Reportedly, United States President Trump, Vice President
Pence and National Security Adviser John Bolton have escalated threats to
launch a war against Venezuela, as large pro- and anti-government
demonstrations filled Venezuela’s streets on Saturday.
In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” program that
aired before the Super Bowl, Trump reiterated that military intervention “is an
option.” Pence assured a crowd of far-right Venezuelan exiles in Miami that
“this is no time for dialogue, it is the moment for action, and the time has
come to end the Maduro dictatorship once and for all… Those looking on should
know this: all options are on the table.”
Bolton, who helped author the playbook that was used to
launch the 2003 invasion of Iraq, issued a blunt threat Friday that the US
would kill or jail and torture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro if he did
not resign. Comparing Maduro to Nicolae Ceaușescu and Benito Mussolini—both of
whom were killed—Bolton told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt: “The sooner he
takes advantage of that [resignation], the sooner he’s likely to have a nice
quiet retirement on a pretty beach rather than being in some other beach area
like Guantanamo.”
Self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, the US and
their allies in South America and Europe are preparing a new provocation aimed
at forcing the Venezuelan military to abandon Maduro, with Guaidó announcing
that the US will deliver aid at three locations along the Venezuelan border in
the coming days.
While Maduro and the Venezuelan military leadership have
said they will refuse the aid, the US hopes that images of crowds gathering to
receive food and medication will either provoke the military to defect to the
opposition and help distribute the aid or provide valuable propaganda footage
justifying the need for a “humanitarian” intervention.
As the Council on Foreign Relations’ O’Neil said, “If it
[sanctions] doesn’t work in dislodging this regime, then there’s not a lot left
in the toolkit besides things like military intervention.”
A military intervention in Venezuela with a population 30
million could kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people and transform
Latin America into an imperialist slaughterhouse.
The geopolitical intelligence think tank Stratfor recently
noted, “A military intervention could quickly snowball into one of the largest
worldwide military operations since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”
Francisco Toro, a Washington Post columnist and
anti-Maduro think tank analyst, told the Council on Foreign Relations gathering
that a military intervention would lead to “a kind of Syrian civil war” and
confrontation between nuclear-armed powers.
There is definite threat that if US military operation starts
against Venezuela, other countries will also move. This may include Brazil
moving into the southeast, Colombia into the southwest. Russia to defend its
oil interests in Venezuela and Cuba has already intelligence penetration into
the Venezuelan armed forces.
