academiccompositionab
Empowerment Equalizer
SSaragian
Antony Sammeroff
Ann Sterzinger
Rodney
RJ
busterjames
cainusmaxus
Craig FitzGerald
David Heleniak
Caity & Dan Greene
keirmartland
Keith Preston
Bill the Butcher
ljp711
MRDA
Jack Donovan
Rachel Haywire
comrade hermit
Michael
Vince
Regan
robertstark2014
Noonan
S E Pearson
Rachel Haywire
Nexus X HumectressPress TV. Listen here.
The United States is using humanitarian aid as a cover to bring down Venezuela’s legal government and break the country’s will to stay independent, says an American political analyst.
Keith Preston, director of Attackthesystem.com, said Washington wanted a puppet regime that could allow it to take over Venezuela’s oil resources.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday that the US “will take action” in support of anti-government protesters amid clashes between them and Venezuelan police.
Venezuela’s opposition leader and self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaido, has vowed that humanitarian aid would enter the crisis-hit South American country in open defiance of President Nicolas Maduro, who has stated that the aid is a US plot to disguise an intervention in Venezuela.
Violence has broke out in Venezuela’s border city of San Antonia de Tachira on Friday, after trucks and protesters attempted to break through the barricaded Simon Bolivar bridge to bring humanitarian aid into the country.
“What is happening in Venezuela is that the United States is trying to sponsor what is commonly called a regime change,” Preston told Press TV on Sunday. “They are trying to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro and they are trying to install a government that will simply be a puppet of the United States.”
Taking control Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and defeating the country’s resolve to follow an “independent course” were the two objectives behind Washington’s push to topple Maduro, Preston said.
PressTV-US to ‘take action’ amid anti-govt. protests in VenezuelaSecretary of State Pompeo says the US “will take action” amid clashes between Venezuelan police and anti-government protesters.
According to the analyst, Washington was concerned about the example Caracas was setting for other countries that had joined the so-called “Pink Tide” in the region, a movement that revolves around independence from the US and its allies.
Preston also cast doubt over America’s real intentions behind providing Venezuelans with what it insisted was “humanitarian aid.”
“As far as the humanitarian aid issue, the Americans could care less about providing humanitarian aid,” he said, noting that if Washington was really concerned they should have focused instead on Yemen, Palestine and Bangladesh, where millions of people were in dire need of humanitarian aid.
“So the humanitarian aid rhetoric is simply a smokescreen,” he said. “This is simply an effort to create a regime change operation similar to these color coded revolutions that the Americans have sponsored in various countries in recent years,” Preston added.
PressTV-‘Dangerous provocation’: US arms Venezuela putschistsRussia warns the US against using “humanitarian aid” as a cover for arming Venezuela’s opposition and launching military invasion against the country.
Russia warned Friday that the US was using humanitarian aid to instigate a “dangerous provocation” in Venezuela by arming the country’s opposition while moving its own forces closer to Venezuelan borders in preparation for a military invasion.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Washington and its allies were planning to supply Venezuela’s self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaido, and his supporters with a wide range of weapons as they challenge the legal government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Guaido, who has already welcomed US threats of potential military intervention in his country, has set a Saturday deadline for the government to let in the alleged US “aid” supplies.
Maduro has said that US President Donald Trump wants to facilitate regime change in Venezuela under the cover of manufacturing a humanitarian crisis there. On Thursday, he ordered Venezuela’s border with Brazil to be shut and threatened to also close the border with Colombia as well.
“The Americans have a very very lengthy history of organizing and sponsoring coups against Latin American governments. So this is just another chapter in that story that extends back for decades,” Preston concluded.
Attack the System
Categories: Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy
“The United States is using humanitarian aid as a cover to bring down Venezuela’s legal government and break the country’s will to stay independent, says an American political analyst.”
I have to seriously question the use of the word, “legal” government above. First, my understanding is that at the end of 2016, a petition to recall Maduro received a sufficient number of signatures, it was turned in properly, but it was subsequently ignored by the government. Can this be properly described as “legal”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Venezuelan_Constituent_Assembly_election
Second, on Maduro’s orders, an election was held of a “constituent assembly”, ordered by Maduro. If an American president was dissatisfied by an American Congress, and the President decided to create a “Constituent Assembly”, and henceforth ignore the Congress, could this possibly be described as a “legal government”?
Third, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Venezuelan_presidential_election
From that article:
2018 Venezuelan presidential election
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Presidential elections were held in Venezuela on 20 May 2018,[3] with incumbent Nicolás Maduro being re-elected for a second six-year term.[4] Considered a snap election, the original electoral date was scheduled for December 2018 but was subsequently pulled ahead to 22 April before being pushed back to 20 May.[5][6][7] Some analysts described the poll as a show election,[8][9] with the elections having the lowest voter turnout in the country’s democratic era.[4][10]”
[end of partial quote]
If an American presidential election was scheduled for November 2016, and the date was suddenly changed to May 2016, would Americans declare that the subsequent results could be called a “legal government”.
Sorry, but I don’t think so.
I really have to wonder what Keith President was thinking. My own opinion is that Venezuela has just about the most illegitimate government it is possible for a country to have.
