The Real Reason the U S  Wants Regime Change in Venezuela, StormCloudsGathering

We haven’t heard from him in a long while,

https://vimeo.com/315097036

The U.S. and its allies have decided to throw their weight behind yet another coup attempt in Venezuela. As usual, they claim that their objectives are democracy and freedom. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The following presentation will expose the real motives and human consequences of this gambit. We’ll start with a quick rundown of recent events. To fully understand those events however, will require a history lesson; a background check on the key players. Supporting links, documentation, and updates can be found at StormCloudsGathering.com/venezuela

On January 23rd, 2019 Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president, and called on the armed forces to disobey the government. Very few had ever heard of this man — he had never actually run for president. Guaidó is the head of Venezuela’s national assembly; a position very similar to speaker of the house.

Within minutes of this declaration U.S. president Donald Trump took to twitter and recognized Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela; writing off the administration of Nicolas Maduro as “illegitimate”. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed by urging Venezuela’s military to “restore democracy”, affirming that the US would back Mr Guaidó in his attempts to establish a government. They also promised 20 million dollars in “humanitarian” aid. To put this into context, Trump is on record saying he was “Not Going to Rule Out a Military Option“ in Venezuela.

This is roughly the equivalent of Nancy Pelosi or Mitch Mcconnell declaring themselves president, calling on the military to overthrow Trump, and having China pledge to fund and assist the effort.

Now if you happen to be in the camp that wouldn’t actually mind seeing Donald Trump forcibly removed from office, I would encourage you to imagine replacing Trump’s name with Obama, Bush, Merkel or Macron.

You know there have been a lot of protests in France, and the Yellow Vests have demanded that Macron step down… Why don’t we restore democracy in Paris?

If Donald Trump can decide on a whim which leaders are legitimate, and which will be deposed-by-tweet, what kind of precedent does that set? And who’s next? The grand irony here, is that the exact same media outlets who blasted Trump as a “illegitimate president whose election is tainted by fraud”, are now calling his regime change ambitions in Venezuela “bold”. Not only have they refused to criticize the move, but in fact they’re hailing this as a “potential foreign policy victory” and “a political win at home”.

Let’s get this straight. Trump is an illegitimate president and should be removed from office (because of Russian interference), but you’re perfectly comfortable with that same illegitimate president toppling foreign governments via twitter?

Though support for Guaidó was quickly parroted by Washington’s most dependable allies, and lauded by virtually every western media outlet, the Venezuelan military responded by condemning the coup, and reconfirmed their loyalty to Maduro.

Russia, China and Turkey also issued statements condemning U.S. meddling, and warned against further interference. By January 25th, reports were flowing in that as many as 400 Russian military contractors were already on the ground. (Well that escalated quickly.)

That same day Pompeo announced that Elliott Abrams — the man who oversaw regime change wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, was deeply involved in the Iran Contra scandal, and who was an architect of both the Iraq war and the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela (which culminated in the kidnapping of Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez) — would be in charge of the effort to “restore democracy and prosperity to their country”.

So why do you suppose Washington really wants regime change in Venezuela? You’d have to be pretty naive to buy the “democracy and prosperity” drivel.

The Trump administration slams Maduro as authoritarian, while cuddling up to Mohammad Bin Salman, a mass murdering dictator known to dismember reporters he doesn’t like.

They talk about how the Venezuelan economy is in shambles, but by their own admission (and according to the U.N.) U.S. sanctions have played a significant role in creating that situation.

Might the real motive have something to do with the fact that Venezuela is sitting on the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and that Western oil companies were kicked out of the country in 2007?

continue more of this story from Storm Clouds Gathering,

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