House Democrats demand Biden lift all sanctions against Venezuela's socialist regime
Democrats who signed the letter include Reps. Grijalva, Garcia, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Jayapal
By Nicholas Ballasy
Updated: August 13, 2021 - 5:16pm
Nineteen House Democrats wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday calling on the Biden administration to remove all sanctions against Venezuela, arguing that the "maximum pressure" campaign against the authoritarian regime of Nicolas Maduro hasn't worked.
Members of Congress who signed the letter include Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García of Illinois, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chair fo the House Progressive Caucus.
"By any measure, the current 'maximum pressure' policy towards Venezuela has been a total failure," read the letter.
The lawmakers asked the Biden Administration to "immediately lift all U.S. financial and sectoral sanctions that exacerbate the humanitarian crisis" and "most urgently, the U.S. should reverse the Trump ban that prohibits Venezuela from exchanging crude oil for diesel, thereby hindering food production and distribution."
. . .
According to the U.S. State Department, the U.S. government currently recognizes Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela.
In the letter, the lawmakers argued that the Trump administration’s "ill-conceived policies have only exacerbated the crisis and damaged U.S. credibility throughout the region.”
Grijalva said the Biden Administration "must abandon Trump's failed and destructive policies that only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis" in Venezuela.
“We can and must move from a sanctions-driven approach to one of constructive dialogue that brings in opposition actors who want a democratic, political solution, rather than a strategy of overthrow, violence, and collective punishment," he said in a press release.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/progressive-democrats-call-biden-remove-all-sanctions-against-venezuela-under
= new reply since forum marked as read
Sanctions hold.
What Bolsonaro’s COVID-19 Case Tells Us About Trump’s
Donald Trump’s political cousin in Brazil has followed the populist playbook to a T. It’s worked wonders for him.
More, From the Atlantic-2020
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/616602/
Confirmed: Elliott Abrams’s Defense of Mass Murder Was Based on Lies
The reporters who covered the El Mozote massacre were right all along.
By Eric Alterman
Elliott Abrams testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on February 9, 2011. (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Photo)
From the moment he won the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan began looking for somewhere to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union. Together with his advisers, he chose the Central American nation of El Salvador, where a civil war was raging between Marxist guerrillas and a military-led dictatorship.
To remain in power, the junta relied on “death squads” to kill not only its opponents but anyone who might even think of supporting its opponents, including nuns, priests, and children. The government claimed the death squads were independent, but in truth, they were just regular government soldiers, often (but not always) out of uniform. In order to justify US involvement in the war, Reagan had to defend the junta in the media. “We are helping the forces that are supporting human rights in El Salvador,” Reagan lied in a 1981 news conference.
Congress, at the time, was much closer to the concerns of the public than now, and war remained deeply unpopular. Many Americans were not only appalled by the junta’s willingness to murder US-based nuns and churchwomen; they also feared US involvement in another anti-guerrilla war in which the country had no clear national interest. The bumper sticker “El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam” spoke for these Americans as few slogans manage to do.
. . .
Mainstream reporters have rarely if ever sought to hold Abrams accountable for any of his actions. Both when then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wished to make Abrams his number two—until this was vetoed by Trump over Abrams’s past criticisms of the president—and more recently, when current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made him US special representative to Venezuela, where the United States is seeking to force the replacement the government of Nicholas Maduro—the reports almost always treat him as a sensible neoconservative Republican who represents the party’s pre-Trump center of gravity. When, early last year, Representative Ilhan Omar tentatively raised his awful human rights record at a hearing on the topic, Abrams, unsurprisingly, called Reagan’s policy in El Salvador “a fabulous achievement.” He enjoyed enthusiastic support from the likes of former undersecretary of state for political affairs and ambassador to NATO, now Harvard professor, Nicholas Burns and Washington Post columnist and CNN regular Max Boot, and few if any journalists made reference to his role as a cheerleader for genocide. (That Abrams is the son-in law of neocon godfather and longtime Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz and brother-in-law of his son and successor John Podhoretz is hardly irrelevant to his popularity in this self-seeking crowd.)
