Russian Aid v. US Imperial Rapaciousness Toward Venezuela
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
The geopolitical agendas of both countries toward other nations are world’s apart, their actions self-explanatory.
Russia seeks mutual cooperation with other countries, respecting their sovereign rights, strictly observing fundamental international laws, norms and standards.
The US under both extremist wings of its one-party rule seeks dominance over planet earth, its resources and populations – naked aggression, color revolutions, and old-fashioned coups its favored strategies, ignoring the human cost.
Millions of corpses attest to its ruthlessness, unlawful intervention against other countries considered democracy building, a notion it abhors at home and abroad.
All sovereign independent countries it doesn’t control are targeted for regime change — Venezuela and Iran in the eye of the storm, Cuba and Nicaragua next to feel its imperial wrath full force, storm clouds sending an unmistakable message.
Everything Trump regime hardliners threw at Venezuela since January to topple its government failed. So what’s next?
According to Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of its General Staff chief Igor Kostyukov, Trump regime hardliners are “ready to declare the leadership of Venezuela ‘a sponsor of international terrorism’ and use force or (further) sanctions against Caracas based on this” bald-faced Big Lie, adding:
They “calculated wrong in its estimates of how resilient the legitimate government was and how much Venezuelan security forces were prepared to defend the leadership.”
Days earlier, Brazilian political scientist Paulo Velasco tweeted: “The international community and its organs of multilateral legality must know that a criminal plan is underway to militarily attack Venezuela!”
In mid-April, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rogriguez accused the US, Colombia and Brazil of designing “a criminal plan…to stage a military attack on” the Bolivarian Republic.
According to Venezuelan Solidarity Campaign activist Francisco Dominguez, the Trump regime, Congress, and the Pentagon are “thinking seriously about” military intervention because nothing else worked nor is it likely to ahead.
Venezuelan resiliency defeated the Trump regime’s coup plot – short of military intervention, what I consider highly unlikely but possible, given hardline extremists in charge of Trump regime geopolitical policies, supported by Washington’s political community and media, the rule of law never a consideration.
John Bolton reportedly told acting US war secretary Patrick Shanahan to draft a military option against Venezuela, claiming the alternative is letting Russia, China and Cuba achieve “unchallenged access to the region.”
According to Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, “(w)e are campaigning for ourselves so that the world understands the consequences of the unilateral blockade of the US government on Venezuela, consequences that have taken the lives of thousands of Venezuelans,” adding:
“The wealth of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been affected in a substantial way, closing bank accounts, withholding money,” and stealing billions of dollars of assets in other ways, lost revenues unavailable to adequately provide vital healthcare and other public services.
Economist Mark Weisbrot explained that illegally imposed, unilateral US sanctions “depriv(ed) Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical equipment, food, and other essential imports.”
According to economist Jeffrey Sachs, US sanctions “deliberately (aim) to wreck Venezuela’s economy and thereby lead to regime change.”
In a joint report, both economists said Trump regime actions “fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions, to which the US is a signatory” — a Nuremberg-level high crime against humanity.
Weisbrot and Sachs estimate that US sanctions since 2017 are responsible for around 40,000 preventable deaths, hundreds of thousands more Venezuelans at risk because of inadequate resources to provide vital public services.
Former UN official Alfred de Zayas said the Trump regime’s aim it to “asphyxiate” Venezuela, adding:
“We know from experience in Haiti, in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, (and elsewhere) that (so-called) US humanitarian aid has been used as a trojan horse” — a scheme to smuggle weapons to anti-government elements.
In Venezuela, US “aid” is “weaponized…to facilitate a coup d’etat…If humanitarian aid is offered in good faith, without strings attached, of course the Venezuelan government wants it.”
So-called US “aid” is illegitimate. “If you are the tormentor today, you can’t become the savior tomorrow,” de Zayas stressed.
What’s going on in Venezuela is clear reason for vitally needed Russian political and economic help — to circumvent US sanctions, along with aiding Venezuela’s economy and people.
Arreaza said Caracas and Moscow “will continue working in the industrial, mining, scientific and military areas to guarantee the peace and security of Venezuela,” adding:
Bilateral efforts continue to counter the Trump regime’s sanctions war, wanting the world community to “believe that the model of Bolivarian socialism has failed” — clearly not so, a socially equitable model for all nations to emulate.
The struggle for Venezuela’s soul continues. At stake is freedom v. fascism, democracy v. tyranny, the nation’s sovereign independence over Trump regime aims to impose puppet rule, gaining another imperial trophy, along with control over world’s largest oil reserves — handing them to Big Oil for looting.
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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
