The Los Angeles Times has just published an article that proposes a way for the U.S. government to oust Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro from power: “The harshest possible sanctions must be leveled against Maduro and all state-owned industries to make an exit plan his best option.” The article was authored by Kristina Foltz, “a researcher and writer based in California and Colombia.”
Wow! What a brilliant idea! Ingenious, really. Why didn’t anyone think of that idea before now?
Oh, wait a minute. Somebody did! In fact, the U.S. government has been imposing the harshest economic sanctions against Venezuela ever since Maduro took power and even before him, during the regime of his predecessor Hugo Chavez.
What has been the result of those harsh sanctions? Did they succeed in ousting Chavez from power? Have they succeeded in ousting Maduro from power?
Well, obviously not. Instead, the sanctions have actually fortified the dictatorial stranglehold that both rulers have had on power. Moreover, they have given both dictators the opportunity to blame Venezuela’s economic crisis solely on the sanctions and not jointly on the sanctions and on Venezuela’s socialist economic system.
Nicolás Maduro. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
In fact, someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the harsh economic sanctions that the U.S. government has been leveling against the Cuban people for more than 60 years (along with U.S. state-sponsored assassinations and terrorism) did not succeed in ousting Cuban dictator Fidel Castro from power or the communist regime that continued after his death in 2016. Nonetheless, the U.S. embargo on the Cuban people, in combination with Cuban socialism, continues to operate as a vise that squeezes the Cuban populace into a state of near-starvation.
In fact, as an aside, it’s worth asking why the U.S. government allies itself with some dictatorial regimes, like those of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, the Shah of Iran, the Saudi regime, and the Vietnam communist regime, even while opposing other dictatorial regimes.
But let’s turn to America’s ongoing, never-ending, perpetual immigration crisis, which itself is rooted in socialist central planning that forms the basis of our nation’s immigration-control system. Think about how American statists pace the floors in anguish, unable to sleep, over the immigration crisis that never goes away.
Let’s now return to Venezuela, where millions of Venezuelans have been fleeing the country in an attempt to save their lives from death by starvation. Many of those Venezuelans have fled to the United States, hoping that the nation whose government is partly responsible for their plight will receive them with open arms.
Alas, not so. The Venezuelan immigrants are considered to be “invaders” who are attacking America. They have to be dealt with. That means forcing them back to Venezuela, knowing that death awaits them there.
What does Kristina Foltz say about this immigration phenomenon? Oh, like so many of her fellow Americans, she clearly laments America’s ongoing, never-ending, perpetual immigration crisis. See, for example, this article she authored last June entitled “A Smart Mexico Policy Could Help Biden Win the Debate — And The Election.” Pointing out that immigration is one of the biggest concerns of American voters, she says that the solution is to crack down in the U.S. government’s never-ending, perpetual, ongoing war on drugs.
Wow! Another brilliant solution! Ingenious! Why didn’t anyone think of that solution before now?
Except that they have. The U.S. government has been cracking down continuously and increasingly in the war on drugs ever since the 1960s and 1970s, including in Latin America. Surely, Foltz has heard about Pablo Escobar, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, El Chapo, Ismael Mario Zambada García, and other Latin American drug kingpins that the drug warriors have been taking down for decades, without any effect whatsoever on overall drug trafficking but with lots of increased drug-war violence in Latin America.
Foltz points to “Plan Colombia,” which she says was a tremendous success in transforming Colombia from “the drug capital of the world into a thriving economy and safe place to live and visit.” It apparently doesn’t occur to her that the drug trafficking and violence simply shifted to other Latin American countries. Maybe Foltz has never seen the Netflix series Narcos and Narcos Mexico, which is why she continues to support the failed drug war as ardently as she does the failed U.S. sanctions program and the failed U.S. immigration-control system.
Among the countries most marked by drug-war violence are Mexico and Venezuela. Thus, Venezuelans are fleeing not only the starvation that comes from U.S. sanctions but also the violence that comes from the U.S. drug war. And Foltz wants to continue both programs and, at the same time, continue enforcing America’s immigration-control system.
Contrary to what Kristina Foltz and the Los Angeles Times suggest, the best things that the United States could ever do for the Venezuelan people (and the rest of the world) is end its brutal, deadly, and destructive sanctions, end its brutal, deadly and destructive drug war, and end its brutal, deadly, and destructive socialist immigration-control system.
Leave Venezuela to the Venezuelans. Nobody died and made the U.S. government the brutal, deadly, destructive, corrupt, and hypocritical policeman of the world.