Abrams’s ability to fail upward for his entire career is proof that whatever rhetoric presidents, pundits, and others may deploy, neoconservatives and their allies have never cared a whit for human rights and democracy, or even truth. They promoted and embraced a convicted liar who repeatedly ran interference for mass murderers and has never acknowledged, much less apologized, for his crimes and those he helped cover up. That Abrams is treated as a respected member of the foreign policy establishment, rather than a moral leper, is evidence of the deep corruption of both the post-Reagan Republican Party and the neoconservative movement, as well as the willingness of so many in the media to ignore and excuse it.
More:
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/elliott-abrams-mozote/
People of conscience, once beyond childhood, do take the time to pay attention to what they hear, read, and believe. Life isn't long enough to overcome decades lived in utter infantile fantasy, clinging to the garbage manufactured by successful brutal grifters to keep the sheep/lunatics passive and productive.
El Mozote
June 3, 2019, by JimC
The annals of Frontier Partisan warfare are stained with so many tales of slaughter that cataloguing them all becomes a minefield of moral hazard. Gazing into this abyss is a reminder that man is a killer angel.
. . .
The El Mozote Massacre occurred on December 11, 1981, when the Atlacatl Battalion — a rapid-deployment counterinsurgency force trained in El Salvador by 10-man Special Forces team from 7th Group in Panama and under the command of Lt. Col. Domingo Monterrosa — conducted a limpieza operation at the village and in the surrounding area, considered to be a base for insurgents. (note: original version stated that the unit was trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas; Greg Walker provided a correction, see comment below).
Limpieza operation means “cleaning operation” and “cleaning operation” meant the killing of more than 800 men, women and children. Girls were raped; small children were slaughtered. The thing was horrific.
Walker offers the darkest comparison possible:
Atlacatl was to be the Einsatzgruppen. Just like the Like the Nazi “deployment units” raised by Heinrich Himmler—the founder and overall commander of the SS during World War II—the Atlacatl was the mobile killing unit of the Salvadoran High Command. Special tasks included the execution of communist party functionaries, FMLN and Catholic church officials, and FMLN political officers; as well as men, women, and children in those areas the military command deemed under the control of the guerrillas.[/blockquote
. . .hat did the U.S. government know and when regarding the El Mozote massacre? NEWSREP confirmed there was an American adviser present with Lieutenant Colonel Monterrosa on the day of the massacre, both at the Atlacatl’s base in La Libertad, and then on the ground when Monterrosa flew in to personally relay the order to “clean” the village.
That American left the village as the killings began and made his way back to the U.S. Embassy, where he reported what was occurring. That information was cabled to the U.S. State Department. Elliott Abrams, former Assistant Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, was privy to the embassy report. Abrams would dismiss the massacre outright, then offered praise for the Atlacatl Battalion…
Elliott Abrams — model of mendacity.
More:
https://frontierpartisans.com/15926/el-mozot
Why the Threat of U.S. Intervention in Venezuela Revives Historical Tensions in the
Two women carry the coffin of a child killed in a Contra landmine in Managua, July 4, 1986. Thirty-one unarmed civilians, including women and children, were killed when the truck they were riding in struck a Contra landmine. The truck was carrying a 50-gallon barrel of gasoline.
Credit:
Lou Dematteis AS/Reuters
A push to bring US-backed food and medicine into Venezuela ended in chaos on Feb. 23, as trucks carrying supplies across the Colombia-Venezuela border were set aflame and several hundred people are reported injured in clashes. The humanitarian aid could have brought some relief to Venezuelans facing a humanitarian crisis — 90 percent live in poverty, and the dire shortages have forced millions to flee. But the move was also a confrontation over Venezuela's political leadership and international backing — and brings up a history of American involvement in the region.
