching Juan Cruz, a veteran Central Intelligence Agency official who recently stepped down as the White House’s top Latin America policymaker. But White House lawyers said it would be more prudent to send a career diplomat instead.
...
After the first meeting, which took place in the fall of 2017, the diplomat reported that the Venezuelans didn’t appear to have a detailed plan and had showed up at the encounter hoping the Americans would offer guidance or ideas, officials said.
...
The American diplomat then met the coup plotters a third time early this year, but the discussions did not result in a promise of material aid or even a clear signal that Washington endorsed the rebels’ plans, according to the Venezuelan commander and several American officials.
...
Days later, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has sought to shape the Trump administration’s approach toward Latin America, wrote a series of Twitter posts that encouraged dissident members of the Venezuelan armed forces to topple their commander in chief.
The Venezuelan generals the U.S. diplomat plotted with, are under U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption and drug smuggling. Isn't it illegal to deal with them? The story claims that nothing came from these talks. I see no reason to believe that. One attempt may have failed. But the U.S. surely continues to cultivate such contacts to overthrow the Venezuelan government.
The NYT hack, Ernesto Londoño, also inserts this:
Establishing a clandestine channel with coup plotters in Venezuela was a big gamble for Washington, given its long history of covert intervention across Latin America. Many in the region still deeply resent the United States for backing previous rebellions, coups and plots in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil and Chile, and for turning a blind eye to the abuses military regimes committed during the Cold War.
Only Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil and Chile? It seems that a not-so-small number of other U.S. coups in South America are missing here, even very recent ones. Why is there no mention of the 2009 military coup in Honduras, which the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton avidly supported? And it was only during the Cold War that the U.S. turned a bling eye to torture? What about the ongoing abuses regimes in Latin America currently commit?
Then there is also this nonsense:
Most Latin American leaders agree that Venezuela’s president, Mr. Maduro, is an increasingly authoritarian ruler who has effectively ruined his country’s economy, leading to extreme shortages of food and medicine.
"Most Latin American leaders" obviously means those satraps the U.S. installed and supports. Even then it is doubtful that they say such things. The author just abuses them to introduce a false claim.
It is not Maduro "who has effectively ruined his country’s economy". Illegal U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, imposed under Obama as well as Trump, did and do that.
Max Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research explains on BBC (vid) how the U.S. is waging a brutal economic war against Venezuela. It is this war that caused the depression and makes a recovery from the induced hyperinflation nearly impossible. Billions of dollars that Venezuela owns and needs are frozen in U.S. accounts. U.S. sanctions make it extremely difficult for the country to sell assets or to borrow money:
[W]ith Trump’s executive order, even if Venezuela were to stabilize the exchange rate and return to growth, it would be cut off from borrowing, investment, and proprietary sources of income such as dividend payments from Venezuela-owned but US-based Citgo Petroleum. This makes a sustained recovery nearly impossible without outside help—or a new government that is approved by the Trump administration.
Venezuela is a rich country. It has the biggest known oil reserves on the planet, though much of those are difficult to retrieve.
That is of course the reason why the U.S. wants to install a rightwing proxy government in Venezuela. It is the reason why it wages war against its people.
China is currently the only country with the necessary capacity and geopolitical standing to support Venezuela. It would the best for the country, and for the world, if China would come to its help.
Addendum
Select (illuminating) Comments
By now it should be cristal clear UZA and Israel think they are the master race, They're not psychopaths !!!
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 8, 2018 12:19:29 PM | 2
Thanks to b for exposing another avenue of attempted empire expansion that is being thwarted currently
Your call for China to come to the help of Venezuela is the first I remember reading you encourage China to enter the geo-political fray to this extent. I agree with you and have written such myself in other circumstances. What strikes me now is that China is playing its hand very carefully so as to not look like the outgoing empire.....but they know they are rising and contributory to the muscle "position" against the bluster and bluffing of the West. I believe we will not have a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the US because China is standing behind Russia very clearly.
Interesting times indeed.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 8, 2018 12:24:26 PM | 3
thanks for this overview on venezuela b... it seems if venezuela could just hand over it's oil reserves to exxon, everything would be fine.. it is pretty classy of the usa to work with folks accused of corruption and drug smuggling... when they are thru with this competition, they'll move on to working with others to play a similar role..
i wonder how much of this is about continued maintenance of us$ supremacy? all these sanctions on countries that don't abide by usa's agenda really shines a light back onto just how useful financial sanctions are when the us$ is the gateway to exchange on the world market..
