Obama declared the “situation in Venezuela” to be “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”. It wasn’t enough for Obama’s executive order to announce a Venezuelan “threat” – which would have been deranged enough – but an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the “national security” of the USA. If the USA’s political class, most importantly its media, were not equally crazy and cynical, Obama would have been laughed out of office.
Was there ever a Venezuelan-backed coup in the United States? No, but there was a US-backed coup in Venezuela in 2002. In fact, the US government did not just support the coup by immediately welcoming Pedro Carmona’s dictatorship as legitimate. As explained here, here and here, the US government was also involved in the coup by funding people who participated in it. The US continued funding them after the coup was defeated. Only a government with a death wish would try to pull that off against the United States.
Has Venezuela bombed or invaded other countries? No, but the number of countries Obama has bombed now approaches double digits. Colombia, a “magnificent partner” of the United States as General John Kelly told Congress, bombed Ecuador in 2008 with US support.
Let Fanaticism Ring
Were any of the 9-11 hijackers from Venezuela, or from anywhere in Latin America? No, but 15 of the 19 were from Saudi Arabia (and none were from Iraq). The Saudi’s have a penal code that is barely distinguishable from what ISIS would like to establish: beheadings for sorcery, mutilations for theft, stoning for adultery, lashes for rape victims (yes, the victims). Saudi Arabia not only imposes fanaticism and backwardness at home but tries hard to spread it abroad, most recently in Syria – where US Secretary of State John Kerry assured Congress in 2013 that the Saudi funded rebels only had 15-25% Al-Qaeda content. That sounded like a low-fat, low-fanatic group to him. The Saudis have become the world’s largest arms importers thanks primarily to the USA. The corporate media invariably depicts the Saudi government as a shrewd but harmless oil merchant. Human Rights Watch also did its part by describing King Abdullah, the recently departed Beheader-in-Chief, as a frustrated reformer and by keeping quiet about his war mongering. Obama went way beyond the call of obsequiousness in paying tribute to a government who’s fostering of religious fanaticism has proven lethal to US citizens. If only the security of US citizens actually were a priority for Obama and the rest of the political class in the USA. It would stop using Islamic fundamentalists as it has in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Libya, and Syria. The world would reap the benefits, not only US citizens.
Israel’s savagery, which is singled out by the USA (and Canada) for lavish support, also puts US citizens at risk. Israel’s most devoted “supporters” in North America are Christian fundamentalists – the people most likely to claim that the United States does not support Israel enough.
It Ain’t the Economy, Stupid
Did Venezuela play any role in causing the USA’s Great Recession from 2007-2009? No, that was caused by an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble that the Federal Reserve, the majority of professional economists, the corporate media, and most private investors either failed to see or were too corrupt to acknowledge. In fact, the USA was the epicenter of a major global recession that impacted countries all over the world – including Venezuela.
Do undocumented immigrants from Venezuela flood the USA? No, according the US government’s figures, undocumented immigrants from Venezuela have never cracked its top ten lists.
Do Venezuelan refugees flood neighboring countries which, in some convoluted far-fetched scenario, threatens the US economy? No, as I explained here, Venezuela barely produces any refugees at all. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Colombia, on the other hand, have poured into Venezuela and Ecuador. About 160,000 more people have immigrated to Venezuela since 1999 than have left.
Does Venezuela impede the US “war on drugs”? No, illegal drugs are mainly produced within US-allied states like Mexico, Colombia and Afghanistan- and, of course, consumed in the USA. Drug trafficking by the CIA – for the purpose of funding terrorists no less – has not been aggressively explored. The tragic tale of Gary Webb illustrates how the corporate media will destroy journalists who try. The same media uncritically spreads drug trafficking allegations the US government makes against governments it doesn’t like.
Will Venezuela provoke some kind of arms race with the US? No, putting aside that there is no country on earth that can compete with the USA in military expenditures, Venezuela is a very low military spender even if compared to Latin American countries.
It Ain’t the Environment Either
Is Venezuela blocking global initiatives to address climate change? No, that is mainly the US and Canadian governments backed by a disinformation campaign funded by corporations based in the world’s richest countries.
Are Fake National Emergencies Legal?
Obama has lied, with demented extravagance, in order to declare a “national emergency”. I’ll go out on a limb and say the Nation Emergencies Act was not supposed to allow anyone to declare fake emergencies; otherwise it would have been called the Fake Emergencies Act, or maybe the National “Emergencies” Act – with quotation marks around the word every time it appears. But when you have Congress, the judiciary and the corporate media devoted to peddling the same lies on behalf of the same elite interests then fake emergencies have a solid legal foundation. The root of the problem is fake democracy.
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1 Comment
One of the biggest lies in the media-politico matrix is that the U.S. is a “democracy” I call the U.S. nation-state a “shamocracy”: something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation; fraud or hoax. More accurately, the U.S. is a neoliberal state. Neoliberal here defined as the use of traditional liberal terminology, such as “democracy,” to promote neo-fascism: the merger of corporate-financial-oligarchic and state power. But like all lies, it is based on a kernel of truth. Venezuela is a threat to neoliberal state security not because of what it could do but because of what it represents. A nation-state that is transforming itself from a U.S. imperial lackey-state to one that serves the interests of all people everywhere, including Americans.