Ilhan Omar blames the U.S. for the turmoil in Venezuela

May 3, 2019 • 8:45 am

Ilhan Omar is considered admirable, or even a Congressional hero, simply because, as a hijabi Muslim, she’s seen as an oppressed person of color. My view is that she’s a provocateur and anti-Semite without any substantive accomplishments in Congress (granted, she’s new). Her main job in Congress seems to be making hotheaded statements, often followed by an apology. But because she’s seen as a “progressive” Democrat, much of the Left seems to idolize her.

Omar’s latest provocation is to blame the U.S. for the turmoil in Venezuela, documented in Real Clear Politics(see also CNN) which has a transcript of her remarks. (Note: I don’t support U.S. military intervention in Venezuela but I do support sanctions so long as Maduro is in power, and the recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaido as President, as most European countries have done.)  What there is no question of, unless you’re someone whose hatred of America blinds their reason, is that Maduro’s authoritarian policies, and not the U.S., is what has driven Venezuela to the brink of collapse. He needs to go.

In contrast, Omar says it’s the U.S.’s fault, blaming “neocons and war mongers”, as well as U.S. sanctions. It looks as if she favors continuation of the Maduro regime. Her grilling of Eliott Abrams, a form of virtue signaling, is irrelevant to what’s going on in Venezuela and who’s responsible for the mess there. Listen:

Jeffrey Tayler, writer and contributing editor for the The Atlantic, and someone who’s appeared on this site several times before, watched the above video at my request because of his extensive experience covering Venezuela. (He was there a total of about 4 months in 2009, 2010, 2012 researching a book in on Simon Bolivar and covering the 2012 presidential elections.) He has written on Venezuela for The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and Quillette.”

After watching the video, Jeff said this, and allowed me to quote him:

“I do not know a single Venezuelan who would agree with Ilhan Omar.  Venezuelans roundly despise Maduro and blame him for their misery.  Maduro and his criminal gang have plundered the country.  Maduro has instituted killing gangs that patrol the poor barrios and do away with Chavistas who have come out against Maduro.”

But he’s a socialist, albeit a nasty dictator, and so Omar and other progressive Democrats support him.

The turmoil in Venezuela appears to be splitting the Democratic party, with centrists like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi calling for Maduro’s ouster while the “progressive” Twitter Democrats either remain silent or, like Omar, blame everything on the U.S.  The crickets include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who refuses to give an opinion because she knows that saying she supports a socialist dictator will cause problems. You can see her reaction below, deflecting the question toward Elliott Abrams and Trump.

The National Review asked her about her stand on Venezuela, and reports this:

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells NR when asked to comment on the situation. When pressed on whether the Maduro government is legitimate or Guaidó deserves U.S. support, she adds that she’ll “defer to caucus leadership on how we navigate this.”

Since when has she ever deferred to caucus leadership about something like this?
Her weaselly views:

103 thoughts on “Ilhan Omar blames the U.S. for the turmoil in Venezuela”

  1. Golly, that AOC clip could be a blueprint for anyone who needs to learn tactics of evasion for serious questions. And for those who need to learn how to waffle on, distract, ignore, and avoid.

    1. Any successful politician has learned the art of evading answering questions he/she would rather not. This is totally nonpartisan.

      2. I don’t see a specific party named in the comment in question.

    2. Still, far better than Omar with her metatarsals in the mouth. Who would think that we’d find a politician that would make AOC look moderate and restrained by comparison!

  2. Sounds about right for certain portions of the left, I can remember quite a few years ago that Chaveze’s Venezuela, Castro’s Cuba and I think Saddam Hussein’s Iraq were being referred to in those circles as the ‘Axis of Hope’.

    But then I can remember to an even further time, before the 11th of September 2001 when conspiracy magazines pronounced that the only ‘true’ democracies were Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea & Syria.

    And of course why should they be concerned about other countries actions, it’s not as if the West has ‘fixed it’s own problems’ yet.

    1. It’s a malaise with deep roots, only fully brought out after 2001. Recall dear old Gerry Healy and his Trotskyist party, who took money from Saddam to give him a good press in their magazine. Why? Well, aside from the money, Saddam was an enemy of the west, therefore he must be good!

