https://antiimperialistnews.substack.com/p/the-us-does-not-care-about-democracy
Hands off Venezuela, you lunatics
Jul 31, 2024

As sure as night follows day, when a Latin American country elects a socialist leader, the US instantly declares the result invalid. The ensuing regime change always results in the lucky country becoming a prosperous beacon of democracy that was saved from savagery by the CIA. Regime change has famously never gone wrong. It has an incredible success rate of, um, 0%.

You would think westerners would stop falling for the CIA’s bullshit and yet the moment the propaganda starts, half the population accepts it. Even people who say they don’t like the CIA fall for this crap. They’ll say something dumb like “opposing imperialism means opposing all imperialism, even when it’s in Venezuela”, and then they’ll cheer for regime change.

I’ve seen well-meaning people say things like “I normally agree with you, but I think you’re on the wrong side of history on this one”. These are the people who fell for the war propaganda for Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and make no mistake, what we’re seeing here is war propaganda. This doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see a military intervention in Venezuela. There is more than one way to wage a war and we are very much waging war now.

If we are remotely successful in our efforts, we will cause a lot of suffering to the people we are pretending to liberate. It’s time to be honest with ourselves, when has the CIA’s motivation ever been liberation? As ex-CIA agent Philip Agee explained:

“In the CIA, we didn't give a hoot about democracy.… if a country didn't co-operate with us, democracy didn't mean a thing, and I don't think it means a thing today.”

If you still doubt the empire is that cynical, you should heed the words of the late Henry Kissinger:

“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

The coup by Augusto Pinochet in 1973 (the original 9/11) gave Chile 17 years of secret police, brutal rape, torture and executions, forcing 220,000 people into exile. It sounds awfully similar to the brutality we’re supporting now in Israel, so spare me your BS concerns about human rights.

Make no mistake, when western leaders talk about exporting democracy, this is what they mean. We prop up dictators all over the world and have a long history of interventions in Latin America. In recent years, it has been the turn of Peru and Bolivia, but now the empire is turning its attention to the number one Latin American bogey man, Maduro of Venezuela. I just can’t work out why, so let’s ask the outgoing US president:

So, Mr Biden, what first attracted you to the world’s largest oil reserves?

Actually, don’t answer that one…

The biggest crime socialism committed in Venezuela was transforming lives and lifting millions out of poverty under Chavez. The Venezuelan people needed to be rescued from this tyranny with sanctions that crippled the economy and killed 40,000 civilians. Venezuela has been facing economic warfare, and you might be uninformed about what is going on, but the Venezuelan people aren’t.

The Venezuelan working class understand what life was like under neoliberalism and what it would be like again. They understand that an end to sanctions would mean handing over their nation’s assets, including their oil, to US companies. They understand it would mean corporate slavery and death squads for union leaders and activists. They’re aware of the history of their own continent in a way westerners aren’t. This is why they refuse to vote the way the CIA wants them to.

Venezuelans know that everything the US accuses Maduro of, is something it would do to Venezuela 1,000 times over. Given the way Trump talks about taking Venezuela’s oil, I would not be surprised if the US launches one of its wars of “liberation” following a Trump victory in November.

US warmonger John Bolton openly talks about his attempted coups in Venezuela. Last time the CIA tried to assassinate Maduro with a drone, it went embarrassingly wrong. What the US would prefer is a colour revolution where Venezuelan rebels do the dirty work for them. Machado’s rioters have been setting fire to hospitals, pharmacies and radio stations, blocking off roads, and derailing buses carrying international election observers. This is not the type of thing you do if you care about your country.

Maduro has been breaking down on TV how the CIA is trying to instigate a colour revolution. This thing is so staged, one actor laid on the ground beside fake blood and then stood up the moment the camera stopped rolling. We’ve seen a statue being toppled because this looks great on camera, like the people are finally rising up against a hated leader, but such a spectacle is contradicted by the enormous crowds that come out in support of Maduro. To pretend the Venezuelan president is not hugely popular is disingenuous to say the least. It’s even worse when you’re pretending the monster you support would be better.

Opposition leader Maria Machado was not allowed onto the ballot, so she used a proxy called Edmundo Gonzalez who is so unpopular, Google searches for him are almost non-existent, even in his own country. You might argue keeping Machado off the ballot is an affront to democracy, only there is evidence she is funded by the US state department and has taken bribes from oil companies. Her old party Sumate received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (the CIA’s regime change arm) during the Bush era.

