Venezuela - U.S. Again Tries Regime Change...

[alloneword]

MoA post on the 'coup' with a bit more detail:

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/04/v ... tempt.html

[RocketMan]

Looks like it's fizzling out again. Thank God.

I wonder if next up there will be a pretext for US invasion. Stuff was mos def choreographed to a high degree with actors like Bolton and Pompeo shooting out tweets that had been no doubt scheduled well in advance.

From The Guardian's live feed:

Bolton: "all options" on the table

The US national security advisor, John Bolton, has said “all options” remain on the table for responding to the situation in Venezuela.

Bolton claimed three senior Maduro aides had committed to establishing a peaceful transfer of power to the opposition in remarks outside the White House. Bolton named Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, Supreme Court chief judge Maikel Moreno and presidential guard commander Ivan Rafael Hernandez Dala as havning been involved in those conversations.

Bolton blamed Cuba for helping support the Maduro regime and said it has told Russia not to interfere with Venezuela.

He also tweeted at the senior Maduro aides, telling them “your time is up.”

“This is your last chance,” Bolton wrote. “Accept Interim President Guaido’s amnesty, protect the Constitution, and remove Maduro, and we will take you off our sanctions list. Stay with Maduro, and go down with the ship.”

And of course, this...

[JackRiddler]

I think these are attempts to get Caracas to respond in exactly the way pretty much any other state would, by rounding up the would-be junta and dispersing their supporters with as much force as needed for the operation. A strong response by the government might give enough pretext for Washington to portray it as they did Gaddafi's supposedly imminent genocide in Benghazi, and thus as grounds for an invasion. Guaido's death might suffice to justify a strike on Maduro. Guiado is probably most useful as a sacrificial lamb, if not already then soon he will be worth more to Washington as a martyr than as a living failure.

[RocketMan]

I think these are attempts to get Caracas to respond in exactly the way pretty much any other state would, by rounding up the would-be junta and dispersing their supporters with as much force as needed for the operation. A strong response by the government might give enough pretext for Washington to portray it as they did Gaddafi's supposedly imminent genocide in Benghazi, and thus as grounds for an invasion. Guaido's death might suffice to justify a strike on Maduro. Guiado is probably most useful as a sacrificial lamb, if not already then soon he will be worth more to Washington as a martyr than as a living failure.

Sounds plausible, as usual. Guaido might indeed be a tragic figure under all that high school bully douchiness.

There is a certain exasperation in the media about Maduro's lack of authoritarian crackdown and they desperately grasp at everything that could conceivably be portrayed as such. In these situations, it is apparently expected that under an ongoing coup attempt fomented by foreign powers (refreshingly openly this time out, I must say), the target government should just fold like a cheap suit.

There is still the possibility of simply staging violence subsequently blamed on the government à la Maidan, or indeed the PREVIOUS Venezuela coup attempt.

[stickdog99]

Man, that is some well-heeled, snazzy-suited "opponent of Maduro"...

Truly a People's Revolution, it seems...

Next, he'll be draping an American flag over a toppled Chavez statue

[stickdog99]

I think these are attempts to get Caracas to respond in exactly the way pretty much any other state would, by rounding up the would-be junta and dispersing their supporters with as much force as needed for the operation. A strong response by the government might give enough pretext for Washington to portray it as they did Gaddafi's supposedly imminent genocide in Benghazi, and thus as grounds for an invasion. Guaido's death might suffice to justify a strike on Maduro. Guiado is probably most useful as a sacrificial lamb, if not already then soon he will be worth more to Washington as a martyr than as a living failure.

Sounds plausible, as usual. Guaido might indeed be a tragic figure under all that high school bully douchiness.

There is a certain exasperation in the media about Maduro's lack of authoritarian crackdown and they desperately grasp at everything that could conceivably be portrayed as such. In these situations, it is apparently expected that under an ongoing coup attempt fomented by foreign powers (refreshingly openly this time out, I must say), the target government should just fold like a cheap suit.

There is still the possibility of simply staging violence subsequently blamed on the government à la Maidan, or indeed the PREVIOUS Venezuela coup attempt.

Why do I get the feeling that Maduro is planning a vicious attack on Venezuela's Voice of America radio station as we speak?

[JackRiddler]

Watching this bizarre "rally" for Guaido, I also immediately thought of the fake rally to topple the Saddam statue, except in a version run by the directors of a second-grade school play.

[RocketMan]

Watching this bizarre "rally" for Guaido, I also immediately thought of the fake rally to topple the Saddam statue, except in a version run by the directors of a second-grade school play.

He does cut a somehow pathetic figure there...

[JackRiddler]

Looking like a guy who's just doing a job, few choices in it.

[stickdog99]

Looking like a guy who's just doing a job, few choices in it.

"We came. We saw. He died."

