The Colombia/Ecuador/Venezuela Mess or Let's Place Bets on How Long Before the U.S. Backs a Colombian War With Venezuela

In the context of my post I was speaking about mutual interests and how Russia and Venezuela's aligns as opposed to say, western nations.

And Canada?

Russia, China, the EU, Canada?

What are you even talking about.

Potential alliance partners, instead of Russia and China? Canada.

The EU is a fairly decentralized entity that also happens to be home to exemplars of democracy and freedom? Which are ever relative terms to begin with? Because no country could ever live up to the kind of absolutist standards you no doubt have in mind, at least not in the foreseeable future?

― pomenitul, Wednesday, 1 May 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well certain liberal standards are being used against Venezuela but the whole picture isn't being looked at.

Yanukovich, Karapetyan, Bouteflika, etc, highlight pretty clearly that a Russian line of credit and arms sales don’t guarantee much in the face of popular protests capable of shutting down a country. Guaido’s ongoing problem is that there isn’t enough support and the more he messes up with stunts like yesterday, the more that support evaporates.

Eh, his problem is that the military is staying loyal. And in a military dictatorship, that's a problem.

Bouteflika lasted two decades. I sincerely hope Maduro won't last half as long.

what stake do you have irl w/r/t uncritically supporting the worst sort of US interventionism? Did you support the contras in Nicaragua as well? Pro tip: anyone the US supports is bad, full stop.

See, sleeve, it reads like parody, but I get the feeling you mean it?

Can you give a single counter example where US involvement improved the baseline wellbeing of the population?

have heard good things about the Marshall PLan

You should stick to films, where you actually seem to have a clue

Marshall Plan was not intervention, it was cleanup

If it's intervention you want, something happened right before the Marshall Plan which I know my country was quite happy with.

And sorry for saying involvement when I meant i tervention

OK then let's talk about the last 65 years, come on

Balkan?

Nope, look up the Stasi Trg mines and follow the money

Good try though

Also that was not unilateral

Again, reads like parody.

Pot meet kettle

I was speaking about mutual interests and how Russia and Venezuela's aligns as opposed to say, western nations.

ah, now I understand why the uk is so closely allied with saudi arabia

what stake do you have irl w/r/t uncritically supporting the worst sort of US interventionism? Did you support the contras in Nicaragua as well? Pro tip: anyone the US supports is bad, full stop.

― Emperor Tonetta Ketchup (sleeve), Wednesday, May 1, 2019 6:22 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Saying US involvement sucks doesn't contradict the notion that Russian involvement sucks even more. Plus looking at the history of US involvement, Venezuela is at the moment, very far from the worst. Also very far from the worst Russia has offered outside and within its borders. As for the idea that anyone the US supports is bad, full stop, I don't know what constitutes good to you but US involvement in Taiwan and South Korea are much better than the alternatives they were facing. Realist foreign policy is a scourge, but let's not pretend that the US are the only one doing it being hawkish fuckery in this world. And any position in which you are mad for Gaido demonstrating opposition (which seems weird to me if you believe in democracy) and economic sanctions, you also have to be mad at the notion Rosneft as collected half the bonds of PVSDA and that Maduro has falsified the latest elections and the humanitarian crisis the citizens are facing. I'm mad at both. I don't think Bolton or Trump or Rubio are doing anything good to alleviate the situation, but let's remember that Maduro was offered a fair and peaceful electoral process and denied it.

My position answers this crucial question: under which sphere of influence can choose their future? I think that could possibly happen within the influence of the US/Europe and with elections. I don't think it will ever happen with North Korea/Russia/China/Turkey/Iran which are more or less the countries that are sustaining Maduro's power at the moment, who refuses elections.

It's weird to live in Miami, where just about every one of my Venezuelan students loathes Trump with every corpuscle in their body, is liberal on just about every position we debate here, yet wants Maduro gone. I can't judge them.

You should stick to films, where you actually seem to have a clue

guess what?

Lol. As if the fucking Marshall Plan is anything comparable to what America is up to in Central and South America.

Shitshow

It's weird to live in Miami, where just about every one of my Venezuelan students loathes Trump with every corpuscle in their body, is liberal on just about every position we debate here, yet wants Maduro gone. I can't judge them.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), 2. maj 2019 04:12 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think this is weird at all? It's a battle between two autocrats, we don't actually have to take sides, it's okay to want both of them gone.

Tertium non datur, Fred. There can be no other way.

To be liberal and want Maduro gone is totally on line with what I'd expect. It's all over this thread as well.

but let's remember that Maduro was offered a fair and peaceful electoral process and denied it.

When was this?

The US and Guaido position aiui is that Guaido is the President and elections will follow at some unspecified point in the future but that Maduro can’t take part in them.

