By Leonardo FLORES

For the first time in four years, every major opposition party in Venezuela participated in elections. For the fifth time in four years, the left won in a landslide. Voters elected 23 governors, 335 mayors, 253 state legislators, and 2,471 municipal councilors. The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won at least 19 of 23 governorships (one race remains too close to call) and the Caracas mayoralty in the November 21 “mega-elections.” Of the 335 mayoral races, the vote count has been completed in 322 of them, with PSUV and its coalition taking 205, opposition coalitions 96, and other parties 21. Over 70,000 candidates ran for these 3,082 offices, and 90% of the vote was counted and verified within hours of polls closing. Turnout was 42.2%, eleven points higher than last year’s parliamentary elections.

Here’s why chavismo, the movement behind Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, won:

1. Good governance in health, housing and food. Venezuela’s health policies in response to Covid-19 have been exemplary. The expectation in the U.S. was that the coronavirus would overwhelm Venezuela’s healthcare system, which has been devastated by years of sanctions. And yet, per million population, Venezuela registered 15,000 cases and 180 deaths. For the sake of comparison, the figures in the U.S. are 146,000 cases/million and 2,378 deaths/million, Brazil’s are 103,000 and 2854, and Colombia’s are 98,000 and 2,481. Unlike images we saw in Ecuador or Bolivia, there were no bodies of victims left on the streets, nor were there overflowing morgues like in New York.

In terms of housing, the Venezuelan government has built 3.7 million homes for working-class families over the past ten years, the majority of which were built and delivered by the Maduro administration while under sanctions.

As deadly as the sanctions have been, things would be significantly worse were it not for Venezuela’s most important social program in the past five years: the CLAPs. These consist of boxes of food and other necessities, some of which are produced locally, which are packaged and distributed by communities themselves. Seven million Venezuelan families receive CLAP boxes every month, out of a country of 30 million people. Not only has this program been instrumental in keeping people fed, but it has also invigorated the base of chavismo and reconnected the government with grassroots after the PSUV’s defeat in the 2015 legislative elections.

2. The economic situation is improving. According to an August 2021 survey by opposition pollster Datanálisis, 50% of Venezuelans consider that their lives have improved compared to the previous year or two. Despite sanctions that have caused a 99% drop in government income, the Venezuelan economy is stabilizing. Inflation is down to single digits for the first time in four years. Credit Suisse projected 5.5% growth in 2021 and 4.5% growth in 2022. Oil production hit an 18-month high in October, helped by a trade deal with Iran.

3. The left is united (mostly). The PSUV didn’t win the elections alone, they were united with 8 other left parties in a coalition known as the GPP (Great Patriotic Pole). The PSUV itself held internal primaries in August, the only party to do so. Over half the GPP candidates were women, 52%, while another 43% were youth. Overall, 90% of the candidates hadn’t held office before, suggesting a renewal of the party from the grassroots. However, this marked the second election in a row in which the left wasn’t completely united. A coalition that included Venezuela’s Communist Party ran its own ticket. These parties got less than 3% of the vote in the 2020 parliamentary elections and their decision to run separately appears to have had no impact on the gubernatorial races.

4. The opposition is divided. Never known for their unity, the Venezuelan opposition suffered a major split as a result of some parties opting for boycotting elections and attempting to overthrow the government, while others preferred a democratic path. Despite all the major parties participating in these elections, the opposition was split into two main coalitions, the MUD (Democratic Unity Roundtable) and the Democratic Alliance. The vast majority of the 70,000 candidates are in the opposition and they were running candidates against each other in almost every race. Of the 23 gubernatorial races, six were won by PSUV candidates with less than 50% of the vote and by less than six points – more unity between the MUD and Democratic Alliance could have made the difference.

A count of the votes in the gubernatorial and Caracas mayoral races shows the PSUV coalition taking 46% of the total vote, with the rest split between the various oppositions. A united opposition could win in Venezuela, but “united opposition” is an oxymoron.

5. The opposition is deeply unpopular. While much is made about the alleged lack of support for President Maduro (the millions of votes his party got will never be acknowledged by the U.S.), it’s less known that the opposition is deeply unpopular. Here are the disapproval ratings for some of the opposition’s key figures: Juan Guaidó, 83% disapproval; Julio Borges (Guaidó’s “Foreign Minister), 81%; Leopoldo López (Guaidó’s mentor and mastermind of coup attempts), 80%; Henry Ramos Allup (longtime opposition leader), 79%; Henrique Capriles (2012 & 2013 presidential election loser), 77%; and Henri Falcón (2018 presidential election loser), 66%. All of these but Falcón are part of the MUD.

The MUD coalition spent years claiming they represented a majority, a claim which couldn’t be verified by their strategy of electoral boycotts. However, their return to the electoral process only marked a ten-point increase in voter turnout compared to 2020. Moreover, the MUD placed below other opposition parties in 9 of 23 states and in Caracas. The MUD only won one of the three governorships taken by the opposition. This might be due in part to the widespread rejection of U.S. sanctions. The MUD has repeatedly endorsed deadly sanctions despite the fact that 76% of Venezuelans reject them.

The MUD enjoys the political, financial and logistical support of the United States and the EU, while members of other opposition parties have been denounced and sanctioned by the U.S. for negotiating with the Maduro administration. These elections should put the Biden administration on notice that continuing to support the MUD, and in particular, the fiction of Guaidó as “interim president”, is a failed policy.

mintpressnews.com

Alan MACLEOD

AUnited Kingdom court has handed the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro a major win today, overturning a previous ruling from a lower court that legitimized the British government’s decision to freeze Venezuelan government gold reserves held in the Bank of England. The English Court of Appeal ruled that the Conservative administration of Boris Johnson’s position that Juan Guaidó is the country’s legitimate ruler was far from equivocal, potentially paving the way for some $1.95 billion of the Central Bank of Venezuela’s gold to be accessed.

Following President Trump’s lead, in July, the U.K. government took the extraordinary step of derecognizing President Maduro in favor of the self-declared Guaidó, despite the fact that for nearly six months, he had not even been a member of his Popular Will party, let alone its leader. The move was labeled “highway robbery” by supporters of the Venezuelan government.

A nearly unheard of politician before his ascension to the role of head of the Venezuelan National Assembly (a post given out on a yearly rotational basis among all parties in the institution) in January 2019, Guaidó shocked the country by using his appointment to unilaterally declare himself president of the country. He then led a series of coup attempts throughout 2019 and 2020, the last of which involved paying Trump-linked American mercenaries to shoot their way into the presidential palace. However, the plan ended in complete disaster, with the Americans subsequently sentenced to 20 years of prison time.