[RocketMan]

The "leftist" The Guardian once again flaunts its contempt for working people...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... -venezuela

Former bus driver Nicolás Maduro clings to wheel in Venezuela

[JackRiddler]

The Guardian is absolutely shameful but let's never again concede the pretense even sarcastically that it's anything of the left. It is not. On the main propaganda lines it is as much an attack organ as any other corporate media outlet, although it will occasionally publish quality. WaPo has a column about how shameful it is that anyone is calling this televised military coup attempt a coup. FOX has a pro-regime change column by Judith Miller, it's incredible. Guardian offers this

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... y-immunity

in which we see myriad US threats of aggression if anything (such as mere arrest) should happen to the military coup instigator. Also, "recent weeks have seen a growing crackdown from Maduro’s beleaguered administration," as if any crew doing the same actions as Guaido under the government of the UK or any other state would not have already all been arrested, dead, or on the run many weeks ago. Despite the beleaguering, the constitutional and democratically elected constituent assembly is referred to as "Maduro’s all-powerful constituent assembly." Its president is cited briefly (because she's saying something justifiably angry) and otherwise almost every remaining citation is either of Guaido, or the American officials making threats of aggression. Rick Scott: “I will say this again: the US will not stand idly by if anything happens to @jguaido or his family. @NicolasMaduro you are on notice!” The only exception, at the close, is Henrique Capriles, who is not identified as a leader of the 2002 coup d'etat but merely a member of the "opposition." Capriles: “What we are living through in Venezuela is a horror film … It has turned Venezuelans into zombies.” Anticipating the massacres he didn't get to oversee in 2002, as we all know the only thing one can do with zombies!

The whole US-Guaido game has been to manufacture a pretext for foreign military intervention, they have no other move. Wonder what's happening today with the calling of "the biggest rally in history" on the Bolivarian holiday of May 1. The plotters here really do understand well that they have no cards whatsoever to play. They want an opposition rally far smaller than the government's, and they want it to be violently suppressed, so that they can begin bombing Venezuela to "save its people."

John Pilger
@johnpilger

Mark Weisbrot's and Jeffrey Sachs's shocking report that the US embargo on Venezuela has killed 40,000 people has almost no media pick up. No surprise; but consider the suffering, and the prospect of a Pinochet-style coup, the next time the Guardian solicits donations.

3:01 AM - 1 May 2019

.

[JackRiddler]

.

Now Bloomberg, of all things, is usually hands-down superior to The Guardian and almost all other corporate media outlets. Whatever the weaknesses in the following, it involves actual reporting. They don't have a location line but multiple reporters on this story and it sure reads like Caracas.

www.bloomberg.com

Guaido’s High-Risk Gamble Flops as Maduro Keeps Grip on Military

By Andrew Rosati , Alex Vasquez , and Patricia Laya

It was a ploy that from its outset felt like a long shot. Before dawn Tuesday, Juan Guaido, flanked by his political mentor Leopoldo Lopez and a handful of soldiers who had broken ranks, issued a message to Venezuela and the world: The time to topple Nicolas Maduro’s authoritarian regime was right now.

By dusk, with Maduro still firmly in control of the military command, Lopez had sought refuge in the Chilean ambassador’s residence in Caracas before moving to the Spanish embassy, and the streets were beginning to empty of the protesters who had heeded Guaido’s call to join what he called Operation Liberty.

VENEZUELA-CRISIS-CLASHES-GUAIDO-LOPEZ


Juan Guaido, left, and Leopoldo Lopez in Caracas on April 30.
Photographer: Cristian Hernandez/AFP via Getty Images

While likely not a fatal blow to Guaido and the three-month-old push to unseat Maduro, it was certainly the biggest setback yet. And it raised crucial questions: Will Maduro use this moment to carry out his longstanding threat to jail Guaido once and for all? If that happens, how will the U.S., the de facto leader of an international coalition backing Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, respond?

The whole episode was so bizarre -- with Guaido seemingly lacking the military might to have any chance at all -- that it was hard to understand the day’s events. One explanation, as related by National Security Adviser John Bolton, was that a deal had been struck behind the scenes and that key members of Maduro’s regime had agreed to flip, paving the way for Guaido to easily assume power.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed on CNN that Maduro had in fact been heading to Havana Tuesday, when his allies in the Russian government talked him out of leaving. Russia’s government denied that Wednesday, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova telling CNN the U.S. was using “fakes as a part of an information war.”

Venezuela's Guaido Claims Military Support to Take Power


Protesters gather at Altamira Square in Caracas.
Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg

Not a total joke but weak, including by opposition standards. And this is not surprising, it's predictable. "Come out for my final battle! Freedom!" Maybe Guaido's trying to throw the game and get himself out of dodge?

I really want to see photos from the Bolivarian May Day rally.

Read More: Trump’s Bet on Guaido Is Tested as Maduro Remains in Caracas

Bolton called out Venezuela’s defense minister and chief justice on Twitter, saying this was their last chance to accept Guaido and escape sanctions or “go down with the ship.” Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who has played a key role in shaping U.S. policy on Venezuela, tweeted that high-ranking Venezuelan officials who publicly support Maduro had “been working to get him out” and that their double cross would soon be exposed.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, one of those officials, took to the airwaves to declare the people involved in the attempted takeover “ridiculous,” calling what had happened “a mediocre coup.”