The EU has frequently called for new elections but, to date, that hasn’t been the position of the Venezuelan opposition or the US - there hasn’t been any guarantee that the former would participate or the latter would recognise. It has only been in the last few days that the domestic opposition (and the improbably-named Stalin Gonzalez) have suggested that new elections might be a way of resolving the issue but idk if that is ‘policy’ as such.

There is every chance that, if an internationally-mediated negotiation took place and new elections were on the table, that Maduro would reject them but there hasn’t been an internationally-mediated negotiation yet.

By and large, I think the opposition uniting behind a call for new elections would be much more tactically effective in getting people out on the street than trying to get them to recognise Guaido fwiw.

but let's remember that Maduro was offered a fair and peaceful electoral process and denied it.
When was this?

How about last year?

That Guaido = Owen Smith tweet is totally otm. If the US did it right then surely they needed someone from the military. Maybe it's the liberal disease of wanting to appear credible by backing a career politician.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton just left Pentagon following meeting with acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan in secure conference room known as ‘The Tank’ to discuss military options for Venezuela, per senior defense official

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) May 3, 2019

i’m sure this military intervention will be the one where america finally gets it right

Fewer than 100,000 civilian casualties, then?

John Bolton determined to be Dumb Kissinger to the Dumb Nixon, huh?

Fewer than 100,000 civilian casualties, then?

sad Brazil / ILX film squad convergence

Bolsonaro’s government just declared that Kleber Mendonça Filho has 30 days to return R$2.2 million of financing from NEIGHBORING SOUNDS. That’s over $550,000 for a film that was released in 2012. https://t.co/H2D0Eh6gtm

— Violet Lucca (@unbuttonmyeyes) May 3, 2019

https://mariannewrites.home.blog/2019/05/11/fellow-progressives-stop-hurting-venezuelans/

^that author is fully conversant with the crimes of Maduro, but seems not to fully examine the consequences of Guaido embracing Trump & Bolton's path for Venezuela as the price of US support. The lukewarm support for Guaido she hears voiced by US progressives is due to their long experience with neo-cons and the consequences of neo-con policies. She clearly sees the frying pan Venezualans are in, but doesn't see the fire that they shall be jumping into if Guaido becomes a dependent US client.

Assuming that a latin american does not know the long history of US intervention in Latin America is exactly what she is criticising.

Is she really arguing Venezuela would be better off turning into Guatemala?

Yeah the leader of the Popular Will, a party that has been recognized within the sphere of the Socialist International, his only goal is to turn the nation into a humanitarian crisis of unseen proportions. And horrible fascists states like Sweden (gasp!) and Iceland (oh no!) and Costa Rica (yikes!) are fully behind the notion that only a destroyed and plundered Venezuela is what is best for Venezuelans, including this writer who's trauma of having to leave her nation because of tyrant is really starting point of misunderstanding the situation to a degree only white dudes from beautiful campus can truly understand.

his only goal is to turn the nation into a humanitarian crisis of unseen proportions.

If it comes to a US military intervention in aid of Guaido, which is very certainly on Bolton's Christmas list whether or not this is Guaido's present policy or intention, it very well could become a humanitarian crisis even more destructive and deadly than the humanitarian crisis already caused by Maduro's misgovernment. If the US government were not currently in the hands of men willing to inflict incalculable suffering on "enemy" nations, I would feel far more secure in the future course of US involvement as likely to bring benefit to the Venezuelan people. Trump & Bolton are capable of doing worse than Nixon & Kissinger, or Bush & Cheney.

Yes, there is a long list of shit that could make the current crisis much worse. I think anyone is intelligent enough to understand that there can be ways in which Guaido becomes an interim president that presides over fair elections without having a civil war going on. I just think that negating whatever the Venezuelans diaspora is expressing is not going to help the situation, I think sanitizing Maduro (which is not something I have seen much here but I have seen elsewhere) is really not going to help. Claiming any support of Guaido is ideologically is neo-con is also not going to help. And also it is stupid. Some people need to stop with this stupid left-right dichotomy. Proof is that Trump does it.

Someone from Venezuela:

Instead of supporting Guaidó’s work, progressives in North America have chosen to given vague and evasive statements (e.g. Bernie Sanders or Jagmeet Singh), or even to go as far as to voice their support of Maduro’s dictatorship (e.g. Ilhan Omar), often ignoring the pleas of their own Venezuelan constituents. They justify this by imposing North American political narratives on an incredibly unique and complex situation.

Aimless immediately:

that author is fully conversant with the crimes of Maduro, but seems not to fully examine the consequences of Guaido embracing Trump & Bolton's path for Venezuela as the price of US support. The lukewarm support for Guaido she hears voiced by US progressives is due to their long experience with neo-cons and the consequences of neo-con policies. She clearly sees the frying pan Venezualans are in, but doesn't see the fire that they shall be jumping into if Guaido becomes a dependent US client.