Venezuela: The Empanada Summit

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Venezuela: The Empanada Summit

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

punk rebel ecks posted:

The dilemma with the Left's perspective on "solidarity" and even "socialism", is dealing with what happens when the common people don't support what the Left wants. You mean that the average Venezuelan doesn't want to starve to death and be on the brink of homelessness just to "stick it" to the United States and support an incompetent leader who doesn't give a poo poo about them? Well that's not showing solidarity.

I think the open question here is how much (and how) the present alternative will help with the whole 'not starving to death' thing.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 19:55

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 13:29

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Jose posted:

the US could just drop its sanctions and allow venezuela to import food

I don't believe the US sanctions cover food supplies, do they?

# ¿ Jan 28, 2019 21:14

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Presenting Nipples posted:

The Trump administration is pushing for civil war and that is undeniably worse then the status quo. They are actively making the status quo worse on a daily basis.

Mmm, I've seen a few Venezuelans going full accelerationist here. Like, the government is already killing them, so at least a civil war would disrupt their control and give them a chance at smuggling in vital supplies or straight-up escaping.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2019 16:18

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Acebuckeye13 posted:

are you sure because I have seen literally zero venegoons advocate for active civil war. quite the opposite in fact!

Goons ain't the only Venezuelans online. I'm talking offsite.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2019 20:12

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Since the quality of English-language reporting around Venezuela is so poo poo, can we at least have some indicator that y'all have vetted your sources a little when you post?

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 14:01

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

A Typical Goon posted:

I don't know what else you'd call a coup with the support of the US and Brazil when the leader openly admits that one of his goals is the privatization of industry?

Did you get that last bit from that idiot on Reddit? Because way too many people in this thread have been treating him as a credible source.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 14:07

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

GoLambo posted:

What is your qualification for this, what counts as vetting? Max Blumenthal is a respected and credited journalist with a long career.

He's also got some things pretty spectacularly wrong, like when he bought into White Helmets conspiracy theories in Syria. In this article, he seems to be uncritically citing a whole bunch of sources we already know to be biased, like Venezuelanalysis, leading me to wonder how much of his acclaimed journalistic skills he's actually bothered to deploy here. I mean, all it would take is an addition like 'Venezuelanalysis, a non-profit news site that was established with Venezuelan government funding and technical support, and is currently hosted by the pro-government site Aporrea.org, says that...'

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 14:34

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Saladman posted:

What�s interesting is no one has raised that the guns are 100% bullshit, just like Maduro tends to find all opposition leaders driving around Caracas with grenades and C-4 in their cars

I mean it might be true they found the guns, but it�s also possible it�s 100% made up.

That plane was almost certainly smuggling something, though. Its behaviour was incredibly dodgy.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2019 20:24

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

CAPS LOCK BROKEN posted:

https://twitter.com/steffanwatkins/status/1094008901618552833?s=20

Nope, no CIA involvement at all.

Where's bellingcat and other "citizen journalists" when you need them?

Watkins is one of their guys. He's worked with Bellingcat on a number of projects.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2019 04:00

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Cease to Hope posted:

do people normally believe cops when they brag about how important their latest bust was?

I think it's more that we have independent verification that this freight company was behaving incredibly suspiciously with a curious lack of regard for US law enforcement. They were clearly smuggling something, and it was clearly urgent (40 flights in a month) and the Venezuelan authorities' haul is weirdly underwhelming for an exaggerated fabrication.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2019 13:51

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Labradoodle posted:

I'm not going to pretend to know what that flight was about. However, all this talk about smuggling guns is plain silly. It's easier to find guns in Venezuela than it is to get your hands on certain basic food staples. Even regular street gangs sometimes have access to military level weaponry. If you have cash and you know someone, you can get a gun and you can even buy stuff from the military. Hell, you could just smuggle poo poo through Colombia or Brasil and call it a day. Yet the CIA is supposedly arming rebels 19 guns at a time using easily-tracked planes?

Let's add to that the question � who the gently caress are they supposedly arming? For all the protests that have gone on throughout the years, the overwhelming majority of violent events and casualties have been inflicted on the opposition. The government forces fire at protesters, kill some of them, detain more, torture people, and even with all that poo poo, the number of times when protesters returned that violence is minimal. The opposition isn't going to 'arm itself' for a civil war � it's a peaceful movement. If you fail to understand that, then you have zero clue about what's going on in Venezuela.

