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fnox posted:It’s the main conclusion of it. It isn’t saying that Maduro is responsible for any of those deaths. The main conclusion is that sanctions were a major cause of deaths and suffering in Venezuela; nowhere does it say that Maduro wasn't responsible for any of the deaths that occurred under his rule.
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Jul 5, 2019 09:07
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Majorian posted:That's still not what it said at all, come on. Executive Summary, last paragraph. quote:"We find that the sanctions have inflicted, and increasingly inflict, very serious harm to human life and That is pretty unambiguous.
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Jul 5, 2019 09:10
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Rust Martialis posted:Executive Summary, last paragraph. The study claims that 40,000 deaths were due to sanctions; more people died in Venezuela between 2013 and now than just those 40,000. The article doesn't say anything about Maduro's government not killing anyone, nor does it suggest that the only cause of death was "sanctions," come on. Don't make poo poo up.
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Jul 5, 2019 09:12
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That's not what I said it claimed, so take your own advice.
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Jul 5, 2019 09:15
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Rust Martialis posted:That's not what I said it claimed, so take your own advice. This was your initial claim: Rust Martialis posted:Well the article you cited claimed every death was due to sanctions alone, so oil and Maduro's policies were evidently immaterial if it's all the fault of sanctions. That's not at all what the study is arguing, just that the sanctions are responsible for those 40,000 deaths. e: Did you mean "the article you cited claimed every death out of those 40,000 was due to sanctions alone"? Because we may have just misunderstood each other.
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Jul 5, 2019 09:16
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I subsequently clarified "excess deaths", perhaps you skipped that post.
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Jul 5, 2019 09:18
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Rust Martialis posted:I subsequently clarified "excess deaths", perhaps you skipped that post. So where does the article claim that there were only 40,000 excess deaths in Venezuela between 2013 and 2019? You seem to be reading a lot into that study that isn't there. The piece acknowledges that there was already a serious recession in the wake of the 2014 oil crash: quote:By August of 2017, when the Trump administration issued its executive order imposing broad financial sanctions on Venezuela, the economy had already been in recession for more than three years. Although there has not been official government data for these indicators since 2015, the best available estimates were that real GDP had declined by 24.3 percent from 2014 through 2016, and consumer price inflation for January to August 2017 was probably somewhere between 758 percent and 1,350 percent at an annual rate.
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Jul 5, 2019 09:25
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Majorian posted:So where does the article claim that there were only 40,000 excess deaths in Venezuela between 2013 and 2019? You seem to be reading a lot into that study that isn't there. The piece acknowledges that there was already a serious recession in the wake of the 2014 oil crash: I am not claiming the report says 2013-2019 and never have. It clearly is discussing 2017 sanctions.
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Jul 5, 2019 10:11
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:
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Jul 5, 2019 10:32
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Just saying, this report is god awful and it’s making bad conclusions out of good data. The man responsible for it is an idiot, he’s been wrong about nearly every thing he has said about the Venezuelan economy, despite being an economist. You can probably improve your argument by using the ENCOVI survey results directly. And again like, if you look at historical data you can see how the downward trend preceded 2017, so I have no idea how you can claim the deaths are “largely” due to sanctions when they were largely occurring before then. Have you ever wondered if Maduro did anything to help fight the recession? Because if you look at the data, and if you see what he did, you can see that his actions only accelerated the crisis, to a degree where I can argue him not doing anything would have been better. I’d argue he’s responsible for loving deaths squads executing people and covering it up, be it through negligence or malicious intent. I doubt the torture going on is also happening without him knowing. fnox fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Jul 5, 2019 |
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Jul 5, 2019 10:54
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Majorian posted:This is just flat-out wrong. The crisis didn't start with Hitler; he made it worse on several levels, but the seeds of the crisis were already planted when he came into power, and any negative effect he had was at least matched, if not eclipsed, by the negative effects of years of sanctions. If it wasn't for the stock market crash and the treaty of Versailles, he wouldn't have had to kill all those people. It doesnt count!
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Jul 5, 2019 12:19
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https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/07/1041902 So Bachelet published her findings today, the full report will be up soon. She’s describing the use of death squads, torture, arbitrary detentions and sexual violence by security forces. Women are queuing for 10 hours a day for food for their families. Indigenous populations are subjugated by military forces and gangs, suffering the most during this crisis. One quarter of the population, 7 million people, need humanitarian assistance yet Maduro only allowed aid to enter since May. You still think Venezuela should keep Maduro?
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Jul 5, 2019 12:38
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fnox posted:https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/07/1041902 I think Majorian has been *quite* clear that Maduro needs to go, but not at the cost of a US military invasion. I think that is a very reasonable position.
