Political Report # 1438 Why The Mainstream Media Suggests Lifting Sanctions Against Iran While Not Saying Anything About Venezuela - Exclusive Commentary by Steve Ellner

by Steve Ellner LAP Associate Managing Editor

No other country in the world is being subjected to the type of regime change strategy that the Trump administration is applying to Venezuela. Only in the case of Venezuela has Washington done so much to promote international support in favor of a parallel government. Meanwhile, the mainstream media fails to take up in any way the arguments that expose the fallaciousness and inhumanity of the sanctions imposed against Venezuela. At a recent press conference on April 2, a reporter told Trump he has a moral responsibility to help Iran as it is hit by the coronavirus. No mention was made about Venezuela. Why Iran and not Venezuela? Five factors stand out: 1. The conflict with Iran is a partisan issue. The 2015 nuclear arms agreement with Iran was engineered by the Obama administration, the same that imposed sanctions against Venezuela by calling it an "extraordinary and unusual threat" to U.S. national security. It is thus not surprising that the Democratic Party leadership is critical, though mildly so, of U.S. policy toward Iran, while throwing support toward Trump's regime change efforts in Venezuela. 2.  The Iranian government has a military capacity in the Middle East that threatens U. S. presence in the region. Iran's militia allies such as Hezbollah serve as a dissuasive force. This is a reality that the Pentagon and Washington policy makers are very aware of. In contrast, Venezuela represents no military threat at all to the United States.  The Trump administration's claim that Venezuela is allied with dissident FARC Colombian guerrillas intent on creating disruptions is a bogus charge. Venezuela has no equivalent to Hezbollah operating in the region. 3. Venezuelan democracy allows for the existence of a legal opposition whose right-wing factions represented by Juan Guaidó, among others, are Washington surrogates. There is no equivalent movement operating within Iran. This situation strengthens the U.S. position in Venezuela, while weakening it in Iran. Ironically, democracy, which is supposedly what Washington is attempting to promote, disadvantages the Maduro government, while the lack of it strengthens the position of Iran. 4. Democrats and Republicans both have their eyes set on Florida which is a swing state and a decisive one in the upcoming presidential elections, as it has been in past ones. In the context of our highly undemocratic electoral college system, changing a few votes among Cuban and Venezuelan residents there (along with their campaign contributions) may determine the 2020 electoral outcome. Stirring up the issue of Venezuela may go a long way. 5. Washington policy makers have long considered Latin America to be our back yard. Trump explicitly embraces the notion at the same time that his neo-con advisors vindicate the Monroe Doctrine. Others are less upfront about the notion, but it has always underpinned U.S. actions in the hemisphere. The mainstream media, rather than address these five key issues, accepts, or refrains from questioning, the Trump administration's current justification for singling out Venezuela to achieve regime change: that Venezuela is a narco-state. The media holds back from pointing to the obvious fallacies of Trump's claims. a. that according to official statistics 84 per cent of the drug trafficking from South America uses Pacific routes while only 7 percent pass through Venezuela and other eastern Caribbean areas b. why is the Southern Command lining up navy ships along the Venezuelan coast on grounds that drug traffickers will use the coronavirus to inundate U.S. markets, instead of surveilling the Pacific coast? and c. Why doesn’t the Trump administration take its drug charges against Maduro to an international tribunal? At this point Venezuela is receiving belligerent treatment from the U.S. largely without precedent in peace time situations. In just one week, the Trump administration announced a 15 million dollar award for help in capturing Maduro, among other members of his government. Then it unveiled a plan of transition to achieve democracy beginning with Maduro's resignation. Then it announced that it was sending Navy ships to the Venezuelan coast ostensibly to beef up counter-narcotics operations. In short, Venezuela is being ganged up on while the Democratic Party, the mainstream media, some alternative media, most U.S. liberals and much of the world are just standing by. Steve Ellner is a retired professor from Venezuela’s Universidad de Oriente and currently an Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. He is the editor of the recently released “Latin America’s Pink Tide: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings.” Original article can be found in the LAP Blog (here). URL:      https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2020/03/radical-individualisn-anbd-profit-vs.html

Political Report # 1292 Trump's New Cuba Sanctions Miss Their Mark

By William LeoGrande Americas Quartely

After two years of restored diplomatic ties, new U.S. regulations on Cuba are bringing back a thicket of travel, financial and trade restrictions - and a tougher stance toward the island. The goal of these restrictions, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, is to starve the Cuban government of money from travel, remittances and commercial ties. But the real victims of the new sanctions will be U.S. residents whose right to travel is curtailed, Cuban families who depend on remittances to survive, the struggling Cuban private sector, and U.S. businesses that will face an even greater disadvantage competing with Asian and European firms. The regulations issued by the Treasury and Commerce Departments on Nov. 8 re-impose significant limits on educational travel to Cuba that former President Barack Obama relaxed. They also redefine "prohibited officials of the Government of Cuba" expansively, potentially cutting off remittances to hundreds of thousands of Cuban families. Finally, they prohibit anyone subject to U.S. jurisdiction from engaging in any "direct financial transactions" with entities controlled by the Cuban military or security forces that "disproportionately benefits" those entities.