Now is the time when you parade that time when opposition protesters burned someone alive, or set up wires to maim motorcycle riders, or set some buildings on fire, and you pretend that's what it's all about. The fact is, you can't repress people that long without expecting them to at least fight back some. If the opposition movement were violent, there would be a whole lot more dead people, but that's something that you conveniently ignore.

Again, we have independent verification that this company was rapidly transferring... something... out of a major US airport to Colombia and Venezuela while concealing its employer and having people who'd previously done work for the CIA on its payroll. Sometimes, the stupid, nonsensical answer is the correct one.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2019 15:57

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

exploded mummy posted:

https://twitter.com/steffanwatkins/status/1094336895146971142?s=19

That doesn't answer any of what I was saying in that post, though?

# ¿ Feb 10, 2019 17:30

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Christ, just imagine some dude rolling into the UKMT and going 'excuse me, but I think the American perspective is most important here'.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 17:08

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

the explain like i'm five is quick and simple.

twenty-one years ago a socialist got elected president of Venezuela. eighteen years ago the US tried to coup the poo poo out of him, and it didn't work. he tied his country's currency to the cost of oil. this was a very good idea while the price of oil was high. this became an incredibly bad idea the second the price of oil crashed. he died in 2013. his subordinate has taken over since. he does not have the same cult of personality, and has managed the response to the crash of the price of oil very badly. it turns out when you base your power on being able to provide things to your people, and the currency you use to buy said things takes a poo poo and dies at the same time as the price of your chief export, you stop being able to provide them. things are not good in venezuela.

a couple weeks ago, VP Pence decided to dust off the ol' Axis of Evil line, incorporating Venezuela as criminal number one. a week later, an opposition leader proclaimed himself the Actual President of Venezuela, and in celebration America immediately announced Literal Committer Of Genocide In Order To Back Up Right Wing Dictatorships In Latin America, Elliot Abrams, would be the US' point man on Venezuela.

this story will not have a happy ending. the only real question at this point is whether that unhappy ending features US-backed right wing death squads playing the greatest hits of the 80s, 90s, and today all over the bodies of the inconveniently dark-skinned and/or possible PSUV sympathizers.

This does skip over the 2015 constitutional crisis, which provided most of the domestic Venezuelan set-up for the present situation. Basically, after a couple of years of poverty, turmoil and corruption, the opposition secured a majority in the country's legislature. The departing PSUV members went 'lol nope' and stuffed the Supreme Court before they got kicked out. The new Supreme Court then found irregularities in the 2015 election and kicked out enough opposition members to deny them a supermajority in the legislature and let Maduro's government veto the poo poo out of anything they proposed.

Since this created a state of total legislative deadlock, the Supreme Court then amended the constitution to temporarily give itself (and Maduro) the legislature's powers and announced the creation of a new legislature with blackjack and hookers. The opposition went 'no, sorry, that's bullshit', boycotted the election of the new legislature, and declared everything after the 2015 election invalid rules-lawyering by an illegitimate government. That's where the second president came from - the old legislature used its previous powers, from before this whole constitutional mess, to replace Maduro with Guaid�, the present majority leader in said legislature. Now both sides are reaching out to whichever murderous imperialist rear end in a top hat will take them in order to get control of the country from the treacherous, corrupt saboteurs on the other side.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 18:53

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Rust Martialis posted:

Which "major power" backs Maduro exactly? I seriously doubt China gives a gently caress about anything beyond getting oil, and getting repaid. Russia? Do you think Putin really cares about the Bolivarian Republic, or about getting paid?

Both China and Russia will back whomever keeps the money and oil flowing.

That said, Russia does seem to be trying to establish a recognised brand of 'resolute loyalty to awful people'. It's the one big advantage they have over democratic great powers, who are much less reliable long-term partners.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 19:05

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

DoctorStrangelove posted:

The world as a whole is doing much better than it ever has before. Last month, for the first time in human history, the global middle class was larger than the global lower class. Poverty is really the default state of humanity, and humans are doing better at pulling themselves out of it. So things are looking up. Venezuela is so notable because it is bucking this trend.

Didn't it turn out that a bunch of those economic wellbeing indicators were going up, up, up because the people measuring them were ignoring inflation and doing other daft poo poo?

