Venezuela

[Dr. Gonzo]

13 minutes ago, Goku de la Boca said:

 

These authoritarians with expansionist land grab goals are really something else. The US flies military planes over Venezuela to deter them from stealing land that doesn't belong to them and does belong to a nation friendly to the US. Venezuela calls it a provocation.

Clearly someone's been taking lessons from Putin!

[El Profesor]

IMO The whole "Essequibo is venezuelan" is a diversion by Maduro. 

In order to the US lift its sanctions against Venezuela, Maduro promissed fair and free elections. The problem is, if that happened he would inevitably lose those elections. 

The chavistas are trying to create the poison and at the same time sell the antidote. The goal is to destabilize America's backyard with the intention of getting the Biden administration to make concessions on that promisse of free and fair elections. 

I don't believe guyanan oil reserves are the main aspect of this conflict. I mean, even if Venezuela got hold of them, they wouldn't able to do much. Chavez and Maduro turned PDVSA, the state-run oil company, into a shadow of its former self. It's incredibly corrupt and inefficient, I don't see how they would be able to increase production. 

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by El Profesor

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, El Profesor said:

IMO The whole "Essequibo is venezuelan" is a diversion by Maduro. 

In order to the US lift its sanctions against Venezuela, Maduro promissed fair and free elections. The problem is, if that happened he would inevitably lose those elections. 

The chavistas are trying to create the poison and at the same time sell the antidote. The goal is to destabilize America's backyard with the intention of getting the Biden administration to make concessions on that promisse of free and fair elections. 

I don't believe guyanan oil reserves are the main aspect of this conflict. I mean, even if Venezuela got hold of them, they wouldn't able to do much. Chavez and Maduro turned PDVSA, the state-run oil company, into a shadow of its former self. It's incredibly corrupt and inefficient, I don't see how they would be able to increase production. 

 

I would say it would be profoundly stupid for Maduro to go ahead with this annexation. Having said that, the kind of person that could lead an oil rich nation like Venezuela to economic failure is probably profoundly stupid.

[Goku de la Boca]

This feels a bit unnecessary unless Guyana are not feeling support from the USA and UK.

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

50 minutes ago, Goku de la Boca said:

This feels a bit unnecessary unless Guyana are not feeling support from the USA and UK.

 

Wanting a military alliance with the UK/US and buying US weapon systems is absolutely them feeling the support of the US and UK. This is the kind of support Saudi Arabia gets. Guyana will get US aid, that is then going to be turned around and spent on US weapon systems. In return, Guyana is armed to the teeth with advance military equipment as a deterrent to Venezuelan aggression. The US gets to feed its military industry complex, so they'll see it as tax dollars well spent.

[Goku de la Boca]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Wanting a military alliance with the UK/US and buying US weapon systems is absolutely them feeling the support of the US and UK. This is the kind of support Saudi Arabia gets. Guyana will get US aid, that is then going to be turned around and spent on US weapon systems. In return, Guyana is armed to the teeth with advance military equipment as a deterrent to Venezuelan aggression. The US gets to feed its military industry complex, so they'll see it as tax dollars well spent.

That’s fair. I could have figured that out to be honest but I read it too quickly and jumped to a conclusion at the first point

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 minutes ago, Goku de la Boca said:

That’s fair. I could have figured that out to be honest but I read it too quickly and jumped to a conclusion at the first point

The military alliance with the US and UK is also a very strong deterrent, if they have a signed alliance it means an attack on Guyana will be responded to by all 3 nations. The huge increase in troops was probably a concession they need to make because the US and UK most likely don't want the optics of sending in troops to fight for oil companies and want to be able to point to the fact that they're strengthening Guyana so that it can defend itself if need be.

[Carnivore Chris]

On 23/11/2023 at 01:56, Goku de la Boca said:

Venezuela still on top. The one that surprised me was Colombia, I didn't think they had more than Mexico and Brazil.

El Salvador, 405 days without a murder apparently.

[El Profesor]

Venezuela is burning. Again

The population doesn't accept the oficial result of the election, that gave Maduro the victory. 

Protests all over the country.

Even the latin american left is hesitant to declare Maduro the legitimate winner. 

The regime is in Real trouble.

