Latin America
Related: About this forumObama absurdly declares Venezuela a security threat
Obama absurdly declares Venezuela a security threat
Channeling Reagan, Obama continues US pressure on Latin American leftist governments
March 10, 2015 12:45PM ET
by Mark Weisbrot - @MarkWeisbrot
Yesterday the White House took a new step toward the theater of the absurd by declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela, as President Barack Obama put it in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner.
It remains to be seen whether anyone in the White House press corps will have the courage to ask what in the world the nations chief executive could mean by that. Is Venezuela financing a coming terrorist attack on U.S. territory? Planning an invasion? Building a nuclear weapon?
Who do they think they are kidding? Some may say that the language is just there because it is necessary under U.S. law in order to impose the latest round of sanctions on Venezuela. That is not much of a defense, telling the whole world the rule of law in the United States is something the president can use lies to get around whenever he finds it inconvenient.
That was the approach of President Ronald Reagan in 1985 when he made a similar declaration in order to impose sanctions including an economic embargo on Nicaragua. Like the White House today, he was trying to topple an elected government that Washington didnt like. He was able to use paramilitary and terrorist violence as well as an embargo in a successful effort to destroy the Nicaraguan economy and ultimately overturn its government. (The Sandinistas eventually returned to power in 2007 and are the governing party today.)
More:
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/3/obama-absurdly-declares-venezuela-a-national-security-threat.html
forest444
(5,902 posts)But of course, twisted declarations like those are par for the course in the Kafkaesque, up-is-down world we live in these days.
Whatever faults the Maduro administration might have, what we should all be against no matter how right-wing we may be, is spending billions in taxpayers dollars to effect regime change of the kind that will probably backfire before too long (think: Dirty Wars all over the region, the Latin debt crisis, alliances with kingpins, etc).
MisterP
(23,730 posts)they kept springing the cartel guys 'coz they were doing the work of God and Washington in Nicaragua
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_%C3%81ngel_F%C3%A9lix_Gallardo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Matta-Ballesteros
1500 kilos is a LOT for just one flight!
Judi Lynn
(160,449 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)When is US going to stop dictating the South American countries! I think we've done enough down there, they don't need anymore trumped up dictators picked by US!