Caracas is closer to Miami than Chicago. It’s very much our backyard. And historically very much so.
With a backyard this big, I feel like we should invite the neighbors over more often. Maybe grill some burgers.
And Russia is closer to the US than Venezuela is…
Well the US is Russia’s backyard these days.
I’ve seen strangely little coverage of what’s actually going on in Caracas over the last 24 hours, but from what I can tell, it seems to be fizzling out. There certainly don’t seem to be mass military defections and I’m not seeing much evidence of major civilian mobilisation either. Maybe if Maduro arrests Guaido that will bring people out, but he seems to be as in control as ever right now.
Seems to have fizzled, at least according to Spanish media. But it’s true it’s all very unclear.
Apparently the defense minister backed down from joining the coup at the last minute.
If it fizzles out it will be the fourth failed coup attempt in a row in Venezuela.
I doubt that sentiment will go over well with the folks in our back yard.
Lopez is apparently hiding out in the Spanish embassy, though not seeking asylum. Suggests he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in its success.
My God, someone lock up John Bolton and the neoconservatives until this all resolves itself peacefully in a few months.
Reportedly, Trump had an hour-long phone call with Putin earlier in the day.
Horse trading spheres of influence!
“Sure you can have Estonia! I thought that was already part of Russia anyway! And I don’t have any hotels there.”
He’s more confident that Puerto Rico is a country than Estonia.
Maybe we should get, you know, a permanently appointed Secretary of Defense before we start another war?
Or not, what do I know?
A war? That sounds like something Congress would need to declare. I’m sure they’ll get right on it.
The US policy regarding Venezuela is insanely aimless and scattered at this point.
First we have Trump being hawkish and threatening military intervention.
Bolton and Pompeo start pushing this message, along with the angle that Russia needs to back off.
Then Trump meets with Putin, and suddenly now he says Russia isn’t involved in Venezuela, and we don’t need to get involved.
And today, Russia says they are going to be meeting with Maduro, contradicting what Trump said they said, yesterday.
At this point, all of our enemies freaking have Trump’s number. They know how to manipulate him. He’s dumb as a rock. This crap is not going to end well.
Sounds like another example of Trump’s incompetence leading to a good outcome. The desired result is no US military intervention.
But the desired result is NOT simply allowing Russian intervention, which is exactly what is happening now. Russia has sent troops into Venezuela, and is helping to prop up Maduro in his continued oppression of the people.
Simply ceding influence to Putin is not going to end well.
What we have with Trump is the worst of all possible foreign policy.
He’s totally likely to get us involved in a foreign war, but simultaneously fails to project a credible and coherent threat as a deterrent.
What you want is to be perceived as strong and competent, so that your enemies don’t do things that demand your response, so you don’t need to fight.
Trump projects the opposite.
Exactly right. Maduro/Chavez have screwed up Venezuela, and the people are starving. This isn’t US propaganda, I just returned from 2 weeks in Costa Rica, and our tour guide says in addition to the normal flow of folks from Nicaragua and the northern triangle looking for work, Costa Rica is experiencing a massive influx from Venezuela
The last time somebody challenged the Monroe doctrine, Kennedy practically started WWIII over Russian troops in Cuba. Trump isn’t even willing to call out Putin. It is in no one but Putin’s interest that Russia has troop propping up Maduro.
The knee jerk reaction that any type of discussion of the US military is automatically a disaster, ignore the hundreds of time that US military has been sent into where their presence has helped the people. Obviously, this needs to be carefully considered and done in association with an organization like OAS, and given the sheer incompetence of this administration shouldn’t probably be done at all.
But the naive belief that if the US doesn’t do anything, everything will sort itself in a few months, is just silly. The US has been remarkably passive in the last decade, and the world has more refugees than at any time in human history, that’s not a coincidence.