Venezuela Prepares For A War With The United States

The socialist nation of Venezuela has called on its military and asked them to prepare to go to war with the United States. Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro is bracing for war just days after the Trump administration banned Venezuelan officials from entering the nation.

“We have been shamelessly threatened by the most criminal empire that ever existed and we have the obligation to prepare ourselves to guarantee peace,” said Maduro, who wore a green uniform and a military hat as he spoke with his army top brass during a military exercise involving tanks and missiles. “We need to have rifles, missiles, and well-oiled tanks at the ready….to defend every inch of the territory if needs be. The future of humanity cannot be the world of illegal sanctions, of economic persecution,” Maduro said.

According to Newsweek, Maduro’s threats come down to the Trump administration’s hard stance against Maduro’s regime by banning money lending to Venezuela’s government or its state oil company PDVSA and passing sanctions against Maduro and his top officials. But it isn’t likely that the socialist regime has the ability to stand up to the United States in any meaningful way.

It’s unlikely Maduro has the manpower to stand up to the U.S., which has a much larger military. Maduro has maintained power in Venezuela despite mounting political and economic crises that has seen months of violent, anti-government demonstrations across the South American nation. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino has backed Maduro during the upheaval, but some critics have begun a whisper campaign suggesting that the military could break away and support a coup against the president, Herbert Garcia, a former senior army general and minister,told Reuters in August. There have been three attempted military coups in Venezuela since 1992. –Newsweek

Russia has come out on the side of Venezuela. “We are strongly against unilateral sanctions against sovereign states,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in August. “We will carefully analyze the implications of the sanctions imposed by the United States, and their possible effect on the interests of Russia and Russian businesses. We can already say that they will not affect our willingness to expand and strengthen cooperation with the friendly nation of Venezuela and its people.”

Russia has defended Venezuela frequently lately saying Trump is simply ramping up for a war and an invasion of Caracas.

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 515 people
Date: September 27th, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

Copyright Information: Copyright SHTFplan and Mac Slavo. This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.shtfplan.com. Please contact us for permission to reproduce this content in other media formats.

Explosion Rocks Caracas, Injures Cops As Venezuela Votes

With opposition parties boycotting what they call a rigged election, Reuters reports the streets of Caracas were deserted on Sunday as a minority of Venezuelans trickled to the polls to elect a constitutional super-body that unpopular leftist President Maduro vowed would begin a new era of combat in the crisis-stricken nation. That is good news as, following the death of two people yesterday, shortly after a large group of motorbikes sped through the city, and explosion hit, reportedly injuring a number of police officers.

A number of police officers were injured in Venezuela"s capital Caracas after an explosion during an anti-government protest decrying a vote for a constituent assembly on Sunday, according to a Reuters witness.

Further details were not immediately available.

The moment of the explosion...

#30Jul #Caracas 12:36 pm Momento en el que explotan 2 motos de la PNB en Altamira. pic.twitter.com/1pKgAKed3m

— TVVenezuela Noticias (@TVVnoticias) July 30, 2017

Social media is awash with clips of injured (it is uncertain if this is from the explosion)...

#HACEMINUTOS herido en el Paraíso. Sector Las Fuentes. Escuchen #jul30 pic.twitter.com/qkRCff7fTC

— Elyangelica Gonzalez (@ElyangelicaNews) July 30, 2017

For now, the fire from the explosion continues...

As a reminder, Reuters reports, Maduro, widely disliked for overseeing an economic collapse during four years in office, has pressed ahead with the vote to create the all-powerful assembly despite the threat of further U.S. sanctions and months of opposition protests in which more than 115 people have been killed. Opposition parties are boycotting what they call a rigged election. Their sympathizers planned protests on highways across the South American country and scuffles were already reported in the provinces - raising the prospect of violent clashes with tens of thousands of troops deployed to safeguard the vote.

Authorities confirmed there were two deaths on Saturday, including the killing of a candidate to the assembly during a robbery, while the opposition put the total death toll in Saturday"s protests at five.