Guaidó based his claim to power on Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, which allows a president to be removed if he “abandons his position” or becomes “permanently unavailable to serve” for whatever reason. Maduro, however, had clearly not left his post. Regardless, if he had, Article 233 states that the vice-president would take charge until a new election by universal suffrage was held. Guaidó’s party was not even registered to stand in elections, having boycotted them the year previously under U.S. orders. The Trump administration had attempted to organize a total boycott from opposition parties, thereby undermining the process’ legitimacy, even threatening to sanction opposition presidential candidate Henri Falcón. Despite the partial boycott, turnout was relatively high. A larger percentage of the total electorate still cast their ballot for Maduro than Americans did for Trump in 2016 or Obama in 2012. The U.S. government is currently trying the same tactic in the upcoming December elections to the National Assembly, the State Department releasing a memo in September declaring that all opposition parties taking place were considered “puppet parties” participating in an “electoral charade,” and would therefore be sanctioned.

The United Kingdom and the United States have been leaders in a years-long economic and political campaign to oust Maduro from power, hitting the country with sanctions and attacking it politically. When Maduro attempted to use the impounded gold to buy humanitarian aid from the United Nations to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, the Johnson administration blocked it. Meanwhile, American sanctions, declared illegal by the U.N., have been responsible for over 100,000 Venezuelans’ death. The U.S. government is also continually provoking Venezuela militarily. Last week, it sent a warship — the U.S.S. William P. Lawrence — into the Caribbean, just 16 nautical miles from Venezuela’s coast. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino described the action as “erratic and childish,” implying Trump was attempting to foment an “October Surprise” conflict to boost his reelection chances.

While the Maduro administration is very unpopular, the opposition has had little success shaking their image as elitists interested only in returning Venezuela to its former status as a U.S. client state. Guaidó is presented in Western media as a breath of fresh air and a break with that tradition. However, as the privately-educated son of an international airline pilot, and somebody who attended George Washington University (an impossible task for those who do not come from the elite), he has had little success persuading his countryfolk to get behind his vision for the country. A recent poll found that 3 percent of Venezuelans recognize him as president. Despite this, he has received virtually unanimous support in Washington and London. However, there is no doubt that today’s court ruling is a loss for him and a win for Maduro.

mintpressnews.com

Let us contemplate what John Bolton, quondam National Security Advisor to US President Trump, had in mind for “restoring democracy” to Venezuela. We are familiar with the first phase: 1) accusations, 2) threats, 3) stunts, 4) “world community” recognition, 5) appeals for coup, 6) sanctions.

1) You know, Venezuela is one of the three countries I call the troika of tyranny. It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. It’d be good for the people of Venezuela. It’d be good for the people of the United States. (January 2019)

2) All options are on the table. (January 2019)

3) After diverting aid needed badly by Venezuelans to Cuba last week (100 tons), and giving away billions of the Venezuelan people’s wealth to Cuba – now Maduro seeks aid from Cuba and China. All while denying the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis and rejecting aid at the border. (February 2019)

4) National Security Adviser John Bolton said on April 30, 2019 that what’s happening “is clearly not a coup” because the U.S. and many other countries recognize opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president. (April 2019)

5) The FANB [Venezuelan military] must protect the Constitution and the Venezuelan people. It should stand by the National Assembly and the legitimate institutions against the usurpation of democracy. The United States stands with the people of Venezuela. (April 2019)

6) Bolton said the U.S. is “sending a signal to third parties that want to do business with the Maduro regime: proceed with extreme caution. There is no need to risk your business interests with the United States for the purposes of profiting from a corrupt and dying regime.” (August 2019)

Despite “corrupt and dying”, Maduro was still in power, still supported by the population, the “burning aid” stunt failed (when you’ve lost even the NYT…) and the Venezuelan military remains loyal. (Irony alert! Washington’s sanctions on Venezuela increased Russian oil exports to the USA and Europe!)

What would Bolton have wanted to do next? (Easy speculation – we’ve seen it before.) A “coalition of the willing” (no matter how artificial), US aircraft attack key targets with “precision” “surgical” strikes; (more strikes added until, à la Serbia, bombing random bridges 200 kilometres away from the supposed target). The bombing and destruction would eventually force Maduro to leave. Enter the “liberators”, the “legitimate National Assembly” takes power, the “world community” recognises “Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president”. With “democracy restored” and “freedom returned” the next stage: “American oil companies really invest[ing] in and produce[ing] the oil capabilities in Venezuela“, privatisation and IMF austerity. Happiness all round: “good for the people of Venezuela… good for the people of the United States”. Is Maduro still resisting in the hills and jungles? A surge or two will take care of that; there’s  plenty of light at the end of the tunnel and the obedient corporate media will bleat that Maduro will soon be gone: March, April, May, May again, August, September (The Latin America version of the Assad Must Go Curse.)

That would have been Venezuela’s fate with Bolton fully turned on. But Bolton has been turned off. Maduro is still in Caracas and the story has tip-toed off the front pages. Although Hollywood leaps to obey its Master’s Voice and Jack Ryan will save us from a nuclear-armed Venezuela.

The war party is accustomed to blame its quagmires on someone else. Iraq was a success until Obama spoiled it:

because Hillary Clinton failed to renegotiate a status of forces agreement that would have allowed some American combat troops to remain in Iraq and secure the hard-fought gains the American soldier had won by 2009, [the Islamic State] was able to be literally conjured up out of the desert.

Afghanistan likewise: Obama’s Failed Legacy in Afghanistan. Libya is far down the memory hole: an MSNBC special on Libya as the gateway of migrants to Europe never uses the word “NATO”.

To tell the story of Libya’s escalating migration crisis, one must weave together the threads of instability left behind by a toppled dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, and the power vacuum filled by rivaling factions vying to take his place.

But Qaddafi didn’t just topple in a high wind, earthquake or other random phenomenon: NATO decided to topple him and did so – “We came, we saw, he died” cackled one of the architects. But MSNBC wants us to believe that the destruction was an inexplicable random event that nobody could have foreseen. And so, helped by the corporate news media’s goodthink, the war party slithers away from responsibility: Qaddafi “toppled”, we have a problem; nothing to do with us, or NATO, or Hillary. Bad stuff just happens. “The story of how Kosovo hosted an illegal market in human organs began to unfold today in a district court in the capital, Pristina” is so distant in time that only fringe websites talk about it. As to the Ukrainian disaster, news is starting to leak through the complacency membrane: Canadian officials honour Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, angering Jewish groups, Biden involvement, blowback.