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Jul 5, 2019 13:00
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Rust Martialis posted:I think Majorian has been *quite* clear that Maduro needs to go, but not at the cost of a US military invasion. How should he be removed? And when?
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Jul 5, 2019 13:02
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fnox posted:How should he be removed? And when? As soon as possible, with as little violence as possible. Majorian, would you agree?
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Jul 5, 2019 13:07
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Rust Martialis posted:As soon as possible, with as little violence as possible. That’s not really an answer. Absolutely everyone desires a quick, peaceful resolution to the crisis, the problem is getting one, there’s not very many options on what to do that will result in tangible change.
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Jul 5, 2019 13:30
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Rust Martialis posted:As soon as possible, with as little violence as possible. At this point, those seem to be two mutually exclusive end states.
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Jul 5, 2019 13:38
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dublish posted:At this point, those seem to be two mutually exclusive end states. Hence the disagreement - fnox is "as soon as possible", and Majorian is "as little violence as possible". (I hope I do no violence to their respective views.) You could maybe recast it as "stop the current suffering" and "don't make things even worse", possibly. The thing is food and medical aid will reduce current suffering now that it is finally allowed in, and violence wasn't needed. This weakens the "invasion now" argument to me.
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Jul 5, 2019 14:49
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fnox posted:That’s not really an answer. Absolutely everyone desires a quick, peaceful resolution to the crisis, the problem is getting one, there’s not very many options on what to do that will result in tangible change. Well, would you agree a quick, violent approach (say a joint US/Brazil military action) would have a *serious* risk of making things much worse at least short/medium term?
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Jul 5, 2019 14:51
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If Maduro had won free and fair elections but things were otherwise the same as they are now, is that grounds for foreign military invasion or a military coup? If Maduro didn't even make pretenses at liberal democracy but things were going okay, would that still be grounds for overthrow at any means? Is it the confluence of the two that justifies it?
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Jul 5, 2019 15:01
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Rust Martialis posted:Well, would you agree a quick, violent approach (say a joint US/Brazil military action) would have a *serious* risk of making things much worse at least short/medium term? There’s a serious risk of Maduro solidifying his grasp to power if we leave him too much time on his own. That or that the country will slip into civil war. Things will get much worse in the medium long term if we follow the current trend. Chaos will escalate. Even more so, if you relax the sanctions that leaves his regime being essentially scott free for major human rights violations. I don’t trust that Maduro will refinance the debt he’s accrued in a way that will guarantee a future for the Venezuelan people that doesn’t involve being slaves to China and Russia. If there is no pressure, Maduro will not do anything, he’s only taking aid now because of international pressure. There’s no sure shot. There’s also no real evidence that the humanitarian aid is being distributed correctly, my assumption given the levels of corruption and the malicious way that the government has managed food distribution in the country is that they are not being distributed fairly. brugroffil posted:If Maduro had won free and fair elections but things were otherwise the same as they are now, is that grounds for foreign military invasion or a military coup? The first one is perhaps close to what Carlos Andres Perez second presidency’s was like. He was overthrown by the civilian government after a failed military coup by Chavez. The second one sounds like Marcos Perez Jimenez. He was overthrown by the military. This would be the first time in Venezuela’s history where you have a completely malfunctioning despotic government. The civilian government has already attempted to remove Maduro, they failed, the military doesn’t seem like they will remove them and smaller rebellions have already failed. fnox fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jul 5, 2019 |
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Jul 5, 2019 15:05
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fnox posted:https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/07/1041902 But have you considered the possibility that Michelle Bachelet, the leader of the Chilean Socialist Party who was literally imprisoned and tortured by the actual Pinochet government, is in reality a fascist Pinochet disciple? Because if you haven't considered it I assure you that the Maduro defenders have and will be alleging as much.
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Jul 5, 2019 16:42
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Oh, also don’t forget that one of the rebel officers, who was tortured so badly he was confined to a wheel chair, unable to speak, actually died during the short time she spent there. The man didn’t show any external injuries but his body showed signs of being asphyxiated, electrocuted, and subjected to extreme force. Some outlets are claiming to have read the report ahead of time and gently caress me I think the OLPs are a lot worse than what even I have said they were. I had heard rumors, but this is putting the number of dead in the thousands when the government had only admitted to about 500 before. The account of those 20 who were killed whose families spoke up? Special Forces members showed up in black pickup trucks with no license plates, separated the young men, shot them and then planted drugs and guns on them. They broke into houses, molesting women and forcing them to undress, while stealing whatever was in their homes. fnox fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Jul 5, 2019 |
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Jul 5, 2019 17:19
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Speaking of the military, here's another good article from Reuters about how it's structured and why it hasn't risen up against Maduro. The tl;dr is that the structure of the military is a deliberate mess, with overlapping or uncertain chains of command and an exceptionally bloated upper brass (With twice as many generals and admirals as the entire US Military.) So while it means that the military would be utterly doomed if Venezuela was legitimately attacked (And not even by the US, but by anybody else in the region), it's become exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, for any individual general or group of generals from consolidating enough military force to threaten the regime.