 

 

 

The "colectivos chavistas", Maduro's paramilitary, are armed to their teeth and are already doing their dirty work of shooting civilians.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30 by El Profesor

[6666]

CIA doing CIA stuff or nah?

[El Profesor]

4 hours ago, 6666 said:

CIA doing CIA stuff or nah?

 

In my opinion, the revolt is genuine. 

Chavismo is a disaster.

1/4 of the population immigrated, thousands suffer from hunger, urban violence skyrocketed. 

In the 90s, PDVSA, their state oil company, produced more than 3 million oil barrels per day. Now it produces less than half of that sum. The country has the world´s largest oil reservers.

Chávez and Maduro put all his political allies in critical positions at PDVSA and they didn´t know a thing about oil extraction. 

It´s also important to point out that Venezuela was already a disaster before the sanctions.

 

Maduro is still in power only because China, Russia and Iran have interest in keeping the regime afloat.

Edited July 30 by El Profesor

[Dr. Gonzo]

7 hours ago, 6666 said:

CIA doing CIA stuff or nah?

I think the CIA would have gone into this more prepared than having their agents just be open targets for Maduro's thugs to shoot at. It seems that people are pissed off that a corrupt and inept government that's only surviving because other corrupt dictatorships have an interest in propping up a member of their "resistance to the US" in South America has drastically reduced the quality of life for Venezuelans.

[6666]

24 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think the CIA would have gone into this more prepared than having their agents just be open targets for Maduro's thugs to shoot at. It seems that people are pissed off that a corrupt and inept government that's only surviving because other corrupt dictatorships have an interest in propping up a member of their "resistance to the US" in South America has drastically reduced the quality of life for Venezuelans.

People legitimately being angry over the election and the rebellion not being organised doesn't necessarily mean the CIA isn't somehow involved as far as arming and funding rebels. That's a CIA speciality. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

4 minutes ago, 6666 said:

People legitimately being angry over the election and the rebellion not being organised doesn't necessarily mean the CIA isn't somehow involved as far as arming and funding rebels. That's a CIA speciality. 

Yeah for sure, but at the moment anything I've heard about shooting in Venezuela has been military/police/gangs that seem to be affiliated with the government opening fire on protestors. I think if the CIA was arming and funding rebels, they'd have done it ahead of this election which I think everyone knew would be rigged for Maduro - and the protests would seem more coordinated and there'd be more guns on the sides of the protestors.

This just seems like the kind of shitshow you see in Iran when people take to the streets with very legitimate grievances and are met with bullets and batons.

[El Profesor]

2 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think the CIA would have gone into this more prepared than having their agents just be open targets for Maduro's thugs to shoot at. It seems that people are pissed off that a corrupt and inept government that's only surviving because other corrupt dictatorships have an interest in propping up a member of their "resistance to the US" in South America has drastically reduced the quality of life for Venezuelans.

It's also important to keep in mind that Chevron has vast operations in Venezuela. 

Maduro recently renewed Chevron license to operate in Venezuela until 2050.

Sure, the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, certainly has good connections in the US, especially in Miami, the capital of latin american right, but things are not black and white. 

I also don't think the Biden administration would risk creating a civil war in South America in an election war. 

 

[OrangeKhrush]

I read a headline "maduro calls on china and russia to verify voting reaults" I wonder how that is going to go.

Venezuela need a full global blacklisting if maduro fails to give up power.

[Spike]

22 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

I read a headline "maduro calls on china and russia to verify voting reaults" I wonder how that is going to go.

Venezuela need a full global blacklisting if maduro fails to give up power.

‘Let’s make sure more Venezuelans suffer through sanctions’ - orangekhrush

[OrangeKhrush]

2 hours ago, Spike said:

‘Let’s make sure more Venezuelans suffer through sanctions’ - orangekhrush

Imposing sanctions on the government weakens them to the rebellion.  Allowing the government to trade and militarize itself will make the people suffer.  Venezuela and Iran are on the cusp of revolts against oppressive regimes, cutting of those regimes ability to arm up and sustain itself will bring change.

Your naivity to think the Venezuelans benefit from Maduros trades with China and Russia is the most astounding take away here.

 

[Rucksackfranzose]

1 hour ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Imposing sanctions on the government weakens them to the rebellion.  Allowing the government to trade and militarize itself will make the people suffer.  Venezuela and Iran are on the cusp of revolts against oppressive regimes, cutting of those regimes ability to arm up and sustain itself will bring change.