With their excuses and deniability clutched in their hands, knowing the complaisant news media will back them up (CNN: Biden and Ukraine is a conspiracy theory), the war party rolls along. The wars start well, given the US military’s immense destructive power, and then bog down: US war-fighting doctrine is hard-wired for failure. Bolton’s Venezuela adventure, had it advanced to the bombing phase, would also have been pimped as a “success” – Guaidó inauguration, selected interviews, toppling of statues and the rest of the package. But Maduro and his supporters would not have given up and there’d be years of patrolling, “precision” bombing (eventually indistinguishable from “carpet bombing” – see Raqqa), door kicking, IEDs, ambushes, training failures. Iraq and Afghanistan again. They, in their turn, having repeated Vietnam.

But Bolton’s Excellent Adventure never got to that point because Trump would not sign off on the bombing stage and so his scheme failed in plain sight. Let us remember what Trump said while he was campaigning: everyone would be better off had President Bush taken a day at the beach rather than invade Iraq; the “six trillion dollars” spent in the Middle East would have been better spent on infrastructure in the USA; NATO is obsolete and the USA pays a disproportionate share; it would better to get along with Russia than not. Bolton, on the other hand, was all in favour of the Iraq war, believed one more war in the Middle East would have been good, thought NATO was great, and Russia terrible. (There’s a rumour that Trump was considering easing the failed Iran pressure and Bolton’s objections led to his firing.)

So why did he appoint Bolton in the first place? A theory: Keep you friends close but your enemies closer. The late Justin Raimondo agrees: “Instead of taking on the neocons directly, Trump embraces them – and we can see the knife go in as this whole scenario plays out.” When it’s clear that everything Bolton had a hand in was a spectacular flop, he’s tossed out of the tent with the knife in his back.

But Venezuela was not Bolton’s only failure in plain sight: his “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran turned out to be much feebler than Tehran’s “maximum”: the strike on Saudi oil production. Note that, despite billions of dollars of weapons, air defence, radars and the like, neither Riyadh nor Washington has any idea of where the attack came from. Whether Iran did it directly, indirectly, at a distance, supplied some or all of the weapons, was entirely uninvolved or any other possibility you can think of doesn’t really matter: it’s checkmate. Lots of entities in the region are friendly to Tehran and so we can know that:

The attack was an amuse-bouche for what Iran

and its many allies could do

if Washington attacked it.

Another Bolton failure. Read his How to Get Out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and note that he assumes that Tehran has no response. The greatest blind spot of the war party is its assumption that Washington always has the initiative and that its targets can only feebly squirm. But Tehran has been on Washington’s hit list for four decades and it hasn’t wasted that time. A war with Iran will, I am certain, be the Last War for the Imperium Americanum because Iran will stop the oil and the world economy will stagger and probably fall. It has outwitted Washington every step of the way. If Trump really is a reader of Sun Tzu, he should reflect on “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle“. The war party overestimates US power and underestimates the enemy’s will. Succumbs.

Returning to Raimondo’s theory, Trump is now in a position to tell the war party “see, we did what you told us to and it was a complete failure”. Will he appoint people in tune with his campaign thoughts? Apparently not, Bolton’s replacement is more of the same: “peace through strength”, US military dangerously weak, Obama “emboldened our adversaries and disheartened our allies” and the rest of the unreflective claptrap.

This is all part of the Mystery of Donald Trump: on the one hand he surrounds himself with the war party, on the other he hasn’t started any wars. (Bolton was fired in Trump’s day 963; by contrast Obama attacked Libya on his day 788 and called for Assad’s departure on day 940.)

But the war party has painted him into several corners.

(How can he get out of the corner? Easy – just blame his “bad advisors” and do it. The Trump haters won’t think any the worse of him and the rest of us will be glad to step away from the endless war and give him credit for deviousness in a good cause. Or, à la Macron’s suggestion, he can surrender while pretending to have won.)

The recent executive order signed by US President Donald Trump encompasses all entities that do business with Venezuela, thus creating an embargo that will further isolate the nation, even as the US moves to open a “Venezuela Affairs Unit” unit in its embassy in Bogota, Colombia. The unit would engage in diplomacy with the US-backed Juan Guaido, who is recognised by the Trump administration and its allies as the purported interim Venezuelan president. Its aim, according to US Special Representative to Venezuela Elliot Abrams, is in anticipation of “the day this regime falls”.

In a report titled “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela”, it is estimated that 40,000 people have died as a result of the US-imposed sanctions from 2017 to 2018. According to the US, Venezuela poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to its national security – unfounded claims as Trump continues with overt attempts to bring down Maduro’s democratically-elected presidency.

Political pressure against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is instigated by the US, yet there is a backdrop of support from its allies in the region and, globally, from countries that spout the democracy line, even if there is nothing democratic about foreign interference.  While mostly in the background in comparison to the US, Canada has facilitated support for the Venezuelan opposition. In Europe, countries which have not explicitly backed Guaido have assumed an allegedly neutral stance which constitutes tacit agreement in terms of opposition support. The EU criticised US sanctions on Venezuela but has also threatened the country with similar punitive measures, as the European Parliament expressed its support for Guaido.

The international community is dominated by discourse that promotes foreign intervention according to the undemocratic agendas of the so-called democratic countries. Venezuela is urgently in need of a unified political strategy that stands in political solidarity against imperialist interests.

BRICS has positioned itself as one such alternative in terms of economic prospects, international security and stability. Russia and China have repeatedly affirmed their support for Maduro. South Africa and India have likewise followed suit. On the other hand, Brazil under President Jair Bolsonaro is preventing BRICS from promoting a political discourse that fully repudiates US interference in Venezuela.

Contrary to the rest of the BRICS countries, Brazil recognised Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president and it has expressed support for the international community to pay heed to “Venezuela’s cries for freedom”. Brazil has also adopting measures in line with the Lima Group, as well as prohibited Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials from entering Brazil.

At the G20 summit in Japan, BRICS stated it supported dialogue between Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition to reach a solution. Yet the call is marred by the political divide between Brazil and the other BRICS members. This lack of consensus, including the divergence in terms of recognition of who is Venezuela’s legitimate leader, weakens its political diplomacy in the international arena. As Brazil aligns with the US, although reportedly holding back from endorsing military intervention in Venezuela, It is moving away from one of the organisation’s main aims, which is to establish itself in opposition to capitalist and imperialist exploitation.

