Disclaimer: I'm not accusing you of (intentionally or unintentionally) doing this but your comment brought up the issue.
For a lot of horrific events in the world, you will find a bias exposed by the use of active vs passive voice. Compare:
- "100 children died". How?
- "100 children killed". By whom? Why? How?
- "100 children killed in conflict". Between who? How? Why?
' "100 children killed in air strike on refugee camp by X". Oh...
The point is that a lot of people treat what is happening in Venezuela like it's some kind of unavoidable natural disaster like an earthquake. This reinforces the idea that nobody is responsible and, more improtantly, there's nothing we can do.
Venezuelans are being intentionally starved to death by economic sanctions (that's what sactions are). Why? Because Maduro is bad. Sound familiar? It should. Castro was bad. Saddam Hussein was bad (despite being a US puppet for decades).
The actual issue is that these people threaten the interests of Western companies. That's it. That's the only thing that matters.
Maduro, Castro, and Saddam Hussein are/were bad. Castro and Hussein, at least, committed murders to maintain power and Maduro pulled a coup after he lost an election.
Whether they were worth removing is another question, but if you could flip a switch and magically replace them with something better (with no cost and a guarantee the replacement would not be a murderous authoritarian) you would of course do it.
In 1988, Saddam Hussein dropped nerve gas on Kurds. Saddam was then a US ally and a foil against Iran. The US had propped up that war killing millions of Iraqis and Iranians for almost a decade for basically a net zero outcome. Why was Iran an enemy? Because the US deposed the democratically elected government in 1953 becasue they threatened to nationalize their own oil reserves.
Do you see a pattern here? Like at all?
The key point is that Saddam could drop nerve gas on Iraqi citizens and it still didn't change him being a US ally (and puppet). We don't care about someone being "bad". We never have. Saddam only ceased to become an ally when he invaded Kuwait and threatened our truly regional ally, Saudi Arabia.
All Castro did was overthrow Batisa, another US ally, and nationalize Cuban assets.
Hungary is a member of NATO and a US ally despite Viktor Orban essentially overthrowing democracy and genuinely being bad.
We helped overthrow Basher Al-Asaad. The al-asaads were former US allies too by the way. Why? Because now they were bad. Who is the new Syrian president? A man by the name of Ahmed al-Sharaa. Who is that you might ask? A former al-Qaeda leader, you know the guys were the Big Bad [tm] for 9/11. But that's OK, he (allegedly) cut ties with al-Aqeda in 2016 so all is forgiven. Let's not look too deeply into 15 or the 19 9/11 hijackers being Saudi.
Here's the lesson: whenever the US says someone is being punished, bombed, sanctioned, invaded or whatever because they're "bad" know that it's a lie. I mean they might be bad. But that's never the reason for whatever the latest punitive action is. Always, always, always the reason is become the interests of US foreign policy or Western companies is being threatened.
It's wild to claim Saddam was a US ally just two years before Iraq invaded Kuwait against US demands and got bombed by the US in the Gulf War. You are confusing offshore balancing between Iraq and Iran during the Iran-Iraq war with "ally". You need to look up the definitions of these words.
And to claim Assad was a US ally is even more outrageous, where to even start. He was a Russian ally and a Hezbollah ally, not a US ally. All of his military equipment came from Russia. All of his air support came from Russia. He allowed Iranian arms to flow to Hezbollah and was supported on the ground in Syria by Hezbollah. And he is now hiding in Russia playing video games after killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. He and the US had a common foe in ISIS for a period, but they were otherwise antagonistic over the duration of the civil war.
Saddam was a de facto US ally till 1988. The relationship ended with the end of their mutual interests.
US sent terrorism suspects to Bashar regime to be tortured after 9/11.
Yeah eventually both relationships fell out but all the vile things both did happened under US watch, and US only stepped in when political/economic clash happened.
We are adhering to definitions of words. The US engaged in classic offshore balancing by backing Iraq when Iran gained the momentum on the frontline. There was no alliance between Iraq and the US.
waiting for details on how "backing Iraq" is materially different from an "alliance" with Iraq...I'm hesitant to throw yet _another_ word into the mix but there's an entire wikipedia page on US "support" for Iraq.
I don't think anyone disagrees that the US is extremely hypocritical. The US has a long history of overthrowing democracies and supporting dictators, all in the name of "democracy" (oil, mostly).
That doesn't make Maduro a good guy, though. Nor Castro. Nor Batista, for that matter. And Orban is widely seen as Putin's ally in the EU. Most Europeans would rather be rid of him, but you can't just kick a country out of the EU, unfortunately.
Or Trump. He's as bad as the others. He'd certainly like to be. He wants to turn the US into the same kind of dictatorship.
> All Castro did was overthrow Batisa, another US ally, and nationalize Cuban assets.
