Venezula coup attempt seems to be stalling out on the ground

Obama's supposed foreign policy maxim, "Don't Do Stupid S**t" - in the more family-friendly version, "Don't Do Stupid Stuff" - seems a bit tacky for a foreign policy principle.

But the current regime change operation in Venezuela is shaping up a a classic illustration of what the DDSS principle should always be in the top two or three considerations for foreign policy decisions. To quote the late great John Kenneth Galbraith on the subject in his 1977 Age of Uncertainty, referring to the much-discussed beginning of the First World War:

There was a final consideration, one that it is always thought a trifle pretentious to stress. Rulers in Germany and Eastern Europe, generals in all countries, held their jobs by right of family and tradition. If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement. Nor is its absence likely to be a disqualification. On the contrary, intelligence is a threat to those who do not possess it, and th ere is a strong case, therefore, for excluding those who do possess it. This was the tendency in 1914. In consequence, both the rulers and the generals in World War I were singularly brainless men.

None was capable of thought on what war would mean for his class - for the social order that was so greatly in his favor. There had always been wars. Rulers had been obliterated. The ruling classes had always survived. To the extent that there was thought on the social consequences of war, this was what was believed.

He was referring there to hereditary aristocracies. But the US foreign policy establishment is such an exclusive club that it has definite similarities.

We're now three and a half weeks into the very strange coup attempt in Venezuela, nominally headed by Juan Guaidó and opernly directed from Washington by Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and the odious Elliott Abrams, with lots of political assistance from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. And it's getting hard to pretend that it's not off to a very wobbly start:

Ethan Bronner and Andrew Rosati report in With Cocaine Flowing, the Push to Pry Generals From Maduro Hits a Snag Bloomberg 02/13/2019:

Since Juan Guaido declared himself interim president three weeks ago and offered amnesty to officers who abandon Maduro, more than 30 countries led by the U.S. have hailed the move, waiting for the military to follow. There hasn’t been a rush to his side. ...

In a country with more than 2,000 generals and admirals, only one top officer -- who commands no troops -- has pledged allegiance to Guaido. So have two colonels (a physician and a military attache in Washington). Guaido has said that he has privately been in touch with other officers and that more will follow. He doubtless is, and perhaps they will.

This may be a big part of why Maduro‘s government hasn‘t moved to arrest Juan Guaidó and his closest associates: their coup attempt looks more like a bad joke every day at this point. From a strictly ”realist“ point of view, this is why recognizing an alternative ”government“ that is clearly a front for a US regime change operation is so risky. The US has very publicly committed itself to this. And at this point, the operation is looking very much like a flop.

So what‘s next? Send in the troops to arrest Maduro like in Panama? Start running Elliott Abrams/Iran-Contra type death squads? Admit that the Trump regime change attempt was a LOSER operation? Actions like this US-backed coup can initially be marketed to the US public as a safe and low-risk thing. But the can actually create entanglements that may not be easy to unwind.

This from the Bloomberg report is one of the reasons the DDSS guideline is so important :"U.S. policy makers and those around Guaido -- as well as leaders in Brazil and Colombia -- are eyeing one another and worrying about failure. Officials in each camp have said privately they assumed the others had a more developed strategy."

Even a conservative US ally like Colombian President Iván Duque or a fascist one like Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro may have some serious reservations about the brazenness of the US regime change operation in Venezuela. Its stumbling, bumbling nature is prsumably not too impressive to them, either, and that will surely figure into their risk calculations when dealing with the US. It raises doubts not only about how the US may be willing to do the same to them but also about the Americans' willingness to keep their commitments and their competence in doing so.

Colombia and Brazil are already getting most of the refugees from Veneuela. A civil war or escalating pressure from foreign sanctions will produce more refugees. This is a relevant moment in the Bloomberg report:

Worry about what comes next has intensified. At a meeting in the U.S. embassy in Bogota, Colombia, last week, military, intelligence and civilian leaders from both countries discussed ways of moving humanitarian aid into Venezuela. There was a sense of frustration in the air, according to a participant who agreed to discuss it on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. said it was paying for the aid but wanted Colombia to find trucks and drivers to move it in. The Colombians said no one would accept the mission because the Venezuelan military would arrest them. The aid remains in warehouses near the border.

At similar meetings in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, a person who attended said the dynamic was the same -- the U.S. expecting Colombia to find the means to deliver the aid and the Colombians saying they can’t.

Did I mention that Elliott Abrams was involved? From Tom Phillips, Nicolás Maduro claims foes 'totally failed' to topple him as efforts falter Guardian 2/13/2019:

Addressing a congressional hearing, the US special envoy on Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, claimed “Maduro and his band of thieves” were finished. He claimed international pressure meant “there is a storm brewing inside the Maduro regime that will eventually bring it to an end”.

But while Abrams said Washington was “hopeful and confident” of Maduro’s demise he admitted it was “impossible to predict” when it might come. The US would maintain pressure “over the next weeks and months”, he added, suggesting a quick resolution is no longer expected.

Opposition leaders have spent recent days trying to dampen expectations that Maduro’s exit is imminent.

Juan Andrés Mejía, an opposition leader and Guaidó ally, admitted that goal “could take some time”.

