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  • #16
    Originally posted by montgomery View Post
    You're putting an incorrect political spin on the Venezuela issues max. It's no business of the US whether Maduro calls elections early. The situation in Venezuela is cause totally by US interference and the only thing that's going to stop the interference is a change of government.

    Negative influence comes from Washington, which is the opposite of the of that comes from Beijing and Moscow in food, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid. And now China and Russia have expressed their determination to stay put in Venezuela. Relief from Venezuela's problems will only come when the US finally comes to understand that another war isn't an option.

    A free and fair election is needed but that isn't something for the US to dictate when it takes place. I suspect that Maduro still has the support of his people behind him, and we know he has the military. A military led coup against the Maduro government is not in the cards but there's always the possibility of a US promoted assassination.
    Wow! Such deep insight. Mighty FP acumen. Extreme understanding of the ground situation in Venezuela. There should be a Nobel Prize for trolling.

    It's every democratic governments' concern if there is a humanitarian disaster in any country worldwide, more so, if that is caused by an autocratic dictator. And kid, More U.S.-Sent Humanitarian Aid for Venezuela Lands in Colombia. America doesn't care if there are 100 or 1000 Russians in Venezuela or a million Chinese, once US decides, it will bomb Venezuela even if your Lord Putin & Xi have made themselves comfortable there. And if China and Russia are such great countries, as your posts indicate, why are you wasting your life in Canada?
    Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

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    • #17
      Originally posted by Oracle View Post
      Wow! Such deep insight. Mighty FP acumen. Extreme understanding of the ground situation in Venezuela. There should be a Nobel Prize for trolling.
      Wow Oracle, you're really quite the dual personality aren't you. A few posts back you were telling me how evil the US is. Now you're leaving that sort of fruitless baiting behind and going for the much more sophisticated approach of charging me of trolling! The latter often works, the former rarely does.

      It's every democratic governments' concern if there is a humanitarian disaster in any country worldwide, more so, if that is caused by an autocratic dictator.
      Well Oracle, what if the humanitarian disaster is first of all completely caused by some democratic government's cruel crippling sanctions and interference? Not to mention any particular country, but just to pose the question.

      And kid, More U.S.-Sent Humanitarian Aid for Venezuela Lands in Colombia. America doesn't care if there are 100 or 1000 Russians in Venezuela or a million Chinese, once US decides, it will bomb Venezuela even if your Lord Putin & Xi have made themselves comfortable there. And if China and Russia are such great countries, as your posts indicate, why are you wasting your life in Canada?
      I note that's the same opinion you had when you answered the poll that asked for the solution for North Korea. I don't challenge your consistency!

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      • #18
        Originally posted by montgomery View Post
        Wow Oracle, you're really quite the dual personality aren't you. A few posts back you were telling me how evil the US is. Now you're leaving that sort of fruitless baiting behind and going for the much more sophisticated approach of charging me of trolling! The latter often works, the former rarely does.
        Only if Bigfella and the Colonel hadn't pulled the curtain from over your eyes. You have been requested, you have been told, you have been reprimanded, but you don't listen. You're shitting all over the forum with your nonsensical rants. This is not the place to kill time after school. Complete your assignments.

        Well Oracle, what if the humanitarian disaster is first of all completely caused by some democratic government's cruel crippling sanctions and interference? Not to mention any particular country, but just to pose the question.
        Have you taken any time to think why the sanctions? It is because of Venezuela's dictator, his policies towards his countrymen and hostility towards the US. Now, go, do some research. I won't spoon feed you.

        I note that's the same opinion you had when you answered the poll that asked for the solution for North Korea. I don't challenge your consistency!
        Since you don't have a single clue, I voted for 'Full scale preemptive military strike'. As far as I know, the Colonel, and staff on this board voted for 'Strategic Patience - Neither negotiation nor military action'. Your knowledge about members and topics on this board is limited to the teenage fantasy charades you have been spouting over here.
        Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

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        • #19
          Originally posted by Oracle View Post
          Only if Bigfella and the Colonel hadn't pulled the curtain from over your eyes. You have been requested, you have been told, you have been reprimanded, but you don't listen. You're shitting all over the forum with your nonsensical rants. This is not the place to kill time after school. Complete your assignments.



