Viva Venezuela Independente

One of the worst things Biden’s done in his first two days in office is to recognize Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela. One reason, the obvious reason, that this is silly is because Juan Guaido is, in fact, not president of Venezuela and never has been. It’s as if the government of Venezuela said “O.K., you had your elections, but we’re recognizing Mitch McConnell as president.” It’s saying “This is the way we wish things were, so we’re going to pretend they’re like that.”
Of course, it may get more ominous than that. They tried to mount a coup (when I say they, I mean CIA – they have a very long history of that sort of thing and it’s fairly certain they were involved in that short lived coup in Bolivia as well) a few years back, and it didn’t work out that well. It was maybe a bit closer call than our own Capitol invasion, but not by much. Guaido didn’t have any support among the military or the police, and so order was soon restored.
Why does the U.S. hate Maduro? Venezuela has oil. Lots of it. The U.S. doesn’t like the fact that they’ve got a socialist government which wants control of the oil so they can use that money to improve their country. The U.S. would much prefer that U.S. oil companies make all the money from Venezuelan oil.
It’s very much like Mossadegh in 1953, and getting rid of him was probably one of the biggest mistakes the C.I.A. ever made, which is saying a lot.
So, the U.S. government has imposed sanctions, and, as we’ve already mentioned, has tried to overthrow their government; their very legally elected government, as attested to by neutral foreign observers, including Jimmy Carter. The sanctions are intended to destroy their economy. Which makes all of the claims about “The socialists are destroying the economy of Venezuela” ridiculous. Their economy would no doubt be doing much better if it weren’t for the sanctions. It’s like pouring salt all over your food and then sending it back because it’s too salty. It’s like kicking over a trash can and then complaining about all the garbage on the ground.
It’s bullying, it’s not sporting, the U.S. pulls that kind of shit all the time, and I’m embarrassed that more Americans aren’t bothered by it.