Venezuela: Our next act of overseas military interventionism?
Venezuela. This country is an absolute mess, it has been for a while and is exponentially getting worse. A mass exodus to neighboring countries, 1,000,000 percent inflation, violence, starvation and plunder.
The health disaster in the country has been covered for several years on our sister website, Outbreak News Today.
So yes, Venezuela is a disaster no matter how you slice it and Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro are the vicious architects, despite the praise from Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and Michael Moore not too many years ago.
Remember Stone said of the death of Chavez in 2013, “I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place.”
Moore tweeted at the time: Hugo Chávez declared the oil belonged 2 the ppl. He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all. That made him dangerous. US approved of a coup to overthrow him even though he was a democratically-elected president.
Penn said, “Venezuela and its revolution will endure under the proven leadership of Vice President Maduro.”
Now the question is, should the United States get involved in any way, military or otherwise?
There unfortunately appears to be burgeoning support within the Trump administration, the Congress and media talking heads for intervention, including military.
Listening to Hugh Hewitt on the radio (Hewitt, if you’re not familiar, is that two-headed mythical beast—one head loves big government, big war Republican politics and the other head is his love for Big media—both of which he cozies up to with too much vigor), he was talking to a variety of guests about this topic.
One guest was Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a member of Congress who typically salivates at calls for intervention
Hewitt asked him what the US should do about the Maduro regime:
The President was correct to recognize interim President Guiado as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, not Nicolas Maduro, and to martial a large international coalition to do so. We’re taking further steps, just announcing new sanctions and freezing assets, or turning over assets to that interim government. The time has come for Nicolas Maduro to go. And as violence continues in the country, I think he has to ask himself whether or not his armed forces generally support him. I’m sure many of the senior generals who benefit from his crooked kleptocracy would like to see him continue in office so they can continue riding the gravy train. I’m not so sure that all of the privates and the lieutenants whose families are starving and lack medicine and toilet paper would agree, though.
What about military force, Hewitt asked:
Never advisable as a first step, Hugh, but it’s something that always has to remain a possibility as an instrument of our national power to protect our interests and the interests of our allies. Nicolas Maduro knows that, especially to protect the tens of thousands of American citizens that we currently have in Venezuela.
John Bolton
Image/donkeyhotey
Of course, the Administration had already increased sanctions on Venezuelan oil, spoken out against Maduro wanting him to step down and we learned recently that National Security Advisor, John Bolton had written on a notepad, ‘5,000 troops to Colombia’.
When Hewitt asked about the Bolton note, Cotton replied, “That was an interesting moment, Hugh. I’ll leave it at that.”
Hmmmm.
Just a side note, this is the same John Bolton that has always encouraged military action against a number of countries (HERE, HERE and HERE) despite that fact that he avoided risking his own life in Vietnam once saying, “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy… I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.”
I also considered the nomination of Bolton as the worst move Trump made next to his flawed policies on tariffs and the run-amok spending.
Good grief, so here we go again “looking for monsters to destroy” in the words of John Quincy Adams.
So you say, “People are starving, Maduro is killing his citizens, what do you propose we do?”
I say—nothing. Let’s mind our own business.
Not to sound callous, we must remember the people of Venezuela wanted this. They wanted the utopian promises of socialism Hugo Chavez offered back in the late 1990s—and with large oil revenues and the nationalization of key industries, some temporary improvements in the society were seen; however, like all socialistic economies, it eventually runs out of other people’s money and we see the disastrous outcome today.
So, it’s really up to the Venezuelan people to decide. I don’t know the numbers, but it’s fair to expect Maduro still has a following.
I mentioned the exodus of the Venezuelan population fleeing to neighboring countries Brazil and Colombia and it without a doubt is affecting both countries detrimentally, economically and the influx of disease.
They have a clear vested interest in removing Maduro and that should be their prerogative.
How about the US stay out of another overseas, possibly a military overseas intervention and set the example right here at home.
The CATO Institute released the 2018 Human Freedom Index, which scores nations on personal and economic freedom and the United States was ranked at an abysmal 17.
How about we improve on our own personal and economic freedom by getting government out of the way, controlling spending and stop trying to govern the planet?
How about we fight back against the rise of socialism in our own country—an ideology touted for decades by college professors, the media and more and more politicians today.
We can look at the disaster of Venezuela as a real-time lesson for us to avoid this deadly, devastating political philosophy.
The last thing we need is to get militarily, or otherwise involved in the internal issues of Venezuela.
Let’s be a real beacon for human freedom.
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Venezuela: The tragedy of socialism in real time
Venezuela: Violent crime, shortages prompt travel warning
Venezuela’s health crisis: A discussion with Dr. Leopoldo Villegas