Political Report # 1291 Trump Doubles Down on Sanctions and Regime Change for Venezuela

By Mark Weisbrot  lterNet

On November 3rd President Maduro of Venezuela proposed a meeting with creditors, for November 13th in Caracas, to discuss a restructuring of Venezuelan public debt. On November 8th, the Trump administration reacted by warning US bondholders that attending this meeting could put them in violation of US economic sanctions against Venezuela. Such a violation can be penalized by 30 years in prison and up to $10 million dollars in fines for businesses. Then on Thursday, the administration added ten more Venezuelan officials to the list of people under US sanctions. The new targets included electoral officials and also the head of the government's main food distribution program. The sanctions violate the charter of the Organization of American States (Chapter 4, Article 19) and other international treaties that the U.S. has signed. It is important to understand both the context and the intended (as well as likely) effects of the Trump administration's' actions. With encouragement from Florida Senator Marco Rubio and other Republicans, Trump has been trying to help topple the elected government of Venezuela. After four months of violent street protests failed to accomplish this goal (and also alienated much of the Venezuelan population), most of the Venezuelan opposition opted to participate in the gubernatorial elections of October 15th. The leading and most reliable pro-opposition pollster, Datanálisis, forecast an overwhelming opposition victory, with 18 governors. The result, however was the opposite: the governing PSUV (Socialist) party won 18 of the 23 races. Although there appear to be false vote totals that swung one close governor's race (in Bolivar state) -- and this should be investigated -- the other results are not in question and were accepted by most of the opposition. There are various explanations for the surprise result, but the most credible and important appear to revolve around opposition voter abstention and higher than expected turnout of pro-government voters. Improved food distribution probably helped the government. One thing that seems to have hurt the opposition was their support for the Trump sanctions. According to Datanálisis, Venezuelans were against the sanctions by a margin of 61.4 to 28.5 percent; and among the unaligned voters, more than 70 percent were opposed. Also, 69 percent wanted the opposition and government to re-initiate talks. The regime change strategy had failed. But the Trump administration decided to double down on both regime change and sanctions. The strategy appears to be to prevent an economic recovery and worsen the shortages (which include essential medicines and food) so that Venezuelans will get back in the streets and overthrow the government. The Trump sanctions explicitly prohibit new borrowing. This is to ensure that Venezuela cannot do what most governments do with most of their debt, i.e. "roll over" the principal by borrowing anew to pay the principal when a bond matures. For example, last week the government had to scramble to pay off $1.2 billion in principal for PDVSA bonds, to avoid default. (Although Venezuela cannot borrow on international markets right now, they could possibly do so in the foreseeable future). The sanctions also make a debt restructuring much more difficult or impossible. In a debt restructuring, interest and principal payments are postponed into the future, and the creditors receive new bonds - which the sanctions explicitly prohibit. Now the Trump administration is also threatening even the negotiations for a restructuring, under the pretext that the chief negotiators Vice President Tareck El Aissami and Economy Minister Simon Zerpa, have been sanctioned for alleged drug trafficking and corruption, respectively. The Trump administration has not presented any evidence for these allegations. The US Treasury statement of November 9 justifies targeting election officials because of "numerous irregularities that strongly suggest fraud helped the ruling party unexpectedly win a majority of governorships." This is a fabrication, and is reminiscent of the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election, when Washington was the last government to recognize the result. In that race, a statistical analysis of the election-day audit showed that the odds of getting the official result, if the true result was an opposition victory, were less than one in 25,000 trillion. But this is what regime change efforts are all about: de-legitimation - if the election results don't concur, they must be declared fraudulent - and economic strangulation. Of course, the Venezuelan government will have to make some serious economic reforms - most importantly, the unification of the exchange rate and other measures to bring down an inflation rate that is passing 1000 percent annually - if there is to be an economic recovery. But the price of oil has risen 33 percent from a low point in June, and despite declining oil production, Venezuela's exports are up 28 percent from last year (first eight months, estimate from Torino Capital). Trump and his allies in the EU and the right-wing governments in Argentina and Brazil, as well as the fanatical Secretary General of the OAS, want to make sure that a recovery never happens. And despite all their blather about human rights and democracy, it is not a peaceful strategy they are promoting as they take measures to increase Venezuelans' suffering in the hopes of provoking the overthrow of the government. This is not "democracy promotion." It is regime change, by any means necessary - as Trump, in his usual blustery way, made clear when he threatened military action against Venezuela. Original article can be found here: https://www.alternet.org/world/trump-doubles-down-sanctions-and-regime-change-venezuela

Political Report #1132 How Does the US Pursue 'Regime Change' in Cuba through 'Normalization'?

Salim Lamrani, in an interview with Khamenei.ir (Photo: Khamenei.ir) By Khamenei.ir  Barack Obama can lift the economic sanctions without the agreement of the U.S. Congress but he refuses to do so. Normalization of relations happens if Washington lifts economic sanctions, gives Guantanamo back to the Cubans, put an end to the financing of an internal opposition on the island and abrogate the Cuban adjustment act. These reasons are clearly indicative that the normalization of relations are just a continuation of the past policy of 'regime change' in Cuba. Salim Lamrani, in an interview with Khamenei.ir, talks about the US-Cuba relations and how these relations are the continuation of the past painful US policies against Cuba. Salim Lamrani has a Phd in Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne and is a senior lecturer at the University of La Réunion. His latest publication is Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality. - How do you think the US uses sanctions and negotiations to infiltrate her enemies? Can you give examples of how US has used these tools to infiltrate Cuba? Salim Lamrani: The main goal of U.S. policy toward the island has been to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. From 1959 to 1991 this was a hidden goal. Since the implementation of the Torricelli Act in 1992, it has become public. Washington wants a "regime change" in Cuba. One of the tools used to achieve this end is economic sanctions. These are sanctions that affect all categories of the Cuban population and constitute the main obstacle to the island's development.