Critics say the assembly will allow Maduro to dissolve the opposition-run Congress, delay future elections and rewrite electoral rules to prevent the socialists from being voted out of power in the once-prosperous OPEC nation.

The opposition has vowed to redouble its resistance and U.S. President Donald Trump has promised broader economic sanctions against Venezuela after the vote, suggesting the oil-rich nation"s crisis is set to escalate.

"Even if they win today, this won"t last long," said opposition supporter Berta Hernandez, a 60-year-old doctor, in a wealthy Caracas district. "I"ll continue on the streets because, not long from now, this will come to an end."

"Socialism Has Produced Some Very Powerful Millionaires": As Venezuelans Starve In The Streets, The Elites Party On

Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

It’s always funny to debate socialists on the merits of their ideology.

If you point to a country like Venezuela, and say “See! This is what socialism leads to,” they’ll no doubt claim that it isn’t a real example of socialism. But if you went back in time by just a few years, you’d find that their perception of Venezuela was quite different.

Celebrities like Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, and Danny Glover praised the regime not too long ago, as did intellectuals like Noam Chomsky.

Six years ago, Bernie Sanders claimed that “the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina.”

These days however, those voices are conveniently silent in regards to Venezuela. There’s always at least one “perfect” example of socialism for leftists to hold up, right up until that that shining example utterly fails.

But that is by no means the extant of their cognitive dissonance. While these same figures preach about how equitable socialism is, and rail against the 1%, socialist countries like Venezuela are run by tiny wealthy elites who are having a blast while their countrymen starve in the streets.

The country may be stricken by poverty and political violence, but a rich minority acts like they are untouched by the crisis.

Case in point: Caracas, one of the world’s most violent cities, is the first in South America to open a branch of the trendy Buddha Bar international nightclub chain.

In a country where basics such as flour and sugar are in short supply, Buddha Bar guests can order tuna steak, pork ribs or fish tacos — as long as they have dollars to pay.

“You can have as good a time here in Caracas as in New York, Dubai or Saint Petersburg,” says one of its owners, Cristhian Estephan.

Eight pieces of salmon and shrimp sushi here cost 55,700 bolivars, or the equivalent of more than a quarter of the country’s official monthly minimum wage…

…While the mass protests against President Nicolas Maduro show that Venezuelans’ anger at their hardship is boiling over, the well-off are still managing to have fun.

This always happens in socialist countries, because socialist regimes don’t distribute the wealth equally to everyone. Once the government has a firm grip on the economy, it can distribute that wealth to whoever is the most loyal to the regime.

“Wealth in Venezuela is generated by state revenues that depend on the oil sector,” says Colette Capriles, a sociologist at Simon Bolivar University.

“The state redistributes that revenue. The Chavez government used it with preference for those who needed it most,” with social welfare spending, she says.

But it also offered an opportunity for those close to power to line their pockets.

“This form of socialism has produced some very powerful millionaires,” says Capriles.

“Most of them are government officials or people close to them — and currently they are one of the main things holding up the government.”

I’m sure that fact is also conveniently ignored by leftists celebrities and intellectuals. They’re so wrapped up in their ideology that they can’t see the truth that is staring them in the face.

Not only does socialism always fail, this ideology that so many leftists claim can end wealth inequality, always leaves the masses hungry and poor. It always props up a rich elite class that is insulated from the problems that they cause.

"Lynching Epidemic" Breaks Out In Venezuela

The public-safety infrastructure in Venezuela has been degraded to such a degree that citizens now take justice into their own hands. Agence France Presse reported that lynchings have risen sharply over the last year and a half as political and economic instability in the crumbling socialist republic has worsened. Witnesses who spoke to AFP said a 22-year-old man who was set on fire at an anti-government demonstration in May was actually lynched after being accused of stealing by the crowd - not because he was a government sympathizer, as President Nicolas Maduro had suggested at the time.

As AFP alleges, "it is not just the country"s economy and political system that are sick, but society itself, experts say. An epidemic of lynchings is one of the most gruesome symptoms."

