by MARIA PAEZ VICTOR
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
– Albert Einstein
The USA is stuck in the recurring folly of trying to dictate the political life of Venezuela, including by trying to discredit their elections. They cannot grasp the fact that Venezuela is a sovereign nation, that it has frequent, free, and fair elections, and that it will not bow to political blackmail, even in the face of crippling illegal sanctions.
For 22 years the foreign policy of the USA has aimed to destabilize and openly overthrow (under the euphemism of “regime change”) the legitimate government of Venezuela. It has not been enough for the USA that Venezuela has always been willing to sell them oil, and to give USA oil companies a participating share in its production. No, Washington wants to utterly control and own the vast Venezuelan oil reserve. They have backed, financially and otherwise, coups d’etat, mercenary invasions, horrific street violence, assassination attempts, drone attacks, cyber-attacks, bribery, sabotage, and lethal economic sanctions – all have failed to bring down the ever-popular governments led by Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro. What a slow learning curve for Washington!
To undermine Maduro’s presidency, in 2019, Washington conjured up a scheme of promoting an obscure politician as an alternative president for Venezuela, one Juan Guaido. It failed miserably. Now they have come up with a plot to create an alternative leader of the opposition for Venezuela. This time they chose a very well-known woman politician, Maria Corina Machado: infamous for her involvement in attempted coups d’etat, and acts of public violence, for asking for more illegal sanctions for Venezuela and even – gasp!- for advocating USA military intervention in Venezuela.
The most outrageous folly was the posturing of an insignificant stooge, Guaido, as the supposed “real” president of the country, without a presidential election or popular backing. He was the emperor without any clothes, a president without power, following or nation, yet was kowtowed to by those who wanted to deny the legitimacy of the government of Venezuela and its real president, Nicolás Maduro. The imaginary presidency would have been funny if it had not been tragic, because millions of dollars – Venezuelan assets- were given by the USA and its allies to this individual and his gang who advocated the economic sanctions against their own country. They turned out to be no more than criminals as the funds ended up in their pockets, wasted on ill-conceived, even wacky “invasions”, and on drugs, orgies, and protection money to narcotraffic gangs. They can be accurately described as international thieves that pulled the wool over Uncle Sam’s eyes. But the Emperor cannot admit he has no clothes on.
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