    2. “I can remember quite a few years ago that Chaveze’s [sic] Venezuela, Castro’s Cuba and I think Saddam Hussein’s Iraq were being referred to in those circles as the ‘Axis of Hope’.”

      You have a citation for that one? Seems unlikely to me, given that Chávez didn’t become president of Venezuela until 1999, eight years after the first Gulf War, and the phrase “axis of evil” (of which “axis of hope” seems to be the inverse) wasn’t coined until Dubya’s 2002 SoTU speech.

      1. Tariq Ali wrote a book called Pirates of the Caribbean which used the phrase with Chavez. Bolivia was the third nation not Iraq.
        “[Tariq} Ali examines Hugo Chavez’s influence and his legacy and how Chávez’s views have polarized Latin America and examines the aggression directed against his administration. Together Ali argues Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba form an “Axis of Hope.” ”
        https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/10/17/18320874.php

  3. The Republican party lost its mind years ago. One would have hoped that the Democrats would have worked to represent the sane choice that puts country above ideology. They now seem to be working to be just a different kind of crazy. It is no wonder our government is moving from dysfunctional to nonfunctional. As the gap between the parties widens, does this open a space for a centrist third party? I hope so, I’m tired of being a Democrat by default.

  4. It’s curious. I see a lot of summaries of her statement that conclude she’s saying “the mess in all the US’s fault” when what I hear is a much more reserved statement that US policy has contributed to and “set the stage” for the mess.

    But it’s impossible to tell exactly what she means from the clip because the question is about her response to a Professor Sacks (Sachs?) statements, the content of which are not at all apparent from the clip.

    I sincerely wonder if the exact same statements spoken by a white, moderate man would inspire such a vehement response.

  5. “Defer to leadership” is what a freshman congressperson damn well oughta do, unless a question pertains to an issue on which he or she ran for office and on which he or she has some particular expertise, or pertains to an issue of special concern to his or her constituents (which, AFAIK, Venezuela isn’t to the people of AOC’s 14th congressional district in New York).

    1. That was my thinking also. But we can’t be sure that was AOC’s reason for not giving her opinion. It might also be that she didn’t want to take a position opposite from Omar’s.

    2. I’ll tell ya what folks. I have a lot more respect for a politician who has their own views than most who are simply puppets sitting there to draw their govt. pay check each month. Even if I do not agree with them at least I have found one honest politician. Very hard to find these days.

    3. I’ll tell ya what folks. I have a lot more respect for a politician who has their own views than most who are simply puppets sitting there to draw their govt. pay check each month. Even if I do not agree with them at least I have found one honest politician. Very hard to find these days.

        1. In my experience, when someone says of a political figure, “I like that he speaks his mind,” that is rarely true. What the speaker generally likes is that the political figure speaks the speaker’s mind.

  6. I simply cannot worry about a handful of progressive lefties and what they would like to see in Venezuelan politics. Even in their positions within congress they have about as much influence as I do. We have our own policies in central and south America based on a republican Senate and now a dictator of our own to worry about. Corrupt dictators are now the fashion whether you look south, the Middle East or other places. Stealing their own countries blind seems to have little to do with what brand of American politician you are.

    1. Nobody is asking you to worry. The fact is, however, that these loudmouthed and unthinking Democrats are being used by the Republicans to tar the whole party, and may well get people to vote for Trump in 2020. This is one reason why I keep criticizing the Regressive Left.

      I would not underestimate the influence these people have–not necessarily among the Left (although they have considerable followings), but certainly in galvanizing the Right.

      1. I am sure the party would possibly do better if they all marched in lock step as the republicans do but can the progressive left be eliminated or made to shut up? We now have 21 or 22 candidates running for president and that is a lot of opinion to figure out. That is what the interested voter should be concerned with, not what one congress person in Minnesota or New York has an opinion about.

    2. We have our own policies in central and south America based on a republican Senate and now a dictator of our own to worry about.

