{"id":133279,"date":"2019-05-13T12:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=133279"},"modified":"2019-05-20T10:24:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T09:24:26","slug":"whats-next-war-with-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/05\/whats-next-war-with-venezuela\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Next: War with Venezuela?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

8 May 2019 – <\/em>Mix a little socialism in with the oil and war may be unavoidable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo<\/a>, talking about Venezuela:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible. If that\u2019s what\u2019s required, that\u2019s what the United States will do.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He goes on, demonstrating how we lie about war in the 21st century:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to do everything we can to avoid violence. We have asked all the parties involved not to engage in that kind of activity. We\u2019d prefer a peaceful transition of government there, where (President Nicolas) Maduro leaves and a new election is held. But the president has made clear, in the event that there comes a moment \u2014 and we\u2019ll all have to make decisions about when that moment is, and the president will ultimately have to make that decision \u2014 he is prepared to do that, if that\u2019s what\u2019s required.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With our trillion dollar military budget, threatening (and waging) war is pretty much the only thing we know how to do as a nation, and by \u201cwe\u201d I mean the ones in control, publicly and\/or secretly \u2014 the ones whose egos have expanded to the size of the nation, who mean themselves when they say \u201cthat\u2019s what the United States will do.\u201d<\/em> There\u2019s something about \u201cbecoming\u201d a nation that allows you to value your so-called interests far more than you value life \u2014 a monstrous paradox to which the whole planet is hostage.<\/p>\n

So we have oil-rich, socialist Venezuela on the verge of economic and social collapse, partly due to the corruption and incompetence of the Maduro government but very much helped along by the sanctions the United States has imposed on the country for the past two years, for the purpose of ousting Maduro and regaining political and corporate control over the defiant nation.<\/p>\n

The sanctions are<\/em> for the country\u2019s own good, of course, according to Trump, who lamented on Fox (quoted on Democracy Now!<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s a terrible thing. People are starving. People are dying. There\u2019s no food. There\u2019s no water. It\u2019s just a terrible situation. . . . And we\u2019re doing everything we can do, short of, you know, the ultimate.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Presumably \u201cthe ultimate\u201d is war \u2014 military invasion \u2014 but sanctions are a form of war and they cause precisely the sort of harm Trump anguished over in his fake spew of empathy for the people of Venezuela.<\/p>\n

According to a study <\/a>by economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, published in April by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the sanctions, having reduced the availability of food, medicine and other necessities of life, have so far caused an estimated 40,000 deaths, with many more likely to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cVenezuela\u2019s economic crisis is routinely blamed all on Venezuela,\u201d <\/em>Sachs said. \u201cBut it is much more than that. American sanctions are deliberately aiming to wreck Venezuela\u2019s economy and thereby lead to regime change. It\u2019s a fruitless, heartless, illegal and failed policy, causing grave harm to the Venezuelan people.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Too bad. U.S. interests are at stake here. And if sanctions don\u2019t do the trick \u2014 which is to say, produce a cooperative leader, \u201cthe ultimate\u201d may be necessary, whatever that may mean. Of course, the U.S. has pursued the ultimate throughout the Middle East and Africa during the 21st century, virtually to no apparent benefit even to its stated interests or \u201cmission,\u201d which raises the possibility that the only one really in control here is war itself, and war\u2019s silent, corporate beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

But we interrupt these words for an important message. Maybe the (eventual) war in Venezuela could be privatized!<\/p>\n

According to Reuters<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cErik Prince \u2014 the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater and a prominent supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump \u2014 has been pushing a plan to deploy a private army to help topple Venezuela\u2019s socialist president.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Prince, brother of Trump\u2019s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, was, as Reuters put it,<\/p>\n

\u201ca pioneer in private military contracting during the Iraq war, when the U.S. government hired Blackwater primarily to provide security for State Department operations there.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alas, Blackwater crashed and burned in 2007, when several of Prince\u2019s mercenaries murdered 17 civilians in Baghdad, creating all sorts of bad publicity for his operation.<\/p>\n

A lesser businessman might have given up, but not Prince, who has never stopped looking for ways to profit from national conflicts. His latest plan, for which he is traveling the world seeking funding and support, is to put 4,000 to 5,000 mercenaries at the disposal of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaid\u00f3, who will, according to the logic of war, need his own army in order to claim power.<\/p>\n

The Reuters story adds, somewhat perplexingly:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of Prince\u2019s key arguments, one source said, is that Venezuela needs what Prince calls a \u2018dynamic event\u2019 to break the stalemate that has existed since January.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is essentially what Pompeo was saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the president has made clear, in the event that there comes a moment . . .\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

War needs a trigger, something that ignites public support. Or maybe that\u2019s putting it too dramatically. War needs an excuse.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one possibility, as described by Medea Benjamin<\/a>, who writes about the struggle for control over the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C., which was evacuated by its diplomats after the U.S. broke diplomatic ties with the Maduro government:<\/p>\n

\u201cDetermined to avoid another war, a group of U.S. peace activists sought and received permission from the legitimate Venezuelan government to form an Embassy Protection Collective. Since April 15, a group has been living in the Embassy, sleeping on couches and floors, while outside supporters have been providing supplies and joining them for meals and educational events.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, as of May 1, Guaid\u00f3 supporters \u2014 aided by the Secret Service, whose job is to protect the embassies \u2014 have surrounded the building and prevented food and medical supplies from reaching those inside, in an effort to occupy the embassy themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inflammatory act of handing over the Venezuelan Embassy to Guaid\u00f3 supporters would also have the potential to dramatically escalate the conflict between the United States and Venezuela,\u201d <\/em>Benjamin writes. \u201cIf the Trump administration were to allow this, the Maduro government would likely reciprocate by taking over the U.S. embassy. This could be just what war hawks John Bolton and Elliot Abrams are looking for as a justification for a U.S. military intervention.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And war would find another excuse to perpetuate itself.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him <\/em>at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

8 May 2019 – Mix a little socialism in with the oil and war may be unavoidable. With our trillion dollar military budget, threatening (and waging) war is pretty much the only thing we know how to do as a nation, and by \u201cwe\u201d I mean the ones in control, publicly and\/or secretly \u2014 the ones whose egos have expanded to the size of the nation, who mean themselves when they say \u201cthat\u2019s what the United States will do.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,57,65,53],"tags":[120,267,1050,504,541,234,291,551,545,688,109,287,249,292,70,557,126,118,172],"class_list":["post-133279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","category-militarism","category-anglo-america","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-conflict","tag-geopolitics","tag-imperialism","tag-international-relations","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-media","tag-military","tag-neocolonialism","tag-neoliberalism","tag-peace-journalism","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-trump","tag-un","tag-usa","tag-venezuela","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133279","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=133279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}