In a recent interview, former Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva expressed his disappointment at BRICS not moving further politically. “BRICS was not created to be an instrument of defence, but to be an instrument of attack.” If this momentum is to be built, BRICS needs to find equilibrium in its politics, rather than allow itself to be swayed into a seemingly neutral position due to the US allegiances of Brazil under Bolsonaro. It is not enough to preach dialogue like the rest of the international community have done while weakening Venezuela’s autonomy. BRICS must evaluate its relevance, especially when it comes to one of its members demonstrating political opportunism that is contrary to the group’s aims.

Even the corporate media are losing enthusiasm for the US government’s ploy to replace the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela with the US-anointed security asset Juan Guaidó. Reuters reports in a July 1 article, “Disappointed Venezuelans lose patience with Guaidó as Maduro hangs on,” that the US-backed “military uprising” has “unraveled.” A critical reading of the article explains why.

Reuters correctly notes that “the 35-year old (Guaidó) had risen to prominence three months before,” though a little more background information would have been helpful. For instance, Guaidó was unknown to 81% of Venezuelans a little more than a week before he got a telephone call from US Vice President Pence telling him to declare himself interim president of Venezuela, which Guaidó dutifully did the following morning at a street rally flanked with US and Israeli flags. A member of a marginal far-right Venezuelan political party, Guaidó was not even in the top leadership of his own grouplet.

For background, Reuters tells the reader that President Maduro “took office in 2013 following the death of his political mentor, Hugo Chávez,” but fails to mention that Maduro took office via a democratic national election. Guaidó has never stood in a national election. He was elected to the National Assembly but became head of that body through a mechanism where the political parties in the legislature rotate which party’s representative occupies the office.

Reuters continues that after Maduro took office, he “has overseen an economic collapse that has left swaths of the once-wealthy country without reliable access to power, water, food, and medicines.” Not mentioned by Reuters is the economic war being waged against Venezuela by the US and its allies that has employed unilateral coercive measures – sanctions – responsible for taking the lives of some 40,000 people.

This illegal collective punishment of the Venezuelan people by the US government has diverted legitimate funds of the Venezuelan government. Reuters obliquely mentions “Guaidó has gained control of some of the Venezuelan assets in the United States.” In fact, the US government seized those assets, which would have gone to preventing the “economic collapse” that Reuters supposedly laments.

Reuters reports: “The opposition’s momentum has slowed since the April 30 uprising. Attendance at Guaidó’s public rallies has dropped and the opposition has held no major protests since then.” Reutershints why Guaidó’s fortunes are eclipsing: “the opposition says it is…seeking to build a grassroots organization.” That is, the US surrogate does not have a meaningful grassroots presence.

This is further confirmed by Reuters’ admission that Guaidó’s organization is now “focused on expanding a network of Help and Freedom Committees…to organize at the local level – something the ruling Socialist Party has done successfully.” Reuters continues, “so far the committees have gotten little traction.” That is, Guaidó lacks significant organized popular support outside of Washington and its allies.

Guaidó visited Washington shortly before his self-appointment and subsequently toured a number of Latin American countries but has “only traveled to 11 of Venezuela’s 23 states,” according to Reuters. Guaidó’s handlers have directed him to “travel to at least five more this month to motivate his supporters.”

Recent polls cited by Reuters show support for Guaidó is falling. Reuters quotes a paid political consultant for Guaidó: “We can expect Guaidó’s popularity to continue to erode the longer he is not exercising power.”

President Maduro, according to Reuters, had waged a “crackdown on the opposition.” That is, the Venezuelan government has defended itself against US-backed assets who have actively engaged in attempts to violently overthrow the democratically elected government and assassinate key government and social movement leaders.

In the alternative universe of corporate media, which ignores the economic war being waged against Venezuela, Reuters bemoans that the “crackdown” on Guaidó’s agents has failed to receive “significant retaliation from the international community.” In reality, Venezuela has massively suffered from the US-orchestrated punishments for resisting reverting to the status of a client state.

While not consulting anyone associated with the elected government of Venezuela, Reuters gives full voice to an anonymous “US administration” official as is the practice of the corporate media. The US official states: “The United States continues to execute the president’s strategy of maximum pressure to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy in Venezuela.” Not mentioned is that the “military option” is a prominent part of the “peaceful transition”; deposing a democratically elected president is part of the “transition to democracy”; and “maximum pressure” is preventing vital foods and medicines from reaching Venezuela.

The anonymous US government official further claims, “Only Maduro wishes for the US to give up now.” Reuters does not question how incredibly circumscribed is the universe occupied by that official, which renders invisible the two-decade-old Bolivarian grassroots movement in Venezuela in support of their elected government and its international allies. The Venezuelans most adversely hurt by the US sanctions are those most militantly in support of their government.

Nor does Reuters question why in the US, with the conceit of a supposedly free press, the government is allowed to hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Reuters cites the names of a Venezuelan taxi driver, doctor, former police student, and teacher to give a patina of authenticity to the article but can’t name an official US government functionary who is quoted authoritatively.

Reuters reports Guaidó’s supporters “have demanded that Guaidó shift strategy and request a US-led military intervention.” So much for democracy! “We can’t get rid of Maduro with votes. It will have to be a violent exit.” Meanwhile, the polling firm Datanalisis, according to Reuters, tells us that less than 10% of Venezuelans support such an action.

In short, a critical reading between the lines of the Reuters article confirms that Washington has failed to cobble together a united opposition in Venezuela that is popular enough to win in the polls, so the alternative is violent regime-change supposedly in the name of “democracy.” The lesson that the Venezuelans themselves are the best agents of history to address their own destiny has yet to be learned by the world’s hegemon and its media apologists.

counterpunch.org

We understand that there are ultimately only three ways to attack a target state until it collapses:

1. Supporting an internal coup/revolution or terrorism;
2. Economic embargo perhaps leading to or justified by 1, and;
3. Military invasion justified by the government’s reaction to 1

Then we can see that US has failed in the first two. While the US does appear on the rhetorical level to be willing to embargo the rest of planet earth, they would have to effectively do so in order to embargo Venezuela. By promoting globalization as a virtue, at the institutional level, and not simply recognizing it with problems and all as an inherent component of market economies, the US has withered its own ability to control other civilizations and states in the world’s growing multipolar system.

While the US can place sanctions on Venezuela, and get some countries to even go along with these sanctions, it only improves or strengthens the role and power of those middle-man countries like China which act as ‘value transactors’ of Venezuelan commodities into the global economy. Because it is impossible to ‘cut’ China out of the global economy, it is impossible to cut Venezuela out as well.  Given how much China is invested into Venezuela’s economy, as the Wall Street Journal notes, there’s little chance that will change either.

