Fact Not Fiction: US Aggression Against Venezuela
February 26, 2015
Fact Not Fiction
US Aggression Against Venezuela
by EVA GOLINGER
Recently, several different spokespersons for the Obama administration have firmly claimed the United States government is not intervening in Venezuelan affairs. Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki went so far as to declare, The allegations made by the Venezuelan government that the United States is involved in coup plotting and destabilization are baseless and false. Psaki then reiterated a bizarrely erroneous statement she had made during a daily press briefing just a day before: The United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means.
Anyone with minimal knowlege of Latin America and world history knows Psakis claim is false, and calls into question the veracity of any of her prior statements. The U.S. government has backed, encouraged and supported coup detats in Latin America and around the world for over a century. Some of the more notorious ones that have been openly acknowledged by former U.S. presidents and high level officials include coup detats against Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo in 1960, Joao Goulart of Brazil in 1964 and Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. More recently, in the twenty-first century, the U.S. government openly supported the coups against President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002, Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in 2004 and Jose Manuel Zelaya of Honduras in 2009. Ample evidence of CIA and other U.S. agency involvement in all of these unconstitutional overthrows of democratically-elected governments abounds. What all of the overthrown leaders had in common was their unwillingness to bow to U.S. interests.
Despite bogus U.S. government claims, after Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela by an overwhelming majority in 1998, and subsequently refused to take orders from Washington, he became a fast target of U.S. aggression. Though a U.S.-supported coup detat briefly overthrew Chavez in 2002, his subsequent rescue by millions of Venezuelans and loyal armed forces, and his return to power, only increased U.S. hostility towards the oil-rich nation. After Chavezs death in 2013 from cancer, his democratically-elected successor, Nicolas Maduro, became the brunt of these attacks.
What follows is a brief summary and selection of U.S. aggression towards Venezuela that clearly shows a one-sided war. Venezuela has never threatened or taken any kind of action to harm the United States or its interests. Nonetheless, Venezuela, under both Chavez and Maduro two presidents who have exerted Venezuelas sovereignty and right to self-determination has been the ongoing victim of continuous, hostile and increasingly unfriendly actions from Washington.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/26/us-aggression-against-venezuela/
Scuba
(53,475 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)against Hugo Chavez, when they chased down and arrested as many Chavez administration officials, workers as they could find, and put them in jail before dissolving the congress, supreme court, the Venezuelan constitution, etc. and putting their own puppet in place for two days, before the people of Venezuela discovered what they had done and overthrew them.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)party based on trumped-up charges of sedition.
Fun fact: he has prosecuted/arrested more elected officials of the opposition party in less than two years in office than Hugo Chavez did in his entire lifetime.
The past abuses of rightwing authoritarians are no excuse for leftwing authoritarianism.
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)It would help your assertion if you posted credible links to your claim Maduro arrests "elected officials of the opposition
party based on trumped-up charges of sedition."
You know by now concerned people need actual credible sources.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)No evidence has been offered, just claims by the dictator Maduro.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/20/venezuela-agents-arrest-caracas-mayor
When the head of state orders his political opponents imprisoned and charged with treason, without providing any evidence, it's crystal clear to anyone who isn't a die-hard authoritarian what is going on.
Those who have no problem with this are generally Stalinists, like the dumb thug Maduro is.
Notice that Chavez never pulled this kind of thuggishness.
Maduro is a leftwing Pinochet. He makes George W Bush look both brilliant and principled.
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)People who don't share your views are "generally Stalinists?" That's a hot one, isn't it?
You might want to take the time to have a thought or two in your head before calling your opposition "Stalinists." That's playing really dirty.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Last edited Fri Feb 27, 2015, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)
in the complete absence of any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, that person is endorsing Stalinism and the label is accurate.
That shit does not happen in democracies. Only authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Maduro's Venezuela.