Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro
Venezuela January 30, 2019
Internal US Govt Document Outlines Program of Economic Warfare on
Venezuela
An internal government document reveals tactics of economic warfare and
financial weapons the US is using against Venezuela in the name of
furthering capitalism.
By Ben Norton
Venezuela has suffered from an economic crisis in recent years, and while
the US government and corporate media outlets have blamed this hardship
solely on the ruling socialist party, internal US government documents
acknowledge that Washington has been using what it clearly describes as
financial weapons to wage economic warfare on the oil-rich South
American nation.
The quiet admission confirms what Caracas government has said for years:
The United States is waging an economic war on Venezuela, the country with
the worlds largest oil reserves.
Crippling sanctions imposed by the Donald Trump administration have bled
Venezuela of billions of dollars.
The first United Nations rapporteur to visit the nation in two decades,
legal expert Alfred de Zayas, told The Independent that the devastating
international sanctions on Venezuela are illegal and could potentially be a
crime against humanity.
Professor Steve Ellner, a leading scholar of Venezuelas politics who has
lived and taught in the country for decades, explained in an interview on
Moderate Rebels that the sanctions have economically isolated Caracas: The
fear of retaliation on the part of the Trump administration has pressured
the world economic community to lay off the Venezuelan economy. This amounts
practically to a blockade of Venezuela.
In early 2019, the Trump administration dug the knife deeper. On January 23,
the US government initiated a political coup in Venezuela by recognizing the
unelected right-wing opposition leader Juan Guaidó as supposed interim
president.
Guaidó, who was unknown to a staggering 81 percent of Venezuelans according
to a January poll, has tried to usurp the legitimate government of President
Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected in a 2018 presidential election that was
voluntarily boycotted by the US-backed opposition.
This ongoing coup attempt is the culmination of a two-decade long US
destabilization campaign aimed at shattering Venezuelas Bolivarian
Revolution. Caracas has long described this campaign as one of economic
warfare. And internal US government documents show thats exactly what it
is.
US financial weapons and economic warfare
With the coup raging in Venezuela, WikiLeaks published an excerpt from what
it described as the US coup manual, the Army Special Operations Forces
Unconventional Warfare booklet (PDF).
WikiLeaks drew particular attention to a segment of the publication entitled
Financial Instrument of U.S. National Power and Unconventional Warfare.
This section outlines how the US government, in its own words, uses
financial weapons to wage economic warfare against foreign governments
that try to pursue an independent path.
In the unconventional warfare manual, Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF)
wrote that the US can use financial power as a weapon in times of conflict
up to and including large-scale general war. And it noted that
manipulation of U.S. financial strength can leverage the policies and
cooperation of state governments that is to say, force those governments
to comply with US policy.
Institutions that help the US government accomplish this, ARSOF continued,
are the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Examples of financial weapons, include State manipulation of tax and
interest rates and pressure on financial institutions to restrict loans,
grants, or other financial assistance to foreign state and nonstate actors,
ARSOF stated.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has a long history of
conducting economic warfare valuable to any ARSOF UW campaign, the manual
concludes.
The US Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control is what
oversees sanctions against countries like Venezuela. And on January 28, the
day WikiLeaks tweeted the above excerpt, OFAC sanctioned Venezuelas
state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).
Targeting Venezuelas state-owned oil company PDVSA
The goal of these latest US sanctions is clear: Steve Mnuchin, Trumps
treasury secretary and the former chief information officer of Goldman
Sachs, indicated that Venezuelas US-backed coup leader Juan Guaidó will use
PDVSA and Venezuelas US-based oil assets to bankroll his unelected parallel
government.
OFAC, which ARSOF noted has a long history of conducting economic warfare,
was careful to point out while it was sanctioning PDVSA that this state oil
company is a primary source of Venezuelas income and foreign currency.
As The Grayzone has reported, Guaidó immediately targeted PDVSA within hours
of having declared himself interim president (with the Trump
administrations blessing). Guaidó and the US-backed right-wing opposition
hope to restructure PDVSA and move toward privatization, rewriting
Venezuelas hydrocarbons laws and handing out contracts to allow
multinational corporations access to the largest oil reserves on the planet.
And Guaidó has sought financial assistance from the IMF, which ARSOF
identified as a US ally in its economic warfare strategy.
The ARSOF Unconventional Warfare manual makes it clear that these policies
are not just a peaceful pressure campaign; they are part of an explicit
strategy of unconventional warfare aimed at Venezuela.
These words, straight from the mouth of the US government, confirm that
sanctions and other punitive economic policies are not a mere prelude to
war; they are a form of war.
The United States is not considering a war against Venezuela; the
superpower has already been waging a war, for years, on this independent
South American nation.
US sanctions comparable with medieval sieges of towns
This is precisely what led former UN rapporteur Alfred de Zayas to say, both
in an interview with The Independent and in a report on Venezuela that he
submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, that the United States, and allies
like the European Union and Canada, have waged economic warfare on
Venezuela.
De Zayas, a legal expert who teaches international law at the Geneva School
of Diplomacy, wrote, Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are
comparable with medieval sieges of towns. He added, Twenty-first century
sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their
knees.
The first UN rapporteur to report from Venezuela in a shocking 21 years, de
Zayas told The Independent, When I come and I say the emigration is partly
attributable to the economic war waged against Venezuela and is partly
attributable to the sanctions, people dont like to hear that. They just
want the simple narrative that socialism failed and it failed the Venezuelan
people.
And the US has not been alone in its aggression. The Bank of England has
likewise refused to let the sovereign government of Venezuela withdraw its
£1.2 billion of gold reserves. Instead, a UK foreign office minister has
sought to give that money to the Trump-appointed coup leader, Juan Guaidó.
Real US foreign policy goals
The ARSOF Unconventional Warfare manual provides further insight into what
really motivates the United States to wage economic warfare in Venezuela and
beyond.
The document outlines one of the key goals of US foreign policy:
Furthering free trade, unencumbered by tariffs, interdictions, and other
economic barriers, and furthering capitalism to foster economic growth,
improve living conditions, and promote the sale and mobility of U.S.
products to international consumers.
ARSOF Unconventional Warfare US foreign policy
US foreign policy goals outlined in the ARSOF Unconventional Warfare manual
President Trumps ultra-militaristic National Security Adviser John Bolton
echoed these priorities in an interview with Fox Business. Were in
conversation with major American companies now
I think were trying to get
to the same end result here, Bolton declared.
It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could
have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil
capabilities in Venezuela.
Ben Norton
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone,
and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with Max
Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
