[co_inspiracion] Fwd: PHM-Exch> Is Venezuela Really an ‘Extraordinary Threat’ to the United States?

From: Mario Parada <mario.parada@xxxxx>
To: co_inspiracion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2015 09:27:13 -0300
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Claudio Schuftan <cschuftan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 2015-03-12 2:06 GMT-03:00
Subject: PHM-Exch> Is Venezuela Really an ‘Extraordinary Threat’ to the
United States?
To: phm-exchange <phm-exchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


From: <english@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>



*Is Venezuela Really an ‘Extraordinary Threat’ to the United States?     *
excerpt

*Greg Grandin -The Nation*

Yesterday, Barack Obama sent a letter to Congress announcing that he was
applying the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to Venezuela,
declaring the “situation” there to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat
to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
Washington named seven Venezuelan politicians as targeted by the act, their
property in the US liable to seizure.

It’s a serious step taken with extraordinarily strong language (as the head
of the Organization of American States pointed out; “very harsh,” he said).
Reuters writes: “Declaring any country a threat to national security is the
first step in starting a U.S. sanctions program. The same process has been
followed with countries such as Iran and Syria, U.S. officials said.”

Set aside the irony (within hours of an administration spokesperson’s
accusing Venezuela of criticizing other nations in order to distract from
its problems, New Jersey’s soon-to-be-indicted senator Robert Menendez
applauded the sanctions), the hypocrisy (forget Saudi Arabia, think of
Mexico or Colombia), or the hyperbole (an “extraordinary threat”?). It’s
hard to figure out what the White House hopes to accomplish with this move.
It will achieve exactly the opposite of its stated intention to isolate
Caracas.

Within Venezuela, it will confirm to many the validity of President Nicolás
Maduro’s accusations that the United States has been leading a soft coup
against his government. One doesn’t have to be a committed Chavista to
appreciate the irony, condemn the hypocrisy or recoil from the hyperbole.
Obama just threw Maduro a lifeline.

Outside Venezuela, Latin American nations will bristle at the attempt to
apply a sanctions regime associated with the mess Washington has made in
the Middle East to the region. The more suspicious among them will see the
opening to Cuba as bait-and-switch, an attempt to use the good will
generated by that move to isolate and destabilize other adversaries,
pressing its advantage as falling commodity prices put strains on Latin
American economies (the Trans Pacific Partnership is part of this divisive
strategy).

Over the last few months, there was some indication that support for
Venezuela by other South American nations, like Brazil, was waning. In an
essay that was posted yesterday but probably written before the threat
designation, Time argued that Obama’s “decision to reopen relations with
Cuba is having an interesting side effect: it’s helping isolate Latin
America’s other hard-line leftist regime in Venezuela.” Daniel Wilkinson,
the managing director of Americas Watch, which has been sharply critical of
Venezuela since at least 2008, said: “Until very recently, most countries
in the region were reluctant to say anything about Venezuela …. If this is
just U.S. sanctions, and the U.S. is doing it on its own, then it’s much
easier for Venezuela to play the victim card. That’s why it’s really
important for the U.S. government to be working with other democratic
governments in the region to make this more of a collective.”

I’m assuming that quote was provided before the White House went ahead and
did “it on its own.”

The most dangerous consequence of this action is to put Colombian peace
talks between the government and the FARC in jeopardy. Over the last few
years, Colombia has rejected its assigned role as a regional Israel, much
to the disappointment of anti-Chavistas. Its president, Juan Manuel Santos,
refuses (unlike his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe) to play the part of an
Andean Netanyahu. Santos knows that a stable Venezuela, on good terms with
Bogotá, is essential to bringing Colombia’s internal conflict to an end. As
Rafat Ghotme, a Colombian professor of international relations, puts it,
“both presidents need each other. Maduro needs Colombia, in order to
legitimate the Bolivarian Revolution in a regional system. And Santos needs
Venezuela, because it is the principle external actor that can convince
FARC to continue in the peace process.”

Santos is a conservative who has brought Colombia in from the regional
cold, establishing good and working relationships with South American
left-of-center governments. Recently, the Colombian president has proposed
turning the massive Colombian-Venezuela-Brazilian border into the “world’s
largest ecological [corridor] and would be a great contribution to [the]
fight of all humanity to preserve our environment, and in Colombia’s case,
to preserve our biodiversity.” This, of course, would be practically
difficult, if not impossible. Still, it serves as a sharp alternative
vision to the reality of the US-Mexico border, which Washington has turned
into a militarized death-march.

A cynic might say that the point of the threat designation isn’t directed
at Caracas at all, but is aimed to break up the Colombia-Venezuelan
partnership that is taking shape and pull Bogotá back into the fold.

Venezuela is, without doubt, in crisis. And people of good will can debate
whether the origin of the crisis is inherent in the Bolivarian Revolution
or results from the backlash. Caracas represses, to some degree, civil
society. The United States manipulates the civil society of the countries
it deems a problem.

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[co_inspiracion] Fwd: PHM-Exch> Is Venezuela Really an ‘Extraordinary Threat’ to the United States?

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