That's not all. Castro also executed thousands creating a terror regime, nationalized American assets, funded and aided guerrillas in Latin America and Africa, aligned himself with the Soviet Union and caused the Missiles Crisis. He replaced a brutal dictatorship with another brutal dictatorship, a communist one, and ran the Cuban economy into the ground.
> Castro also executed thousands creating a terror regime
...so naturally, the solution is to make the life of the people under that regime even worse by sanctioning the country?
> nationalized American assets, funded and aided guerrillas in Latin America and Africa, aligned himself with the Soviet Union and caused the Missiles Crisis.
in other words, did things that threatened American interests.
The so-called Cuban Missile Crisis didn't begin on October 16, 1962. Nor did it begin when the Soviet Union put missiles on Cuban territory. It began when the US put nuclear missiles (Jupiter MRBMs) in Turkey, mere hundreds of miles from Moscow. Those were quietly removed months after the crisis because of a secret agreement between JFK and Khrushchev.
And yes, Cuba nationalized assets. As I said. You say that like it's a bad thing. Why is the US doing colonialism and imperialism a good thing that needs to be defended exactly?
And let's say Batista and Castro were both brutal dictatorships (which is what you said), why is one bad and one good? Why is one an ally and another a mortal enemy? You're making my point: the US does not and never has cared about people being bad or doing bad things. It's purely about economic interests. That's it.
Oh and Castro's involvement in Latin America? I'm sorry, what? From overthrowing the government in Guatemala in 1954 at the behest of a US fruit company to propping up Pinochet in Chile to Noriega in Nicaragua to El Salvador to Columbia and so on, let's compare Castro's impact and legacy to that of the US and see who has done the most harm, shall we?
The Cuban economy suffered because the US starved it. But of course Castro gets the blame for that too.
Yes, but the point is that sanctions don't get rid of those people, they're just collective punishment on the population. (Plus are used for propaganda if the blame for an economic crisis in a country is put entirely on its regime or economic system and the fact that the country is currently under sanctions is conveniently omitted. See again: Cuba, Venezuela)
At the end of the day the purpose of sanctions is to deliberately worsen the quality of life of the population in the sanctioned country. That can't be a tool for good.
The uncritical, unfounded, white supremacist equivalence of the names of Global South heads of state that share nothing other than their inclusion in the never-ending spectacle of a collapsing and always fascist empire’s hitlist. I’m reminded of how this abomination of a country relentlessly linked Marcus Garvey (Black nationalist and Capitalist) and W.E.B. DuBois (Black pan-Africanist and eventually communist) both with the label “Bolshevik” and “Communist threat” as justification for surveillance, incarceration.
This “dictator” meme, played out for the last 100 plus years is tired and tiring especially in a place that has a higher incarceration rate than USSR in the 1930s ( or Cuba ) and is currently snatching up folk for the crime of speaking Spanish, while US Southern Command blows up Venezuelan fisherman for the crime of feeding their families.
Venezuelans are being starved by the sheer incompetency/corruption of its leaders. It’s a kleptocracy.
The collapse started way earlier than the sanctions. It’s funny, but it’s even insulting that some people cannot comprehend that there is evil beyond their own frontiers. Not everything wrong that happens in the world is because an empire is meddling, we are also capable of being useless by ourselves!
> Not everything wrong that happens in the world is because an empire is meddling, we are also capable of being useless by ourselves!
A petrostate kleptocracy can still trickle down enough scraps for it's people. An empire that controls global markets that sanctions an petrostate kleptocracy into just a kleptocracy, can't. The reality is no amount of competent governance is going to enable a petrostate like VZ to not be a shitshow if it's sanctioned from maintaining extractive infra (techstack controlled by empire) or sell in global markets. It's not about just being useless, but the inability to be useful no matter what you do. Yes, VZ got fucked from oil $100->$40 pre sanctions, but that's still a survivable/pivotable scenario than oil production going from 3 mbd to 400k mbd due to sanctions that prevents reconstitution of production. There's a reason economic freefall stabilized when Cheveron got license in 2022 that brought production back up to 1mbd.
Now you can argue a "competent" government would have conceded to Monroe (like Machado) in the first place, or not pissed off US in backyard. Like, I get it, you're living through the shit, but don't be economically/geopolitically naive, US didn't sanction VZ because muh democracy decline under Muduro when US props up other petro authoritarian MENA states. The only difference is US meddle with those that align with US interests and not, and US meddling is what makes or breaks petro states.
>In Washington, American officials offer differing assessments of the talks. One U.S. official said the reports of negotiations over the lifting of sanctions and access to the Venezuelan market was “not an accurate assessment of what took place.”
...
>As Mr. Grenell and Mr. Maduro’s envoys negotiated a deal, the leader of Venezuela’s main opposition movement, María Corina Machado, pitched her own economic proposal in Washington.