          Have you taken any time to think why the sanctions? It is because of Venezuela's dictator, his policies towards his countrymen and hostility towards the US. Now, go, do some research. I won't spoon feed you.
          I thought you were better than that. Calm down and debate like a grownup, or if you can't then have me banned from the forum. And fwiw, I'm in my 70's.

          As much as it annoys me to have to stoop to feathering my own cap with my credentials, I'll reveal my age at least. As for my intelligence level and my qualifications as concerns political science, you can consider me just about as dumb as a brick if it suits you.



          Since you don't have a single clue, I voted for 'Full scale preemptive military strike'. As far as I know, the Colonel, and staff on this board voted for 'Strategic Patience - Neither negotiation nor military action'. Your knowledge about members and topics on this board is limited to the teenage fantasy charades you have been spouting over here.
          I hear your opinion.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by montgomery View Post
            As much as it annoys me to have to stoop to feathering my own cap with my credentials, I'll reveal my age at least. As for my intelligence level and my qualifications as concerns political science, you can consider me just about as dumb as a brick if it suits you.
            Most people here have been quite open about their 'qualifications'. They do not use them to 'feather their caps'. It is one of the ways we judge the worth of what they say. It is not the only way, but qualifications matter. So does quality of contribution. That is why people like the Colonel, DOR & other senior posters with particular expertise are listened to and respected. That doesn't mean they cannot or should not be challenged, just that they have earned the right to be taken more seriously than someone who read a book or debated something on the internet once.

            Thus far your posts rob you of credibility by the day. The fact that you are 70 actually makes them look so much worse - they genuinely read like some 18 year old hopped up on Chomsky, Michael Moore and whatever left wing website they read that day. Perhaps some 'credentials' might give your words more weight. Your age, your words and your boasts about debating on the internet aren't getting that done. In fact, they are doing the reverse.

            Oh, and while we are at it, until early this year the US was the single biggest source of hard currency for Venezuela. The oil that goes to China & Iran service debts racked up by Chavez. If the US had been as committed to destroying Venezuela as the ill informed & brainwashed seem to think it would have embargoed oil purchases many years ago. Instead Venezuela has done the damage itself.

            Allowing oil to constitute 98% of exports is criminally incompetent. Stacking that industry with corrupt and incompetent cronies is straight out criminal. Venezuela has systematically failed to maintain two of its most important industries - oil and power. It rolled out poorly considered & poorly administered social programs that relied on oil prices being high forever. It has made virtually every mistake it is possible to make and then made it impossible for Venezuelans to peacefully change that. When Venezuelans overwhemlingly voted for an opposition run national assembly it was replaced by Maduro. Millions of people had already fled the nation before the US imposed trade sanctions with any impact.

            So, those people who can't run or don't have connections are starving in the dark. If they protest they risk violence, imprisonment & even murder at the hands of death squads. neighbouring nations are fracturing under the weight of the refugees. And while the chavista elites sit atop this pyramid of misery with their billions safely squirreled away ideological fools in the west continue to support them because they are anti-US. It is the very definition of ideologically driven amorality.
            sigpic

            Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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            • #21
              So, what did we learn in school today(?) - that Venezuela suffers because of its own policies, made by its autocrats. And just a tad more.
              Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Bigfella View Post

                So, those people who can't run or don't have connections are starving in the dark. If they protest they risk violence, imprisonment & even murder at the hands of death squads. neighbouring nations are fracturing under the weight of the refugees. And while the chavista elites sit atop this pyramid of misery with their billions safely squirreled away ideological fools in the west continue to support them because they are anti-US. It is the very definition of ideologically driven amorality.
                The US interference in that country is the reason for all the problems. That may be something you would like to discuss? That causes people to protest, leave their countries as refugees, and take other actions against their government. This is all part of the US plan to influence the vote, providing the US waits for a vote and is confident it's side will win. I didn't mention any particular country because it applies to many, past and present.

