{"id":128558,"date":"2019-02-25T12:08:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T12:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=128558"},"modified":"2019-02-25T12:08:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T12:08:19","slug":"the-u-s-venezuela-aid-convoy-story-is-clearly-bogus-but-no-one-wants-to-say-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/02\/the-u-s-venezuela-aid-convoy-story-is-clearly-bogus-but-no-one-wants-to-say-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.S.-Venezuela Aid Convoy Story Is Clearly Bogus, but No One Wants to Say It"},"content":{"rendered":"

21 Feb 2019 – <\/em>No one actually thinks the same Donald Trump who kicked off his run for the White House by calling Mexicans rapists, and subsequently, as president, left Puerto Rico for dead after Hurricane Maria, cares at all about the Venezuelan poor. No one actually thinks the murderers row of Cold Warriors\u2014led by two of the most extreme right-wingers in American politics, Venezuela envoy Elliott Abrams<\/a><\/u> and national security adviser John Bolton<\/a><\/u>\u2014cares at all about the starving people in Venezuela or their plight. No one reading this, be they right, left, center, libertarian or communist, actually buys the prevailing narrative that the U.S. is sending \u201caid\u201d to Venezuela as a humanitarian gesture.<\/p>\n

So why is everyone pretending otherwise?<\/p>\n

There\u00a0are a number of reasons why these superficial narratives take hold, but I\u2019d like to speculate on two of them.<\/p>\n

First, the crisis in Venezuela is very real and very daunting. Without litigating who\u2019s responsible for what, whether U.S.-led sanctions and economic sabotage are more to blame or the economic policies of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, one simple fact is true: The status quo is untenable. Perhaps, then, the instinct to \u201cdo something\u201d is understandable. But as with previous crises, both organic and contrived, what that \u201csomething\u201d is\u00a0remains unclear. Liberals\u2014as they did in the build-up to the invasions of Iraq and Libya\u2014are easily pressured into this \u201cdo something\u201d posture.<\/p>\n

The way these things work, however, is that this vague moral directive often involves a combination of CIA and U.S. military intervention. During the Syrian conflict, for example, it meant U.S.- and NATO-led bombings of Syrian forces and a tacit declaration of war under the guise of \u201cno-fly zones.\u201d What\u2019s never considered is a reduction or cessation of U.S. involvement, be it CIA weapons running<\/a>, wide-scale bombing campaigns, or the imposition of sanctions<\/a>\u2014all of which prolong a given conflict or simply make it more violent.<\/p>\n

Because a core tenet of American liberalism is to avoid assigning blame\u2014at worst, its adherents believe, the U.S. is run by a bunch of bumbling do-gooders<\/a><\/u>\u2014what the American empire is actually doing to fuel a conflict cannot be debated, much less censured. And so the notion that we could simply cease our crippling sanctions, which even the pro-opposition Economist acknowledges<\/a> are designed to \u201cstarve\u201d the Venezuelan people, is simply not an option.<\/p>\n

The current \u201csomething\u201d in Venezuela we\u2019re all compelled to \u201cdo\u201d is ensure the arrival of a humanitarian aid convoy. The fact that the bulk of the international aid community has either distanced itself from this PR stunt or outright opposes it has been widely ignored by the mainstream media. One exception is NPR, which recently reported this inconvenient truth<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The U.S. effort to distribute tons of food and medicine to needy Venezuelans is more than just a humanitarian mission. The operation is also designed to foment regime change in Venezuela \u2014 which is why much of the international aid community wants nothing to do with it. Humanitarian operations are supposed to be neutral.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations agencies and other relief organizations have refused to collaborate with the U.S. and its allies in the Venezuelan opposition who are trying to force President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHumanitarian action needs to be independent of political, military or any other objectives,\u201d St\u00e9phane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, told a press briefing last week in New York. \u201cThe needs of the people should lead in terms of when and how humanitarian assistance is used.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In fact, no neutral observer of international aid thinks Bolton and Abrams\u2019 convoy is anything but a mechanism to foment civil war and regime change. We know this because high-level administration officials and their allies on the right keep telling us that\u2019s the case. As the New York Post recently proclaimed<\/a>, \u201cU.S. delivers aid to town bordering Venezuela to undermine President Nicolas Maduro.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Donald Trump delivered a long and rambling speech in Miami last week and didn\u2019t once mention human rights, instead railing against the evils of socialism. Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe reflects in his new book that Trump has openly fantasized<\/a><\/u> about overthrowing Maduro, something he has discussed in White House meetings. \u201cThat\u2019s the country we should be going to war with,\u201d Trump said, according to McCabe. \u201cThey have all that oil, and they\u2019re right on our back door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Determined to maintain U.S. hegemony and control over the world\u2019s largest-known oil reserves, the Trump officials plotting this latest coup aren\u2019t even bothering to take its humanitarian pretext seriously. Why, then, are purportedly centrist and liberal media outlets?<\/p>\n