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Jul 5, 2019 18:51
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Majorian posted:I think Maduro and the PSUV are important contributing factors to how bad this crisis has become. There are other, comparably significant factors as well, imo, including sanctions, the oil crash, preexisting factors in the Venezuelan socioeconomic system that predate Chavez, etc etc. I don’t really see much utility in ranking him among other strongmen, other than that I think saying he’s worse than Pinochet is pretty nuts. Dude’s a pretty garden variety kleptocrat, just in a country that’s beset by a lot of other really bad problems that he’s making worse. I see. Thanks for the response. Do you think Venezuela would be experiencing as bad of a situation as it currently is if the PSUV was never in charge and instead a much more moderate or even right wing government (like Mauricio Macri in Argentina) were in charge?
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Jul 5, 2019 19:48
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punk rebel ecks posted:I see. Thanks for the response. Probably. Right-wing and centrist governments before Chavez failed to diversify the Venezuelan economy for decades. When you've got a profit-driven system and a resource curse like massive petroleum reserves, you're probably going to end up with an under-diversified economy no matter what. Rust Martialis posted:As soon as possible, with as little violence as possible. Of course. Those two outcomes at once may not be possible, though. So barring that, as I've said, I'd love to see a popular uprising remove Maduro and install somebody who will protect and revitalize the country's social safety net, restore political freedoms, and buck foreign imperialist advances in all directions. Maduro's no leftist, that's plain to see. Venezuela deserves an actual leftist. Unfortunately, the actual left in Venezuela is pretty underpowered at this point, so what I want to see happen there is probably not going to be the actual outcome. Thankfully, it seems that a U.S. invasion isn't in the cards anymore either, and hopefully Guaido is spent as well. Majorian fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jul 5, 2019 |
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Jul 5, 2019 20:02
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Majorian posted:Probably. Right-wing and centrist governments before Chavez failed to diversify the Venezuelan economy for decades. When you've got a profit-driven system and a resource curse like massive petroleum reserves, you're probably going to end up with an under-diversified economy no matter what. I see. I feel that this is where a fundamental disagreement is between you and some other posters. Some would say that the price controls and the inefficient nationalization that have seemed to cause shortages in the country has played a massive role in things like the lack of medicine, food, and inflation. Do you not believe that these economic policies largely contributed to these things and that they would have happened if the government didn't pursue these policies?
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Jul 5, 2019 20:13
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punk rebel ecks posted:I see. I feel that this is where a fundamental disagreement is between you and some other posters. Some would say that the price controls and the inefficient nationalization that have seemed to cause shortages in the country has played a massive role in things like the lack of medicine, food, and inflation. Do you not believe that these economic policies largely contributed to these things and that they would have happened if the government didn't pursue these policies? I don't think price controls or nationalization, in and of themselves, were the problem; there are plenty of countries that fared the oil crash better than Venezuela that had price controls and nationalized industries. I think you're right that "inefficient nationalization," coupled with Maduro's kleptocratic manipulation of price controls, played major roles in the creation of this crisis - that is part of what I mean when I say Maduro's poor governance is one of the main causal factors, after all. The problem was in the execution, and some of that was deliberate on Maduro's part. But it's fallacious to just ascribe all of the blame for the crisis to this one factor. If Venezuela is going to escape this crisis into a better set of circumstances, it's going to take a lot more than just replacing Maduro and the PSUV. The way out of this certainly isn't pining for the halcyon days of the Condor Years. e: Also Happy Independence Day, Venezuela - I am legit sorry that this dude is our SecState and wants to make all of your lives even more miserable: https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1147117081307090947 Majorian fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jul 6, 2019 |
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Jul 5, 2019 20:41
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Majorian posted:But it's fallacious to just ascribe all of the blame for the crisis to this one factor. If Venezuela is going to escape this crisis into a better set of circumstances, it's going to take a lot more than just replacing Maduro and the PSUV. The way out of this certainly isn't pining for the halcyon days of the Condor Years. No, but it’s the first step. There is no chance of possible recovery under Maduro or the PSUV, we cannot fix any of the current problems without swiftly removing whoever is in power right now, like a larger cull than just removing Maduro, the entire government needs to be changed.
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Jul 6, 2019 18:11
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fnox posted:No, but it’s the first step. There is no chance of possible recovery under Maduro or the PSUV, we cannot fix any of the current problems without swiftly removing whoever is in power right now, like a larger cull than just removing Maduro, the entire government needs to be changed. I agree, but the mentality that you espouse, ie: “Anything would be better than Maduro,” will also not help Venezuela recover.
