Maybe Obama’s Sanctions on Venezuela are Not Really About His “Deep Concern” Over Suppression of Pol

[Judi Lynn]

Maybe Obama’s Sanctions on Venezuela are Not Really About His “Deep Concern” Over Suppression of Political Rights

By Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald

The White House on Monday announced the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself “deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents”: deeply concerned. President Obama also, reportedly with a straight face, officially declared that Venezuela poses “an extraordinary threat to the national security” of the U.S. — a declaration necessary to legally justify the sanctions.

Today, one of the Obama administration’s closest allies on the planet, Saudi Arabia, sentenced one of that country’s few independent human rights activists, Mohammed al-Bajad, to 10 years in prison on “terrorism” charges. That is completely consistent with that regime’s systematic and extreme repression, which includes gruesome state beheadings at a record-setting rate, floggings and long prison terms for anti-regime bloggers, executions of those with minority religions views, and exploitation of terror laws to imprison even the mildest regime critics.

Absolutely nobody expectts the “deeply concerned” President Obama to impose sanctions on the Saudis – nor on any of the other loyal U.S. allies from Egypt to the UAE whose repression is far worse than Venezuela’s. Perhaps those who actually believe U.S. proclamations about imposing sanctions on Venezuela in objection to suppression of political opposition might spend some time thinking about what accounts for that disparity.

That nothing is more insincere than purported U.S. concerns over political repression is too self-evident to debate. Supporting the most repressive regimes on the planet in order to suppress and control their populations is and long has been a staple of U.S. (and British) foreign policy. “Human rights” is the weapon invoked by the U.S. Government and its loyal media to cynically demonize regimes that refuse to follow U.S. dictates, while far worse tyranny is steadfastly overlooked, or expressly cheered, when undertaken by compliant regimes, such as those in Riyadh and Cairo (see this USA Today article, one of many, recently hailing the Saudis as one of the “moderate” countries in the region). This is exactly the tactic that leads neocons to feign concern for Afghan women or the plight of Iranian gays when doing so helps to gin up war-rage against those regimes, while they snuggle up to far worse but far more compliant regimes.

More:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/11/maybe-obamas-sanctions-venezuela-really-deep-concern-human-rights-abuses/

[geek tragedy]

1. No shit. The US is like every other government, and like Glenn Greenwald himself, in that

chooses whom to criticize and whom not to criticize based on ulterior motives.

When Greenwald starts criticizing Russia, he can condemn such hypocrisy without himself being a hypocrite.

[cheapdate]

2. No shit.

Thing is, I generally agree with Greenwald, but I don't think he's a good writer, or a persuasive writer (except for people who already agree with him.)

As you pointed out, his complete, unrelenting, and unqualified cynicism toward the United States and everyone associated with it might seem "fresh" if you've never seen it before, but I have seen it before. It's blatantly manipulative, using excessive language to stir outrage and emotion, while taking "poetic liberty" with truth, substance, and reasonableness.

I can take Greenwald in small doses. I usually prefer direct, strong and solid arguments in favor of a course of action. I prefer leaders over critics.

[Fumesucker]

3. I see the first two replies only mention the messenger and contain nothing about the message

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, means responding to arguments by attacking a person's character, rather than to the content of their arguments. When used inappropriately, it is a fallacy in which a claim or argument is dismissed on the basis of some irrelevant fact or supposition about the author or the person being criticized.[2] Ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, for example, when it relates to the credibility of statements of fact or when used in certain kinds of moral and practical reasoning.[3]

Fallacious ad hominem reasoning is normally categorized as an informal fallacy,[4][5][6] more precisely as a genetic fallacy,[7] a subcategory of fallacies of irrelevance.[8]

Ad hominem arguments are the converse of appeals to authority, and may be used in response to such appeals, for example, by pointing to the feet of clay of the authority being pointed to.

[newthinking]

4. There is a geopolitical economic war going on in the background