Another American backed coup happening in Venezuela

Matt Barrett wrote: »

I am very happy to take criticism of Stalin. I've no subscription to his newsletter. I was pointing out that no soon had the topic of the ins and outs of the situation in Venezuela been raised we went to discussing socialism and comparing the US to China and Russia, trading partners of ours, like there were defined sides here. There are not and certainly not along the lines of calling out US interference as waving the flag of dictatorships using the term socialism. Using Stalin's record as a defense of the US, which is all this amounts to, is farcical. 'If the US is so bad, what about Stalin?' Seriously? It doesn't amuse more proves the point I'm making. If Maduro was making the west money, Trump and chums would be defending his legitimacy. So to start taking potshots at socialism and raising Stalin like it's an argument for US intervention over Chinese or Russian is laughable to be quite honest. It's about making money. Any noise from the US otherwise is a lie.

Well as the one responsible for pointing the discussion the direction of Russia and China I may as well restate my purpose in doing so, and we can both agree to leave Stalin and the legacy of the Cold War in their respective graves. And once again, the purpose of this comparison is to drive the discussion to the salient question of what the practical implications surrounding Venezuelan policy are. Too often these threads just go down the line of 'oh isn't the US terrible' and 'yeah it is' without any regard for the long term implications of those policies, or more importantly, the pressing alternatives present in the here and now. If it was just a question of US policy being dictated by money, one might wonder how there is at present a noticeable cooling of relations with China in recent years, or indeed with Russia itself. Why does the US not jump at the prospect of relationships with Iran or Syria with their significant oil reserves/transit routes? Why leave Gadaffi and a whole host of Arab dictatorships to collapse during the Arab Spring, were they not making enough money for them?

Matt Barrett wrote: »

This thread was to discuss the intervention of the US in Venezuelan affairs today. Simply, Iran will not bow down to any US friendly oil deals therefore the people of Iran need democracy US of A style. Putin would buy and sell Trump. I could go on. There is a security issue too of course.
I keep stating the US interest in Venezuela in not an altruistic one. You've not denied that. Nothing you have stated suggests the US are involved in Venezuelan affairs for anything but selfish reasons. Feel free to bring up the cold war any support for the U.A.E and Israel, praise for Kim Jong Un but that's an aside really, as is debating Stalin. Calling out the US for what it is does not a Stalinist make.

I think we are getting closer to a synthesis on the matter, I do indeed, as you have noted, not maintain that the US is acting overseas in any manner which is necessarily altruistic. I would only add two key riders to this point which I think bear relevance.

The first point would be that any potential US intervention cannot be considered in a vacuum against some idealized non-intervention; we must confront the reality and likely realities that are on the table. For example, at present the alternative to US sanctions would in the most likely scenario simply prolong the existence of this defunct regime and the misery it entails.

The second rider is that whatever the motives might be ascribed to the US, their track record when it comes to foreign interventions is superior in many cases to their rivals or to the process of non-intervention. Bosnia is the usual example offered but lets look at what we both might consider the worst example of foreign adventures, Iraq in 2003, which for all the troubles has been left as a nascent democracy.

Ultimately the issue is not about 'calling out the US' - calling someone out is perhaps the easiest and fruitless exercise one can undertake. The real question is what comes next, or what alternative one offers. It's all well and good to call out a doctor in the case of say medical malpractice, but if your response to a case of malpractice is to damn the entire medical profession and call for its replacement by homoeopaths, well that's where things become unreasonable.

Gatling wrote: »

He's made himself a lot of money like Chavez before him ,

Again typically it's all America's fault for the way idiots are elected and run their economies into the ground while the leader and his friends get rich ,

The same people objected to the Marshal Plan.
The same people objected to the Berlin airlift.
The same people objected to the EEC/EU.
The same people objected to NATO intervention in the Balkans (seems they were happy enough for the Serbs to wipe out all Muslims from Bosina)
The same people objected to airstrikes against ISIS.

To these people, the Americans or West are ALWAYS the enemies, therefore anyone who stands up to them, be it ISIS, the Chinese, the Russians, some tinpot Latin American dictator like Maduro is, therefore the underdog hero. They are usually though always on the wrong side of history. Bless.

markodaly wrote: »

It is totally legitimate to question the economic policies that caused Venezuela to go down the road of economic catastrophe.

You can call it what you want, but what Chavez and Maduro followed the Socialist playbook. That is nationalising the oil industry as well among other industries, spent more than they could raise in tax, and pursued domestic policies that alienated and disenfranchised a large section of the electorate. The latter then caused them to use the security forces to crack down on dissent. The rest is history as they say.

The reason we talk about Socialism and critique it in this context is that is the primary culprit of the issues pertaining to modern-day Venezuela. 10% of the population has left in the last 4-5 years and it's rising every month. It's going to take decades to repair this damage

In the Irish context, we have to be mindful not to follow the Sinn Fein or other left-wing populism and repeat the same mistakes on this Island.

That is fair game, like it or not.

Are the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole in Venezuela?

If not then it's not socialism.

markodaly wrote: »

Did you copy and paste that directly from the internet? It seems so.

Anyway, I guess you tell me that its more Social Democracy rather than Socialism, but they forgot the Democracy part. :pac:

Yes its a definition of socialism. In a discussion about it surely it would be an idea to define it.