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 20:03

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

support Maduro for long enough to get the people who think your mass murder is the correct way to win you over out of the equation, then support someone who will get rid of Maduro without that piece of baggage.

that is it. that is the route here, barring the sudden and much-to-be-hoped for appearance of a third party.

alternately you could go the accelerationist route in the hope Guaido, Abrams, and Bolton gently caress up so brutally and so catastrophically that Guaido is promptly replaced by someone much better. accelerationism has never worked, admittedly, and the way Abrams appointees react to popular revolt tends towards the Not At All Subtle, but I can at least see how someone would come to the conclusion that just a couple of El Mozotes would be less overall harm to the nation than a continuation of the status quo, if you could be assured there would only be that couple.

regardless, the alternative to supporting Maduro now to hopefully replace him later is signing off on us backed death squads massacring your countrymen as constituting a better future.

i can understand why people choose that.

you may have gathered I disagree, however.

I mean, isn't Maduro already rolling out the death squads amidst mass starvation and doing deeply unpleasant things to non-white people (particularly the native population)? You've said a lot about why Abrams is awful, but you've said very little about how a party with Abrams on board is materially worse than the Venezuelan status quo (probably because that would require demonstrating some basic level of knowledge about the Venezuelan status quo). Like, do you really think that the poorest people in the most disadvantaged social groups do not bear the heaviest burden in a literal famine?

# ¿ Feb 13, 2019 02:14

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

This is interesting - apparently, Maduro and his people have been talking to Abrams and his people about arrangements to help them leave the country (presumably with their money intact). I'm sure he'd appreciate taking over the PSUV's infrastructure (such as it is) to set up a more overtly US-friendly dictatorship.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2019 22:13

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

It would be kind of grimly hilarious if Maduro sells the country to the US government's merry band of Cold War ghouls before anyone else has a chance, though.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2019 22:20

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Moridin920 posted:

But meanwhile Israel does Palestine worse than this and it is antisemitism if anyone says peep about it.

I'd like to see the opposition say "thanks but if this is how you're going to help then no thanks" and lean more on the EU or something.

I do believe that Maduro sucks and has done bad things. I was wrong about the election stuff - I see that he only called for parliamentary elections and not presidential. I don't think Trump, Pence, and Rubio aren't doing anything helpful are are just making otherwise well meaning people question the entire situation. It's obviously a hosed situation in Venezuela but the USA has made poo poo worse just by sticking their dicks in and muddying the waters.

What am I supposed to think about this poo poo?

Who are these ghouls speculating about further bringing USAID into the intelligence community fold? I'm supposed to believe that they give a poo poo about Venezuelans?

USA should go take care of Puerto Rico which is still hosed beyond belief afaik (death toll = to 9/11 death toll at this point) and stop trying to send spec ops into a volatile situation

How was it too hard to ship supplies to Puerto Rico because "so far away so so far away you know ISLAND big ISLAND AND WATER" but they can send a bunch of cargo planes to Venezuela like that?

But now their bleeding hearts are gonna fix Venezuela? pff.

Every goddamn thing the USA involves itself in becomes suspect due to decades if not centuries of US history - it shouldn't be all that surprising to see people begin then questioning all the facts once the USA involves itself so heavily.

Amnesty International is actually pretty famous for making GBS threads on Israel. Give their Cast Lead report areas sometime.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2019 22:16

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

you know, you sort of expect a stalin derail, and you sort of expect a "no honestly US regime change is good actually" derail, and you expect endless litigation of why when -my- side kills people it's okay actually. those are at least tangentially related to the topic under discussion.

"maduro is bad because he's like bernie sanders" is a new one, and i congratulate you on having been the first to deploy it.

Uhh, where's the Sanders bit?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2019 17:28

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Chuck Boone posted:

It's not that simple.

Maduro has blocked humanitarian aid organizations from receiving humanitarian aid in the past. As in, aid agencies have organized the reception of humanitarian aid from abroad, and the regime has stopped that aid from entering the country. Giving any organization X amount of money is no guarantee that aid will make it into the country because Maduro just doesn't feel like letting it in.

