More on Bernie Sanders and the Venezuelan coup attempt

Following up on my post yesterday expressing suprise that Bernie Sanders seemed to take the humantiarian aid stunt the Trump-Pence Administration staged on the Venezuela-Colombia border as something other than a political stunt meant to build support for an external military intervention, maybe even provoke one immediately.

Twitter isn't the best medium for expressing nuance. But this earlier tweet string of Bernie's does express an awareness that military intervention or promoting coups are actons that have a serious dark side.

It's "safe" to express general support for "the rule of law, fair elections and self-determination" and to criticize human rights violations in suppressing dissent. Sanders has particular credibility in doing so because he has emphasized fighting against domestic human rights abuses and in favor of civil rights for those deprived of them.

The brief summary of what he sees as democratic deficits in Venezuela in the top tweet shown above is plausible as far as it goes. Venezuela's elections during the Chávez and Maduro eras seem to have been clean and legitimate ones up to and including the National Assembly (parliamentary) elections of 2015, which the opposition to Maduro clearly won. There were disputes about the seating of some opposition figures. There was an election in 2017 to select members to a Constituent Assembly with the power to write a new Venezuelan constitution. Maduro's supporters won that election, not least because leading figures of the opposition supported a boycott of the election. Maduro was re-elected President in 2018 in an election the opposition also boycotted and which was widely criticized internationally, for whatever that is worth at that particular time. But the events I just indicated are all meaningful issues of democratic legitimacy.

Do Mike Pence, John Bolton, or Elliott Abrams care in the least about the quality of Venezuelan democracy? (Hint: No) Here's where I have to fight back a weary sense of deja vu. Several obvious assumptions about foreign policy go out the window when the US government decides it wants to threaten war or start one. One is that disapproving of a country's government is not a justification for other countries to invade it. Another is that governments lie about their reasons for going to war. Still another is that the media and the public tend to "rally around the flag" when the government starts talking war. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in The Culture of Contentment (1992):

Almost any military venture receives strong popular approval in the short run; the citizenry rallies to the flag and to the forces engaged in combat. The strategy and technology of the new war evoke admiration and applause. This reaction is related not to economics or politics but more deeply to anthropology. As in ancient times, when the drums sound in the distant forest, there is an assured tribal response. It is the rallying beat of the drums, not the virtue of the cause, that is the vital mobilizing force.

Yes, Venezuela's oil is the main focus of American foreign policy concern with that country. That in itself is neither cynical or illegitimate. The country has the largest known petroleum reserves of any country in the world. That's important to the greed of multinational energy countries and gives Venezuela an important geopolitical signficance, even in times like these where oil prices have been weak for years.

Andrew McCabe's recent book relates that Trump told an intelligence briefing in July 2017 regarding Venezuela, "That’s the country we should be going to war with. They have all that oil and they’re right on our back door." (Alex Ward, Andrew McCabe claims Trump wanted war in Venezuela because “they have all that oil” Vox 02/20/2019)

I suppose McCabe could be acting out a Deep State manipulation in his book and that what Trump really said was, "I care deeply about democracy and human rights in Venezuela and we should be making a sincere effort to protect them." Anything's possible, I guess.

I probably should add that if humanitarian aid were the actual concern of the Trump-Pence Administration, they could provide it through the Red Cross or UN aid agencies. But both the Red Cross/Red Crescent and the UN declined to participate in the supply deliveries involved in the border action Saturday because of the obviously political nature of the operation. There's no need for any of us, Bernie Sanders included, to pretend that the stunt yesterday was anything a stunt to justify further external intervention.

Which brings me to a basic "realist" question. The Maduro government blocked the pro-coup group from delivering the supplies. So the real existing government has called the bluff of pseudo-president Juan Guaidó and his American backers. So what will Mr. Macho in the White House do now? Just back down? Stage an invasion? Give another speech raving about the evils of socialism?

Here is yesterday's PBS Newshour report on the border events, Violence at the Venezuelan border, humanitarian aid blocked 02/23/2019: transcript here. The report notes that Venezuela broke diplomatic relations with Colombia and that the coup leaders apparently don't have a fallback "Plan B" after yesterday's events.