Venezuela’s opposition leader and self-appointed interim President Juan Guaidó supported the ill-fated move to bring US aid into the country. Supplies were forced back by Venezuela's military, under the direction of embattled President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro has been accused of rigging his re-election in 2018, and has refused US assistance, arguing that the US is trying to destabilize his socialist government.
Many others, from leaders of international aid organizations to scholars, have said US-backed aid uses Venezuelan suffering as a pawn to further American political goals, including ousting Maduro.
The standoff over American aid harkens back to a sordid history of US intervention and "democracy promotion" in Latin America, which has been fraught with links to human rights abuses.
This history was re-examined in a House Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 13 when Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) challenged Elliott Abrams, recently-appointed US Special Representative for Venezuela, about his controversial role while serving as President Ronald Reagan's former assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs. In a heated exchange that went viral, Omar raised issues of Cold War-era human rights violations in Latin America that occurred under Abrams' watch in the 1980s, and asked about US action in Venezuela today.
. . .
Some historians argue US foreign policy in Latin America during the Cold War was less about “promoting democracy” than it was about “halting communism” in the region. The power struggle between the US and Soviet Union in the Cold War is often understood as one between “democracy” and “communism,” but this overlooks historical shared interests between free-market capitalism and right-wing dictatorships.
To stave off Soviet influence in growing communist and socialist movements in Latin America, the US supported dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Uruguay, among others. The promotion of US capitalist interests in Latin America often came at the cost of democratic institutions — including fair elections and free speech — and with brutal consequences for human rights.
During his tenure in the Reagan administration, Abrams not only knew of but actively endorsed and enabled widespread human rights abuses in the region in the 1980s under these dictatorships. His responses at the Feb. 13 Congressional hearing have led to concerns that he is not opposed to using the same tactics to “promote democracy” in Venezuela today.
. . .
One telegram to the US Department of State dated November 1981 reads: “[We] have detailed reports of Salvadoran Army massacres of women and children ... Indeed, our own officials were witnesses to a machine gun attack on apparently unarmed civilians by helicopter.”
. . .
File photo showing members of the Sandinista Army leading away US pilot Eugene Hassenfus after he was shot down during a mission over southeast Nicaragua in October 1986. The Iran-Contra affairs in Nicaragua during the 1980s was one of the more famous international political battlefields waged by former US President Ronald Reagan during his presidency in the 1980s.
Credit:
Carlos Duran/FILE OR/GN/SV/Reuters
. . .
https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-02-25/why-us-backed-aid-venezuela-harkens-back-dark-history-covert-operations
(It was concealed from the US taxpayers who financed all the operations.)
The secret history of US interventions in Latin America
ADAM BENSAID 24 JAN 2019
The United States has intervened hundreds of times in the affairs of Latin American countries—from spying and proxy wars to major military invasions. Here are the top 8.
In light of the current political crisis in Venezuela, a United States-supported opposition figure has announced a disputed presidency. It follows an attempted coup by national guard members after the country’s Supreme Court rejected a declaration by an opposition-controlled legislature that Nicolas Maduro’s presidency was illegitimate.
US support for the opposition is not new.
In 2017, then CIA director Mike Pompeo commented that he was “hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there”. Against a backdrop of US interventions, forced regime change and military coups in Latin America, the CIA director’s words reflect an established approach for the United States in dealing with its southern neighbours, often away from the public eye and motivated by big business, economic interest and ideology.
Here are eight of the most notorious cases of US interference in Latin America.
1. Guatemala
The United Fruit Company (UFCO) was a highly successful American company that made major profits from bananas grown in Latin America and sold in the United States and Europe. Under Guatemalan dictator Jorge Ubico, the UFCO controlled 42 percent of Guatemala’s land and was exempt from tax and import duties. The company owned all of Guatemala's banana production, monopolised banana exports, and also owned the country's telephone and telegraph system, as well as almost all of its railroad track - while brutally repressing farm owners.