The OVCS says some 60 people were recorded as killed in lynchings in the first five months of this year alone. Last year there were 126 such killings -- a surge from the 20 reported in the previous year, coinciding with the worsening of political tensions and economic chaos.

"Their aim is to kill the person before the police arrive," says Marco Ponce, coordinator of the Venezuelan Social Conflict Observatory (OVCS).

"In lynchings, citizens let out their anger in the face of a state that is not defending their right to justice," says Ponce.

"They think they are dispensing justice, and they do so with anger, so they go as far as killing the person."

Residents blame the breakdown in social order that’s resulted from Venezuela’s worsening economic crisis. In the capital Caracas, the army and police are focused on brutally suppressing the street protests that have become a daily occurrence in recent months. Meanwhile, the dire financial straits of the country’s residents, who are struggling with inflation rates as high as 10,000%, have caused crime to skyrocket.

AFP journalists witness one incident on a street in Caracas where a mob attacked a man after passers-by caught him stealing.

Swearing in fury, the crowd strips the man naked and stomps on his head as he sprawls on the ground.

"You want things that come easy? Then take this, you bastard."

A witness says he stopped the man who had tried to rob a woman at gunpoint in a bakery. Then the mob took over.

"You"re lucky we didn"t burn you," a voice yells, as police lug the man, limp but still breathing, into the back of their car.

The crowd yells in satisfaction -- but not at the man"s arrest. They think they are the ones who have done justice here.
 

One Caracas resident, Damaso Velasquez, described taking part in a lynching. He argued that the mob must dole out street justice because the police don’t do enough to hold criminals accountable.

"I didn"t feel pity for that person because I knew he was a criminal," he tells AFP.

"I felt rage and hatred towards that person... I saw him committing a robbery. That makes you feel furious, so whatever happens to him, it"s alright," he goes on.

"The government grabs him, puts him in jail and then they let him go again. There is disorder here in Caracas -- starting with the government."

“People feel that the state is not protecting them, so they opt to defend themselves," says Freddy Crespo, a criminologist at the University of the Andes.

"Their fear turns into anger."

Venezuela now has one of the highest annual murder rates in the world -- 70 for every 100,000 inhabitants in 2016. Yet only about six crimes out of every 100 here result in a sentence. Still, at least one Venezuelan felt the need to speak out against the brutality.

"The state is supposed to provide you with civil and judicial security, which we are totally lacking," says one Caracas resident, Maria Hernandez.

"But I don"t think it is just for me to come and kill or burn you just because you have robbed," she adds.

"That way I would turn into someone more barbaric than you."

From "socialist utopia" to Mad Max in a few short years... any thoughts now Bernie?

Shocking Footage: Venezuelan National Guard Truck Drives Through Crowd Of 'Dissidents'

Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

For several weeks Venezuela has been rocked with protests and riots as the Maduro regime increasingly tightens its grip on the population. It seems as if security forces are brutally cracking down on dissidents on a daily basis now. Wednesday in particular, saw some incredibly tense clashes between protesters and government forces in the capital city of Caracas. According to Bloomberg:

Injuries throughout the city included 134 traumas and 17 cases of people overcome by gas, Mayor Ramon Muchacho of the opposition-dominated Chacao municipality said in a post on his Twitter account. Those hurt included lawmakers Freddy Guevara and Julio Montoya. The opposition coalition, known as MUD, said in a statement that more than 300 people were injured in today’s clashes.

The South American nation has been riven by protests for weeks, and President Nicolas Maduro has called for a popular assembly to write a new constitution, a fresh attempt to consolidate control. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest what they say is a plummet into autocracy. Protests over the past month have resulted in at least 30 deaths, and opposition politicians have vowed to continue street actions.

Of course, those are just statistics. To really appreciate the human costs of these events, you have to see it with your own eyes rather than just read about it. Take a look at what happened yesterday in Caracas, after an armored vehicle owned by the Venezuelan National Guard caught fire.

This is what civil unrest really looks like. It’s dirty, chaotic, and bloody. Let’s hope it never escalates to this point on our streets.