Jeez, dude, you complaining? "I knew Latin American coups d'etat. Mr. Guaido, you're no coup d'etat!"

Bolton insisted that it wasn’t a coup d’etat because Maduro had stolen last year’s election; Guaido, as the head of the national assembly, is the constitutionally mandated interim president. He said “Cuban thugs” were threatening members of the Venezuelan military who might otherwise defect. President Donald Trump threatened a “full and complete” embargo of Cuba.

Tuesday’s events -- coming a day before planned nationwide anti-government demonstrations -- began with the escape of Lopez, a former mayor of a Caracas district who in 2015 was sentenced to almost 14 years in prison on charges including inciting violence. He was released to house arrest in July 2017 under orders to keep quiet, and his sudden appearance with Guaido was a dramatic turn.

The sun was coming up as Guaido announced the “final phase” of the effort to end Maduro’s disastrous rule, which has driven the once-wealthy oil power into chaos and near starvation.

“This is the morning for all us to go out to the streets, civilians and soldiers,” Lopez said as he stood with Guaido near a military airbase in eastern Caracas. He said he had been freed by his captors. “Today, we are convinced this process is irreversible.”

Venezuela's Guaido Claims Military Support to Take Power


Protesters clash with pro-government Bolivarian National Guards near the Generalisimo Francisco de Miranda Airbase.
Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg

If you caption it that way, anyway. (Which ones are the protesters? Where are these National Guards?)

For more than 10 hours, Caracas and dozens of other cities rang with the boom of tear gas as government troops quelled protests. National police and guardsmen using armored vehicles blocked main arteries and turned back crowds. Supporters of Maduro asked for residents to rally outside Miraflores, the presidential palace, in a show of strength, and hundreds did.

Show us photos!

Okay, annoyingly, I'll have to look them up myself. Here's one:



"Hundreds." Sure. A few hundred hundreds.

Here's a search on gettyimages.com using the keyword Miraflores (setting: editorial), which shows a bunch from the pro-Maduro rally under the headling "Venezuelan Coup Attempt" (i.e., COUNTER-coup success!). (This shows the most recent photos so it will change over time.)

https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/mira ... ue#license

“The opposition called for a civic-military uprising but failed on both ends. Parties didn’t manage to rally and coordinate enough protesters nor did they convince a significant enough factions of the military to break ranks,” said Dimitris Pantoulas, a political analyst in Caracas. “Everything was hurried.”

There was throughout the day a chimerical quality to the opposition endeavor, not unlike Guaido’s January announcement that he was taking the reins of government. He has named ambassadors and officials and been recognized by more than 50 nations. Without the power of the military, his presidency has been an act purely of symbolism.

Venezuela's Guaido Claims Military Support to Take Power


Protesters take cover from tear gas canisters and gun fire in Caracas.
Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg

There’s no doubt that across the country, and within its governing bureaucracy, there is profound discontent with Maduro and broad support for a transition. Guaido and his advisers believed that by declaring an uprising they might actually be able to create one.

For a while, it seemed possible. As protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, dozens of exiled military officers stood at the ready in the Colombian border city of Cucuta. But they didn’t cross the bridge into Venezuela, ordered back to their hotels by Guaido’s local representatives, according to Jose Nieto, a former sergeant major in the National Guard.

In the afternoon, Lopez, along with his wife and one of their daughters, entered the Chilean ambassadorial residence, according to that country’s foreign minister, Roberto Ampuero. Lopez later left the residence and went to the Spanish embassy, the Chilean government said.

VENEZUELA-CRISIS-CLASHES


An opposition protester passes a burning government bus in Caracas.
Photographer: Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images

How did that happen?

At the State Department in Washington, Elliott Abrams, the U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, said he wouldn’t “make predictions about what’s going to happen right now or tomorrow or the day after.” Guaido’s Operation Liberty, he added, “was not done out of the blue. It was done as part of a long process of trying to restore the constitution.”

As usual not bothering to hide authorship.

On state television Tuesday night, Maduro threatened to act against the people “encouraging the coup d’état,” as he put it. “They can’t go unpunished.” He said national prosecutors were investigating “all those involved.” He scoffed at Bolton’s claim about his having been headed for Havana in the morning.

Guaido said on Twitter that the opposition was “in a process that is unstoppable.” As the streets emptied, he seemed to have been proven wrong, but there was still hope.

“Either we continue to come out and protest, or we resign ourselves to the way things are for another 20 years or longer,” said Alejandro Coiman, a 25-year-old student, as he walked across eerily quiet eastern Caracas. “The match has been struck. There’s no turning back.”

— With assistance by Fabiola Zerpa

(Updates with Russia comment.)

[stickdog99]

And, like the Iraq War, this is the one thing in our news cycle that Fox-CNN-MSNBC-WaPo-NY Times and all Demopublicans can agree on.

[stickdog99]

Once again, Tucker fucking Carlson provides the best reporting on Venezuela of any US corporate media outlet:

https://twitter.com/GrayzoneProject/sta ... 0023330816