Your naivity to think the Venezuelans benefit from Maduros trades with China and Russia is the most astounding take away here.

 

Empiricism tells us sanctions will be broken by greedy enterprises. Also even the strictest kept sanction the Cuban blockade didn't lead to the regime folding. By the way, of course do the population suffer from sanctions.

[Spike]

4 hours ago, Rucksackfranzose said:

Empiricism tells us sanctions will be broken by greedy enterprises. Also even the strictest kept sanction the Cuban blockade didn't lead to the regime folding. By the way, of course do the population suffer from sanctions.

 

5 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Imposing sanctions on the government weakens them to the rebellion.  Allowing the government to trade and militarize itself will make the people suffer.  Venezuela and Iran are on the cusp of revolts against oppressive regimes, cutting of those regimes ability to arm up and sustain itself will bring change.

Your naivity to think the Venezuelans benefit from Maduros trades with China and Russia is the most astounding take away here.

 

Empiricism also tells us that this Venezuelan food crisis was caused by sanctions on their oil as they had pulled manpower away from agriculture towards industry, relying on the purchasing power of their oil to import food. Combined with price control, inflation, and the further losing of the price on oil led to a destabilisation on the economy, leading to essentially what they have now as a military controlled food cartel. 

Once again OrangeCunt (thanks @Gunnersaurus) fundamentally misunderstands a situation and talks out his arse. 
 

Thousands of Venezuelan refugees cover the streets of Chicago, starving and freezing to death, many of them are children. Alienated from their culture, their family, their language, the schools, they suffer to survive in a hostile and alien place. They won’t prosper, they won’t succeed, this children are doomed to theft, drug dealing, and prostitution because the USA will punish Venezuela, but not help Venezuelans at all. And YOU want to sanction Venezuela more, a country whose people are literally starving to death because sanctions imposed on them pushed them from civil unrest to dying within five years of the protests. Nearly 8,000,000 people displaced from their home. But Maduro skirting democracy is more important than people’s lives, it’s not like a country under sanctions just creates a black market that skirts sanctions and leads to more money and power consolidation to the upper class through product scarcity, maybe @Dr. Gonzo can explain how that totally didn’t happen in Iran.
 
here are links you don’t read 

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10715#:~:text=Those sanctions and other international,Venezuelans to flee the country.

https://www.wola.org/2020/10/new-report-us-sanctions-aggravated-venezuelas-economic-crisis/

https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-19/how-us-sanctions-have-affected-venezuela.html?outputType=amp

https://gppreview.com/2023/07/03/us-sanctions-are-robbing-venezuelans-of-basic-human-rights/
 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 3 by Spike

[Dr. Gonzo]

Yeah @Spike is right - sanctions often don’t have the effect the west is hoping for. It makes regular people suffer, but those at the top manage to insulate themselves from the economic effects. The people with power to actually profit off a black market, domestically and internationally, in times of economic collapse absolutely do so.

Western sanctions also tend to push countries closer to other countries under western sanctions. Who are happy to trade with each other. And the China is all too happy to be the economic powerhouse of that group and use their position of “well I have more leverage than you” to really maximise what the get out of these partnerships.

[Spike]

52 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Yeah @Spike is right - sanctions often don’t have the effect the west is hoping for. It makes regular people suffer, but those at the top manage to insulate themselves from the economic effects. The people with power to actually profit off a black market, domestically and internationally, in times of economic collapse absolutely do so.

Western sanctions also tend to push countries closer to other countries under western sanctions. Who are happy to trade with each other. And the China is all too happy to be the economic powerhouse of that group and use their position of “well I have more leverage than you” to really maximise what the get out of these partnerships.

It depends what the west actually wants? What do they want? With Venezuela at least under Chavez, they were a burgeoning economy in South America, driven by oil (something USA wants) but had a socialist government (something USA doesn’t want), so when they began to destabilise due to the drop in price of oil, they sanction the fuck out of Venezuela to further destabilise and prevent stabilisation using their massive oil reserves. You can’t tell me that with the Russia-Ukraine war that the removal of Venezuelan sanctions wouldn’t have rebounded their economy due to loss Russian oil, preventing hopefully or at least limiting the massive human exodus and refugee crisis. Using the failure of democracy as a smokescreen to justify their treatment of Venezuela, because 1. USA obviously doesn’t give a fuck about democracy, and 2. obviously hates the influence of socialism in the neighbour’s backyard.

