Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
After listening since 2016 to the American presstitutes complain, without providing a mere scrap of evidence, of Russia meddling in US elections, a person would think that the last thing Washington would do would be to meddle in other countries’ elections.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. Washington routinely meddles but now has gone far beyond mere meddling. Washington has this day (January 23, 2019) declared that the elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, is no longer the Venezuelan president. Washington, not the Venezulan people, has decided who is Venezuela’s president. Declaring the elected government to be “illegitimate,” President Trump elected by diktat the Venezuelan president: “Today, I am officially recognizing the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the Interim President of Venezuela.” https://www.rt.com/news/449533-trump-recognizes-venezuela-opposition/
Clearly, Gaido is in Washington’s pocket or Washington would not have chosen him.
Maduro, like Chavez before him, has committed the unpardonable crime of representing the Venezuelan people instead of American corporate and financial interests. Washington simply does not tolerate Latin American governments that represent Latin American people. As US Marine General Smedley Buttler said, he and his Marines made Latin America safe for the United Fruit Company and investments by US banks.
So, now Venezuela has two presidents. One elected by the people, and one appointed by Washington. How long before Washington does this to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Turkey, India?
Washington managed to frame and remove from power the female reformist president of Argentina and to replace her with a right-wing Washington puppet.
Washington managed to frame, remove from power, and imprison the leaders of the reformist party in Brazil and to install a right-wing Washington puppet.
Washington managed to dispose of the reformist government in Ecuador, install a Washington puppet, and use him against Julian Assange.
Washington interferred in the French election by framing the likely socialist candidate, Dominique Strauss-Kahn on a bogus rape charge that fell apart after removing Strauss-Kahn from contention.
The American leftwing blames Washington for the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, although my views on this are different. Nevertheless, the claim fits the pattern.
The reformist government in Bolivia is also under Washington pressure.
Somehow, the rest of the world does not become outraged by Washington’s massive interference in the political affairs of other countries. Even Russia’s Vladimir Putin accepts Washington’s interferrence in Russian elections and Ukraine’s elections. Washington’s bullying, like Israel’s bullying, is somehow acceptable to countries that are far too powerful to have to accept it.
Russia was in line for an airbase in Venezuela. Under the guise of guarding the air base, Russia could station a regiment of crack troops to guard Maduro while he arrests the obviously treasonous Juan Guaido and his entire political party that serves Washington, not Venezuela. How can Maduro govern when he is surrounded by traitors loyal to Washington?
China also has ties to Venezuela and could send crack troops to protect its investments.
But nothing happens.
When Chavez was elected president, Washington used the old Washington-allied Spanish Venezuelan elite, who still control the Venezuelan media, to overthrow Chavez. But before Washington could kill Chavez, the Venezuelan military and people intervened and forced Chavez’s release and reinstatement as President. Instead of arresting the traitors, Chavez left them be, and now they have poisoned the situation for Chavez’s successor.
As long as Latin American or any reformers fail to understand that Karl Marx was correct that there can be no reforms, no revolution, no improvement for ordinary people as long as the old order is left in place, Washington, not Latin Americans, will control Latin America.
Washington has chosen a president for Venezuela. I wonder if Trump saw the black humor in doing to Maduro what the Democrats and presstitutes are doing to him.
Few Latin American governments have ever had a government that represents the majority indigenous people or a president who was not of Spanish descent. Chavez in Venezuela perhaps was the longest lasting indigenous leader. His successor Maduro is also indigenous.
Indigenous Latin American leaders are unacceptable to Washington, because they tend to be reformers who represent their country’s people instead of American business and financial interests. Consequently, when a Latin electorate elects a leader who will put them first, Washington overthrows the leader. This is the history of US/Latin American relations.
In the 21st century alone Washington has overthrown the elected presidents of Honduras, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela and overturned the independence of Ecuador that had provided asylum protection for Julian Assange. Washington’s coup with the Spanish elite against Chavez in Venezuela initially succeeded. Chavez was in captivity, but before he could be murdered the Venezuelan people and military forced his release.
