On twitter David Smilde calls out this article by the WAPO’s Nick Miroff as a “smart Piece”
An excerpt follows:
“I think this summit will amount to a real test regarding the region’s commitment to Venezuela,” said David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
“Will they circle the wagons and prioritize regional solidarity and autonomy despite Venezuela’s democratic shortcomings?” said Smilde. “Or will they pay quick lip service to Venezuela’s anti-imperialist diatribes and move on to other issues? To me it is not clear.”
First of all, calling anyone any “expert” an entire country, no matter how learned they are, is preposterous but, unfortunately, even alternative outlets do this sometimes. Are there “experts” on the United States? There are certainly people with very specialized expertise in aspects of history, law, economics etc…but not the entire country. Is it just me or do poor countries only have “experts” assigned to them? I don’t recall reading about “Canada experts” or “France experts”.
Much more importantly, Mirnoff’s piece completely ignores the serious threat the US government poses to democracy in the region. Here is an intelligent piece by Mark Weisbrot that elaborates. Weisbrot might also have mentioned the 2004 coup in Haiti which was directly perpetrated by US troops but there are plenty of examples that illustrate the threat – ant not just from when the USSR was around as the corporate media will sometimes grudgingly concede. Of course being stupidly dismissive of the US threat – which is closely linked to the USA’s massive democratic shortcomings – is a good way for Smilde to get quoted in a dumb article like Miroff’s.
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