For 11(?) years I've intently followed Venezuela, fully expecting the Chavez regime to destroy the economy of Venezuela, which it did. To my horror, Chavez won a 4th term in the relatively fair 2012 election by 11 points, which by American standards is a landslide. Following Chavez's death, I was appalled that Maduro won the election in another relatively fair contest. I'm reminded of what John Adams said about the U.S. Constitution: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." The people of Venezuela, for 5 elections in a row, freely chose a tyrant to exact revenge on a political minority, which eventually drove the nation into extreme poverty and deprivation. 1/5 to 1/4 of the nation still backs Maduro, despite Maduro having murdered hundreds of people, jailed thousands of political prisoners, abolished the democratic system, caused mass starvation, and driven out millions of people from the country. As a whole, the people of Venezuela demonstrated to the world to be an immoral people over the last 20 years.
It's said that a watched pot never boils. Finally, after a decade of closely following the goings on in Venezuela, I tuned out in 2018, giving up hope that a communist stronghold in the Americas would fall any time soon. Then I opened the proverbial paper last week to find that the U.S. had recognized Juan Guaido as interim President. Then a bunch of Latin American countries did, and Canada, and the UK, then Spain, Germany, France, Australia and Israel. Then the UK froze $1.2 billion of money Maduro was trying to withdraw. Then the U.S. transferred access of Venezuela's U.S. bank accounts to the National Assembly. Then a Venezuelan officer in Washington defected to Guaido. Who knows what the next days, weeks, and months hold? But it looks like the government of Maduro is finally on the ropes.
The National Assembly has floated the idea of amnesty for Maduro and his cronies, but I sincerely hope that Maduro is dragged into the streets by an angry mob, castrated, and then drawn and quartered. The man is the embodiment of evil. And the entire philosophy of the Chavistas is Satanic--from the very beginning it was an ideology centered on revenge, envy, anger, and hatred that was sold as moral philosophy, and an immoral people bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Venezuela does not deserve the help of the United States, but because the United States is a moral (though imperfect) nation, we will supply Venezuela all the help it needs to rebuild once Maduro is finally gone.
Control of the accounts is no longer in the hands of Maduro. But I’m not sure if Guaido has access to the money yet (maybe it’s better if he doesn’t).
What's the point? We help install a rational economic system there only to find that we will, once again, be used as a scapegoat for all of their internally manufactured problems by the left-wing agitators.
They should be held accountable for the system they've created. That's the only way they will learn.
I agree with you entirely, which is why I’m conflicted. I’m especially conflicted because there was always a huge minority passionately opposed to the Chavistas and I hate the idea of abandoning them to the communists. Also, because of oil the US has a special relationship with Venezuela and at least for now it’s probably in our interest to see a stabilized nation.
With that said, I am damn sick of the US being the scapegoat for every bad thing that happens in Latin America. And I’m sick of the very public racist attacks on Americans that are consistently leveled against us.
For now, the military still stands with Maduro, and having the people with the guns on your side matters. There was a good article in the WSJ recently about how Chavez politicized the military such that any anti-communist rumblings were swiftly and harshly dealt with. Cuba continues to provide intelligence support to keep the military red. I have to believe that Maduro's control of the military will weaken as he loses his grip on the purse strings, but it might take longer than we'd otherwise reasonably expect.
Yeah, I tend to agree. As mentioned here, if he loses control of PDVSA and/or Citgo, he probably won’t have any money left to pay his cronies. I assume he will have no way of winning that legal battle in a US court but who knows how long that will take?
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