JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: AMERICA'S EFFORTS TO CREATE CHAOS IN VENEZUELA - OIL IS NOT THE AIM - CIA AND LATIN AMERICA - PLANTATION SYSTEM - LIMA GROUP - DECREPIT MONROE DOCTRINE - MADURO AS LEADER - CASTRO - THE GREAT IRONY OF ALL AMERICAN EFFORTS TO TELL OTHERS HOW TO RUN THEIR COUNTRIES: IT CAN'T EVEN RUN ITS OWN

John Chuckman


EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA



“Trump Has Been Suggesting a Naval Blockade of Venezuela for a Year but Pentagon Won’t Take Him Seriously”

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Response to a comment:



Sorry, you are just wrong.

This is not, and never has been, about oil, although I’m sure American major oil companies would like buying up the assets of Venezuela’s state oil company, especially if they could be had at “fire sale” prices.

What’s going on in Venezuela is part of a larger CIA initiative in Latin American to squelch independent-minded, highly-nationalistic governments.

The Lima Group, an ad hoc organization of states, was formed as part of the initiative, to give what is essentially a CIA operation a sense of broad support on the continent, the much larger and long-established Organization of American States (OAS) having declined support.

The United States likes Latin America as it was in, say, the 1950s, as a set of plantation economies whose proprietors are highly receptive to American views and policies. It is so much easier enforcing the imperialistic aims of the decrepit Monroe Doctrine that way.

States all going their own way, according to popular will, and forming independent relationships and attachments abroad is exactly what the United States does not want to see.

Venezuela’s Maduro, who very much is not receptive to America’s views and policies, is just one of their targets, although the most prominent.

He is one hell of an effective political leader and a truly brave man. It does take extraordinary courage to stand up to the threats and pressures America can bring to bear. Just look at the example of Castro, someone the United States spent a generation trying to hurt and, literally, to kill.

He wasn’t elected, as Maduro is, but he was brave and tough, and clearly the people stood behind him. Otherwise, he could never have endured what he did – everything from an American-arranged and supplied invasion by exiles to a massive embargo and many forms of economic and political terror – bombings, fires set, places shot-up from boats - plus many serious attempts to assassinate him.

If you don't agree with the country's socialism, so what?

It is up to the Venezuelan people to work that out, to go through the experience of discovering what works and doesn’t work for them.

It should be unnecessary to say the United States should mind its own business, but it sadly is not. They've been at this dirty work of trying to discredit and overthrow an elected Venezuelan government for years, going well back into Obama's time, that great smiling advocate for democracy, at least in speeches.

America’s economic measures, attacking everything from Venezuela’s markets and suppliers to its currency, have immensely hurt the people, circumstances CIA flacks then pitch as the harm Maduro's government has done to the country.

I assume your use of the phrase, “economic idiot,” directly reflects that effort. The notion that Maduro is responsible for all the county’s woes is echoed and reinforced constantly in the corporate press, one of the CIA’s main mechanisms for getting things “out there.”

I note, too, though, that it is closely embraced by alternative Internet sites of the Alt-Right, perhaps even more fanatically than by the mainline press. It is a reminder that being independent often doesn’t really mean “independent,” if you see what I mean.

The people elected Maduro, twice, apart from having elected his predecessor, the much beloved Hugo Chavez, founder of the political movement, and Maduro remains pretty popular despite all the American-imposed hardship.

Immensely so, when contrasted with the unpopularity of the man the United States tried foisting off as President, Juan Guaidó, a man who hadn’t even run for the office but laughably administered an oath of office to himself. Even a humble peasant can understand the absurdity of that.

The great and enduring irony of all America’s many interventions abroad is that it can’t even run its own country. Just have a good look around at the United States, close-up and away from its privileged and beautiful places.

There are millions of Americans in immense poverty. There is just plain squalor to be seen in a thousand places. Many landscapes and cityscapes literally resemble the Third World. And the country’s infrastructure - of every description, from drinking water equipment to school buildings and to roads and bridges – is just in awful shape.

How are Americans qualified to tell anyone how to run their country?