      I hope you and your family are ok and you can make it somewhere to to ask for political asylum. In which country are you now?

    3. The problem with socialist dictators is not that they steal the country blind, but that they destroy the economy and any rudiments of civil society in the process. If we compare ordinary stealing politicians to parasites, socialist ones are “necroparasites” (like the anthrax bacillus) that cannot suck effectively from a living host and first kill it in order to utilize it.

  7. Politicians tie themselves in knots like this because they scheme there way through interviews, swerving between the broken logic of their ideology and posturing to sound reasonable to those who do not share that ideology. Pretty amusing.

  8. A general observation from me, an immigrant from a communist country whose parents never learned English.

    What much of the “progressive” left is seeking is not a leveling of the playing field, but an inversion of hiearchies.

    Omar contributes her little bit to that project, as do overwhelmingly, much of academia and media.

  10. It is at least semi-hopeful that Rep. Ocasio-Cortes has the sense to evade saying anything about Venezuela, thus avoiding the twaddle emitted by Rep. Omar. The latter, who speaks exclusively in clichés, seems to be a perfect twerp. Her main accomplishments in life, beside the great feat of wearing a hijab, are a few years of Minnesota DFL Party activism and then in effect inheriting Keith Ellison’s 5th District Congressional seat.

    One aspect of contemporary pop-Left ideology is devaluing of accomplishment of any kind in the real world, in favor of mere membership in favored (or “minoritized”) identity-groups. This is, in its way, a counterpart to the Republicans’ tilt toward membership in their favored identity groups, namely those of lobbyists and real estate hustlers.

    1. It’s amazing to me that Omar got elected. I’m guessing it was because she played it cool until she got the job. She came off as a total Dem success story but now that she’s elected she’s letting loose with everything she kept bottled up. She’s likely to be a one-term wonder. Surely her district isn’t happy with her. Does anyone know?

      1. She certainly did manage to keep her views hidden until just a week after she got elected. All of a sudden, she was a raging BDS-supporting, Israel-hating, antisemitic freak show. I’ll give her some credit: she knew to keep her mouth shut about her real views until the election was over.

        1. She was open enough to wear her headscarf all the time. What views exactly do people expect from a woman with a hijab? Everyone knows its misogynist implications, but apparently many forget that it is an anti-Western banner.

          1. I’m not going to automatically assume that anyone who is a religious Muslim is also anti-West, especially if they live in the West.

      2. I think she accurately represents her district, which contains a significant number of Somali- Americans.
        Charitably, I could say that like many other groups of immigrants who have come here, they retain much of the culture of the “old country”. The problem, from my perspective, is that the culture that they needed to develop in order to survive in such a place is vastly different than ours.
        I predict she will fall due to some scandal, likely some act that her community will not see as a problem, is it will be perfectly acceptable under their shared belief system.

  11. “… Omar says it’s the U.S.’s fault, blaming “neocons and war mongers” …

    The foremost voice bucking for military intervention in Venezuela is paleocon national security advisor John Bolton — the nation’s preeminent war-hawk, the war-hawk whose bellicosity scares other war-hawks (although Bolton managed to avoid military service himself during the Vietnam War).

    Bolton’s attitude toward the international community is that of a drunk walking into a crowded bar looking for someone to hold his jacket so he can start throwing punches. He came into office — indeed, has spent his entire public life — urging a preemptive strike against North Korea and the bombing of Iran’s presumptive terrorist training camps. But a splendid little invasion of Venezuela (à la Reagan’s of Grenada, or Poppy Bush’s of Panama) would do in the meantime. There’s little doubt that that’s the advice Bolton is growling through his mustache into Donald Trump’s orange ear right now.

    1. Since Trump is all about talking about the strength of the US military while claiming he doesn’t want war, the conversations between him and Bolton must be amazing.

      My guess, and fear, is that Trump’s anti-war stance is more about throwing shade on everything that came before his presidency and didn’t involve him. If he starts a war, it will be a “good war”, unlike all those that came before.

      I can’t wait for us to be rid of him and his nasty minions.

