NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong- Send a message now to your representative in Congress telling them to add their name to Rep. Cicilline’s legislation prohibiting the President from sending U.S. troops to Venezuela.

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

“Dictator”: Media Code for ‘Government We Don’t Like’

Democracy is a supposedly sacred ideal for Americans. Politicians and media tell us that the United States “stands for” democracy and opposes dictatorships everywhere, one reason why the US must continue to involve itself diplomatically and militarily around the world…  When you look at the governments that Freedom House describes as dictatorships, those that are also Official Enemies are frequently described as such in corporate media—for example, Russia (Washington Post, 5/8/18), Cuba (USA Today, 2/26/19), Syria (New York Times, 3/2/19), Belarus (ABC, 3/5/19),  North Korea (USA Today, 3/22/19) and Venezuela (New York Times, 4/10/19). Yet “our dictators”—that is, the “not free” governments that Washington supports—are rarely if ever labeled as dictatorships by the establishment press. In fact, there is very little coverage at all of those countries that are “behaving themselves” as far as the US State Department is concerned.   More

Send a message now to your representative in Congress telling them to add their name to Rep. Cicilline’s legislation prohibiting the President from sending U.S. troops to Venezuela.

H.R.1004 – “To prohibit the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities with respect to Venezuela, and for other purposes.” – has 33 cosponsors (all but one Democrats) and includes McGovern, Pressley, Keating and Moulton from Massachusetts.

US Takes Illegal, Dangerous Actions Toward Regime Change in Venezuela

In March, Guaidó announced that “Operation Freedom,” an organization established to overthrow the Maduro government, would take certain “tactical actions” beginning on April 6. Part of the plan anticipates that the Venezuelan military will turn against Maduro. This strategy is detailed in a 75-page regime change manual prepared by the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The manual advocates the creation of rapid expeditionary development teams to partner with the CIA and U.S. Special Forces to conduct “a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations [in] in extremis conditions.” Some of these actions will, in all likelihood, involve combat operations. A USAID official said, “Anybody who doesn’t think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve.”   More

UN Rapporteur Says US Sanctions Against Venezuela are Causing Blanket Starvation

US-led sanctions against Venezuela’s state owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) are “playing with fire,” causing blanket starvation and harming people with no stake in the leadership struggle, the UN official, ambassadorIdriss Jazairy said.

“I have reviewed sanctions across the world. Very few of them have really been a positive, helpful factor. It’s like going into microsurgery using a kitchen knife. It’s a very blunt tool to achieve the proclaimed objective,” Jazairy said. “They usually contribute, and this is the case now in Venezuela, in stimulating more suffering for innocent people that have no axe to grind in the political dissent that exits in the country.” … The special expert called it “bizarre” that at a time when Venezuela lacks food and medicine, the US and its allies have intervened to restrict access to both critical needs by imposing crushing new sanctions.   More