The reason for this is that for years, the regime has denied that there was a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. It's exactly the same reason why they're not letting this aid in. To admit that Venezuela needs aid would be to admit that Maduro, and possibly chavismo, have been a failure that has destroyed the country.
Only in the past two weeks or so has the regime started to maybe soften that stance, given all the pressure that it's come under thanks to the efforts of the Venezuelan people and the opposition.

Again, just because you're not aware of something doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

Sure, but you do also want to give them space and let them surrender on their own terms once they've started wavering rather than forcing the issue, unless you really want to establish an international precedent of exchanging food aid for regime change ahead of the looming mid-century climate catastrophe. Abrams and company's actions affect far more people than just the Venezuelans.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2019 14:38

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Condiv posted:

i know. how odd also that guaido continues to associate with the trump administration. almost as if this is a coordinated coup attempt...

I mean, Abrams totally intended this, but to be fair to Guiado, he has to deal with the US given that they refine all of Venezuela's oil and oil is Venezuela's only industry. They've got his and Maduro's nuts in a vice.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2019 04:07

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Mozi posted:

Pretty much everyone is bad in various ways. The writing has been on the wall for Maduro for a while now. It's a mistake for the US to get visibly involved but to start cheering on Maduro because of that is a dumb mistake as well - better of course would have been a regional response out of consideration of the US' history in South America. As I said earlier we should be hoping for a minimum of chaos, as the world never ceases to plumb new depths of stupidity and awfulness.

But you just seem blind and dumb, really.

Mind you, the region does presently include people like Bolsonaro, so that wasn't much of an option either.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2019 14:47

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Truga posted:

Congratulations, you figured it out! The solution to our problems isn't to make things "less bad" it's to make things "better", even "good". You don't make things "good" by compromising with nazis.

But what if pretty much all the significant power-players in a humanitarian crisis are various flavours of fash?

# ¿ Feb 24, 2019 14:51

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

and remember! when the regime burns aid trucks, it is proof of their monstrosity. when the opposition burns aid trucks, it's an understandable whoopsie.

Mind explaining how that's contradictory? The video appears to show an accident, and one side was trying to get those trucks through while the other was blocking them with riot police.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2019 16:48

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

hold on, let me put on my liberal interventionist hat and lanyard.

what kind of monster burns aid intended for the poor and suffering of Venezuela? what kind of grotesque animal would, knowing there are people suffering, set aid on fire in front of them. how could you possibly support the kind of people who do such a thing. apologists claim it wasn't intentional, but after years of opposition-endorsed street violence, when your best defense for taunting starving people is incompetence, you are making an extremely poor argument for your continued leadership.

we can see from this chain of events that the opposition leadership is at best not up to the challenge of helping the people of venezuela (at worst, actively opposed) and all options should be on the table to have him replaced with someone more competent.

it's the fun part about interventionist logic, using the word fun extremely loosely. there's almost no country on earth it doesn't justify knocking over. very one-size-fits-all.

I mean, they did still attack an aid convoy. That's pretty bad even if it was one of the defenders who accidentally did the most damage. Now, obviously, Abrams being involved does mean there was a chance it wasn't delivering the sort of aid you can eat, but that's still not a reason to go in tear-gas canisters blazing. Just stop the trucks, inspect the trucks, and let all those dozens of journalists from around the world who've shown up for the spectacle have a look as you see what they're carrying.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2019 17:21

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

uninterrupted posted:

Uhhh that�s obviously what the people slinging Molotov cocktails were there to prevent.

They're loving riot police. Just put your shields up, make sure you're wearing helmets, and bring some journalists along with you (ideally Western ones). Think the opposition are going to want to see a New York Times foreign correspondent go up like a Roman candle?

# ¿ Feb 26, 2019 17:29

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

CAPS LOCK BROKEN posted:

Why are "peaceful protesters" throwing improvised anti-tank explosive weapons?

Would regime change connoisseurs endorse the use of molotov cocktails by the yellow jackets in France?

I mean, given that there's a non-zero chance that the cop you're going to light up is one of Macron's cronies who dressed himself up for a taste of that sweet, sweet police brutality, I'm certainly seeing the appeal.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2019 17:34

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Main Paineframe posted:

It seems like extremely poor judgement for the US and Colombia to have allowed it. I mean, it's not like the protesters were the ones providing the aid. That was ostensibly coming from the US. You'd think they'd want to maximize the chances of the aid being delivered by not bringing along an angry, violent mob that would make a convenient excuse for the regime to engage in riot suppression tactics.