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by montgomery View Post
                  The US interference in that country is the reason for all the problems. That may be something you would like to discuss? That causes people to protest, leave their countries as refugees, and take other actions against their government. This is all part of the US plan to influence the vote, providing the US waits for a vote and is confident it's side will win. I didn't mention any particular country because it applies to many, past and present.
                  You mentioned Venezuela's electrical sector in an earlier post. You do know that soon after Chavez came to power, he purged the entire electrical sector of virtually every technocrat, engineer, right on down to technicians and linemen, everybody that ran the grid, power plants, and hydroelectric dams, right? It was a Stalinist-style purge.

                  Venezuela's electrical sector has been limping along ever since then in a state of progressively worse disrepair and mismanagement ever since.

                  This process was repeated in virtually every other sector of the Venezuelan economy. Chavez, and his successor, Maduro, have purged every sector of most experts and skilled professionals, strictly for ideological regions. This human capital that they purged was an irreplaceable loss. You can't just hire ideological lackeys without any skill or experience in these fields, installing them in sinecure positions as a reward for ideological loyalty, and expect everything to keep running as it was before.

                  Even the Ayatollah was eventually pragmatic enough to release Iranian F-14 pilots and other military professionals from the dungeons and torture chambers, even though they served under the Shah. Chavez and Maduro lacked even a shred of that much common sense.

                  You're crying murder. Venezuela, which Maduro and his henchman runs as their own corrupt personal patrimony, has committed suicide.
                  Last edited by Ironduke; 09 Apr 19,, 05:56.
                  "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                  • #24
                    Yet one more far left authoritarian regime decides to re-run the 'red vs expert' experiment that generations of previous regimes conducted with uniformly bad results (well, some were more disastrous than others, but always bad).

                    Sadly we have yet another generation of apologists ready to blame the Great Satan for the entirely predictable failings of yet another authoritarian left wing regime.

                    All just a little bit of history repeating.
                    sigpic

                    Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
                      You mentioned Venezuela's electrical sector in an earlier post. You do know that soon after Chavez came to power, he purged the entire electrical sector of virtually every technocrat, engineer, right on down to technicians and linemen, everybody that ran the grid, power plants, and hydroelectric dams, right? It was a Stalinist-style purge.

                      Venezuela's electrical sector has been limping along ever since then in a state of progressively worse disrepair and mismanagement ever since.
                      Yes, Chavez nationalized the electrical sector, as he did the oil sector and that was contrary to US wishes.

                      This process was repeated in virtually every other sector of the Venezuelan economy. Chavez, and his successor, Maduro, have purged every sector of most experts and skilled professionals, strictly for ideological regions.
                      Ideological reasons inasmuch as to eliminate outside capitalist interests. On that we can agree.

                      This human capital that they purged was an irreplaceable loss. You can't just hire ideological lackeys without any skill or experience in these fields, installing them in sinecure positions as a reward for ideological loyalty, and expect everything to keep running as it was before.
                      Some US influence had to be purged from the system but not all professional expertise had to go. It had a negative effect but it was necessary according to Chavez.

                      Even the Ayatollah was eventually pragmatic enough to release Iranian F-14 pilots and other military professionals from the dungeons and torture chambers, even though they served under the Shah.

                      Chavez and Maduro lacked even a shred of that much common sense.
                      In what way are you drawing a parallel?

                      You're crying murder. Venezuela, which Maduro and his henchman runs as their own corrupt personal patrimony, has committed suicide.
                      I'm not crying murder yet, and I'm suggesting that it won't be necessary to cry murder. My main interest is in the people of Venezuela being saved from war and the possibility that Russia/China interest in Venezuela may do so.

                      But I would like to ask you, and any others who have an interest in Venezuela's situation just what the US motive is for threatening Venezuela with war and enacting cruel and crippling sanctions against that country? Is there on parallel we can draw to the US's nearly 40 other wars of aggression since WW2 or are there varying and different reasons for some of them? I would suggest that the reason for the Iraq wars, the Vietnam war, the Korean war, the economic war with Cuba, and the future plans for another possible Korean war, are all basically the same.

