By Ángel Guerra Cabrera October 1, 2020
Recipients of Washington’s war against Venezuela, Photo: Bill Hackwell
The latest economic attacks and other horrifying maneuvers carried out by the United States against Venezuela and Cuba have an unmistakable electoral stink about them. The 29 electoral college votes of the state of Florida might be decisive for winning a close election, as this is shaping up to be, and Trump is trying to win the ultra-right vote of the numerous Venezuelan and Cuban exile colonies, without caring how he does it.
The phenomenon of acting without even the slightest ethical considerations in order to get votes is traditional in U.S. politics, especially when the presidential elections are near. Because of this, there has been a lot of talk about an “October surprise,” usually in reference to a military action carried out the month before the elections in November, intended to unify the country behind the president and thus transfer a significant number of votes his way, principally motivated by fear. What is new with the Trump administration is the extent of the desperation, and often the amateurism, with which the vote-hunting actions, and indeed all his actions, are being carried out. This gets to a point where it would be funny if it did not result in crimes against humanity, even greater in the middle of a pandemic, with the economic strangulation/suffocation, as well as the armed and terrorist actions that have occurred in the case of Venezuela.
Cuba suffered decades of bloody terrorism from the CIA and the counter-revolutionary organizations they created to cover for them. Going deeper into the affair, the situation of the U.S. leader is that both he and those closest to him are a faithful reflection of the extremely profound and irreversible moral, economic, and political crisis that the U.S. imperialist system is experiencing, along with the institutions in control of managing “democracy” in that country. At the same time they are expressing the germination of a civil war between important economic and political power factions that today that are fighting over not just one election, but rather the control and definitive direction of the Yankee imperialist ship of state in the most critical moment in its history.
It would be difficult to find a better proof of the widespread nature of this crisis than the first vulgar and decadent debate between Trump and his Democratic rival Joseph Biden. It is necessary to add that the pathological and uncontrollable obsession with remaining in the White House four more years by any means necessary has a huge influence on the behavior of this multi-millionaire; his surrounding henchmen are also frantic to remain in charge of the government, both for business reasons as well as to advance their ultra-right agenda on a local and international scale for a longer time.
In the most recent anti-Venezuela – and anti-China trend, one must add the tour by Pompeo, the Secretary of State who went to several countries specifically to incite the new presidents of Surinam and Guyana against Venezuela, and at the same time to heat up the situation at the Brazilian and Colombian borders with Venezuela. At these borders there are frequent actions carried out by paramilitary and criminal bands that have been firmly repulsed by Venezuela’s Bolivarian Armed Forces, but with a cost in their own blood.
At the same time as Pompeo’s journey, the “independent fact-finding mission” cooked up by the foul Lima Group released their own shameful report; this was behind the back of, and in opposition to the actions of the group of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, carried out with all due safeguards in Venezuela. At that time the Venezuelan security forces captured a U.S. agent, hired by the MVM Company of private security contractors, conducting espionage and preparing terrorist acts against refineries, electrical lines, and other important objectives. All the above-mentioned were intended to build up the irregular war against Venezuela and to further exacerbate the international climate of lynching of the Venezuelan Revolution. To create a climate ripe for the justification of terrorist actions or perhaps some kind of large scale attack against Venezuelan territory. A fundamental objective of this combination of actions is to interfere with the strategic parliamentary elections of December 6 in Bolivar’s native land, or to cause them to fail.
Meanwhile Washington was ignominiously defeated in the attempt to prevent Cuba from being elected to the Executive Committee of the Pan-American Health Organization, and Trump decreed that those few U.S. citizens who receive authorization to travel to Cuba are prohibited from staying in government-owned hotels, from participating in events or buying cigars and rum, all of which, added to other previous measures, means it will be almost impossible for them to visit Cuba.
One more thing needs to be clarified. Apart from the temporary election situation, the destruction of the Cuban and Venezuelan Revolutions is among the prime objectives of foreign policy of the United States, and its enormous intelligence and subversion apparatus. This can be deduced from many of the declassified formerly-secret documents of the CIA, the Pentagon, and other agencies. It is ever more explicit in the imperialist discourse.
Source: La Pupila Insomne, Translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau