Antagonizing Venezuela: Obama’s Hard Turn to the Right in Hemispheric Policy
March 10, 2015
Antagonizing Venezuela
Obama’s Hard Turn to the Right in Hemispheric Policy
by FREDERICK B. MILLS
U.S. hemispheric policy reached a new low today when President Barack Obama invoked emergency powers to declare “a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.” Thanks to Obama’s action, the U.S. has now blatantly rehabilitated its traditional imperial posture towards the South and challenged the continent-wide Bolivarian cause of Latin American and Caribbean independence and sovereignty. With such a wreckless declaration, Washington has sent a green light to the ultra right opposition that was behind the anti-government violence in Venezuela during the first quarter of last year. This contravenes the current efforts of a delegation sent to Caracas by the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to maintain the peace, and thereby further alienates a region committed to defending their national sovereignty and independence from any power block on earth.
While Venezuela has identified the issue of corruption, is prosecuting a number of its security personnel for human rights abuses, acknowledges the need and is engaged in the reform of police training and practice, and is indeed in the midst of an economic crisis, Washington’s exceptionalism as applied to Venezuela, may raise more than some skepticism. For the U.S. continues to lumber aid to the regime in Honduras and Mexico, which have engaged in well documented systematic brutality and gross violations of human rights. While all human rights abuses merit attention and accountability wherever they occur, the Obama Administration’s selective indignation aimed at Caracas,and a complete lack of critique of the violent anti-government guarimbas (violent demonstrations) of the first quarter of last year, is bound to draw questions about the motives of U.S. hostilities towards Venezuela.
Does the Bolivarian cause in Venezuela threaten U.S. national security? Venezuela is not at war with any country on earth, has declared the region a zone of peace, and has been helping mediate the talks between Bogotá and the FARC in order to bring the longest running civil war in the hemisphere to a negotiated solution. The base of support for the Chavista government of President Nicolas Maduro are not terrorists bent on destroying Western civilization; they include the millions of formerly excluded and poor who now have proper nutrition, housing, access to health care, to a free education, and a voice in the governance of their country. Times are hard for them too, but they prefer the ballot box as the means of settling political differences, not violence. The grassroots movements behind the cooperatives and community councils as well as the numerous social movements that put people before profits are not our enemies. They do not ask for intervention from the North. They expect to be left alone to pursue their own organized expressions of constituent power. From a Bolivarian, rather than a Monroe perspective, it is up to Venezuelans to address their economic problems, to root out corruption and to continue implementing the police reforms in their country, just as it is up to the people of the United States to address human rights abuses from Ferguson to New York City.
Polls conducted in Venezuela show that the large majority of respondents oppose attempts at extra-constitutional regime change and prefer democratic procedures for resolving political differences. They also show that most Venezuelans oppose a U.S. invasion of their country. It is critically important to note that campaigns for legislative seats in Venezuela’s National Assembly are getting started and these elections, which include opposition candidates, do not pose a threat to U.S. citizens either. The Venezuelan Electoral Commission (CNE) has a solid record and is second to none. Both Chavistas and allied parties as well as opposition MUD and their allies are using the CNE to run their primaries. Allowing the Venezuelan legislative elections later this year to be held in peace, so that Venezuelans themselves, not an outside power, can decide who governs them, is a pro-democracy perspective. And the opposition can use the recall referendum in 2016 if they seek to try to recall Maduro by constitutional means.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/10/obamas-hard-turn-to-the-right-in-hemispheric-policy/
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VIVA Democracy!
I pray we get some here soon.
I couldn't figure out why Obama would say Venezuela was a "Threat to Our National Defense" (I think that's the quote) and the only article I read about it didn't mention the TPP connection and so I thought "wtf" is he doing?? Now it's clearer.
And, he's in a bind because Penny Pritzger has wanted TPP Fast tracked and it was her support through the Chicago Campaigns that started his political career and she is now Secretary of Commerce. He owes her a lot for supporting him from the beginning as the rising star for Senate and then President. Many of the 3rd Way Democrats want it also. But, I get the feeling Obama doesn't want it since he didn't push hard for Pritzger as SOC in his first term even though it was reported that was the job she wanted as reward for her support. But other reporting has said it was the difficulty with passing ACA that put TPP on the back burner along with Pritzger's nomination. So, who knows whether at this point he thinks TPP is a good idea or not.
That's the connection, sadly. 
Is this the early 1980s? Have we suddenly been whisked back to 1980? Didn't we learn anything about how bad our foreign policy was back then?
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