      1. The problem is that Bolton, although bat-shit loony, is orders of magnitude smarter and more articulate than Trump. (Like generals Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly, and like Rex Tillerson and others who’ve served in Trump’s cabinet, Bolton has been known to call Trump a “moron” behind his back).

        Bolton has also spent a career studying and thinking about these issues — unlike Donald Trump who has never given any thought to, indeed has no curiosity concerning, anything other than self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement, much less given any serious thought to foreign policy and the optimum functioning of our federal government.

    2. I would be willing to bet $100 that we do not invade Venezuela. It won’t happen, and John Bolton’s views don’t justify in any way Ilhan Omar and others’ views that Venezuela’s now decades-long crisis is somehow the US and/or West’s fault.

      The crisis is due to the policies Chavez adopted after taking office: =taking over the oil industry and instituting many reforms targeting the upper classes, and using the funds to buy off the poor through various social programs and wealth redistribution. His social programs did, in fact, work very well for a few years (literacy and healthcare rose greatly, schools were built, poverty went down by over 10%, etc.), but he had no plan for the future and the money eventually ran out due to dropping oil prices and the Venezualan economy’s almost complete reliance on money from their oil industry. Venezuela’s economy collapsed, leading to a years-long crisis that continues to this day. After the 2002 coup attempt, Chavez became increasingly dictatorial and paranoid. He passed what had become a less and less democratic society on to his chosen replacement, Maduro, who completed the process of making Venezuela a complete dictatorship, and the country has continued to circle the drain under his control.

      1. You’re just tryin’ to lure me into a sucker’s bet, BJ, ’cause you know which side of the Russian rye Venezuela’s bread is being buttered.

        The Russians have military “advisers” stationed in Venezuela right now, and big-boss-man Putin has ordered Maduro to keep his fanny in Caracas, making it unlikely that the Donald will do anything more than huff and puff about blowing Maduro’s house down — and I haven’t heard him do any huffing and puffing toward Putin or the Russians on this, despite Russia’s actions being in violation of longstanding US policy regarding non-interference in the western hemisphere.

        You want me to put a Benjamin on the line, you’re gonna hafta lay some long odds, buddy.

        1. Ha, fair enough. Though, even if Russia/Putin weren’t involved to this extent (or at all, which would be an alternate dimension), I would gladly make the same bet.

          1. Fair enough, as well, BJ. But what kinda odds will you offer that, if articles of impeachment get voted out of the House, or if Trump goes more than, say, six points down in the polls against a Democratic opponent in 2020, Trump won’t engage in a little military frolic against some third country? (I think he’d like to drop some bombs on Iran, since it’s been his bogeyman, and since he cynically believes it would help him with the Jewish vote.)

            Trump likes to talk the isolationist talk sometimes, railing against “stupid wars,” but that’s been more about branding himself the non-Bush (especially during the 2016 Republican primaries) than about any type of well-thought-through geopolitical strategy (as if). Trump’s macho posturing, and the bellicose right-wing authoritarian rhetoric to which he is naturally inclined, are more in line with Bolton’s go-it-alone unilateralism (“we don’ need no stinkin’ international alliances”) than with isolationism per se.

            A peacenik, he ain’t.

          2. I never claimed he was a peacenik. I’ve always maintained that Trump has no coherent foreign policy (nor any coherent overarching philosophy on anything). Still, I would put $100 on the idea that he won’t be dropping bombs on a country as important as Iran. Maybe, if there’s some extraordinary scenario, he would do a small flyover with some bombs in some far less important country that’s experiencing a conflict, or send 2,000 troops to “advise.” Still, I doubt even that, and we have no evidence that he would as of now. At this point, the speculation is on the side of the idea that he’ll do nothing.

          3. Where’s a shred of evidence to back up your claim that Trump is itching to start up a war? Your argument is pure prejudice and emotional reasoning.

            That’s not to say there could never be any reasons for a quick-strike military action but by and large the base is very much against military ventures of all sorts so anything that smelled like a wag the dog scenario would alienate. There were many Trumpers who grumbled about his bombing of Syria and Afghanistan early in his presidency.