Jim Bell
How are you defining government? Then what exactly is an “illegitimate government”? I’d argue that all centralized governments/nation-states are illegitimate.
What the United States is engaging in is imperialism through humanism.
As Edith said, it’s best our illegitimate government does not meddle in the affairs of other illegitimate governments.
Im not sure what the exact answer is. It’s not intervention and it’s not war.
It may possibly be mass exodus.
Regards,
If I put my “libertarian anarchist” hat on, I agree with you.
But remember, it was Keith Preston who referred to Venezuela’s “legal government”. I challenged him on that statement. What did he mean?
So far, he has said nothing.
At one point, years ago, Chavez and maybe Maduro had a “legal government”, at least by conventional, contemporary standards. But there have been so many events in the last 3 years that make Maduro’s government clearly illegitimate. I listed three.
Maybe we should discuss these?
The “legal” government of Venezuela as recognized by the Venezuelan constitution and international law.
You said: “The “legal” government of Venezuela as recognized by the Venezuelan constitution and international law.”
I notice that you didn’t address the three examples of abuse that have been committed by Maduro and his cronies. See above.
Now, as to “recognized by the Venezuela constitution: Did that constitution allow Maduro’s cronies to ignore the petition to recall Maduro that occurred in late 2016? If not, why do you say that Maduro’s acts are “recognized by the Venezuela constitution”. If anything, I think the opposite is true.
Second, did the Venezuela constitution allow Maduro to wave his magic want, and declare for an election of the “Constituent Assembly”, and then ban anyone who wasn’t a Maduro supporter from running for it?
Third, do you believe that it was within Maduro’s constitutional power to simply change the date of the Presidential election, and then not let Maduro opponents run?
Also, from the Wikipedia article:
“Since the creation of the Constituent National Assembly in August 2017, the Bolivarian government has declared the 1999 constitution suspended until a new constitution is created.[3]”
Do you believe that there is a mechanism within the Venezuela Constitution that allows it to be “suspended” so that it is no longer in effect?
Also from the Wikipedia article:
“On 25 August, the Constitutional Assembly declared a “legislative emergency,” voting to limit the Congress’s work to matters such as supervising the budget and communications. In response, the Congress, which in July had decided to go into recess until October to avoid conflict with the Constitutional Assembly, declared its recess over, effective 27 August.”
“At one point the Constitutional Assembly prohibited the Congress from holding meetings of any sort. However, on 10 September, the two bodies reached an agreement allowing for their “coexistence” until the new constitution took effect.[8]””
This is obviously nonsense! These fools consider the Venezuelan constitution to be irrelevant and meaningless.
Keith, you have been doing so well! Don’t destroy your credibility by backing those Venezuelan crooks.
I’m not pro-Maduro. I’m just anti-US imperialism. Beyond that, whatever goes on in Venezuela is their business.
The essence of any kind of constitutional law is “sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception” (Carl Schmitt). Constitutions mean what those in power want them to mean. There are no exceptions. The USG acts in violation of the Constitution every day, all day long. No one would think regime change efforts by China to back Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton as an alternative president would be legitimate (well, some partisans and fanatics would, but no one else).
Also, I should add that about 50 nations consider Maduro’s “government” to be illegitimate, and Guaido’s to be the legitimate one. Can you explain why they are wrong?
The nations that have recognized Guaido include the US and its puppets. We can’t take that seriously: https://inews.co.uk/news/world/venezuela-crisis-juan-guaido-president-latest-news-recognised-uk-spain/
Although to be fair, it’s the pro-BRICS nations that have recognized Maduro.
In my not-so-humble opinion, the only legitimate government is an isolationist government. Globalism, imperialism, interventionism, and expansionism are all synonymous in my eyes.
Don’t know why I elevated Keith to “President”. I think the people who program auto-correct must be nuts.
So, what happened to my first comment?
Yea I don’t know why but your first comment went into pending mode. Some kind of glitch. I just approved it.
My first posting, which mysteriously disappeared, challenged:
“The United States is using humanitarian aid as a cover to bring down Venezuela’s legal government …”
I find it amazing that anybody could refer to Venezuela’s (Maduro) government as being “legal”. Quite the opposite.
Regardless, nations ought not meddle in the affairs of other nations. Better we fracture than unite.
In my opinion, and consistent with my AP (Assassination Politics) idea and essay https://cryptome.org/ap.htm , I think by far the most efficient system would be if the public purchases the assassination of Maduro, and any of his allies who replace him. Wouldn’t have to be done by “a nation”.
I think the most efficient system would be plague, hunger, and war. Tis the way of the wild, and the wild is what reality lurks behind our digital bubbles. We’ll eat the rich eventually with or without computer programs. You really think the public truly cares about some asshole in a country they don’t live in? Real people want to be left alone, not be part of an international assassination plot. The internet is a illusion of false hope, a glorified surveillance tool, and we risk our lives with every word we type. If our technology ever saves us from ourselves and our masters, it’ll be through expediting global conflict and self-destructive behavior that carries us onward into sweet primal oblivion. We are the architects of our own destruction.