Despite an effort to unseat the democratically elected PSUV government, we were offered some keen insights into the US’s own self-realization regarding their failed process, and publicly so by Pompeo himself.

The level of honesty coming from the Trump administration in the US is refreshing even as it is only half the truth. When we read that Pompeo has explained that the Venezuelan opposition is ‘divided’, this is of course nothing other than good news for those concerned with regional stability, economic development, and a de-escalation of tensions that can lead towards war and instability.

It is also tremendously true, even if Pompeo doesn’t really explain why it’s the case, at least not entirely. But the facticity of the claim in itself reveals that there can be no US sponsored ‘internal regime change’ in Venezuela. Both the governments of Brazil and Colombia – close US allies under their present administrations – have ruled out any sort of military intervention into Venezuela.

Pompeo’s Confession

In comments published by the Washington Post, from an audio recording, it was reported then that Pompeo admitted that:

“We were trying to support various religious institutions so that the opposition would unite,” Pompeo remarked, going on to explain that “they [the opposition] remain divided on how to confront the Maduro regime.”

This admission came on the heels of the recorded statement to the WP, where he previously explained:

“Our dilemma, which is to keep the (Venezuelan) opposition together, has turned out to be tremendously difficult,”

He continued, saying that:

“At the moment when (Nicolás) Maduro leaves, everyone will raise their hands and say: ‘Choose me, I’m the next president of Venezuela.'”

Subsequent to that comment, he would explain that an excess of 40 different Venezuelan opposition politicians have come forward expressing their view that as Guaido is but a transitional figure, that they ought to be ‘selected’ by the US to win an actual (i.e. staged) election. This would be, ideally for them, an election that comes on the heels of an absolute restructuring of the security apparatus of Venezuela. The idea would be to ensure the marginalization of the PSUV forces from the electoral process, a ‘counter-revolution’ of sorts. The staged elections involving various opposition parties and leaders would be an afterthought in all reality. And still, there is no consensus among this opposition on who should lead. Pompeo would continue to explain:

“Our dilemma, which is to keep the (Venezuelan) opposition together, has turned out to be extremely difficult […] The moment Maduro leaves, everybody’s going to raise their hands , ‘Take me, I’m the next president of Venezuela.’”

Pompeo expressed tremendous exasperation with this state of affairs, commenting that his realization of the problem isn’t one that came about recently, but is one in fact he was aware of since he began his work in the Trump administration with the CIA. To that point he stressed that these are problems which not only manifested themselves in “public during these last months, but since the day I became director of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), this was something that He was at the center of what President Trump was trying to do. ”

That’s to say, Pompeo understood this problem all along. The whole project was dead on arrival.

There is no military option

Given that Venezuela can’t really be effectively more embargoed than it presently is, the US is left with one option remaining. Yes, that leaves military options, nominally on the table in terms of US pressure tactics and techniques. But the reality is that these are something much less tangible than the US has historically relied upon. A lot of this has to do with the general decline of the US military in comparative terms. While the US maintains something approximating its military capacity in absolute terms, compared to a decade or two ago, it has not managed to maintain that in relative or comparative terms. The ‘gap’ between the U.S and other rising powers, military speaking – and this reflects economic changes as well – has become smaller.  Even the Washington Post, as well as other mainstream US billionaire blogs, has admitted as much.

The fact of Venezuela’s anti-air capabilities in the form of the S-300 system are enough to bring unacceptable levels of material and human loss to the US air forces (Navy/Marine, Army, etc.). These could potentially bring the number of downed US fighters to many dozens in the first hours, of the first sortie. The loss of prestige alongside the scores of Cindy Sheehans this would produce, makes the venture a non-starter from go.

So this leaves the US in something of a conundrum. It has indeed brought Venezuela to the near point of collapse over the course of recent years, creating an economic catastrophe through a combination of sanctions and the manipulation of oil prices. But it failed to push it over the edge, and its thanks to a growing and new international consensus that this was the case.

Venezuelan leadership for its part has admitted also that there are a number of measures and policies that ought to have been in place, long term economic measure in terms of diversifying the economy that would have helped to off-set the worst of the damage done by the manipulated attack on Venezuela’s economy. We’ll recall that Russia experienced similar, based in the same manipulation of oil prices, leading to a temporary ‘shock’ to the Ruble, which plummeted in value relative to the Dollar overnight, stoking a major crisis between June and December of 2014. Russia was in a better position to manage this, and though without hiccups, has managed to avoid the sorts of repercussions that Venezuela has faced.

Strong reasons for optimism and the coming bullish trend

The inability of the US to move further against Venezuela’s economy has only given Caracas time, and organization, to work around them. These work-around measures by Venezuela can improve, but the distance between the economic attacks from the US, and the operationalizing of Guiado in a coup gambit, was too great for the US to use them in combination in an effective way.

It’s worth noting also that the general ‘game plan’ of the US has been effectively written about, expounded publicly, and absorbed by private intelligence agencies and government networks alike. The science and art of regime change has given rise to the science and art of the counter-coup.

When we understand that there is no really viable military option, Caracas knows that it is bracing for further acts of terrorism and sabotage on its critical infrastructure. International help in combatting such state-sponsored terrorism, as reported by Venezuelan state news agency TeleSur has already been had, however, and so we can expect that we will see how effective this has been through the lack of much materializing in this direction.

Taken all together, the essentials for a rebounded Venezuelan economy are in place. Investor confidence and the assurances to Spanish, and therefore by extension German, banking interests operating without the US as a middle-man in Latin America, are well-founded and lead towards a bullish trend.

As a post-mortem on the US’s failed regime change operation in Venezuela, it is an excellent case study in how the international community can properly deal with and respond to the often irrational and potentially destabilizing actions of former global hegemons when in a state of decline. As far as Venezuela is concerned, it’s an excellent case study in sovereignty in the 21^st century, despite a west-centric socio-economic focus on globalization.

On May 25^th the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released an official statement to the effect that representatives of the US-appointed man in Venezuela, Juan Guaido, and representatives of the government of Venezuela, would meet again in Oslo this week to further a political dialogue.

The aim is to find a political solution to the US invented crisis in Venezuela. The hope is that it would avoid an open military conflict, and a possible relief of the sanctions policy that has hindered critical elements of the Venezuelan economy and human and social services. More to the point in the EU’s interest, is to stabilize the Venezuelan government and use the Oslo talks as both a symbolic and real vehicle to give assurances to European and Venezuelan elites who are under pressure from Washington Consensus, neoliberal politics.