                      Nonetheless, I appreciate there's a possibility of the US having grave humanitarian concerns over Venezuela and so I'm not ruling out unconditional US humanitarian aid to Venezuela.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                        Yet one more far left authoritarian regime decides to re-run the 'red vs expert' experiment that generations of previous regimes conducted with uniformly bad results (well, some were more disastrous than others, but always bad).
                        This is generally true in all such cases in which the 'red' country lost their war. Vietnam, China, and Cuba are a few exceptions.

                        Sadly we have yet another generation of apologists ready to blame the Great Satan for the entirely predictable failings of yet another authoritarian left wing regime.
                        I don't think there is any real support for communism still alive in the world. I certainly don't support communism, and I don't support socialism either. I'm a Canadian who is living under a 'socially responsible capitalist government. There's no pure socialist country existing today; all socalled socialist countries are functioning under a blend of capitalism and socialist policy. And to explain my feelings further, I see the US as the extreme of capitalism and closest to being the exception to the rule. It is greedy capitalism and it's now made the news. The US Dem party is running shit scared of Bernie and the 'social change' that some others of his persuasion threaten.

                        All just a little bit of history repeating.
                        That's the whole point! To prevent history from repeating itself. Now let's talk about Cuba or China or Vietnam.

                        To allow a country to break free of US influence and to evolve into becoming a 'socially' responsible capitalist country.

                        Your comments and opinion?
                        Last edited by montgomery; 09 Apr 19,, 18:40.

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                        • #27
                          N. Korea is safe and now it's pretty obvious that Venezuela is safe too.

                          The party the US threw with the fall of the Soviet Union is over. Russia is back and China is rising as another powerful deterrent.

                          It's 'almost' a certainty that MAD has saved the world again.

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by montgomery View Post
                            In what way are you drawing a parallel?
                            I see this guy is no longer around - but I'll address this question at least.

                            Both Iran and Venezuela saw indiscriminate purges of skilled personnel in various sectors after their respective "revolutions". Not because those being purged necessarily held contrary ideological views or were guilty of anything at all, but so that Khomeini and Chavez could consolidate their power.

                            When the shit hit the fan in Iran with the Iraqi invasion in the 80s, Khomeini was pragmatic to release the right people at the right time, and reinstated them into the Iranian military services.

                            When the shit hit the fan in Venezuela, in the electrical sector this decade, for example, the ideological lackeys who are completely unqualified for their positions, who are installed in sinecure positions, are still running that sector. Maduro has not reinstated the personnel who were arbitrarily purged according to his and Chavez's ideological whims.

                            So I'll at least give credit to Khomeini for demonstrating pragmatism when confronted by adverse events. Both bad guys in my book, but Maduro is also a f-cking idiot on top of that. Khomeini, bad guy, but not an idiot.
                            Last edited by Ironduke; 13 Apr 19,, 21:00.
                            "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
                              So I'll at least give credit to Khomeini for demonstrating pragmatism when confronted by adverse events. Both bad guys in my book, but Maduro is also a f-cking idiot on top of that. Khomeini, bad guy, but not an idiot.
                              Not a good comparison. Khomeini was forced by Saddam to get anyone and everyone, just like Hitler did to Stalin. But however, absent of a foreign threat, both are equally stupid.
                              Chimo

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                              • #30
                                Venezuela forces killed thousands, then covered it up, UN says

                                Venezuelan special forces have carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings in the past 18 months and then manipulated crime scenes to make it look as if the victims had been resisting arrest, the United Nations said Thursday in a report detailing wide-ranging government abuses targeting political opponents.

                                Special Action Forces described by witnesses as “death squads” killed 5,287 people in 2018 and another 1,569 by mid-May of this year, in what are officially termed by the Venezuelan government “Operations for the Liberation of the People,” U.N. investigators reported.

                                Laying out a detailed description of a lawless system of oppression, the report says the actual number of deaths could be much higher. It cites accounts by independent groups who report more than 9,000 killings for “resistance to authority” over the same period.