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Jul 6, 2019 18:19
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Majorian posted:I agree, but the mentality that you espouse, ie: “Anything would be better than Maduro,” will also not help Venezuela recover. Any civilian government would be better than what we have right now. Again, a civilian government would have to coalesce with other parts to maintain governability. I don't want Guaido to stay, I want him to call for elections. If the country is actually split, then lets get a split government. However bad a civilian government can be it is not going to be anywhere near as capable for unchecked evil as the current one. I sure as gently caress don't want another dictator in power.
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Jul 6, 2019 18:47
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If dude is sending out death squads I feel like the UN should go in with peacekeepers and remove the administration and make elections happen. In an ideal world.
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Jul 6, 2019 18:48
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Moridin920 posted:If dude is sending out death squads I feel like the UN should go in with peacekeepers and remove the administration and make elections happen. In an ideal world. It is not the job of peacekeeping forces to remove the administration. Their job is, well, peacekeeping. They would only go to Venezuela is there was an actual civil war.
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Jul 6, 2019 18:50
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Well I'm saying in an ideal world it would be the UN's job and that way it could be done in accordance with international law etc. instead of what usually happens which is the US coming in and bombing everything to gently caress and then handing the reigns over to whoever promises the most capital flows back to imperial center. You could argue that it is peacekeeping if they're removing a government that is sending out death squads. I'd say cruise missile Maduro but then that likely kicks of a civil war, no?
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Jul 6, 2019 18:53
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Moridin920 posted:Well I'm saying in an ideal world it would be the UN's job and that way it could be done in accordance with international law etc. instead of what usually happens which is the US coming in and bombing everything to gently caress and then handing the reigns over to whoever promises the most capital flows back to imperial center. You could argue that it is peacekeeping if they're removing a government that is sending out death squads. In the current situation, Venezuela would likely see a net reduction in capital outflow given cash flow is already maxxed out going to pay debt to external companies like Rosneft and Sinopec either in cash or oil-for-debt. Or to offshore bank accounts held by PSUV leaders.
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Jul 6, 2019 18:59
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I don't want to get drawn into another argument about what US military intervention would look like. I will say it is interesting that certain countries are given leeway on national debt (such as Germany on their WW2 debts) and other countries are given the thumbscrews. There's nothing preventing the international community from just writing off significant debts and if it means Venezuela can stabilize and get some democratic elections going that would be the good thing to do.
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Jul 6, 2019 19:04
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Moridin920 posted:Well I'm saying in an ideal world it would be the UN's job and that way it could be done in accordance with international law etc. instead of what usually happens which is the US coming in and bombing everything to gently caress and then handing the reigns over to whoever promises the most capital flows back to imperial center. You could argue that it is peacekeeping if they're removing a government that is sending out death squads. Any violent action is going to lead to war. I doubt it'll be a long one, but that comes with all the atrocities you're all very familiar with by now, no matter who's doing it. Guess what? Even the UN Peacekeepers commit crimes, they've been found guilty of rapes in basically every deployment they've ever been in. Like the other thing is, who pays for this conflict? Venezuela has one of the largest standing armies in the region. Even if 90% desert, I'm assuming a fair bit including paramilitaries would fight for Maduro regardless. The price you pay to whichever army frees you is allegiance. There really isn't very many options. A negotiation that results in a peaceful transfer of power to a transitional government that organizes general elections in 30 days is of course the most desirable outcome. But there's absolutely no reason for Maduro to agree to it. Unless we send him, and his entire group of corrupt vampires off with a gently caress-off check towards any destination that he chooses, therefore escaping prosecution.
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Jul 6, 2019 19:06
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Moridin920 posted:Well I'm saying in an ideal world it would be the UN's job and that way it could be done in accordance with international law etc. instead of what usually happens which is the US coming in and bombing everything to gently caress and then handing the reigns over to whoever promises the most capital flows back to imperial center. You could argue that it is peacekeeping if they're removing a government that is sending out death squads. Hmmm yes, the Iraq and Korean wars were good. We should do those again.
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Jul 6, 2019 19:14
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What the ones where the US did exactly what I said they do? Just let me fantasize about my moral global government with an army to back itself up okay I know it is not real. 
Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jul 6, 2019 |
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Jul 6, 2019 19:24
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Hmmm yes, the Iraq and Korean wars were good. We should do those again. I agree that Kim Il Sung shouldn't have launched an aggressive war of conquest, but I don't see what that has to do with Venezuela? Do you have information that Maduro plans to attack Guyana or something?
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Jul 6, 2019 19:45
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