Trump pressed aides on Venezuela invasion, US official says
Source: AP
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — As a meeting last August in the Oval Office to discuss sanctions on Venezuela was concluding, President Donald Trump turned to his top aides and asked an unsettling question: With a fast unraveling Venezuela threatening regional security, why can’t the U.S. just simply invade the troubled country?
The suggestion stunned those present at the meeting, including U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both of whom have since left the administration. This account of the previously undisclosed conversation comes from a senior administration official familiar with what was said.
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Then in September, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Trump discussed it again, this time at greater length, in a private dinner with leaders from four Latin American allies that included Santos, the same three people said and Politico reported in February.
The U.S. official said Trump was specifically briefed not to raise the issue and told it wouldn’t play well, but the first thing the president said at the dinner was, “My staff told me not to say this.” Trump then went around asking each leader if they were sure they didn’t want a military solution, according to the official, who added that each leader told Trump in clear terms they were sure.
Read more: https://apnews.com/a3309c4990ac4581834d4a654f7746ef/Trump-pressed-aides-on-Venezuela-invasion,-US-official-says
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Hawkishness" huh? --- Hey, Susan... FUCK YOU!!!
Wonder how she's feeling now.
to put them back in control of Venezuela and its oil wealth, just as they were before Hugo Chavez was elected, back in the days when Carlos Andrés Pérez ordered the Caracazo massacre and sent the country's police, then the military into the barrios to suppress protesting poor people after he had raised the cost of transportation and all affected products, like groceries, and the common people couldn't afford to live any longer. The Caracazo Massacre slaughtered more than 3,000 Venezuelan poor people, which made it a pivotal point the massive poor population never forgot, and never want repeated.
The right-wing racist minority, their offspring, and assorted violent thugs for hire want to take back all the power they lost to the left in the election in December, 1998.
For people who most likely haven't heard, yet, of the Caracazo Massacre, please see news photos (seen everywhere but in the US) of what happened in Caracas at the hands of the oligarchs' elected President, Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1989:
https://tinyurl.com/y74nccur
They are too graphic to be posted here. The missing information is available to anyone who takes the time to look for it. That information has been brushed aside continually by the perception management of the corporate US media and conservative allies.
As for the Miss Venezuela winners representing Venezuelan people, nothing could be sillier. Venezuelan "ideals" pushed by the Venezuelan media, advertising, movies, etc. are always extremely fair, as opposed to the actual cast of the majority of Venezuelans. It has been commented upon broadly, and bitterly for a very long time, as tv characters, soapers, models, etc. are ALWAYS pure white, often blonde, and that is totally bogus representation. It happens everywhere throughout the Americas, as the power elite own everything, clearly. Do NOT be fooled.
06/06/2014 02:29 pm ET Updated Aug 06, 2014
A Tale of Two Massacres — Tiananmen Square & Venezuela’s Caracazo
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By Dan Kovalik
One cannot escape the ample media coverage of the 25th anniversary of what has come to be known as the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which it is estimated that at least 300, and possibly 3000 civilians, were killed by state forces.
Of course, that is a tragedy which deserves remembering and commemorating. And, this commemorating should be done in an honest way. Without belaboring this point too much, it is worth noting that there has been much mythologizing about the events in China twenty-five years ago, and I urge readers to check out both the Columbia School of Journalism and Nikolas Kristof’s New York Times account from that time period.
Another event, which took place 25 years ago, also deserves commemorating. This event, which the U.S. media has entirely ignored, involved the state murder of hundreds (at least 300), if not thousands (possibly 3,000) of protestors in Venezuela. In other words, the estimates of those protestors killed in Venezuela are identical to the estimates of those killed in Beijing, China. Of course, given that Venezuela has a tiny population (around 30 million) compared to that of China (over 1 billion), these numbers are proportionately much greater.
And moreover, these events in Venezuela, now known as the Caracazo, led to historic change in Venezuela and Latin America as they would lead to the political rise of Hugo Chavez who opposed the Caracazo massacre and who would become President ten years later in great part due to the population’s reaction to it. And, as Noam Chomsky has opined, Chavez’s leadership in turn led to “the historic liberation of Latin America” after 500 years of subjugation by the Spanish and the U.S. No small feat, indeed. Nonetheless, these monumental events, which began with poor Venezuelans rising up against an increase in fuel prices, apparently deserve no mention, at least as judged by the Western media.
More:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/a-tale-of-two-massacres-t_b_5459229.html
