In its latest major forced intervention in Venezuelan affairs Washington has now allowed Venezuela's pro-Guaido opposition to take control of diplomatic properties.
Reuters reported this week that opposition representatives are now in control of three such Venezuelan diplomatic properties in the US — two buildings belonging to Venezuela’s defense ministry in Washington and one consular building in New York — confirmed by Guaido's US envoy on Monday.
The US State Department has welcomed the move, encouraging the seizure of Venezuela's embassy in Washington from the UN-recognized government of "illegitimate" President Nicolas Maduro. Guado's representative, envoy Carlos Vecchio, said Monday the opposition group plans to take control of the embassy itself in Washington “in the days to come.”
“We are taking these steps in order to preserve the assets of the Venezuelans here in this country,” Vecchio said while speaking from the office of Venezuela’s military attache to Washington. According to Reuters the opposition's first act was to remove Maduro portraits from the buildings and replace them with Guaido images, photographs of which was then circulated among western media.
To be expected, a US State Department spokesman told reporters the United States was “pleased to support these requests” regarding takeover of consular and other offices from Caracas' oversight and security. This comes following the US withdrawing all of its own diplomatic and State Dept. personnel from Venezuela last week.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry was quick to condemn the "violation of international law" regarding the buildings, urging US authorities to “take the necessary measures to immediately reverse this forcible occupation” of its diplomatic offices.
Washington continues to seize Venezuelan assets, the latest of which are financially-troubled Citgo refineries — all of which Vice President Mike Pence weeks ago expressly stated would be transferred to the Venezuelan opposition under Guaido. Late last month Pence said while meeting with Guaido in Colombia: “We will work with all of you to find every last dollar that they stole and work to return it to Venezuela.”
But for now it doesn't appear Guaido's government-in-waiting has attracted enough popular support and momentum inside the country to gain traction toward a successful coup.
Last week Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered the last of the US diplomats out of Venezuela, saying their presence was a “constraint” on US policy toward the country. The wording seemed intended to convey the idea that the US is about to launch military action to place a Washington-backed, self-appointed politician to the presidency. Was it just bluster, designed to intimidate? Or is the Trump Administration really about to invade another country that has neither attacked nor threatened the United States?
While US Administrations engaged in “regime change” have generally tried to mask their real intentions, this US-backed coup is remarkable for how honest its backers are being. Not long ago the National Security Advisor to the president, John Bolton, openly admitted that getting US companies in control of Venezuelan oil was the Administration’s intent. Trump Administration officials have gone so far as mocking the suffering of Venezuelans when a suspiciously-timed nationwide power failure heightened citizens’ misery.
According to media reports, Vice President Mike Pence is angry with the Venezuela coup leader, Juan Guaido, because he promised the whole operation would be a cake walk – just like the neocons promised us about Iraq. Guaido said hundreds of thousands of protesters would follow him to the Colombian border to “liberate” US aid trucks just over the border, but no one showed up. So Pompeo and the neocons made up a lie that Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s thugs burned the aid trucks to prevent the people from getting relief from their suffering. Even the pro-war New York Times finally admitted that the Administration was lying: it was opposition protesters who burned the trucks.
Was the US behind the take-down of Venezuela’s power grid? It would not be the first time the CIA pulled such a move, and US officials are open about the US goal of making life as miserable as possible for average Venezuelans in hopes that they overthrow their government.
Congress has to this point been strongly in favor of President Trump’s “regime change” policy for Venezuela. Sadly, even though our neocon foreign policy of interventionism has proven disastrous – from Iraq to Libya to Syria and elsewhere – both parties in Congress continue to act as if somehow this time they will get it right. I have news for them, they won’t.
Even weak Congressional efforts to remind the president that Congress must approve military action overseas sound like war cries. In Rep. David N. Cicilline’s (D-RI) statement introducing his “Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela Act” last week, he sounded more hawkish than John Bolton or Elliott Abrams! The statement makes all the arguments in favor of a US military attack on Venezuela and then – wink wink – reminds the president he needs authorization beforehand. As if that’s going to be a hard sell!
So is President Trump about to attack Venezuela? At a recent US House hearing, one of the expert witnesses testified that such an invasion would require between 100,000 and 150,000 US troops, going up against maybe three times that number of Venezuelan troops in a country twice the size of Iraq. With a lot of jungle. All for a “prize” that has nothing to do with US security. If the president makes such a foolish move he might find the current war cheerleaders in the Democrat Party changing their tune rather quickly. Let’s hope Trump changes his tune and returns to his promises of no more regime change wars.
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