                                “There are reasonable grounds to believe that many of these killings constitute extrajudicial executions committed by the security forces,” the investigators said.

                                The report, which U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet will present to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday, delivers a scathing critique of President Nicolás Maduro’s embattled government and its handling of Venezuela’s deepening political and economic crisis.

                                Since 2016, the report says, the government has pursued a strategy “aimed at neutralizing, repressing and criminalizing political opponents and people critical of the government.”

                                Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry rejected the findings Thursday, saying the report offered a “distorted vision” that ignored most of the information presented by the government to U.N. researchers.

                                “The analysis is not objective, nor impartial,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, listing what it said were 60 errors. “The negative points are privileged in the extreme and the advances or measures adapted in the area of human rights are ignored or minimized.”

                                The Special Action Forces, known locally by their Spanish acronym FAES, are nominally tasked with combating drug trafficking and crime, but U.N. human rights officials said they were concerned the government was using these and other security forces “as an instrument to instill fear in the population and to maintain social control.”

                                Families of 20 young men who were killed in the past year described a pattern of violence in which the FAES units arrived in pickup trucks without license plates, dressed in black and with their faces covered by balaclavas.

                                They broke into houses, seized belongings and molested women, forcing some to strip naked. Then “they would separate young men from other family members before shooting them,” the investigators reported.

                                In every case described to the investigators, attackers manipulated the crime scene. “They would plant arms and drugs and fire their weapons against the walls or in the air to suggest a confrontation and to show the victim had ‘resisted authority,’” the report says.

                                The investigators said they had also documented the execution of six young men carried out during one of the house raids, the killings done as a reprisal for their participation in anti-government demonstrations.

                                Five special forces members were convicted of attempted murder and other offenses in 2018, and 388 others were under investigation for abuses, according to the report. But few victims, it says, have access to justice or any redress.

                                The report also describes routine abuse by security and intelligence services of people detained for political reasons. In most of the cases, men and women were subjected to one or more forms of torture, including electric shock, suffocation with plastic bags, water boarding, beating and sexual violence. Women were dragged by their hair and threatened with rape, the report says.

                                The detentions often had no legal basis, according to the report, which says that more than 2,000 people were arrested for political reasons in the first five months of the year and more than 720 were still detained at the end of May.

                                Human rights activists welcomed the spotlight the report is turning onto government repression and abuses. “The government’s reaction shows it hits the right points,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch.

                                But Taraciuk expressed disappointment that the report stops short of urging the United Nations to set up a commission of inquiry. It calls instead for the government to set up an independent investigation, with some unspecified international participation.

                                “You cannot ask Venezuelan courts, which have no independence, to investigate the executive,” she said.

                                The report comes two weeks after Bachelet visited Venezuela. Its hard-hitting tone was especially eye-opening, given her political background. In her second term as Chile’s left-leaning president from 2014 to 2018, she was among the few South American leaders who refused to openly criticize Maduro’s growing authoritarianism.

                                The Venezuelan government had tried to use Bachelet’s visit to bolster Maduro’s international legitimacy. More than 50 nations, including the United States, have stopped recognizing him as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, calling his reelection last year fraudulent.

                                Bachelet’s team was given unusual access inside Venezuela, unlike that given to her predecessor or to other U.N. agencies. Maduro heavily publicized his meeting with Bachelet and promised to consider allowing her to open a full-time office in the country. The government also agreed to allow two U.N. human rights staff members to work in the country and said it would give them full access to detention centers.

                                But any hopes that her visit paved the way for a government change of course on human rights were quickly dampened by the news days later of the death in custody of a navy captain, Rafael Acosta, who was detained the day Bachelet’s visit ended. His lawyer said he had been in good health at the time of his arrest, but he died in a military hospital a week later showing visible signs of beatings.

                                Bachelet expressed her shock at Acosta’s death and called for an investigation, but human rights groups said it showed the limited outcome from her visit.
                                Shocking, how dictators get away with murder and genocide.

                                Venezuela releases 22 prisoners after UN report
                                Last edited by Oracle; 07 Jul 19,, 05:31.
                                Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

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