Better cancel those Caracas Vacation Plans
President Troglodyte may order troops to invade Venezuela in order to bring order to the abysmal reality that its citizens must endure. News reports make it sound like a bad day in 1943 Leningrad. Years of criminal mismanagement by various leaders but especially by Hugo Chavez and currently Nicholas Maduro have left the country in the nightmare that right wingers try to scare us will happen to any country enacting even the most vaguely socialist agenda. Still, a corrupt fuck up is a corrupt fuck up and rightly, the Venezuela government should be condemned for making acute hunger a normal part of everyday life there. But, is an invasion even a slightly good idea?
Let us see what history has to offer us regarding U.S.-Latin America relations: Prior to just about everything, the U.S. went to war with Mexico in the 1840’s and took roughly half of that country (which they had already grabbed without the permission of its Native residents). This began numerous interventions in that country, leading all the way up to the idiot rhetoric that its government will build a wall so that bigoted Americans can feel better about themselves.
Under Teddy Roosevelt, we strong-armed control of the canal area from both Panama and Venezuela. Just prior to that, we had allowed the America Yellow Press to convince the U.S. to go to war with Spain, putting Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines under U.S. control. Perhaps you may think that they benefitted in some ways from the U.S. forcing its love upon them; it is difficult to argue, though, that Latin Americans are rightfully pissed off about and suspicious of the U.S. ‘s ‘best intentions.’
But wait, there’s more. The U.S. intervened numerous times in Nicaragua, including the time my maternal grandfather invaded it as a Marine. We mined that country’s harbors and bankrolled right wing guerrillas (called “Contras”) to destabilize the country during the 80’s, under that kindly grandfatherly type, Reagan. The Contras became famous for their ability to brutalize Nicaraguan peasants, among other atrocities. During that same period, the U.S. supported the El Salvadoran government, which did a great job of making the world safe for brutal fascism, making activists vanish as if they never existed, and raping and murdering U.S. nuns and killing U.S. journalists.
But wait a little longer: The U.S. instigated a coup to oust a duly elected Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Joao Gulart in Brazil, 1964 and Salvador Allende in Chile, 1973. We helped maintain the power of right wing tyrannies in Uruguay, Argentina, Haiti, Cuba, and Honduras for decades. Lest we forget, the CIA sponsored the Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban dissidents back in 1961, after the success of the Castro revolution.
This isn’t a wikipedia entry, but suffice it to say that there are many more examples of U.S. interference in Latin America. The vast majority follow this pattern: somebody tries socialism or nationalizing corporate assets, the U.S. claims it needs to get involved, and BAM, the world gets a fresh, new dictator, ready to apply a car battery to the genitals of dissidents.
You want to help out Venezuela? Try food aid linked to traditional economic liberalization policies; get rid of the most laughable price supports and subsidies, and provide election legitimacy. Of course, the latter cannot happen until the Toddler Administration provides election legitimacy for the U.S. I am sure his administration will do that soon. They have the best of intentions.
The last is U.S. nuns, raped and killed by a U.S. backed “death squad”, in El Salvador. “Death squad is a familiar term when discussing Latin American dictatorships….you know, the kind of governments to whom President Petulant cozies.
Bittersweet Abattoir 