The US is disturbed at the probability that its entire regime-change gambit has failed, and has disavowed the entire Oslo process. US Vice President Mike Pence, expressing his disappointment with the specter of rapprochement between Venezuelans, said shortly before the new announcement from Norway, that the time for dialogue “is over”, stating that “it is time for action” when referring to Venezuela.

The US appointed representatives in Venezuela such as Juan Guaido’s team, have expressed their extreme disappointment at this second round of talks in a mirrored way. It reflects, as they fear, a lack of cohesion between the transatlantic partners on the question of Venezuela. While it is common to speak of ‘international sanctions against Venezuela’, the most cutting and thorough are those from the United States, while the EU’s focus specifically on a smaller group of individuals and a ban on military related materials transactions – transactions which Venezuela was hardly reliant on and generally showed no interest in to begin with.

On May 26^th, a critical opposition figure, leader, and fugitive from the Venezuelan justice system, Antonio Ledezma, started a live talk from his Twitter account asking a set of rhetorical questions. “What is going on now in Norway? Dialogue? What is that? Ingenuity? Error? Who supports it? Who takes advantage of this gamble?” Ledezma inquired with exasperation.

Ledezma made it more than openly clear that he is entirely opposed to the meeting in Oslo: “Maduro and his mafia carve up the National Assembly and go to Norway as usurpers. I support Juan Guaidó but my responsibility is to say that I do not agree with the Norwegian format.”

The Spanish government in particular, representing the fact that Spanish capital interests in Venezuela remain solid and continue to express confidence in the PSUV government, have lambasted US policy on Venezuela. Spain’s relationship to Venezuela is profound, in in turn, successful Spanish obligations vis-à-vis Germany rely on a degree of solvency which Spain finds in Venezuela.

For example, on Wednesday May 8^th Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell spoke live on the state-owned channel TVE, saying that the US is acting “like the cowboys in the Far West, saying ‘careful or I’ll draw’.” His position, like that of the EU, as evidenced by the Oslo process, is that the solution to the Venezuelan crisis can only be “peaceful, negotiated and democratic.”

It should be noted also of course symbolically, that Oslo is an expression of the EU as problem-solver in the face of problem-creation stemming from the US’ post-Bretton Woods crisis.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry said in a statement reiterating its commitment to seek “an agreed solution” between the parties, while being delicately diplomatic in their treatment of the fact that the ‘other’ Venezuelan party is in fact simply the United States. “We inform that the representatives of the main political actors of Venezuela have decided to return to Oslo next week to continue a process facilitated by Norway.”

When the US initially launched the formal phase of its regime-change gambit in Venezuela, they were successful in creating enough political momentum to encourage leading EU member states back in the last week of January of this year, to call on Maduro to make new elections within eight days, or face certain consequences.

Transatlantic media succeeded in creating a short-lived media hologram in which these consequences were explained as ‘recognizing Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela’, when this was not the consequence at all. This bluff was successfully called, new elections were not called in Venezuela, and the EU’s real position was revealed in time.

Such a media hologram may have even promised to convince those elements of the Venezuelan industrial/financial elite, and military, that the PSUV led government was in its last days. But this was not the case, and this did not materialize. That said, the EU is looking for an exit to this impasse, and recognizes the significance of its own relationship with China and Russia, who in turn are heavily invested in Venezuela under its present regime of obligations; the very same obligations that would be reneged upon in the event that regime change occurred in Venezuela.

Likewise, despite Venezuela being under severe US sanctions, and that Venezuela has not undertaken to clear its status with the IMF for over a decade (since 2007), or more clearly has not been allowed to in such a way consistent with its own sovereignty, the EU and its other international partners increasingly are aware that it is US policy that is out of alignment with the international community.

Nevertheless, US sanctions on Venezuela also affect partners engaged in direct transactions with the Bolivarian republic such that the specter of litigation and restricted trade for various global firms including those in the EU, has had a cooling effect overall.

At the same time, there is more here than meets the eye, and reflects a growing desire on the part of multilateral financial actors to be able to engage transparently and directly with Venezuela, and to do so means to restructure the US’ role in the primary post-war multilateral finance, capital, and development institutions that were issued from Bretton Woods, such as the IMF.

This problem, as it were, has even led to Venezuela’s creation of a hard-to-track crypto currency, the Petro, so that it could engage with various multilateral financial actors, perhaps even including some American firms, as an end-run around the US sanctions regime.

In short what we are seeing is that the EU views Venezuela as a focal point for this divergence over how to manage the decline of the USD as the world’s reserve currency. Wanted is its replacement with a system backed by a basket currency and a more coherent multipolar system more alike the proposal of Maynard Keynes’conception of an ICU, or international clearing union, although other proposals and remedies which take into account the peculiarities of the present technological and military impasse are also credible and on the table.

Norway’s role here is more than apparent – it is a proxy for the EU consensus in general. Despite initial misreporting across Atlanticist media outlets that the EU was in alignment with the US over the status of Guaido and the inevitability of the collapse of the Venezuelan government led by the PSUV, this second round of Oslo talks is representative of the contrary.

Indeed, in the continuing and unfolding saga of the US’ gambit to conduct a ‘regime change’ operation in Venezuela, the latest developments show a growing rift between the EU and the US.

At face value, the major transatlantic banks which come together, for example, to form the IMF, seem often times to present a united front. But behind this front there is instead a steadfastly growing variance over a range of issues, from energy projects involving Russia and Iran, the development of the Chinese belt and road initiative, as well as this case which centers Venezuela; the summation of all of these issues simultaneously.

All together this echoes an increasing assessment that the US dollar has lost its preeminence as the world’s reserve currency, as it has been increasingly displaced by a basket of currencies including, for example, the increasingly independent Euro and the Yuan. One of the key subjects in understanding this revolves around the abandonment of the critical informal regimes of the Bretton Woods system, even while formal aspects of the institutions it engendered (the IMF and WB) exist on in altered form.

If we understand Bretton Woods as consisting of both formal regimes such as the IMF and World Bank, and informal regimes such as the fixed (or pegged) exchange rates system and the use of gold to back the dollar (which in turn was the primary currency), then we see that the informal regimes which made the IMF a coherent system for economic growth and stability, have not been in effect since the Nixon era.