Posted by: james | Sep 8, 2018 12:39:44 PM | 4
Unfortunately, I don't see Russia and China coming strongly to Venezuela's aid. Russia will offer moral support and technical help with oil extraction but China seems focused on Africa as the US asserts a return to the horrible days of the 1970s and 1980s when it truly ran the show via multiple avenues ranging from direct military intervention to use of Economic Hitman tactics, targeted assassinations, etc. We've seen the governments of Honduras and Brazil overthrown, Ecuador re-occupied through the vehicle of the traitor, Lenin Moreno, betraying the party that got him elected, etc.
Venezuela may have tons of problems but the resolve of the poorer people to stand up for themselves is truly admirable.
Posted by: worldblee | Sep 8, 2018 12:46:37 PM | 6
The anglozionist propaganda war of lies is relentless and found in many places on the internet. For example, the well-known website of Zerohedge has been continually posting articles on Venezuela, blaming "socialism" as the reason its economy suffers so and trying to shame the choices the people there have made politically. They cheer for the "capitalist" (ie: anglozionist, jewish-controlled banking) cause. They never, ever mention the anglozionist sanctions and provocations which have reduced the Venezuelan economy to ruin. Sites like Zerohedge masquerade as alternative news sites but are, in reality, part of the NWO / Deep State apparatchik machine hijacking the narrative of what is really going on.
Posted by: rigol | Sep 8, 2018 1:06:00 PM | 7
China and Russia have billions invested at stake in Venezuela.
They will work through Cuban forces to back the government there.
A coup against Maduro is quite difficult. A civil war, and Colombian army interference is very probable.
The real issue is the nation is being destroyed by the failed policies. The economy is destroyed. A complete rebuild is necessary. And no one, even Russia and China, will put their money into the abyss of failed socialist ideas.
The reality is some new figurehead has to be put in place, the assets of production and services have to be released by government and military (who nationalized them) and then strategic infrastructure can be revived.
The death of socialism in Venezuela is clear. Unless God intervenes, it will remain dead. Disease is next on the agenda. Cholera and other pandemics will soon follow. Venezuela is dying as a country because socialism committed suicide and killed its economy.
Doesn't matter who is to blame. Facts matter.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Sep 8, 2018 1:16:06 PM | 8
@ rigol | 7
Zerohedge has a strong Libertarian orientation, or bias. It does publish legitimate "alternative" news, opinion, and analysis, but readers must take this bias into account.
When Zerohedge discusses geopolitical events, its Libertarian ideology has the effect of extra-strength Stupid Pills on the quality of its analysis. When it comes to Venezuela, Libertarians reduce everything to the trite capitalist myth that "socialism" is a malignant cancer that invariably destroys nations foolish enough to attempt it.
I don't know if you're familiar with Max Keiser, a former Wall Street broker whose "Keiser Report" critiques "markets, scandals, and finance". Max also expresses a Libertarian perspective, and lapses into the same mantra of "the Venezuelan people (foolishly) attempted socialism" when referencing Venezuela's economic difficulties.
I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusion, but the biased analysis you mention may just be a case of Libertarians functioning as Useful Idiots.
Posted by: Ort | Sep 8, 2018 1:24:52 PM | 9
As usual, when USA breaks every law, threat other nations, start wars, not a single western journalists protests, this is the way propaganda function in the western world. Nasty neocon/liberal degenerates.
Posted by: Zanon | Sep 8, 2018 1:37:13 PM | 10
@ Red Ryder who wrote: "The real issue is the nation is being destroyed by the failed policies........And no one, even Russia and China, will put their money into the abyss of failed socialist ideas."
That is some serious propaganda your spouting there. There are those of us that think that the socialism attempted by Venezuela is "failing" because it has been continually attacked by capitalism factions within the country.
