"Today, President Trump presented Venezuela’s military officers with a choice - work for a democratic future for all Venezuelans or see the financial circle close for their families and loved ones," tweeted US National Security Advisor John Bolton today following a Miami speech by the president.
If you know anything about John Bolton, you just know he typed "noose" first instead of "circle".
This would be the same John Bolton, for the record, who once threatened to murder an international official's children for obstructing his attempts to manufacture support for the Iraq invasion which killed a million human beings and plunged the region into terrorism and chaos. A man named José Bustani was the director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in early 2002, during which time The Intercept reports he came under fire for having too much success in diplomacy with the Iraqi government, which undermined the case for an invasion. So Bolton attempted to scare him off.
From The Intercept:
“Cheney wants you out,” Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. “We can’t accept your management style.”
Bolton continued, according to Bustani’s recollections: “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.”
There was a pause.
“We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.”
And now we see this same psychopath threatening to starve and impoverish the families of a sovereign nation's military with economic warfare if they don't facilitate a coup by the most violent government on earth in the most oil-rich nation on the planet. All in the name of spreading Freedom and Democracy™, of course.
Bolton, who was in attendance at the president's speech, gave a more direct and honest summary of what was happening than the one Trump's speechwriters fed him:
"We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open," Trump said of the US-led Venezuela coup agenda. "We want to restore Venezuelan democracy, and we believe that the Venezuelan military and its leadership have a vital role to play in this process. If you choose this path, you have an opportunity to help forge a safe and prosperous future for all of the people of Venezuela. Or you can choose the second path: continuing to support Maduro. If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit, and no way out. You will lose everything."
This would be the same President Trump, for the record, who just hours earlier tweeted about "an illegal coup attempt on the President of the United States,” regarding statements made by former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that there had been discussions among top officials at the Justice Department and the FBI about possibly using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. This same man who is outraged about an attempt to oust him early on in his administration using laws and bureaucracy has no qualms about ousting the government of a sovereign nation using starvation sanctions, CIA ops, an aggressive campaign to delegitimize Maduro, and now outright threats to the nation's military personnel.
Trump has also been tweeting furiously about the "lies" McCabe told about him, who wrote the following in his new book about a 2017 Oval Office meeting:
"Then the president talked about Venezuela. That’s the country we should be going to war with, he said. They have all that oil and they’re right on our back door. He continued on, rambling and spitballing about whatever came to mind."I am sure that McCabe is as much of a deceitful sleaze as every other FBI boss, but that part at least sounds truthful.
For the rest of Trump's speech he very tediously introduced all his loyal sycophants backing his Venezuela agendas, he bloviated repeatedly about the horrible horrifying terror of socialism, he kept referring to Venezuela's elected leader as "Dictator Maduro" and some rando that fewer than one in five Venezuelans had even heard of until last month as "President Guaidó", he tossed out nonsensical red herrings about Venezuela being controlled by Cuba, and he repeated his administration's braindead talking point about the Venezuelan government refusing to let in US "humanitarian aid", which the Red Cross, the UN, and even war-happy NPR recognize as a transparent ploy to foment regime change.
These are the people you're meant to believe are the "good guys" coming to the rescue, America. The guys who threaten to kill the families of officials if they aren't given their way. The guys who threaten to starve the families of military officials who don't turn on their government and kill anyone who tries to stop them. The guys who pick mass murder facilitator Elliott Abrams to spearhead Venezuela's transition to Freedom and Democracy™. The guys who helped murder a million Iraqis and plunge us into a new era of military expansionism and Orwellian surveillance. Those guys.
Sometimes it's hard to say what's more frustrating: the fact that these deadly imperialist regime change power grabs keep happening, or the fact that people keep buying the same tired old stories that are used to sell them.
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I made the statement in a post that The U.S. Government destroyed Venezuela not Socialism, Hilarious right, how dare you speak up against the empire, that's only for wealthy Corporations. The American Sheeple especially are trained that Socialism for Corporations is fantastic and crony capitalism is for peasants. Venezuela will be Iraq 2.0 and the Alt Right will give Trump a free pass because after all Socialism is bad, and there's nothing more Amerikan than bringing Democracy to a sovereign nation's doorstep.
Eeeek... he said it. HE SAID the "S" word .... holyyy shiiiiittt! I have goosebumps all over my body.
Wrong, why you compare Venezuela with Iraq and not with a western country like Panama?
I wonder if you know any Venezuelan? It is very disappointing to see people defending totalitarians murderers like maduro...
You can dislike America (although I wonder what country do you like and support?), but that doesn't mean you should defend the Venezuelan narco regime.
Just another nation the US is trying to "help" into oblivion by the only country on earth who has "helped" 80 some odd countries out of prosperous times into poverty and broken down systems since WWII for the banking and oil cabals.
Beautiful post @caitlinjohnstone.
You are obviously a much wiser man than I. Thank you for your opinion. Have a good day...
Zing!
Michael's a goddamn genius, despite his poor grammar, he's part of an elite cyber force for the good of humanity, even though he lives in a commie-shithole where they only have 1 state owned brand of toilet paper - which doubles as 30 grade sandpaper for stripping concrete and paint and stone - which makes his people slightly more irritable than most.
Hopefully this whole thing is left up to the Venezuelans to figure out. There's no justification outside of providing humanitarian relief to those left starving in the dispute if it can be provided somehow, otherwise let the chips fall where they may but those chips should be decided by them.
They are getting humanitarian relief from UN affiliated agencies and others. If we were sincere about giving them humanitarian aid, we would remove the sanctions and stop trying to overthrow their legitimately elected government. There's little wonder Venezuelans wouldn't trust the US to deliver aid since that was used as a pretext by Elliott Abrams in past interventions as a way of smuggling arms to the opposition groups.
It's not up to me to decide who is or isn't legitimately elected when there's so many conflicting reports coming from the region. That's why it's important to let them figure stuff out for themselves, that way it is legitimate.
"None of what you say is based in fact" This accusation appears to me to be projection
Amen brother!
The Sanctions are certainly not hurting average Venezuelans in the least, they're directed at those accounts that are pilfering billions in gold and oil...we must find a way to pilfer the gold and oil to OUR accounts, you know, democratically.