Posted on

Venezuela, the Art of War and how to flimflam your opposition

On April 30th at 5:46 AM local time, Juan Guaidó announced the ‘definitive phase’ in his attempt to unseat the Maduro government. In other words, he announced that a coup was in motion to oust Maduro. Apparently, Guaidó has never read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Neither, for that matter, have his supporters in North America. His attempt at mobilizing the military and populace against Maduro fell flat a scant few hours after it was begun. There are red faces and fierce rhetoric all around within the Washington Beltway. In Venezuela Guaidó has now fully disgraced himself and his movement. His mentor, Leopoldo López, has fled, taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. The few soldiers that stood in the attempt have sought refuge in the Brazilian embassy. Continue reading “Venezuela, the Art of War and how to flimflam your opposition”

Posted on

The night the lights went out in Venezuela

Venezuelans have seen better days, that’s for sure. And at 4:00 local time on 7 March this year, someone turned out the lights in Venezuela, nationwide. It was reported as an infrastructure problem in the corporate press. Seems there was a little problem at the Simón Bolívar hydroelectric plant, and the lights stayed out for days. It wasn’t some little glitch. The Maduro government claimed it was a cyber-attack from the US. The corporate press blamed it on Maduro and mismanagement. It was then a matter of he-said-she-said and rhetorical back and forth. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio spilled the beans, as did Eliot Abrams, in what turned out to be a real comedy of errors and what the evidence points to as sloppy covert operations. It would appear Venezuela’s power outage was a case of a ‘Plan B’ gone wrong. More on that a little later. Continue reading “The night the lights went out in Venezuela”

Posted on

What we are not being told about Venezuela [updated as facts emerge]

This is the first part in a two-part article. In the Western media these days there is quite a lot of hand-wringing about the plight of the poor Venezuelans and how we of democratic nations must intervene to avert a dire humanitarian crisis there, remove an evil dictator, restore democracy to the region, and so on. These are stories we have heard before in other regions, like Libya, Syria and Iraq, for instance. But emerging from behind the curtain of corporate media scrutiny is another story, quite different from what we are being told in Western nations. Continue reading “What we are not being told about Venezuela [updated as facts emerge]”

Posted on

America’s latest attempt at king-making

On the 23rd of Jan 19 the US, primarily, along with a few other nations, attempted a coup in Venezuela. It played out as an opposition leader, one Juan Guaidó, swore himself in as president of Venezuela. The only problem with that is that he is not the elected leader of Venezuela. That title falls to Nicolas Maduro, who was reelected by a wide margin on 20 May 18, in what the Western media outlets slammed as a sham election. The further problem with that is the opposition parties refused to take part in the election, and in fact were directed not to, with the result that voter turnout was low. The opposition parties are also badly divided. So now Venezuelans face the prospect of a drawn-out internal battle, mission creep and a long siege for control of their nation, intensified external pressure to overthrow Maduro and increased sanctions so long as Maduro hangs on to power. Continue reading “America’s latest attempt at king-making”