Chavez, either because he lacked the power to move against the traitorous Spanish elite or because he chose to display magnanimity, did not hold those responsible who participated in the coup against his life and Venezuelan sovereignty. Washington’s agents, the Spanish elite, were not arrested and retained their control over the media and the economy. Venezuela has substantial oil revenues, but they do not reach the government’s budget or protect the value of the currency. I do not know who controls the Venezuelan oil, but it appears the revenues are being stolen. As it seems unlikely the Spanish elites would permit the indigenous people to control the oil business, possibly the oil revenues are what funds, along with Washington, the anti-Maduro opposition. If the Maduro government is stealing the revenues, then the government is committing suicide.
Consequently, Washington and its Venezuelan vassals have had a free hand against Maduro. The whores who comprise the Western media have served Washington’s demonization of Maduro, an elected president that Washington calls a dictator. In the election that re-elected Maduro, Washington instructed the traditional Venezuelan oligarchy to boycott the election. That allowed Washington to claim that Maduro was not legitimately elected.
Of course, if there had been any chance of Washington and its Spanish vassals winning the election, they most certainly would not have boycotted it. But the whores who constitute the American media have no integrity and thereby no problem in overlooking the fact that Venezuelans prefer Maduro to Washington’s Spanish vassals.
Washington using sanctions and economic punishments has been trying for years to destabilize Venezuela in order to bring down the government and install Washington’s agent as president. This policy has cruelly punished the Venezuelan people, but nevertheless they have clung to their indigenous leadership. The other day Washington organized a military coup, but few participated and it was easily put down.
Defeated on these fronts, Washington had Trump and Pence declare that Maduro was not the president of Venezuela and that Washington recognized its agent in the legislature as president. Pence called for the newly annointed president to overthrow the Maduro government and threatened Maduro with invasion if he acted against Washington’s designated president.
Maduro’s response, a numbrer of years late, was to order all US diplomats out of Venezuela. Washington replied that as Washington does not recognize Maduro’s government as legitimate, Maduro lacks the authority to throw them out. The US diplomats will remain and continue the conspiracy against Maduro.
Here we have a situation in which Washington, not the Venezuelan people, has chosen the president of Venezuela and refuses to accept the Venezuelan government’s break of diplomatic relations.
As I write, indications are that Washington’s vassals in Canada and Europe are also withdrawing recognition from the legally elected government of Venezuela, conferring recognition instead on the unelected agent of American business and financial interests selected by Washington.
What does this say about the West? The West regards itself as the home of integrity, human rights, democracy, truth, and goodness. But in fact the West is committed to supporting Washington’s suppression of Venezuelan self-determination.
What Washington is doing to Venezuela is a good lesson for the gullible Russian Atlanticist Integrationists and the gullible pro-western Chinese youth. As China’s Global Times put it: “For a long time, the US has been eager to replace international law with its geopolitical interests and values so as to legalize its interference” and hegemony over the world. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-24/china-joins-russia-slamming-us-interference-venezuela
Putin expressed his support for the legitimacy of Maduro’s government and said that the Venezuelan internal political crisis was “provoked from outside the country.” http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1136984.shtml
Will Washington announce tomorrow that the US has decided that Alexei Navalny, not Vladimir Putin, is president of Russia? Will Washington announce that the US no longer considers Xi Jinping to be China’s president, as his one party regime makes him illegitimate, and has replaced him with Tsai Lng-Wen?
How long will other powers tolerate Washington’s illegality and aggression?
How long will Americans tolerate the shame that Washington heaps upon their shoulders?
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts (Website: PaulCraigRoberts.org) was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and confirmed to the office by the U.S. Senate. He also served as consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Dr. Roberts was associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He was a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles. In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States. He has held academic appointments at Virginia Tech, Tulane University, University of New Mexico, Stanford University where he was Senior Research Fellow in the Hoover Institution, George Mason University where he had a joint appointment as professor of economics and professor of business administration, and Georgetown University where he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy in the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is one of the most influential minds in the truth media today.