            Trump explicitly campaigned on non-interventionism and even talked about rolling back parts of the global military empire such as bases in Germany and Japan – a proposal liberals used to be receptive to before Trump was for it it.

            Conversely, wag the dog bombing has always been Hillary’s bag. Her husband actually did it to Sudan in ’98, to horrific effect on the Sudanese, and she has never condemned that action to my knowledge. Hillary was always clearly the interventionist war candidate in the 2016 election as she, her husband, and the previous administration that she was a part of have an odious history of bloody foreign follies followed by catastrophic results. So it’s pretty ironic that anybody would wring their hands about Trump on this matter, especially if They Were With Her in 2016.

          4. It’s an easy argument to make. Trump is well aware that people rally behind a wartime president. He’d be happy to try to take advantage of that in order to get re-elected. He’s also got well-known warmonger Bolton whispering in his ear. The only thing saving us from such a war is that there are no good opportunities right now. Wars in either Venezuela or North Korea are unlikely to give Trump the bump he’s looking for and would most likely blow up in his face.

        2. Trump thus far displays prudence by sticking to his longstanding and oft-stated views on anti-interventionism = Orange Man Bad (somehow).

          1. Sorry to say that I did not 🙁 Most of what I listen to (aside from classical music and some jazz) comes from 1965 to somewhere in the 1980’s (besides Phish).

          2. It’s the tune Nancy Sinatra sang to Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent) when he got made the boss of the New York crime family on The Sopranos (in a scene that has way too much meta-subtext to get into here 🙂 ).

          3. Now that you mention it, I do remember that, and I did know the song once I started playing it.

  12. But, Ilhan Omar did not support the Maduro regime in the clip above, so I don’t think Jeff’s comment follows. All I hear in the clip is criticism of US sanctions and how they affect the Venezuelan people. I did *not* hear support for the Maduro government.

    Maduro is an authoritarian who should be replaced, perhaps by popular uprising, but I don’t support replacing him with a servant of US corporate power. Look how a similar course went in Russia in the 90s when the US imposed rapid privatization through Yeltsin, similarly in a country with an enormous oil industry.

    Maduro carried out a coup by packing the VZ supreme court, disbanding the legislature, and buying out the entire VZ press, thus removing a large amount of political power from the VZ people.

    But the statement that “Omar and other progressive Democrats support him [Maduro]” is simply incorrect, which I feel is clear to anyone listening even a little more extensively to the discussion on the left wing press, which I feel has much more thoroughly examined the opposing issues than elsewhere. Above Omar’s 5min summary of the situation was singled out, but not the preceding more intelligent debate with Jeffrey Sachs, or the debates democracy now and “the real news” have hosted with Edgardo Lander who supports Guaido. If you listen, you will find the moral principle is clear and even occasionally explicitly stated: We are morally responsible for our own actions (sanctions) and are not for Maduro’s. Our own actions are contributing significantly to suffering and death of innocent people. Maduro’s actions are too, but that does not justify our contribution, and “our” (ie, Bolton, Pompeo, and Abram’s) motivations are not exactly pure either.

    Opposition to sanctions is not the same as support for Maduro.

    1. True enough. US machinations to which we aren’t privy are always a reason for doubt. Is it the case that Ilhan Omar doesn’t support Maduro?

      1. > Is it the case that Ilhan Omar doesn’t support Maduro?

        I believe so. I understand her goal here to be to discuss the harm of US policy (sanctions), rather than Maduro’s well-established badness which we did not cause.

        A quick google search shows her correctly tweeting “No one is defending Maduro 🤦🏽‍♀️” in response to accusations she supports Maduro.

        1. I see that as backing off. If she didn’t support Maduro, why didn’t she just say so outright. Her equivocation is pretty good evidence, to me at least, that she doesn’t favor him leaving. This is how the “progressive” Democrats signal their positions without having tosay so explicitly.

          1. > why didn’t she just say so outright

            I will just say that I believe it is a rhetorical tactic. If she says “sanctions are inhumane” and someone replies “but isn’t Maduro a bad guy?”, that response in a non-sequitur so why should she get dragged into wasting her media time discussing it? Based on what I’ve seen of her I believe that, like some others, she has a very strict policy of not getting dragged against her will into distractions from her main points. There are parallels in anti-creationist tactic.