For Iran I don’t know, because again the USA obviously isn’t bothered by religious fundamentalism (funding extremists groups since the 70s), and 2. doesn’t give a shit about democracy. So I guess fuck Iranians because they are brownish off-white caucasians (Venezuela too???) and have the capacity to be a regional influence in the Middle East which has lots of oil. 

[OrangeKhrush]

Doing nothing will maintain the status quo,  maduro will have power for as long as someone else doesn't rise to take it from him,  the people will suffer,  the economy won't grow because the export oil is used to fund a militarised state and mass immigration will become a problem for someone else, likely America. 

China and Russia will certainly benefit,  cut a nice deal with Venezuela to put up nuclear launch sites on the doorstep of the US,  have another Cuban missile crisis. 

 

[El Profesor]

2 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Doing nothing will maintain the status quo,  maduro will have power for as long as someone else doesn't rise to take it from him,  the people will suffer,  the economy won't grow because the export oil is used to fund a militarised state and mass immigration will become a problem for someone else, likely America. 

China and Russia will certainly benefit,  cut a nice deal with Venezuela to put up nuclear launch sites on the doorstep of the US,  have another Cuban missile crisis. 

 

 

It already is.

Colombia, Peru, the northern states of Brazil are completely overburdened with the flow of venezuelan immigration.

Sanctions would only worsen the conditions of the average venezuelan citizen without necessarily toppling the regime. Iraq in the 90s and Cuba are good examples of it.

It also would make Venezuela even more dependent from its foreign benefactors, increasing the power of Russia and Iran in South America. (China is a completely different chapter. With or without Maduro, the chinese have already massive power in Latin America and it´s only increasing. Even rightists like Bukele and Bolsonaro respect and want a good relationship with China)  

 

I suspect that at this point the most powerful player in venezuelan politics is the Army.

In order to survive, Maduro gave his generals a significant share of the oil fields and gold mines. They also trade drugs.

Maduro is still in power, because the Army so far is not interested in regime change. 

 

 

Edited August 3 by El Profesor

[Spike]

3 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Doing nothing will maintain the status quo,  maduro will have power for as long as someone else doesn't rise to take it from him,  the people will suffer,  the economy won't grow because the export oil is used to fund a militarised state and mass immigration will become a problem for someone else, likely America. 

China and Russia will certainly benefit,  cut a nice deal with Venezuela to put up nuclear launch sites on the doorstep of the US,  have another Cuban missile crisis. 

 

The sanctions are the status quo, you dense bastard. What reality do you live in? Did you even read my post? How will 'immigration become a problem' it isn't fucking immigration it's refugees fleeing. Nearly 8,000,000 people have already been displaced already, how are you so constantly wrong? I literally see Venezuelans in the streets of Chicago, and your solution is to do more of the same stuff that made people suffer? Maduro is a fucking moron, but throwing a tantrum about democracy isn't the problem here, it's the fact they have no fucken food, because they can't buy any food because on top of poor economic planning they've been hammered by other major nations of North American and Europe. Maduro's ineptitude cause Venezuela to bleed, but a stab wound isn't healed with repeated stabbings!

You are literally the stupidest person that's even been on this forum and we've literally had gayporn posting New Jersey Italians ( @Dr. Gonzo) and Nazi apologists. It'd be funny if you weren't so delusional and every time someone whack-a-moles you back to your cave you crawl out of with spouting the same inane bullshit youtube intellectual buzzwords every single time. Why do you even post on here? Literally no one agrees with you ever and they constantly disprove you. Are you a glutton for punishment? Are you a troll that likes to stir shit up for the lulz? Do you want me to wear a stiletto and step on your balls?

Here are more sources you won't read

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2023/6/13/how-are-us-sanctions-affecting-life-in-venezuela

https://theintercept.com/2024/08/02/venezuela-election-maduro-us-sanctions-democracy/

https://web.archive.org/web/20200929074343/https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/us-ignores-global-appeals-suspend-sanctions-coronavirus-pandemic-iran-venezuela