Eh, this made a lot more sense before we got videos of the dudes chucking molotovs at the border police.

And it seems like there weren't actually a whole lot of journalists there, because most of the media reports relied on secondhand accounts, thirdhand reports, rumor, or other means which "could not be independently confirmed" when they reported on the burning of the trucks. I mean, let's just look at the AP's take:

Or how about CNN? They confusingly claim both that they personally saw the police start the fire, but also that they know nothing about the fire or the circumstances that led up to it.

Sounds like they didn't know whether the police ignited the trucks with tear-gas canisters deliberately or accidentally, but they were pretty sure it was a tear-gas canister that started the fire. And hey, they might well be right. Not like we saw the point of impact of that Molotov.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2019 21:10

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Conspiratiorist posted:

My eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but it looks to me like the economy froze the moment oil prices plateau'd, and tanked the moment they tilted down.

Which is the kind of behavior you expect from markets: lack of growth is a crisis, and the expectation of negative growth is a death sentence.

Notice how the behaviour is quite different in previous crashes, though.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2019 16:42

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Private Witt posted:

Not even the dunces in Maduro's government are saying they took drugs. Delcy just yesterday said in a public statement that they were poisoned.

Guy is just inventing new propaganda out of whole-cloth, dutifully pasted in here by a useful idiot. Defending a dictator melts people's brains.

In other news, looks like Guaido will be returning tomorrow, and is calling for nationwide shooting of civilians and stealing from poor people as part of his coup.

https://twitter.com/jguaido/status/1102043638488477702

edit: Wait, hang on a second, I misread that. He is calling for protests that conform with the Constitution, not shooting of civilians and stealing from poor people. Phew, crisis just barely avoided. Can you imagine if that was actually happening? Wow, that'd be bad!

Got better sources on the poisoning for sharing, chief?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2019 11:22

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

brugroffil posted:

Absent the food crisis, does Maduro's heavy handed political tactics deserve international pressure to resign? If so, why him and not any other dictator (Erdogan, MBS, Orban, Duterte etc)?

If Venezuela had the food crisis but no political fuckery, same question. Deserving of a questionably legal change backed by international forces?

It's more the constitutional crisis he initiated, which resulted in a very noisy alternative government lobbying for international assistance. Most of those others don't have someone else with a fairly reasonable claim and a fair amount of in-country backing (they can draw big crowds, at least) contesting their legitimacy. If the coup against Erdogan had bogged down into a stalemate rather than being crushed, you'd probably see a similar situation.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2019 03:32

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jfood posted:

the death-squad adjacent community has moved into that heady morass where they discuss the moral mathematics of lynchings.

I mean, is there a single faction in this thread that can not be described as the 'death-squad adjacent community'? Seems to be mostly bickering over what flavour you like more, and whether the population should be starved to reduce their bone density and make their skulls more sledgehammerable or whether that's just playing on easy mode.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 03:07

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Condiv posted:

well, one side supports the US starving the population and employing a supporter of death squads against them, and the other thinks the US should cut that poo poo out, lift sanctions, send real aid via the UN, and accept venezuelan refugees. it seems to me that only one side in this whole deal is death squad adjacent, and it's yours

I mean, that does rather ignore the protesters presently getting hunted down and murdered, the natives getting massacred, and the food shortages that precede sanctions and that the Venezuelan government has refused to accept any significant degree of aid for. Seriously, this is what so much of the outraged screeching about Abrams misses - this poo poo is already happening, and has been happening for years. Literally all that you are threatening is a chance that the status quo will continue. The claims of opposition racism, for instance, ring hollow when Maduro's government has been dealing with an HIV epidemic among the Warao tribe in a way that would make Ronald Reagan proud.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 03:30

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Pharohman777 posted:

Reading that, it appears multiple native tribes have fled into Columbia and brazil, and they started going over the border a year before the mass refugee movement.