            That said, I can understand how it can make it seem like she is two-faced or evasive since she doesn’t respond to the non-sequitur. That is the tactical downside.

    2. Excellent comment. Someone who actually looks beyond the sound bits and preconceived ideas of the person.

    3. If you talk about Venezuela’s problems and do not mention Chavez and Maduro then you are either stupid or blinded by ideology. Yes, the US has made mistakes (e.g. supporting the 2002 coup attempt) but it takes real talent to destroy an oil economy as well as Chavez and Maduro have done.

      As far as sanctions, I believe that the first US sanctions that effected the economy started in January (Obama started sanctions against individuals in the Venezuela in 2014.) In other words, they had nothing to do with the economic collapse. BTW, progressives love sanctions against the right wing regimes (e.g. apartheid South African) and hate them when it affects leftists.

    4. Our sanctions are not Venezuela’s issue. Venezuela’s issue is that, by the time Chavez died, their oil made up about 98% of their exports.

    5. So she is not supporting Maduro, she is just against anything that would hurt Maduro’s regime, while deflecting the responsibility for Maduro and his predecessor’s failures onto the USA.

      1. Yep, that’s what she’s doing, all the while not casting any aspersions on Maduro or his horrific regime. I’m baffled why people here don’t recognize that.

        1. “I’m baffled why people here don’t recognize that.”

          People rarely recognize something they don’t want to, especially when it comes to politics!

    6. Exactly. Straw woman fallacy. I guess they have no response to the real flesh and blood Omar, so they gotta build a straw one.

      1. Seems like there’s an awful lot of responses to the real Omar here, I just get the feeling you’re not happy with them.

  13. Maduro is a thug and a blight on the Venezuelan people. The other guy seems marginally better for the Venezuelan people and is certainly more palatable to the United States. But this is an issue for the Venezuelan people to decide, not us. We have a long and inglorious history of throwing our weight around in Latin America and I fear that something of the sort is going to come out here. And if it does, we won’t even have success to fall back on.
    I’m reminded of an unpopular governor who told an embattled legislative ally: “I’ll come into your district and campaign for you or against you. Whichever you think will help.”

    1. It is very difficult to take the right decision in such a situation, but blaming the USA for the failures of socialist dictators is surely not helpful (except to said dictators).

      1. As long as they fail on their own, and they likely will, the USA shouldn’t take the blame. Unfortunately, we are too impatient to let nature and diplomacy take its course.

  14. “Her main job in Congress seems to be making hotheaded statements, often followed by an apology.”

    I’ve never run for office so I can’t say. I wonder if this is on the job application? It’s really all we have in this day of soundbites, internets, and Twitter.

  15. And now we have Trump’s American policy – sanctions against Cuba and threatens embargo. That should win lots of friends and influence. What a joke. I guess this is how dictators show other dictators.

  16. She’s a hero because she wears that scarf around her head a muslim and makes provocative statements. Wow, we got our hero dentition to high standards at this point. If admiringly she hasn’t done anything to pass any legislation, support any legislation, nothing absolutely nothing except she is a muslim, woman of colour and makes actual pretty dumb statements if she herself has to apologize every other day for the words that come out of that mouth from a really an ideological irrational mind. Not saying stupid mind, she knows perfectly that their is a constituent that will support her just because of….again, muslim, woman, head scarf, and that’s really pretty much it and anti Semitic (even worse). A real hero this one.

      1. What is most important is that if this person is really in charge of anything, you guys in the US are going to hell in hand basket.
        And yes, I do agree with what you said. She is a great asset for Trump.

  17. As much as I dislike AOC, I really hate this “refuses to denounce” line. I don’t like the idea of coming up to someone and demand that they denounce whomever that person dislikes, even when I found both of the people involved here completely reprehensible.

    1. I agree with this. What so and so didn’t say should not be news unless the person’s job means they should be commenting on it. It smacks of the “have you stopped beating your wife” kind of line.

