Venezuela: A Coup in Real Time

Mr. Magoo wrote:

The U.S. calls Venezuela a threat, after the 305th time Venezuela calls the U.S. a threat, and we're all supposed to lose our shit over it?

Millions of refugees around the world have been sent fleeing in terror from their homes whenever the US has deemed this or that region a threat.  Yes, we should lose it because it disgusts and sickens us, Not to mention the gangs of criminals running around Parliament Hill in Ottawa supporting this terrorism around the world.  You seem to be working from an extremely narrow attention span that is mostly centered around the latest word from our corporate sponsors.

What an obtuse question, Magoo.[question has since been deleted]  The US regime always precedes their disgusting atrocities and war crimes with veiled threats, allegations that the President of a country eats babies for breakfast, and so on. You know this very well as does anyone who doesn't swallow the State Department propaganda as God's truth.

The threats from the thuggish US regime cannot be ignored. The string of regime changes initiated by the barbaric US regime, involving the deaths of millions of people, displacement of millions more, destruction of priceless national artifacts, thievery of the nation's assets and wealth, enriching the already engorged military firms and MIC generally, is know to the entire world.

Except babble's Magoo. Try new glasses.

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Michael: my criticism was directed at ALL the Parliamentary Parties since they choose to remain silent. It costs them few votes about their studious indifference to foreign deaths [unless Muslims can be blamed, eg. Charlie Hebdo, or the ever-present Russian "threat"] or harm to others outside Canada, their foreign policy approach differs little from the Conservatives.

I would like to add that the Ukrainian civil conflict shows to me that, in agreement with you, the neighbouring countries to a large regional power are restrained by the powerful "sphere of influence" of their regional neighbour, but this does not prevent them from exercising some autonomy.

There's nothing wrong for Russia, eg, with an independent Ukraine, outside of any military blocs, acting as a country inbetween the EU and the Eurasian equivalent involving Russia, China, etc. Canada, despite its current excessive entanglement with the USA, could have a much less subservient role. But the political will, the myopic lack of imagination, and the unpatriotic or traitorous views of the business elite in this country stop that from developing. We see, historically, in the working class, in the independent trade unions established in this country for example, a much more loyally Canadian and patriotic perspective. A series of left wing governments in Canada could therefore change things. But they would have to rally the population for the inevitable attack by whatever regime was in power in Washington at the time. It is also worth mentioning that, as Edward Snowden has revealed, all sorts of threats, arm-twisiting, spying, etc. goes on by the US regime even in relations to its closest allies, and that the reasons for policy decisions sometimes has to do with these threats that are usually not seen by the public but well understood by governments. You might be interested to know that the first thing that Lenin's Bolshevik government in 1917 in Russia did was to publish all the secret treaties, exposing the crass betrayal of many regimes including the Russian one, of their predecessor and that the outrage over this was, to some degree, more than the opposition to the revolution itself. It was a terrible shame that this did not continue or be followed by other governments.

Looks like the threat to venezuela comes from within

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-powerhouse-venezuela-has-t...

Mr. Magoo wrote:

You've read 1984, I'm sure.  Was Emmanuel Goldstein REAL?  Was he REALLY trying to overthrow the people if they let their guard down for an instant?

It's really chicken-shit thinking to apply 1984 to a little no-account country like Venezuela, when it so clearly applies much more directly to the good old U.S.A. Is ISIS really an existential threat to America? Is it such a threat that the U.S. government must, must, must watch everyone in the country, 24/7? Or, if you prefer, compare Orwell's imaginary Eastasia to China, and Eurasia to Russia, that makes a bit of sense. But Venezuela is only a pawn, which has fallen into bad times partly by its own fault, but mostly due to the imperial machinations of the U.S. over the past century.

montrealer58 wrote:

It is very difficult to make a planned economy work

I just have to take on this term, as it implies there is a difference between a "free" economy and a "planned" economy. The dictionary definition of the economy is how a society uses its resources, so whether it's a capitalist or socialist or communist, there are decisions being made about the allocation of resources, which is by definition "planned."

K.E. Smith wrote:

Looks like the threat to venezuela comes from within

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-powerhouse-venezuela-has-t...

Can see where the author is coming from with his bemoaning of the failure to privatize a company in 1998.

Needless to say, a country so dependent on oil can be devastated by a collapse in oil prices. But notice how these 'financial writers" never blame the economic model when talking about Greece or Spain. But will rush to blame the economic model when it's not their cherished neo-liberalism

Unconventional Warfare by the Yanqui Empire against Venezuela, Ukraine, etc.

Mark Sleboda wrote:

I have read and written about this before - but it is doubly salient and relevant in light of recent events in the Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, etc... 

“The intent of U.S. [Unconventional Warfare] UW efforts is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives…For the foreseeable future, U.S. forces will predominantly engage in irregular warfare (IW) operations.”

So begins the 2010 Unconventional Warfare (UW) Manual of the US Military’s Special Forces. The manual attached here (TC 18-01) is an interim publication, developed to address the definition of Unconventional Warfare and some other inconsistencies in UW Doctrine. The new UW document (ATP 3-05.1) is in the initial draft and not yet available, though sources tell me it is unlikely to differ much from TC 18-01.

But most of us have not had the pleasure of leafing through this truly revelatory blueprint that shows how America wages its dirty wars. These are the secret wars that have neither been approved by Congress, nor by the inhabitants of nations whose lives – if not bodies – are mauled by the directives on these pages.

A quote from President John F. Kennedy in 1962 opens the document. These few lines illustrate a core Washington belief that US forces have the right to destabilize, infiltrate, assassinate, subvert – all in service of questionable foreign policy objectives, with no evident consideration of a sovereign state’s preparedness or desire for change:

"This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin--war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat; by infiltration, instead of aggression,   seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him.  It is a form of warfare uniquely adapted to what has been strangely called 'wars of liberation,' to undermine the efforts of new and poor countries to maintain   the freedom that they have finally achieved. It preys on economic unrest and ethnic conflicts."

The most nefarious aspect of UW – aside from the obvious violations of international law pertaining to sovereignty, territorial integrity and loss of human life/property, etc – is the proactive and aggressive effort to psychologically sway a population against its government.

http://www.alakhbar.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/Special_Forces_Report.pdf

http://www.globalresearch.ca/going-rogue-america-s-unconventional-warfare-in-the-middle-east/31766

See also The Rise of Anti-Government Flash Mobs