The failure to take into accurate account the vast changes and growth in the world’s physical economy is on display in the case study of Venezuela, whose leadership reflects a rational model, but which does not follow the diktats of the Washington Consensus. That numerous – even leading – IMF, WTO, and World Bank member states also reject the Washington Consensus, here looking at the EU in particular, is only another clear indicator: at issue is not Venezuela’s failure to adopt neoliberal policies proposed for it, but rather the US’s inability to adapt to the growing multipolar geo-economic system based in the growth of the world’s physical economy.

This obstinate position by Washington-Wall Street, and the City of London indeed only reflects that it has continued under certain illusions for four and a half decades. The US has relied heavily on its transnational and supranational influence, dominance over multilateral financial institutions and multinational corporations, using a welfare-subsidy system to bolster its private-co-public synergistic military industrial complex, which in turn acts as a global guarantor of its nominal economic dominance and ‘supply-chain security’, sometimes more clear when referred to as its ‘gunboat diplomacy’.

It has held onto these illusions at the institutional level through the formal regimes, even while it has abandoned the informal ones established at Bretton Woods, a framework whose stated aims have long since been usurped by the neoliberal Washington consensus.

For these reasons there has been a growing call for a new Bretton Woods agreement, one that would take into account the decline of the dollar and instead restore fixed rates, but this time based upon a basket of reserve currencies representing the multipolar economy. Maynard Keynes who was the key British negotiator at Bretton Woods and of the formation of what would become the IMF and World Bank, was critical of its establishment on the basis of the USD as the sole exchange and reserve currency and had proposed an ICU, many functions of which were ultimately filled at first on a dollar-basis through the IMF, but also with the eventual problems that he predicted. The inherent problem in the IMF was, as he pointed out, that as soon after the US lost its trade surplus, the coherency of the USD as the reserve currency within the informal regime, would dissolve with it. As the physical economies in the developing world indeed developed, this trade surplus would naturally evaporate, as Keynes predicted and as indeed happened.

The Oslo talks indeed spell the end for what can be termed the Venezuelan opposition, at least that part of it which is simply a proxy of US neoliberal aims in the Bolivarian republic. While the Oslo process will not solve the entire problem of the decline of the USD, nor will it of course ultimately solve the decline of US military power and its ability to effect supply-chain security and gunboat diplomacy, it is key and critical in that it is representative and reflective of this overall general trend and process underway

The efforts of the US government to manufacture a “parallel state”, and succeed in regime change, have failed and show no signs of succeeding. This has given extra weight to the multipolar, multilateral side of this equation which the EU can now heavily lean on.

What is on the agenda now is that the international community has shown its resolve and capacity to solve problems of an international scope in a manner not only excluding the desire of the United States, but in a controversy in which the US has placed itself in the middle of; where matters of dominance, prestige, and the collapse of the US as an empire have all come to be finally revealed and shown for what they are.

Sure. Let’s invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It’s full of commies and has a sea of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.

This week, leading US neocons openly threatened that if the CIA’s latest attempts to stage a coup to overthrow Venezuela’s Maduro government failed, Washington might send in the Marines.

Well, the coup was a big fiasco and the Venezuelan army didn’t overthrow President Maduro. The CIA also failed to overthrow governments in Moscow, Tehran and Damascus. Its only ‘success’ to date has been in overthrowing Ukraine’s pro-Moscow government and putting a bunch of corrupt clowns in its place at a cost near $10 billion.

The US has not waged a major successful war since World War II – unless you count invading Grenada, Panama and Haiti, or bombing the hell out of Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya. That’s a sobering thought given the Pentagon’s recent announcement that it is cutting back on little colonial wars (aka ‘the war on terror’) to get ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.

Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez and Maduro governments – and US economic sabotage. But my first law of international affairs is: ‘Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs and elect its own crooks or idiots.’

Now, however, the administration’s frenzied neocons want to start a war against Venezuela, a large, developed nation of 32.7 million, at the same time we are threatening war against Iran, interfering all around Africa, and confronting Russia, China and perhaps North Korea. Large parts of the Mideast and Afghanistan lie in ruins thanks to our ‘liberation’ campaigns.

Invading Venezuela would not be much of a problem for the US military: half the population hates the current government and might welcome the Americans. Venezuela’s military has only limited combat value. Right-wing regimes in neighboring Colombia and Brazil might join the invasion.

But what then? Recall Iraq. The US punched through the feeble Iraqi Army whose strength had been wildly exaggerated by the media. Once US and British forces settled in to occupation duties, guerilla forces made their life difficult and bloody. Iraqi resistance continues today, sixteen years later. The same would likely happen in Venezuela.

There is deep anti-American sentiment in Latin America that existed long before Col. Chavez. Recall, for example, the large anti-American riots that greeted Vice President Nixon’s visit to Caracas in 1958.

‘Yankees Go Home’ is a rallying cry for much of Latin America. Blundering into Venezuela, another nation about which the Trump administration knows or understands little, would stir up a hornet’s next. Their ham-handed efforts to punish Cuba and whip up the far right Cuban-American vote in Florida would galvanize anti-American anger across Latin America. Beware the ghost of Fidel.

Talks over Venezuela are underway between Washington and Moscow. Neither country has any major interest in Venezuela. Moscow is stirring the pot there to retaliate for growing US involvement in Russia’s backyard and Syria. Both the US and Russia should get the hell out of Venezuela and mind their own business.

Instead, we hear crazy proposals to send 5,000 mercenaries to overthrow the Maduro regime. How well did the wide-scale use of US-financed mercenaries work in Iraq and Afghanistan? A complete flop. The only thing they did competently was wash dishes at our bases, murder civilians, and play junior Rambos.

For those who don’t like the American Raj, a US invasion of Venezuela would mark a step forward in the crumbling of the empire. More aimless imperial over-reach, more lack of strategy, more enemies generated.
The big winner would, of course, be the Pentagon and military industrial complex. More billions spent on a nation most Americans could not find on a map if their lives depended on it, more orders for ‘counter-insurgency’ weapons, more military promotions, and cheers from Fox News and wrestling fans.

Worst of all, the US could end up feeding and caring for wrecked Venezuela. How did we do with storm-ravaged Puerto Rico? It’s still in semi-ruin. Few want Venezuela’s thick, heavy oil these days.

Venezuela could turn out to be a big, fat Tar Baby.

ericmargolis.com

The initial so-called “uprising” by a tiny group of Venezuelan military – reportedly armed with US assault rifles instead of standard firearms – was blatantly incited by senior White House officials on prime time media. The misconduct openly engaged in by the US is in total violation of international law and UN Charter principles upholding the sovereignty of nations.