Yeah, it looks like they got hit first and hardest when the economy started going sideways.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 03:36

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Condiv posted:

maduro's not the one "keeping sanctions in place". also, he's not refusing any aid, just "aid" provided by a criminal who's used fake aid for the purposes of regime change before. as for the rest of your post, it doesn't apply to me since I'm not interventionist. go ahead and remain death-squad adjacent though pharoahman

food shortages are not an intentional act like deletarious sanctions that intensify said shortages. likewise, saying "this poo poo is already happening" is a bullshit justification for supporting the intensification of "this poo poo happening". maduro may be a bad guy, but getting abrams into the mix can only make things worse. and your side is the one advocating for abrams, and bolton, and all the other crazy US warmongers get involved in venezuela

And you know that the situation will be worsened because of your detailed understanding of the present situation of the Venezuelan populace, I'm sure. Is it really so hard to imagine that a murderous, corrupt racist promising food might be preferable to the murderous, corrupt racist who's been blocking food imports and destroying agriculture for years? Again, Maduro has been imposing sanctions on his country for far longer than anyone else has, and the bloody reign of Elliot Abrams would at least mean that nobody within or without Venezuela would have a reason to block food imports. Your preferred course of action, meanwhile, keeps the country in the hands of someone who is entirely willing to starve it regardless of international pressure. Maduro has literally been killing his people for years and threatening or outright attacking anyone who tries to convince him otherwise. There is literally no salvation for Venezuela so long as he's in power, because national starvation is official policy.

When someone is presently on the road to killing every last soul in their country, save those wealthy enough to escape, a mere brutal authoritarian seems positively benign.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 04:28

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Condiv posted:

i don't think it doesn't matter, I just think the US should get out cause the US has hosed up almost every country it's intervened in. and on that note, the US's current intervention is worsening the starvation, so again, the US should stop that.

I know that saying that gets in the way of loving guaido, since the US is making things harder on the people of venezuela to help him become president, but that's just facts

the "murdering corrupt racist promising food" is working with a government which is very intentionally making food more scarce, and his supporters burned the food he was supposedly going to give

the US is not going to bring salvation to venezuela, stop pretending it is

OK, explain to me why those sanctions will remain in place once Maduro is removed, and what realistic paths there are to convince Maduro to let any useful measure of food in while he remains in power. It's been mentioned multiple times that he's refused any more than token aid from pretty much every major humanitarian organisation, not just the US, and has been doing this since well before Abrams got his job. The collapse of the Venezuelan agriculture sector also predates any US action, and can be pretty directly linked to PSUV government policies. I mean, Christ, the guy has actively tried to prevent research and treatment of disease epidemics in his own country.

Besides, do we know the caravan escorts burned their own supplies? We have footage of them throwing Molotovs and the police firing tear gas canisters near the trucks at pretty much exactly the same time, and journalists on the scene offer completely different stories of what they saw. Seems like the sort of thing where we really don't have the evidence to jump to conclusions.

Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Mar 6, 2019

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 04:41

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Condiv posted:

I think you're skipping a step darth walrus. until maduro is removed, the venezuelan people will be starved more and more, while abrams and co keep making poo poo worse. again, this is your fantasy land as per last post:

welcome to abram's bloody reign. sounds much nicer than a place where an opposition leader can walk around untouched, despite having declared himself the rightful leader of the country and having offering amnesty to military members who defect.

as for asking me how we should intervene in venezuela, i already gave you my answer:

The question is how much capacity Abrams and company actually have to make things worse, given that Maduro's government has spent years frantically decoupling the country's economy from the pockets of the public, blocking any opportunity for the citizenry to feed themselves, and going 'I will hurt you if you try to make this my problem' over national health emergencies.

As for your implication that the opposition is perfectly safe, did you forget about how Guiado literally had two of his senior aides poisoned a couple of weeks back, one fatally?

# ¿ Mar 6, 2019 05:02

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 13:29

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

I don't know dude, how much worse did Libya get?

Than present-day Venezuela? That's a more difficult question than you might think. Libya certainly had a greater percentage of the population flee the country than Venezuela (somewhere around a third rather than thirteeneen per cent), although less in absolute numbers. That said, the poverty rate is much higher in Venezuela (87% in poverty, 80% food-insecure) than in Libya (40% in poverty, 10% food-insecure), suggesting the grim possibility that Venezuelans are just too poor to leave. Compare Yemen, where 62% are in poverty, 40% are food-insecure, and 12% have fled the country. The homicide rate in Venezuela also vastly outstrips that in Libya - 81 per 100k as opposed to a positively tranquil 32. Seriously, even by the standards of imperialism-ravaged hellholes, this country is a nasty place to live.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2019 00:39

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