Comment by jmyeet
3 days ago
> A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it.
Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro.
Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take.
There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple".
Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2].
So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better.
And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place.
As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
> Which Venezuelans?
All which are currently in foreign countries and are free to express their voices without fear of prosecution. I live in spain with my venezuelan girlfriend, and everybody here from her venezuelan bubble is celebrating and cheering - hoping this is a first step towards freedom. You can turn on your TV to "rtve Telediaro", it is a spanish 24h news channel where they also show venezuelan expats getting together and celebrating from within spain. Other cities in latin america are the same, just watch some news channels from the spanish-speaking world.
They were probably also cheering in the streets in the US, if they weren't afraid of ICE deportations.
Because that worked out so well for the people of Chile (under Pinochet). And Libya (post-Gaddafi). And Iran (1953 onwards). And Iraq (post-Saddam).
Whatever your (valid) criticisms of Maduro, it's important to remember that:
1. The US was intentionally starving Venezuela through sanctions. If conditions improve because the sanctions now get removed, it's not because Maduro is gone. It's because Venezuela's oppressor (the US) just stopped opressing (as much).
Let me put it this way. If I take all your people and put them into a ghetto in Warsaw and build a giant fence around it, letting nothing in or out. And I then decide to let food in once you've given me all your valuables or given up some leader and you now have something to eat, I'm still not the good guy because I later let food in after looting your people and I'm still responsible for starving you in the first place.
2. 20+ years ago the US would lie and say they're doing this to spread democracy and that the people would welcome them as liberators. This was the exact script for Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though it was all about oil they'd never say that. Now they don't even pretend. Trump has outright said that it's about oil and they're going to govern until a suitable puppet is put in place, who will let Western companies loot Venezuela's natural resources.
So good luck with the coming brutal dictatorship and kleptocracy your girlfriend and her countrymen are now celebrating.
In the 90s I had a professor from Ukraine for a math class. He grew up during Stalin and Khrushchev and worked during the Brezhnev years. At a party a group of us decried Pinochet. His response, “What is the big deal. So he killed 10,000 people. In Ukraine we would gladly kill 10,000 people to have their economy.”
I'm a Venezuelan in the USA and I think what happened is an absolutely illegal travesty. Trump and his acolytes are nothing better than criminal thugs and this needs to be fought and protested.
Are you suggesting Maduro should be restored to power in Venezuela? Would that be good or bad for Venezuelan's (regardless of what happens with oil or anything else). Would you be willing to live in Venezuela under Maduro?
Its too late for that now. America has created a mess and will now be responsible for cleaning up that mess (or eschewing responsibility when things don't go as easily as Trump thinks they will, which is probably more likely). There is already a huge power vacuum that is going to be filled with chaos, it is too late to just bring Maduro back since the damage has already been done.
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Cubans would be much better off today if Bay of Pigs had succeeded. Venezuela is so bad that around 20% of the population emigrated.
Tell that to the Chileans who endured Pinochet, Iranians who endured the Shah and the Ayatollah and likewise for Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Guatemala, etc.
All a puppet would've done was be a brutal dictator who suppressed and disappeared anyone who resisted while enabling Western companies to loot the natural resources and the local populace would see no benefit from that at all.
You might say that Cubans would be better off if Castro had been deposed. Is that because you'd expect the sanctions to be removed? If so, the problem is the sanctions. You're basically saying "you would've been better off if you let me install a puppet dictator and loot your natural resources because then at least I would've stopped intentionally starving you".
And if you can't see the problem with that statement, well, I'm not sure what to say.
Iranians were way better off under the Shah than under the current regime. The current regime is way worse from a humanitarian perspective.
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> Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil.
It was about the Soviet Union. The British convinced the US that Mosaddegh was going to align himself with the Soviet-proxy communist party (Tudeh) to stay in power. The British, on the other hand, did it because Iran had nationalized British oil fields. The US' oil interests were in Saudi Arabia.
Also the way people describe this is rather twisted. The Shah was not installed by the US. The Shah had been in power since 1941. He was installed by the British, same as his father. The coup replaced Mosaddegh with Fazlollah Zahedi, not the Shah.