Machado is known as “Venezuela’s Margaret Thatcher” and this is rather apt considering Thatcher was friends with General Pinochet. She is a proud Zionist who has promised to move the Venezuelan embassy in Israel to occupied Jerusalem, a move that would violate international law. She plotted to kill Maduro, has openly called for the US and Israel to invade her country and destroy its military, and is a supporter of Israel’s genocide. Ironically, she has the gall to ask the military she wanted destroyed to launch a coup and put her party into power!

If you are supporting the Venezuelan opposition, you are supporting fascism. A colour revolution would likely mean years of civil war and the Venezuelan people would be worse off in every conceivable way, but at least the oil would be liberated, right?

Thankfully, the US has had a difficult time orchestrating a coup in Venezuela, despite it’s many efforts since the days of Chavez. As US senator Chris Murphy admits: “We tried to construct a coup in Venezuela in April 2019, and it blew up in our face.” Has the US considered not doing coups and focusing on giving its people healthcare?

You don’t have to be a fan of Maduro to see that any US-backed alternative would be 1,000 times worse. It would be General Pinochet all over again. Thankfully, the US is not very good at choosing puppets in Venezuela. For years, the CIA decided Juan Guaido, a man most Venezuelans had never heard of, was the rightful leader, but he came under criticism from his allies, including Machado, for surrounding himself with mob bosses. This is the guy the UK wanted to give Venezuela’s gold, in case you didn’t know.

We accuse Maduro of plundering his country, but that’s exactly what the empire does. John Bolton boasts of how the US froze $7 billion in Venezuelan assets and cost the economy a further $11 billion. The UK confiscated $2 billion of Venezuela’s gold in a move that was clearly illegal. I don’t want to hear you talking about hungry people in Venezuela, if you’re not talking about this. We are thieves.

Two years ago, a British team secretly met in Caracas to discuss energy interests (oil theft) and plan for the reconstruction of Venezuela without the knowledge of its government. The British government initially denied the existence of the Venezuelan Reconstruction Unit, but this has now been confirmed following a freedom of information request.

The leaders who are backing genocide in Gaza, and trying to do in Taiwan what they did in Ukraine, do not remotely have democratic aims. They are trying to steal a country. An absurd exit poll by CIA cut-out Edison Research declared the US state department’s candidate won the Venezuelan election by 34 points. Sorry, but this is laughable!
Note how this guy goes after whichever countries the CIA has targeted

Around 900 election observers were in Venezuela and found no credible evidence of irregularities, but who cares about that? Who cares about the testimony of the election observers such as Alan Macleod who posted a thread on Twitter debunking the lies and explaining how he witnessed the opposition trying to shut down a polling station, only for the western media to blame the Maduro government?

There were false claims of the vote tally coming to more than 100% and accusations of stolen ballot boxes that were easily disproven. Those “ballot boxes” were air-conditioning units! That doesn’t matter though. What matters is the CIA floods the internet with bots throwing around stupid lies and the sensible people, who accept whatever the establishment tells them, join in with the bots. Oh god, they’re gonna start putting Venezuelan flags in their profiles and saying “I stand with Machado”, aren’t they?

Just to remind you who the Venezuelan election rivals are: Maduro cast his vote saying “Free Palestine” whereas the opposition leader says “Venezuela’s struggle is Israel’s struggle”. And to repeat, Machado has called for Israel and the US to invade her country. Good luck trying to get the army on your side when that’s what you want for them!

We’ve all heard allegations of Maduro’s authoritarianism, yet Venezuela’s electoral system is repeatedly described as “world class”. Even the Carter Center used to describe it as such until the CIA got its claws into it. Jimmy Carter once said: “The election process in Venezuela is the best in the world”.

Sure, there are problems in Venezuela, but it’s not for the empire to choose Venezuela’s leader, it’s for the Venezuelan people. We were told socialism was unpopular in Bolivia, but even when Evo Morales was sent into exile, his party still won. The CIA didn’t try to declare the election invalid again because it had already embarrassed itself so now it’s Venezuela’s turn.

Maduro could be about to become the new Ghaddafi and if you’re supporting the CIA on this one, I assume you expected Libya would be a bastion of liberal democracy by now. Instead, we got a ruined country with open slave markets. The CIA that killed President Kennedy will gladly kill anyone who gets in the way of the empire. It’s time to stop siding with the greatest force for evil in the world.