The US could not want to invade, instead opting to arm and assist an insurgency in Venezuela. A cruise liner that is supposed to be arrested in Buenos Aires would make for an excellent way to smuggle in supplies and mercenaries. Or they want a civil war that they can then assist with.
We have done similar things in the past, in Syria and a host of Latin American countries. Even in Venezuela, the US aid Maduro forbid was very likely being used for some kind of smuggling. There is a standard international practice for providing aid that the US completely ignored, earning condemnation from international agencies.
NATO member Portugal. If there's something fishy going on here, the US is undoubtedly the ringleader. Portugal hasn't spent the last twenty years actively trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government.
Look at the Latin American countries where the US propped up dictatorships in defense against the spread of Communism. Compare those places to nations like Nicaragua and Cuba. Which are the places where people starve, and which are the places where people thrive?
The problem with decrying US participation in domestic political affairs in Latin America during the Cold War is that the US was successful in fending off the spread of Communism, so we will never really know just how much poverty and kleptocracy would have been established if the spread of Communism in Latin America had been successful. Today, the only observable counterfactual is a handful of paranoid, illiberal, dirt-poor nations where the government rules with an iron fist, which is certainly the case in Venezuela.
>Today, the only observable counterfactual is a handful of paranoid, illiberal, dirt-poor nations where the government rules with an iron fist, which is certainly the case in Venezuela.
Right, the rest of Latin America is doing far better than the country under decades of US economic attacks. That's why there's no immigrant problem of overly poor people from countries like Uruguay, basking in that glorious US assisted regime change.
Venezuela has damaged its own economy, and poor countries in Latin America are usually poor from under-development, not from external suppression of existing industry.
Venezuela was a prosperous and stable country in the mid- to late- 20th century. Declining oil revenues, authoritarian dictatorship, cronyism in PDVSA, expropriation of private assets, unfettered corruption, and narco-capitalism have brought the country to where it is today. Sanctions are a response to the festering illness that has infected the Venezuelan government -- they are not the cause.
Nicaragua is an extremely poor country run by paranoid anti-American leadership that openly welcomes relationships with Russia and China, but Russia is not exactly an economic powerhouse, and China only seeks natural resources and the creation of a second canal via the destruction of Lake Managua (environment be damned).
Cuba is so destitute that its government has had to forbid its citizens from boarding boats.
(Have you ever been to Uruguay? Have you ever had a conversation with a Uruguayan person?)
It is impossible to understand Latin America without considering the effect of American imperialism. But it is also impossible to understand Latin America without considering the effect of American investment. Additionally, it is impossible to understand the mid-20th-century dictatorships that dominated the region without considering them against the backdrop of a Soviet (and then Russian) effort to challenge the interests of the US in its own hemisphere.
So, when you insinuate that the US is the cause of all poverty in Latin America, it demonstrates a one-dimensional interpretation that could never capture the complexity of the full picture.
There are immigrants from all over Latin America living in the United States, from the richest country to the poorest. They want to come to the US because of its economic opportunity, physical security, and greater freedom. I don't understand your point about Uruguay.
Yes look at it, Cuba has the best public health service and the lowest child mortality while in Chile people flee their college debts and there is no public health system. Nevermind the thousands of tortured, murdered and kidnapped children caused by the US baked dictatorships.
The establishment of Cuba's health service was heavily subsidized by the Soviets, as was basically everything else in Cuba during the Cold War.
Chile has private healthcare (which does not exist in Cuba) as well as taxpayer-funded healthcare programs.
I personally believe that the human right to healthcare is a corollary of the human right to life. Still, I would rather have a surgery in Chile than in Cuba.
Chile's education system has been described as the best in Latin America. And incidentally, the country offers free college tuition to the lowest three-fifths of the income spectrum (https://www.chileatiende.gob.cl/fichas/43203-gratuidad-en-la...). So I don't know what you're talking about.
I would rather get a university degree in Chile than in Cuba.
If you want to go to Cuba for your medical care and education, be my guest. We will see who is healthier and has a more productive career.
Note also that you can't compare a dollar of debt in a productive economy to a dollar of debt in a stagnant economy.
> Nevermind the thousands of tortured, murdered and kidnapped children caused by the US baked dictatorships.
When you compare something, be careful to select the appropriate counterfactual. Arbitrary imprisonment, sham trials, forced disappearances...these are historically quite common in many nations in Latin America, and certainly not unique to US-supported regimes. Nowadays, the most illiberal governments in Latin America are usually those where people are poor and political leaders rail against the USA.
Not what I meant. Could be there as an excuse loaded with drugs so the navy then can move in. Iraq was invaded under the false pretence of the weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist and UN observers proved so 1 week before Invasion. Panama was invaded under the excuse of drug war. Planting drugs to justify the invasion wouldn't be much of a stretch. Pretty bad luck that 1 of 3 reinforced cruise just drifts towards Venezuela during this escalation period. As the covid crisis worsens in US and a distraction is needed we'll see what happens, let's check back in a month.
There were staged news, like newspaper articles showing in astonishing detail Saddam's biological and chemical weapons, which oops didn't exist. Also check where the La Tortuga island is located, It's right next to the coast, surrounded by other island, pretty dangerous location to just be drifting without paying attention to where you are.
I'm not saying, that's definitely the reason they are there, I'm saying it's pretty weird and odd timing to suspect ulterior motives.
I didn't read anything about 'drifting without paying attention to where you are' in the article
Drifting is a common tactic for vessels which don't need to be anywhere specific, and 13 miles offshore is not an unsafe place to be drifting. In this location the wind and current will be mostly from the east, so the vessel will be moving to the west at a low speed. You can see what is in the way and 'oh we will hit an island in 12 hours unless we do something' is not an emergency.