  18. Poster #12 is a little baffling with this: “Look how a similar course went in Russia in the 90s when the US imposed rapid privatization through Yeltsin, similarly in a country with an enormous oil industry.” I was not aware that the US invaded Russia in the 1990s to impose anything. Virtually the only American involved there was Professor Jeffrey Sachs, whom Boris Yeltsin called in on his own initiative as a consultant. Could Professor Sachs have held a gun to Yeltsin’s head to force him to follow his policy?

    Internal Russian dynamics, rather than Yanqui imperialismo, are the obvious source of what took place: namely, the managerial class of nomenklatura bosses consolidating its power through real assumption of ownership, with the help of Yeltsin and his clique, including a Deputy Chief of one thing and another named Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
    It was, in other words, all the doing of the New Soviet Man, that blessed product of what was once called “the Bolshevik experiment”.

    1. Two points:

      One in response to this post in general and one in response to Jon Gallant.

      1. Leaving aside the pros and cons of Ilhan Omar, I think there is a good argument to be made that the history of US policies towards Venezuela, Chavez and then Maduro, at least have contributed to and exacerbated problems. I’m happy to make this case at some length at some point. I don’t think the argument is absurd on its face at all.

      2. While Jon makes some good points about the internal dynamics of Russian politics, the fact remains that the US and other countries, along with the IMF and World Bank did exert a huge influence on Russia during the transition period. Jeffrey Sachs (who incidentally sings a very different tune thse days) may not have held a gun to anyone’s head-but the IMF and World Bank and by extension the US did have an economic gun aimed at the head of Russia and openly supported Yeltsin’s failed reforms.

      1. IMF saved my country in 1997. But there was support for the reforms by both the ruling elite and the populace. If such support is lacking, the reforms will be fake and aimed only at taking the money without any real intention to do with them anything useful, or ever repay the debt.

  19. “He needs to go.”
    So yet another democratically-elected leader of another country “must go” because “America” – in this case represented by you – doesn’t like him? We who are from small countries often don’t like the leaders you elect. Should we be able to say “He needs to go”??
    When America effects illegal regime change things usually get worse in the country in whose affairs you’re meddling in. I am amazed every time it happens – amazed, not surprised. What causes this hubris and empire-fever?
    I know what your answer will likely be to “Should we be able to change YOUR leaders?” So I am only left with: Power truly does corrupt.

    1. As a citizen who has taken part (as a demonstrator) in the toppling of a democratically-elected leader, I can say that democratic elections do not mean that all the nation is slave to the elected leader for 4-5 years. If the tyranny or incompetence of the leader become unbearable, the people have the right to revolt. If the leader is destroying the country, this right is even an obligation.

      1. And we were very grateful to the Western media and leaders who supported us. My opinion is that without their support, there would have been people killed, and the country would have degenerated into a complete shithole.

      2. Who said they weren’t? Did you not notice I was criticising America’s interference, not Venezuelan citizens’ actions?

    2. In 2016, Maduro and his cronies prevented a legal presidential recall election from occurring.

      In 2017, the opposition won the majority in National Assembly. Maduro and his cronies on the Supreme Court removed all assembly’s power.

      In 2017, Maduro and his cronies created a Constitutional Assembly to write a new constitution and handpicked the member of the assembly.

      Maduro is not a “democratically-elected leader” in any normal sense of the words.

      1. You’re wrong. Some people will say if more people vote for a lady in pants suits than a guy with orange hair that “is not a “democratically-elected leader” in any normal sense of the words.’ And THEY’D be wrong, too. The POINT here is the USA’s interference in something that is none of their business and is DEFINITELY not a democratic action. Don’t dance about. Talk straight.

    3. The only counter to that I would put forward to that is the US fabulous record when it comes to interfering in other countries.
      Especially South American ones.