As it turns out, the coup bid was an utter failure, descending into farce. Not for the first time over the past three months alone, has Washington brazenly tried to instigate mayhem in Venezuela – and failed.

Yet in the aftermath of Washington’s flagrant attempt at destabilizing the South American country, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has the gall to accuse Russia of “outrageous” interference in Venezuela. The Trump administration is recklessly escalating the conflict by internationalizing what is an internal political matter. Washington has spent years fomenting dissent in Venezuela to overthrow the legitimately elected socialist government in Caracas. Now, the US is trying to turn Venezuela into a site for geopolitical conflict, with preposterous accusations against Russia and Cuba for daring to be allied with President Nicolas Maduro and his socialist administration over the oil-rich country.

American politics and diplomacy have been substituted for outright gangsterism, propaganda and disinformation.

The White House has already openly and audaciously stated that it is seeking regime change in Venezuela in order to get its hands on the country’s immense oil wealth. There are more than enough legal grounds here for a prosecution of senior US officials, including President Trump, for crimes of foreign aggression and war-making.

The so-called Venezuela opposition led by US-backed and mentored figures like self-declared “interim president” Juan Guaido has no legal or popular mandate to demand Maduro stand down. Washington is fostering a civil war in the country by its imposition of economic sanctions to strangle the oil-dependent economy. Senior US officials like Pompeo and Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton have repeatedly called on Venezuelan ministers and military to act treasonously. All these outrageous moves by the US has exacerbated social conditions and tensions in Venezuela, leading to violent street clashes, as seen again this week.

As if Washington’s lawlessness were not enough, it has gone further in its crazed conduct to openly smear Russia and Cuba this week for what it claims to be propping up the “dictatorship of Maduro”.

Russia and most (75 per cent) of the UN member states continue to recognize the incumbent Venezuelan government as the legitimate authority. Russia, China, Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia, Turkey, Iran, among many others, are incontestably on the side of international law. It is the US and certain rightwing pro-Washington Latin American states, as well as European states, which are outside the law, in their baseless efforts to undermine the Venezuelan government and anoint some minor opposition figure as leader.

The lie of Washington’s claims about “supporting democracy” in Venezuela is demonstrated by the repeated failure to achieve regime change. The majority of Venezuelan people remain supportive of the Maduro government, or at least indifferent to Washington’s soliciting for an uprising. Crucially, the Venezuelan military remains solidly loyal to the government and the country’s constitution. The farcical coup attempt this week is further proof that Washington is trying to impose its illegal agenda on the country. Evidently, the Trump administration is not getting its nefarious way – exposing the limits of American imperial power in today’s world – but in its petulance over embarrassing failure, Washington appears to be going over the edge of lawlessness and reason by trying to embroil Russia, Cuba and other allies of Venezuela in an international conflict.

Pompeo reiterated this week that the US is prepared to use military force against Venezuela. Such rhetoric is a breathtaking act of criminal aggression in a long line of aggressions. There is absolutely no semblance of the US having any “national security” excuse to launch a military intervention in Venezuela. It is tantamount to state terrorism on par with Nuremberg-convicted crimes for which Nazi leaders were hung.

The US has no legal or moral right to threaten Venezuela and to intensify the crisis in that country with the loss of lives from violence and deprivation. Surely by now, the European states must realize how they have erred big time in their earlier support for Washington’s demands on Venezuela.

The American path is a road to perdition, and the European Union members must reverse their complicity in Washington’s criminal regime-change machinations. The American road to disaster over Venezuela dramatically emerged in plain sight this week with the failed coup, the deadly clashes it provoked, and, furthermore, the way in which the Trump administration is trying to orchestrate an international conflict with Russia over the latter’s law-abiding support for Venezuela.

After the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 when a US covert coup in Cuba failed in disaster and ignominy, at least Washington had the shame to sack senior officials for that debacle. Today, a similar fiasco in Venezuela results in US officials doubling down on war. Washington is thus a regime that is utterly out of control and beyond any restraint.

When a CIA-backed military coup is attempted by a long term CIA puppet, roared on by John Bolton and backed with the offer of Blackwater mercenaries, in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing which side I am on.

Juan Guaido has been groomed for 15 years as a long-term CIA project. His coup attempt yesterday, which so far appears to have stalled, was the culmination of these efforts to return Venezuela’s oil reserves to US hegemony.

It is strange how the urgent installation of liberal democracy by force correlates so often with oil reserves not aligned to the USA, as in Libya, Iraq or Venezuela, while countries with massive oil reserves which permit US military domination and align with the West and Israel can be as undemocratic as they wish, eg Saudi Arabia. Venezuela is an imperfect democracy but it is far, far more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia and with a much better human rights record. The hypocrisy of Western media and politicians is breathtaking.

Hypocrisy and irony are soulmates, and there are multiple levels of irony in seeing the “liberal” commentators who were cheering on an undisguised military coup, then complaining loudly that people are being injured or killed now their side is losing. Yesterday the MSM had no difficulty in calling the attempted coup what anybody with eyes and ears could see it plainly was, an attempted military coup.

Today, miraculously, the MSM line is no coup attempt happened at all, it was just a spontaneous unarmed protest, and it is the evil government of Venezuela which attempts to portray it as a coup. BBC Breakfast this morning had the headline “President Maduro has accused the opposition of mounting a coup attempt”… Yet there is no doubt at all that, as a matter of plain fact, that is what happened.

The MSM today is full of video of water cannons against “protestors” and a horrible video of a military vehicle ramming a group. But it has all been very carefully edited to exclude hours of footage of the same military vehicles being pelted and set alight with molotov cocktails, and shot at. The presentation has been truly shocking.

In any civilised country, attempting to mount a military coup would lead to incarceration for life, and that is what should now happen to Juan Guaido. The attempt by the West to protect their puppet by pretending the failed military coup never happened, must be resisted, if only in the cause of intellectual honesty.

The resort to violence forces binary choice. I have been and am a critic of Maduro in many respects. I believe the constitutional changes to bypass Parliament were wrong, and the indirectly elected Constituent Assembly is not a good form of democracy. Venezuela does have a rampant corruption problem. US sanctions exacerbate but are not the root cause of economic mismanagement. There are human rights failings. But Chavez made revolutionary changes in educating and empowering the poor, and it is a far better governed country for the mass of its population than it would ever be under a US installed CIA puppet regime. Maduro was legitimately elected. The attempt at violence forces a binary choice.

I know which side I am on. It is not Guaido and the CIA.

craigmurray