A second matter to consider is how our government has weaponized the public\u2019s sense of morality. Since the Spanish-American War<\/a>, the U.S. has used humanitarian concerns as a shield against criticism or skepticism, and it has more or less worked every time. It\u2019s why \u201caid\u201d organizations like Air America used food transports to ship guns to anti-Communists in Indochina in the 1960s and \u201970s. (Weapons were code-named \u201chard rice.\u201d<\/a>) And it\u2019s why Elliott Abrams\u2014the current quarterback of this latest affair in Venezuela\u2014used humanitarian aid shipments<\/a><\/u> to smuggle weapons to the Nicaragua\u2019s Contras in the \u201980s. Ultimately, these shipments allow for massive military buildups, without anyone in the media or Congress asking too many questions. After all, what kind of monster is opposed to helping starving people?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to know if the current shipments to Venezuela are being used to transport weapons, although Venezuelan authorities say they have intercepted American arms shipments<\/a>. But given the history of the U.S. (to say nothing of Abrams\u2019), and the fact that the Trump administration is openly calling for Maduro\u2019s ouster while amassing forces along the Colombian border, it\u2019s not exactly a long shot. Still, our political press dismisses the possibility as tin-foil hat stuff, at least in part because mocking wacky Latin American \u201cconspiracy theories\u201d is a mark of one\u2019s seriousness in foreign policy circles.<\/p>\n

Unlike a lot of U.S. regime change activities, reports indicate that this latest stunt was exceptionally rushed and slapdash. The Wall Street Journal paints a picture<\/a><\/u> of a U.S. operation its architects believed would work in a day or two:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who devised it in Caracas and sold it here [in Washington], sold it with the promise that if Guaid\u00f3 made a move and [South American countries] and the U.S. came in behind, the military would flip and Maduro would go,\u201d said a former senior U.S. official. \u201cThey thought it was a 24-hour operation.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because the large-scale military defections expected never took place (as they almost never do), the U.S. has had to resort to its Plan B for promoting conflict and galvanizing the Venezuelan opposition: On Sat., Feb. 23, President of the National Assembly Juan Guaid\u00f3 will carry out a \u201chumanitarian avalanche<\/a>\u201d at the Venezuelan border with Colombia and Brazil that, when one reads the fine print, sounds a lot like a U.S.-led invasion<\/a>. Billionaire Richard Branson is reportedly organizing a \u201chumanitarian aid\u201d concert the night before. But we know this is a fig leaf, and we know this because those running this operation say so again and again. Bolton himself has speculated that Maduro could end up in a \u201cbeach area like Guantanamo.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite all the evidence before them, MSNBC, CNN and countless other networks and publications across the ideological spectrum refuse to frame this humanitarian gambit as an act of hostility. Instead, knowing what they know and who they are covering, they have largely portrayed Trump, Bolton and Abrams as\u00a0champions of the Venezuelan people.<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that hundreds of thousands are suffering in Venezuela, and the instinct to alleviate that suffering is a healthy one. But a craven marketing stunt by far-right Cold Warriors\u2014without any buy-in from actual aid organizations\u2014cannot be taken at face value.<\/p>\n

Just as the U.S. military has made calls to high-ranking Venezuelan officials, I am writing directly to the editors, television producers and reporters of our most prominent news outlets. I\u2019m asking you to defect and come to the side of the patently obvious. Unlike the Pentagon, I can\u2019t bribe you or promise you amnesty, but I can appeal to your basic sense of integrity and intellectual honesty: At best, you are helping provide cover for a campaign designed to starve the Venezuelan people; at worst, you are enabling a military conflict that will drag on for years.<\/p>\n

One does not need to hold any normative opinions about the fate of Venezuela to be able to identify a naked PR campaign when they see one. Journalists with blue checkmarks on Twitter must say so before this gets any further out of hand.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Adam H. Johnson is a media analyst for<\/em> Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and is co-host of the<\/em> Citations Needed podcast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 truthdig.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Feb 2019 – No one actually thinks the murderers row of Cold Warriors, Venezuela envoy Elliott Abrams and national security adviser John Bolton care at all about the starving people in Venezuela or their plight. No one reading this, be they right, left, center, libertarian or communist, actually buys the prevailing narrative that the U.S. is sending \u201caid\u201d to Venezuela as a humanitarian gesture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":128559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}