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58
anonymous
2019 Jan 31, 7:44am
The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader
Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.
By Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal
Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.
But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom-dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.
Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.
“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told The Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”
Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet Misión Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”
Much More: https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/
Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.
By Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal
Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.
But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom-dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.
Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.
“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told The Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”
Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet Misión Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”
Much More: https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/
59
RWSGFY
2019 Jan 31, 7:46am
RWSGFY
2019 Jan 31, 7:46am
Kakistocracy says
Good!
Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers.
Good!
60
anonymous
2019 Jan 31, 7:51am
61
RWSGFY
2019 Jan 31, 7:58am
RWSGFY
2019 Jan 31, 7:58am
Kakistocracy says
Yes. Most of commie regimes are dead.
Maduro's regime has 0 redeeming qualities. The only people who want it to stay are the fucking Russians who plowed $20B into it. That's why Russian bots are out in force defending it.
DASKAA saysGood!
Of course since it's always worked out so well in the past now hasn't it ?
Yes. Most of commie regimes are dead.
Maduro's regime has 0 redeeming qualities. The only people who want it to stay are the fucking Russians who plowed $20B into it. That's why Russian bots are out in force defending it.
64
Bd6r
2019 Jan 31, 9:21am
Bd6r
2019 Jan 31, 9:21am
DASKAA says
Threads criticizing US actions with respect to Venezuela do remind babble by Russian spokescow Maria Zakharova.
https://www.rt.com/news/449553-moscow-reaction-venezuela-sovereignty/
I'd say some of our posters here collude with Russia more than Orange Hitler ever has...
That's why Russian bots are out in force defending it.
Threads criticizing US actions with respect to Venezuela do remind babble by Russian spokescow Maria Zakharova.
https://www.rt.com/news/449553-moscow-reaction-venezuela-sovereignty/
I'd say some of our posters here collude with Russia more than Orange Hitler ever has...
65
RWSGFY
2019 Jan 31, 11:47am
RWSGFY
2019 Jan 31, 11:47am
d6rB says
Remind? It is repeated practically verbatim.
DASKAA saysThat's why Russian bots are out in force defending it.
Threads criticizing US actions with respect to Venezuela do remind babble by Russian spokescow Maria Zakharova.
Remind? It is repeated practically verbatim.
« First « Previous Comments 58 - 65 of 65 Search these comments
First, corporate media are not independent but reliant on market forces. This applies not just to the billionaire media but, for reasons given elsewhere, to Guardian and BBC too.
Second, media both sides of the Atlantic have a long record of backing US predation on the global south. Never have they deviated from this – take the Guardian’s cheerleading on Iraq. Worse, they’ve abdicated a core duty in their refusal to explore motives that cast a very different light on Western interventions sold to us as humanitarian.
Third, sanctions have sown economic havoc in Venezuela. They’re spoken of in such calm tones that an already innocuous word loses even what little force it might have had. But sanctions kill. They are one way the powerful bully the weak in the name of high ideals belied, for those who choose to study them, by the facts.
"I was a high class muscleman for Big Business, Wall Street and the Bankers; a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914, Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank to collect revenues. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar in 1916. In China I saw to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Capone operated in three districts. I operated on three continents."
—Major-General Smedley Butler
I have no quarrel with the specific claims above but find them reductive. They are accurate – and we should not downplay the fourth claim, as dollar and petrodollar hegemony come under challenge in Eurasia too – but in the context of Washington’s ‘right’ to police all of Latin America, disobedient states are brought to heel (through fascism if need be) not just to protect particular assets but to send a message across the entire continent. As in the middle east, Washington and Wall Street will brook no self-determination in their “spheres of interest”.
No, for sense on Venezuela we must look elsewhere. I’ve quoted Stephen Gowans before, on Syria. Now here he is on crisis in Caracas.
The US-led and coordinated intervention to overthrow Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro by recognizing Juan Guaidó, the leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly as the interim president, has nothing whatever to do with restoring democracy in Venezuela (which was never overturned) and everything to do with promoting US business interests.
Washington’s imperial arrogance in effectively appointing Guaidó as president, attempting to go over the heads of Venezuelans—who alone have the right to decide who their leaders are—is motivated by the same concerns that have motivated other US interventions around the world: toppling governments that put their citizens’ interests above those of US investors.
That Washington has a propensity to engage in destabilization operations against leftwing governments is hardly a secret. From 1898 to 2004, the US government undertook 41 successful regime change interventions in Latin America, an average of one every two-and-a-half years. And that excludes the unsuccessful ones, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion.
In almost every instance, US regime change interventions around the world have been motivated either directly or indirectly by commercial considerations, and were undertaken to restore or protect the primacy of US business interests in foreign lands. And in many cases, the interventions paved the way for the installation of rightwing dictatorships.
More: https://off-guardian.org/2019/01/28/venezuela-the-bad-guys-are-on-wall-st/
#Venezuela #Hegemony #RegimeChange #Oil #Gold #FreeTrade