  20. Reference to Maduro as a “democratically elected leader” is whimsical, inasmuch as the opposition was denied the right to run any of its favored candidates (such as Leopoldo Lopez, under arrest during the “election”). Juan Guaido, in contrast, is a member of the National Assembly, chosen in 2015 in the last free and fair electoral contest in Venezuela. The opposition held a 112 to 55 majority in this body, and Maduro’s executive branch has bypassed it since its installation. Maduro has even concocted a “Constitutent Assembly”, consisting only of his partisans, to replace the elected National Assembly. One can only imagine what American “Progressives” would say if Donald Trump tried to appoint a new House of Representatives of his very own.

    1. “Democracy” does not mean “how I like democracy”. Democracies are very different, often unfair and – say the word USA – gerrymandered. That does not give an outside country the right to step in and interfere. The point here is NOT whether Maduro is a good guy or not (just as it wasn’t with Saddam). Nor if their democracy is perfect, nor even if it has been adhered to. The point is “keep away, USA”.

  21. The question I want to ask is, in the multiple cases of US intervention in the affairs of a foreign country since 1945 (be it military or political), is there one single example in which that intervention has benefited the people of the country concerned? Yes, it is a rhetorical question. As far as I can tell, however corrupt, evil, vicious, self-serving, antidemocratic, the sitting government of any of those countries has been, its people have experienced greater suffering after US intervention than before.

    With regard to Venezuela, there is almost no pretence. The US wants US corporations to be able to access Venezuelan oil, has been grooming a local nonentity for years, and is suddenly showing a concern for democracy in Venezuela that is singularly absent from its dealings with most of the rest of the (oil-rich) world.

    It is very simple. EVERY SINGLE TIME THAT THE US HAS STUCK ITS NOSE INTO THE AFFAIRS OF A FOREIGN COUNTRY SINCE 1945 (with the exception of the Berlin airlift) THE SUFFERING OF THAT COUNTRY’S PEOPLE HAS BEEN EXACERBATED. The US’s interventions in the rest of the world simply enrich the military industrial complex.

    I am happy to be corrected on this assessment. Please note that I have put the cut-off point in 1945, since – as a European, as the son of a Polish Jewess who lost most of her family during the war – I feel I owe huge debt of gratitude to the US.

    Why is it that you are prepared to be gaslighted into war after war, even when you know that your administration is corrupt to the core?

    2. It is not obvious that the people of South Korea are worse off as a result of the US preventing Kim Il Sung from taking charge of them in 1950. It is not obvious that the people of Sarajevo are worse off as a result of NATO forcing out the Serb militia gunners in the surrounding hills, and then pushing through the Dayton Accord. It is not obvious that the Kosovars are worse off as a result of NATO forcibly removing them from Serbian rule.

      And at least one blatant Yanqui imperialist invasion in Latin America did not work out so badly: Panama in 1990. The Yanqui occupation lasted only six weeks, and in recent years people have not been fleeing from Panama in great numbers. Its current GDP per capita is the highest in the region, a hair above that of Costa Rica.

      1. Some good examples. Whereas the US does meddle too much in other countries affairs, it is not always bad. There’s also cases where we help with disaster recovery that should be noted even though they aren’t political.

  23. ““I do not know a single Venezuelan who would agree with Ilhan Omar. Venezuelans roundly despise Maduro and blame him for their misery. Maduro and his criminal gang have plundered the country. Maduro has instituted killing gangs that patrol the poor barrios and do away with Chavistas who have come out against Maduro.””

    What a worthless quote. Anecdotal. Partisan.
    As worthy of inclusion as religious person’s personal testimony as proof of a god.

      1. To avoid incivility, I will not say that the quote is “worthless”, but self-evidently anecdotal. I don’t know any Venezuelans, but I know a lady whose boyfriend is Venezuelan and she tells me that, though not particularly pro Maduro, he believes that the current situation is largely the result of US manipulation. Since I am perfectly prepared to be uncivil to myself, I would say that this piece of information is not only purely anecdotal, but worthless in terms of serious political analysis.

  24. “Ilhan Omar blames the U.S. for the turmoil in Venezuela”. I do too!

  25. I not only blame the US, but my country of Canada, too, is making things worse..

    That said, fortunately we do not have the equivalent of John Bolton or Erik Prince.

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