Any enterprising screewriter trying to come up with a story line based on this coup attempt has a dilemma at this point: should they write it as a political drama or a comic farce?
A later Tom Phillips report has Guaidó insisting that, yes we do too have a great coup going! (Venezuela: Juan Guaidó denies bid to unseat Maduro has failed Guardian 2/13/2019)

Which brings me to this.

Friends on the left: please read this piece by an advisor to Chile’s democratically-elected Salvador Allende. As he writes, if you truly support the cause of progress and of siding with the "forgotten children of the earth," you *need* to reject Maduro. https://t.co/54RPVuPUi5

— Geoff Ramsey (@GRamsey_LatAm) February 16, 2019

The link is to this article by Chilean author, Ariel Dorfman, Salvador Allende Offers a Way Out for Venezuela’s Maduro The Nation 02/11/2019. Dorfman was a cultural adviser to Allende's government in Chile. He writes in what he imagines would be the voice of Allende himself advising Maduro:

The Chilean experiment—we were trying to build socialism through peaceful means, rejecting the sort of armed struggle that had prevailed in all previous revolutions—was in trouble, and undergoing considerable economic difficulties, albeit nothing like the extraordinary humanitarian disaster plaguing Venezuela at this moment. And just as Nixon and Kissinger and American multinational companies conspired against Chile in 1973, Trump, Pence, and Pompeo (not to mention the redoubtable Elliott Abrams, of Iran/Contra infamy) are leading the effort to oust you, the constitutional president of Venezuela, through the force of arms. [my emphasis]

That "effort to oust you ... through the force of arms" is a pretty striking characterization, given the fact that the coup spokespeople are still swearing on their peaceful intentions.

He goes on to criticize various democratic deficits of the Maduro government. And somewhat oddly argues:

Despite these resemblances between Chile in 1973 and Venezuela in 2019, I [imaginary Allende] feel that you do a disservice to history and to the cause of revolutionary change by comparing yourself to me. I was, throughout my life, and until the moment of my death, a defender of democracy in all its forms. Never, during my three years in office, did I restrict the freedom of assembly of my opponents (even when some of them engaged in virulent tactics and terrorist acts), nor did I curb in any way the freedom of the press (even when papers, radios, and TV stations owned by the Chilean oligarchy were calling for my removal and spreading lies about my person and my tenure). Not one person was jailed for expressing his or her opinion, nor, heaven forbid, was anyone tortured while I was president. If anything, my opponents were given free rein, which they grievously abused, helped by millions of dollars expended by the CIA. And I scrupulously respected the result of all manner of elections during my time in office, especially when they were unfavorable to me.

This calls to mind Abraham Lincoln's letter of 06/12/1863 to Erastus Corning, defending his actions of arresting and holding without habeus corpus a small number of people in the Northern states suspected of conspiring to act in support of the Confederate rebellion which was in the process of claiming hundreds of thousands of casualties to the US Army. Lincoln was acting under Article 1:9§3 of the Consitution that requires that habeas corpus “shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Lincoln argued that the Civil War qualified as such a situation and wrote:

Of how little value the constitutional provisions I have quoted will be rendered, if arrest shall never be made until defined crimes hall have been committed, may be illustrated by a few notable examples. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Gen. John B. Magruder, Gen. William B. Preston, Gen. Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest places in the Rebel war service, were all within the power of the Government since the Rebellion began [i.e., they were on Union-controlled territory], and were nearly as well known to be traitors then as now. Unquestionably if we had seized and held them, the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them, if arrested, would have been discharged on habeas corpus were the writ allowed to operte. In view of these and similar cases, I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rathern than too many. [my emphasis]

After Pinochet's coup of September 11, 1973 - "9/11" was a date of historical significance to Latin America long before 2001 - Allende never had the opportunity to reflect himself on how his handling of threatened coup might have been different. He died in his office, apparently by his own hand, on the day of the coup.

Dorfman has his imaginary Allende advise Maduro, "My vibrant answer is that, now, so many decades later, my example of sacrificing my life for democracy and a peaceful revolution continues to shine throughout the world, inspiring humanity to never cease its quest for social justice."

I also think of Allende as a martyr to the cause of democracy. But in this context, his praise of Allende for not having taken stronger measures against those planning and implementing a coup comes off as grotesque. Even so, I'm not sure how Geoff Ramsey gets from Dorfman's peace his appeal to "friends on the left" that "you *need* to reject Maduro."

In any case, that's stock war propaganda rhetoric. Any regime change operation headed by Elliott Abrams is not interested in democracy, human rights, or human life in Venezuela. He has a clear record. Anyone supporting this regime chang efforts has every reason to know what they are supporting.

Ariel Dorfman seems to be suggesting that Maduro hold a referendum like Allende tried to do. An effort which failed. Given the politics of the last few years, it's hard to imagine a Maduro-called referendum ending the turmoil. I hope that there will be some sort of independent, internationally supervised elections to which both sides agree that they will respect the results. That would be a complicated undertaking in itself. But the Washington-directed alternative "president's" side has been rejecting the idea publicly. On February 1, Vice President Mike Pence told a pro-regime-change crowd in Florida, “This is no time for dialogue. This is time for action.” (Roberta Rampton, To Florida's Venezuelan exiles, Pence vows more pressure on Maduro 02/01/2019)