Spannerplank wrote: »

Do you think that putting the wealth of a nation into private hands, the hands of people who are a lot more rich and powerful than you could ever imagine to be, is somehow going to benefit you or anyone who is entitled to the wealth of the nation of their birth?

Why does that have to be a solution. Why can't they adopt the middle of the road free market policies ala Ireland or Chile?

We are sure as hell sure the current policies of Chavez and Maduro doesn't work, then why does the retort have be a fear of the most extreme capitalistic outcome, an outcome that has no bearing in reality of being achieved.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

We are agreed the US interest is a selfish one. That's my main point. Explaining why is interesting and I am familiar with much of it. Merely pointing out it's not all socialist boogeymen and villagers saved by Ronald McDonald riding the freedom train into town.
The best thing for the people would be free and fair elections immediately. Anything else will involve one side or the other having their way upon the people.

I would be inclined toward a similar view as to your own, though I would simple hope to enrich that view by adding some context. I could certainly subscribe to the view that the US interest is at least in part a selfish one, depending on how we would categorize the US 'interest' - I suspect quite a few Americans might care to genuinely see Venezuelan's freed from their corrupt regime and could not care less about profiting from such action, but this is a rabbit hole question of definition which might distract us.

As to your point about socialist boogeymen and Ronald McDonald, I can only agree entirely - I like to scrupulously avoid the 'red meat' assertions about Venezuela that have acquired so much currency lately; views typically expressed through trite cliches like 'Socialism only works when you can use other peoples money' or the recent trend of American pundits to ridicule any modest programme of social reform as an attempt to turn the country into 'another Venezuela'. I think many people are quick to ignore the significance of the early Chavez regime in trying to improve the lost of the native population who had long been neglected.

In any case, regardless of the motivations involved, both inside and outside Venezuela, we have to consider what will most likely to occasion the kind of free and fair elections we both think would be best. With that in mind, I don't think 'leaving well enough alone' is going to produce anything but a continuation of the status quo and mass emigration, and although American diplomatic pressure might be unseemly, it might be just the right tool to occasion progress.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Correct. 3 million people died in Vietnam, not 2.

Depending on who's Estimated figures your quoting or believe .

Figures vary from 1 million -2 million estimated

So no it's not correct that 3 million died in the Vietnam war

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

Just by means of asking an interesting question whilst keeping it at least tenuously on topic - how exactly would one 'count the bodies' in a hypothetical US invasion of Venezuela? Let us say a US force invades, takes the major cities, guarantees the installation of a new government and then withdraws; I think most would agree that the deaths of any Venezuelan servicemen in the defence of their country or any Venezuelan civilians unfortunate enough to be caught in the cross-fire would be considered victims of the US, but moving on from that would else would be? Say that a guerilla forest resists in the hinterlands and causes casualties of its own, are they to be considered yet more US victims? Would they themselves be victims but not the people they kill? Would they perhaps all be victims of the US? What about those dying indirectly from a conflict, perhaps occasioned by a shortage of food or medicine? Precedent suggests that in all cases we would consider such deaths as being he responsibility of the US yet I am not so sure, perhaps others might share their views on the matter?

The US with others stupidly went into the middle east when they didn't need to. People said 'this will destablise the region'.

15 years later and it looks like ISIS may be gone for the moment. Who knows what comes next.

I find it hard not to hold the neocons who pushed for war directly responsible for everything that has happened since.

I was going to chip in this evening but I see that MM has made most of the points I was going to make. I suppose my salient complaint would be that slovenly tendency of people to approach conflicts in places like Iraq and Vietnam, from the perspective that any death in those conflict was either to a greater or lesser degree the result of US interference. To take the example of Iraq, I believe the number of one million dead was first argued for as early as 2008, which might lead the lackadaisical reader to conclude that various US and Coalition troops had been killing more than 500 Iraqis a day, every day, for more than 5 years, without pause. MM has already made the point about the 'opportunity cost' of warfare, and by such a metric Afghanistan has been a considerable success. However I would like to make that argument that at some point we have to delineate between the losses directly incurred by a military intervention and those losses arising indirectly from such intervention. If a civilian dies in the course a military operation to remove a tyrant that is a terrible loss, and it is a far greater a loss than a man who decides that the chaos of war is the perfect time to take up arms and build an Islamic Caliphate or settle old scores. I might be tempted to stretch to the argument that the chaos following a war is the fault of those who instigate it and that they have a responsibility for what follows, however this seems to involve complete infantilization of the local populace as having no stake in the state and future of their country.

political analyst wrote: »

I'm aware that there is a culture of fear among lower-ranking military personnel in Venezuela.
How much to the soldiers who are blocking the aid convoys know about their country's crisis?

Cuban intelligence agents are involved in the suppression of dissent in Venezuela.

Clearly, communist regimes are even better at suppressing dissent than the Nazis ever were. After all, Venezuela doesn't have a Stauffenberg.

The ordinary soldiers are disgruntled, but the and higher ranks continue to be well paid and Maduro is buying their loyalty by giving the army an increased role in governance, by putting officers in charge of key posts in the state oil company and giving contracts to firms with links to the military. This is very like similar tactics used by the Governments in Egypt and in Iran where the Revolutionary Guard control lucrative areas of economic activity. By giving the top Brass a stake in the economy he's giving them a reason to support maduro-ism. He's also swollen the higher ranks of the military to a bizarre degree. Venezuela now has no fewer than 4 000 generals.