Here We Go Again

aye-yi-yi

There is no way to put a pretty face on our most recent regime-change adventure. It is pig-ugly, and not defendable on any level, or from any angle or perspective. The reality of it all is plain to see. The Administration boldfacedly asks, as the old saying goes, Who are you going to believe; me or your lying eyes?. Only a political toad like, say, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, would respond that they needed more information to get the “full picture” before they could possibly comment on America’s action against the sovereign government of Venezuela.

I carry no water for the Chavez/Maduro regime. I am about as ambivalent towards the Venezuelan government as a person could be. This is for two reasons: 1) I am not a Cuban-American who, at least politically, are obsessesed with anything even tangentially connected to Castro’s Cuba, and 2) Maduro is their business, not ours-it is for them to sort out. The silly charge of narcoterrorism is the WMD of this generation.

At this point, it is not exactly clear what the Administration has accomplished. The Presidential couple has been surgically extracted from Caracas. The blockade is still in place, but then so is the Venezuelan government under Delcy Rodriquez, who is decidedly off-script. (I do find the tangential side-lining of the the ever-so-eager recent Nobel “Peace” Prize winner to be extremely satisfying. She has learned the hard way what many others before her have so learned. Her support in Venezuela is apparently so minimal that she does not even rise to the level of a useful puppet for Rubio.) I suppose that, in time, we will have a show trial in New York City for the Maduros, its outcome fore-ordained; the very thing we condemned the Soviets for back in the bad old days. But then, this should not be surprising in what I have heard called our “post-Constitutional” age.

I am fascinated by the logistics of this admittedly extraordinary and ruthlessly efficient covert attack. From what I can gather, these forces never engaged the Venezuelan army directly. Maduro relied on 22 Cuban bodyguards and a Security Detail, both operating outside of army channels. The U.S. had an army of covert CIA operatives and assets in Caracas, all trained in the fine art of engineering protests, demonstrations, color revolutions, and regime-change. These spooks were able to bribe his Security Detail. The commandos dropped in, while the Security Detail stood back as they killed the 22 Cubans and extracted the Maduros. The Russians were on the way, but arrived just after the completion of the mission. When they discovered who had been bribed to do this, it is my understanding that he was executed.

And there it is. No need to cue-up Lee Greenwood here. I recently read an accusation against someone as “being against everything this country stands for.” That is a loaded statement, to be sure. What does our country stand for anymore? One thing for certain is that we stand for is regime change. Dr. Lindsey O’Rourke’s Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War documents 70 such regime changes between 1947 and 1989 (excellent interview, here).

Dr. Jeffrey Sachs states that that number is now right at 100, which he characterizes as an addiction, overthrowing countries left and right when we wants something they have: Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-2025, Ukraine in 2014-present, etc.

As he often does, Dr. Sachs recently addressed the UN Security Council, commenting this time on the situation in Venezuela. A few points:

• The core of the UN Charter is Article 2 Section 4 which upholds the sovereignty of nations.

• The job of the Security Council is not to judge Maduro’s fitness as a leader, but to try to offer some protection to countries.

• Sachs then presented the Security Council was a brief outline of recent U.S./Venezuelan history, reminding them that the U.S. had been trying to topple the Chavez/Maduro regime since 2002.

• In 2007, a great tragedy befell Venezuela when it was discovered that they were sitting atop the largest oil reserves in the world.

• In 2014, a CIA/NGO color revolution was attempted.

• In 2015, Obama placed sanctions on Venezuela.

• In 2016, following orders, he declared the country to be a “threat to our national security.”

• In 2017, DJT wondered aloud to two Latin American Presidents why he could not just go in and capture Venezuela.

• He was informed of the danger in this, so he upped the sanctions to crush the Venezuelan oil industry. By 2020, production had fallen 75% and personal GDP had collapsed by 65% in Venezuela, according to the IMF.

• And then about the same time, his administration announced that the hitherto unknown Juan Guido was the real President of Venezuela. Many of our European vassal states went along meekly; in fact, you can hear echoes of that in Macron’s reaction now.

• He then asked the Security Council, “Do we have International Law, or do we have anarchy?”

The answer to the last question is pretty obvious. Threats have been made to six countries since the Venezuelan attack: Mexico, Columbia, Denmark, Nigeria, Cuba, and Iran. A great champion of the United Nations, Dr. Sachs claims that it is not dead, but it is on life-support. Any commitment for international law is certainly not coming from us. In fact, we are rushing back to the world of great power politics and spheres of influece, with all that that implies in terms of war and aggression. Dr. Sachs describes the situation as dire, given the nuclear age that we are all lulled into forgetting: being led by a “completely impulsive out of control ill-informed manipulable and manipulative individual atop the Deep State.” Dr. Sachs has a fearless aspect to his commentary. May he survive for many years yet.

I was in South America when we attacked Venezuela. I saw coverage on the Asuncion news channels, and spoke briefly to a couple of Paraguayans about it. They shrugged in resignation, and basically said that when America wants something, what can you do? Perhaps someday someone will do something. But in the meantime, I dug a Spanish phrase out of my memory: lo siento.