In 1944, the right-wing dictator Ubico was removed following the Guatemalan Revolution, as the country saw its first democratic election in history. In 1951, after another election, Colonel Jacobo Arbez became president and extended political freedoms to all, allowing communists to enter politics.
The United States was alarmed by the alleged spread of communism, and further by President Arbenz’s proposed ‘Decree 900’, which would allow the redistribution of undeveloped lands held by large property owners to landless farmers, making up 90 percent of the population. Arbenz believed this was critical because at the time only two percent of landowners owned 70 percent of the land, while farmers worked in a form of debt slavery.
The United Fruit Company took an extreme position towards these reforms, and made use of its strong ties to the Eisenhower administration to launch a massive anti-communist propaganda campaign against Guatemala. Following extensive lobbying, President Eisenhower chose to make use of the CIA to remove President Arbenz, in what came to be known as operation PBSUCCESS.
The CIA would go on to orchestrate a coup against the sitting president, building, arming and training an opposition force to overthrow him. Arbenz was overthrown, and Guatemala was ruled by a military dictatorship for 40 years. During that time, nearly 250,000 Guatemalans were killed or ‘disappeared’.
2. Chile’s brutal Pinochet regime
After the democratic election of President Salvador Allende, who had ties to the Cuban Castro government, in 1970, US President Richard Nixon ordered an economic war against Chile. This would be followed by a CIA-instigated coup against Allende in 1973 by General Augusto Pinochet.
Following the coup, Pinochet’s regime would become one of the most oppressive and brutal military regimes of the 20th Century.
The US supported Pinochet’s military dictatorship for decades. Pinochet banned political parties, dissolved congress and scrapped the constitution. He also censored the press, banned unions, permitted torture and repression, and according to one government report, killed nearly 28,000 people during his rule.
More:
https://www.trtworld.com/americas/the-secret-history-of-us-interventions-in-latin-america-23586
~ ~ ~
Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's Puppet Dictator Augusto Pinochet's nortorious Osvaldo Romo's interview with a Cuban "exile" newswoman from Miami documented on video:
Osvaldo Romo, notorious Pinochet torturer
Romo Wikipedia:
Osvaldo Romo
Osvaldo Romo Mena (c. 1938 – July 4, 2007) was an agent of the Chilean Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) from 1973 to 1990, during the rule of Augusto Pinochet. Involved in the forced disappearance of more than a hundred persons (among which the Spanish priest Antonio Llidó Mengual, member of Cristianos por el socialismo (Christians for Socialism) and MIR members Diana Aron Svigilsky, Manuel Cortez Joo and Ofelio Lazo), he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but several of these sentences were suspended by the Chilean Supreme Court.[1]
~snip~
Known as Guatón Romo ("Fatso Romo" ) or Comandante Raúl, he was one of DINA's most important torturers, operating among others centers in Villa Grimaldi.[1] On April 11, 1995, in an interview televised by Univisión, he commented in great detail, and evidently without remorse, on the techniques that had been used. These included the application of electricity to women's nipples and genitals, the use of dogs, and the insertion of rats into women's vaginas.[1]—Would you do it again? Would you do it the same way?
—Sure, I'd do the same and more. I wouldn't leave anybody alive (...) That was one of DINA's mistakes. I was always arguing with my general: don't leave that person alive, don't let that person go free. There are consequences.
—As for throwing the corpses of the prisoners into the sea...
—I think it could have happened. (...) Throwing them into the crater of a volcano would be better... (...) Who'd go looking for them in a volcano? Nobody.
—On the day you die... what would your epitaph say? "Here lies the hangman, the torturer, the murderer..."
—Logical, logical. I accept that. But for me it was a positive thing. (...) I am at peace with my conscience and my beliefs.
— Extract from the interview, [2]
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/08/fresh-wikileaks-reveal-vatican-called-reports-of-pinochets-killings-propaganda/
Sec. of State, Kissinger, left, with
Pinochet, center, facing forward.
(It's worthwhile to know Pinochet and Richard Nixon stole Chile's elected government on September 11, 1973.)