Did you not even read the article, like it's 2025, posting NYT article regarding US adversary like VZ and analyzing it naively is useful idiot behavior. That said, Trump is not a LIO woketard and someone Maduro thinks can be negotiated with, the fact is Maduro is fine with operating under US umbrella, provided US didn't do retarded shit like try a muh democracy regime change like under past US admins. Of course US establishment would still prefer a tool like Machado, but there's a chance under Trump that they'll accept Maduro. That's why the article talks about both Machado an and Maduro parallel barginning. This just 101 signalling, dangling Machado for more Maduro concessions - Machado isn't actually an option, because you know, she'll get disappeared if Maduro thinks US can actuall regime change with her. Hence Machado and this sus (granted marginally deserved) Nobel peace prize is good pressure to get Maduro to concede more. The fact that Maduro is making offer is because he knows there's framework for him staying in power, unlike past US admin zero-sum/maximum pressure play with Guaido. He know's a non-democratic VZ like non-democratic MENA petrostate that aligns with US interests is workable under Trump who is moving away from democracy promotion to realist foreign policy especially with recent strategic shift in focusing on South America.
GenX leftists think every problem in the world is caused by "corporations" and if you think any given problem is not caused by "corporations" they will assume you're lying. It goes beyond believing in conspiracy theories; they're literally incapable of believing in something /unless/ it's a conspiracy theory.
Most recent examples being "climate change is caused by 100 companies" and "housing prices are caused by BlackRock" which are both entirely fictional.
(There is an obvious rightist equivalent of this which has historically caused a lot more problems.)
This is the issue with all populist ideologies, where there is one monolithic boogieman that explains all ills. The real world just doesn't work like that. It's an interesting case study into confirmation bias and bad quality thinking, I guess.
Nice 2016 populism boogieman: completely broad-strokes it’s-all-the-same statements with no arguments at all. Do you see the irony and/or hypocrisy here?
Yes, I will say it: all these 2016 populism blanket statements are equally monolithic and devoid of convincing points, just fodder for your own particular echo chamber.
I was describing reality, not making an "argument". Any prescription that follows from my description is an exercise for the reader. And my description was to outline an abstraction, not to say that all child-class characteristics are the same across all instances, which they obviously aren't.
Letter from the President and Prime Minister Mossadegh on the Oil Situation and the Problem of Aid to Iran dated July 9, 1953 (emphasis added) [1]:
> It was primarily because of that hope that the United States Government during the last two years has made earnest efforts to assist in eliminating certain differences between Iran and the United Kingdom which have arisen as a result of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. It has been the belief of the United States that the reaching of an agreement in the matter of compensation would strengthen confidence throughout the world in the determination of Iran fully to adhere to the principles which render possible a harmonious community of free nations; that it would contribute to the strengthening of the international credit standing of Iran; and that it would lead to the solution of some of the financial and economic problems at present facing Iran.
Effect on National Security Interests in Latin America of Possible Anti-Trust Proceedings, June 1, 1953 [2]:
> Elsewhere in Central America, institution of the action would greatly stimulate movements to nationalize the properties of the Company. Such nationalization is now threatened to some degree in all countries in which the Company operates, particularly in Costa Rica through the possible accession to the presidency of Jose Figueres, who is not a Communist but is openly speaking of nationalization. To the extent such nationalization is achieved, it would not only affect a private company, but would have direct and far-reaching repercussions on our strategic position.
National Intelligent Estimate: CHILE: THE ALTERNATIVES FACING THE ALLENDE REGIME, June 29, 1972 [3]:
> n the basis of the record so far, Chile’s future course remains to a large extent an open issue. To be sure, the regime carried out a substantial part of its program during its first year, particularly in the economic area. With little effective opposition—indeed, in many cases with a broad consensus—Allende nationalized key economic sectors, redistributed income in favor of the poorer classes, and accelerated land expropriation.
I don't understand why don't deal with Maduro but Trump regards Putin as practically an old friend, while both treat their people equally shitty. Same with some other countries, what is the litmus test?
Is this a serious question? SK is a strong ally of the USA and along with Japan bolsters their presence in this part of Asia. China, a geopolitical enemy of the USA, is also lightly allied with NK.
For a lot of horrific events in the world, you will find a bias exposed by the use of active vs passive voice. Compare:
- "100 children died". How?
- "100 children killed". By whom? Why? How?
- "100 children killed in conflict". Between who? How? Why?
' "100 children killed in air strike on refugee camp by X". Oh...
The point is that a lot of people treat what is happening in Venezuela like it's some kind of unavoidable natural disaster like an earthquake. This reinforces the idea that nobody is responsible and, more improtantly, there's nothing we can do.
Venezuelans are being intentionally starved to death by economic sanctions (that's what sactions are). Why? Because Maduro is bad. Sound familiar? It should. Castro was bad. Saddam Hussein was bad (despite being a US puppet for decades).
The actual issue is that these people threaten the interests of Western companies. That's it. That's the only thing that matters.