I think that China, who has created and executed 13 5-year plans as a "socialist" country would laugh in the face of your "...abyss of failed socialist ideas." comment.....are you sure you are at the right bar?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 8, 2018 1:50:22 PM | 11
The US helped engineer a Venezuela coup in 2002, and the NY Times published a celebratory editorial which it had to backtrack from when the coup was foiled shortly afterwards. Venezuela's biggest crime, in the eyes of the Americans, is its alternative economic program and its threat, in Chomsky's phrase, of a "good example." Chavez and Marduro both are reflexively described as authoritarian dictators, when all they have done is win election after election. The opposition admitted a year ago that they could not win at the ballot box as their political program, to the extent it has ever been articulated, does not hold favour with the people. Opposition tactics have ranged from pouting and foot-stamping, to a failed coup, to more pouting and foot-stamping, on to arson and vandalism, and from there begging the US to invade. Anyone spouting the "failure of socialism" meme doesn't know what they are talking about. Under Chavez, Venezuela made enormous progress uplifting its people, improving the quality of life of the majority. The direct deliberate sabotage of Venezuela's economy by the US, Canada, and their OAS flunkies, is simply shameful and pathetic.
Speaking of failures, the Neo-liberal program endorsed by Macri in Argentina has proved a disaster, as the IMF now moves in to fully ruin that economy as it did twenty years ago. Fool me once.... Step outside the US system and they will ruin you. Embrace the US system and they will ruin you too.
Posted by: jayc | Sep 8, 2018 1:54:52 PM | 12
@11, psychohistorian
Friend, China's rise was built on unfettered State Capitalism and entrepreneurialism, as well as massive Foreign Direct Investment by capitalists, mostly the biggest on Wall Street and in London.
If facts elude you, I won't argue any further.
The failure in Venezuela was stupidity and greed, and incompetence, not theory. The Socialist ideologues used that as cover for their failings. We saw signs of it in Brazil. That's why the Right (and US) put the Socialists in prison.
However, if you follow Socialism in recent decades, it not just fails, it fails spectacularly.
It is a pretty woman with bad spending habits. She always bankrupts her family.
China and Russia have warned Maduro. It's too far gone.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Sep 8, 2018 2:10:45 PM | 13
Just more of the same old stuff:
https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
The empire is a corporate entity, that's what they do, assimilate others resources to acquire business hegemony.
The empire's corporatists will not stop.
Business uber alles..
Posted by: ben | Sep 8, 2018 2:14:24 PM | 14
" Billions of dollars that Venezuelan owns and needs are frozen in U.S. accounts. U.S. sanctions make it extremely difficult for the country to sell assets or to borrow money:"
One would think,,, an intelligent person/nation would not have money anywhere the US can control...
Posted by: ken | Sep 8, 2018 2:20:40 PM | 15
Sounds like Red Ryder is trolling for capitalism. Trying to put lipstick on the capitalist pigs out to rule the world.
Posted by: mike k | Sep 8, 2018 2:47:09 PM | 16
Red Ryder 1:16:06 PM | 8
Why do you come here to repeat the MSM nonsense? Without a shred of real evidence? You're talking rubbish. First of all Venezuela isn't a socialist country, never was. Chavez never laid hand on the capitalistic structures, he only did set up some parallel structures to bypass them in certain cases. He did put PDVSA (the national oil company) under strict state control, but then again, would you say Saudi Arabia is a socialist country?
Usa with the help of its western poodles is doing everything to destroy the Venezuelan economy. It was certainly part of the assassination attack some weeks ago. Yes - the one that never happened according to some MSM.
So please; do not pollute this pages. Do it where you can't do harm because it's a dump anyway.
Posted by: Pnyx | Sep 8, 2018 3:00:30 PM | 17
Venezuela did not nationalize its economy to the extent that it could be truly described as "socialist." The socialist tag was applied for propaganda purposes. Venezuela's crimes were 1) directing resources into health and education programs 2) creating a subsidized program to distribute petroleum products (i.e. heating oil) to less fortunate countries in the region.
Posted by: jayc | Sep 8, 2018 3:04:37 PM | 18
It's not that socialism fails, but it is seen as a major threat to capatilism and so distroyed by eny meens possable !
The list of capatalist' victem countrys is very long. Here in UK the disgusting relentless attack on the left wing is an example.
Eny threat to capatalist pigs at this stage has got my vote !!!
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 8, 2018 3:05:56 PM | 19
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Man, it just never ends. Is there no place on the planet that these neocon nutjobs aren't eager to destroy? Honestly, do these psychopaths wake up the the morning wondering what people and countries they will wipe out today,which economies they will beggar? I know this neocon psychopathy is all coming to a head, probably in Syria, but for the love of God, just end it already.
Posted by: Casey | Sep 8, 2018 11:47:32 AM | 1