Moreover, Mosaddegh's government was not remotely democratically elected. There's a rather in-depth State department memo from the era that describes how those "elections" worked in Iran which made clear that the people voting had little to do with who won. Elections were full of ballot stuffing, bribery and just outright manipulation by pretty much everyone - the Shah, Mosaddegh, Tudeh, foreign governments, etc. [1]
Plus, Mosaddegh had halted Parliamentary election counting early to prevent more opposition from getting elected risking his majority (his party controlled the more urban areas of Iran which finished "counting" earlier). He began ruling with emergency powers and jailing his opposition. That led to mass resignations in Parliament - to the point where they couldn't even form a quorum. Mosaddegh then dissolved Parliament and granted himself full dictatorial powers and ruled by decree after another sham election where 10% of the population "voted."
And it's at this point that the coup happened. The Shah, using his power under Iran's constitution, wrote a letter dismissing Mosaddegh. He was replaced with Fazlollah Zahedi and the Shah started to take a far more active role in government.
[1] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira...
This is not accurate.
Mosaddeq sought fairer royalties for oil from what is now BP but what was then the AIOC after decades of tension and a decrease in Iran's royalties (with increasing British revenues) in the 1940s, ultimately culminating in the nationalization of AIOC in 1951 [1].
Relations deteriorated. Britain isolated Iran through sanctions and oil embargoes. The US sided with Britain but initially rebuffed attempts at a coup, I believe initially under Truman but Eisenhower was also initially reluctant.
Britain did argue that nationalization of oil and other British interests in Iran was Soviet-led and made an argument to Eisenhower's SEcretary of State that a coup was in the interests of fighting communism, something the administration was likely more receptive to given the Truman doctrine and "containment". The Korean War was ongoing at the time.
So did Britain argue this was to fight commmunism? Yes. Was it really? No. It was about Britain's oil interests and colonial ambition. It was no more about fighting communism than invading Iraq in 2003 was about spreading democracy.
Fears of the USSR played a much bigger role in the 1979 Revolution where the US got their then ally, Saddam Hussein, to release the Ayatollah Khomenei from prison to try and make Iran fundamentalist rather than falling into the Soviet sphere of influence.
As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that. Like, at all. It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians, first and foremost, rather than a colonial power.
[1]: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/iran-nationa...
The U.S. did not install the Shah. He was already in his position of power well before 1950.
> So did Britain argue this was to fight commmunism? Yes. Was it really? No. It was about Britain's oil interests and colonial ambition. It was no more about fighting communism than invading Iraq in 2003 was about spreading democracy.
More than one party was involved. They had different reasons for their involvement.
The United States' reason was to fight against communism (read: the Soviet Union). As quite a few internal memos make clear, the US did not particularly care about Britain's oil issues and wished to stay out of it. Rather, the US was almost single minded about it's fight against the Soviets. Britain used that to manipulate the US into getting involved.
> As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that.
If no one cared about it, people would stop stressing he was "democratically elected."
> It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians
And he was incredibly unpopular by 1953 as he was blamed for the deterioration of the economy caused by the British refusal to ship Iranian oil and he went full autocrat.
Indeed, had Mosaddegh remained popular, the Shah never would have agreed to go through with the coup. After all, he had seen what had happened after Mosaddegh resigned in 1952.
As far as one can reasonably know something it’s clear that Maduro was not the fairly elected president. Chavez and Maduro were disastrous for Venezuela and millions now have hope for a better future.
Your perception about Iran in 1953 is badly wrong.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articl...
That tabletmag.com article is a ridiculous work of fiction.
personally, the editor of tablet elevating a claim that immigrants are third world trash put me off that magazine permanently
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From Wikipedia:
A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 per cent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against.[83] According to historian Mark Gasiorowski, "There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq" and that the "controversial referendum...gave the CIA's precoup propaganda campaign to show up Mosaddeq as an anti-democratic dictator an easy target".[84]
A person has to be very gullible to believe 99% of the vote went one way in a fair election involving 2+ million people.
Thank you for that convincing insight.