Elizabeth Warren Venezuela Bolivia
Elizabeth Warren, Venezuela November 20, 2019
Elizabeth Warren endorses Trump’s economic war on Venezuela, then soft-pedals
far-right Bolivia coup
In a nauseating interview on Pod Save America, Elizabeth Warren endorsed
suffocating US sanctions on Venezuela, backing Trump’s strategy to stop their
“ability to have an economy” while parroting neocon regime-change myths. She
then whitewashed the far-right military coup in Bolivia.
By Ben Norton
For the millions of Venezuelans suffering under a suffocating US blockade,
there is no functional difference between Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren. In
fact, the liberal Democratic presidential candidate just enthusiastically
endorsed the far-right president’s strategy of relentless warfare against
Venezuela and its nearly 30 million inhabitants.
After praising the US government’s sanctions on Venezuela, which violate
international law and have led to the preventable deaths of tens of thousands
of civilians, Warren went on whitewash the far-right military coup in Bolivia,
where the Trump administration has helped put racist Christian extremists and
actual fascists in power.
Warren’s eagerness for economic war on Caracas earned her the recognition of
right-wing news websites like The Federalist, which gleefully emphasized that
“Elizabeth Warren Agrees With Trump’s Strategy In Venezuela.”
The Massachusetts senator wanted to show off her foreign policy bona fides in a
softball interview with a former Barack Obama administration apparatchik on the
podcast Pod Save America, which is known for its centrist politics and close
links to Hillary Clinton.
Warren praised Trump’s strategy of appointing the deflated Venezuelan coup
leader Juan Guaidó as president, declaring, “I support economic sanctions.” She
then described the country’s democratically-elected President Nicolás Maduro as
a “dictator.”
In the interview, the Democratic presidential candidate agreed wholeheartedly
with her host Tommy Vietor, who previously served as a spokesperson for
President Obama and the US National Security Council.
Both spread lie after lie about Venezuela, based on hyperbolic corporate media
myths.
Although the interview was conducted back in February, video clips have
resurfaced and gone viral on social media.
Warren: “I support economic sanctions” and coup leader Guaidó
Tommy Vietor, an implacable critic of Donald Trump and a prominent symbol of
the liberal self-declared “Resistance,” kicked off the interview segment
singing the praises of the far-right president’s strategy of economically and
diplomatically strangling Venezuela.
“The Trump administration has recognized the National Assembly President Juan
Guaidó as as the president, and encouraged a bunch of other countries to follow
suit, in frankly what was a pretty impressive diplomatic play by them,” Vietor
applauded — failing to mention that more than 80 percent of Venezuelans had
never heard of Guaidó at the time Washington anointed him as the unelected head
of state.
“Mm hmm,” Warren uttered in agreement, echoing Vietor’s endorsement of the
Trump administration for attempting to install Guaidó through a coup.
Trump “also sanctioned Venezuela’s oil industry, which is a major step to cut
off all their supply of dollars and their ability to have an economy,” Vietor
continued.
Warren chimed in: “Start with the fact that Maduro is obviously a dictator;
he’s terrible; he’s stolen this election; it’s a nightmare for the people of
Venezuela.”
The Democratic presidential candidate, who portrays herself as a progressive,
proceeded to endorse all of the major planks of the Trump administration’s
hybrid war against Venezuela.
“This notion of using our diplomatic tools, I’m all for it,” she continued. “I
think recognition, I think getting our allies to do it; it’s a way to bring
diplomatic pressure.”
“Economic sanctions? Yeah, I support economic sanctions,” Warren added. “But we
have to offer humanitarian help at the same time.”
“We should be leading the international community to get help to those people,”
she said of Venezuelan migrants. “That puts more pressure on Maduro,” Warren
boasted.
The Democratic presidential candidate made it clear that she would continue the
hybrid war on Venezuela, which has caused large numbers of Venezuelans to leave
the country, while also incentivizing Venezuelans to leave the country with
promises of aid on the other side of the border. In other words, Warren pledged
to exacerbate Venezuela’s migration crisis, which is already at epidemic levels
thanks to crushing US sanctions.
A study published in April by economists Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot at the
Center for Economic and Policy Research found that US sanctions on Venezuela,
which are illegal under international law, caused at least 40,000 deaths from
2017 to 2018.
“The sanctions are depriving Venezuelans of lifesaving medicines, medical
equipment, food, and other essential imports,” said Weisbrot.
Warren has promised to continue lethal sanctions, fueling more migration from
Venezuela, but simultaneously boosting aid — just like liberal war hawks who
supported the international proxy war on Syria, which created millions of
refugees, while pledging to help those displaced people.
The only Trump tactic Warren disapproved of was his “saber-rattling,”
referencing his belligerent tone. Instead of threatening direct military
intervention, Warren argued, the United States should continue the polices of
hybrid warfare and economic warfare to destabilize Venezuela’s leftist
government.
And Washington should continue this hybrid warfare while “working with our
allies,” she stressed, in a way “that increases the pressure on Maduro.”
While demonizing Venezuelan President Maduro, was was first elected in 2013 and
then re-elected in 2018, host Tommy Vietor and Elizabeth Warren praised German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is from a center-right religious party.
Critics pointed out that Merkel has been in power since 2005, but is not
demonized as a dictator.
Why doesn't she call Merkel a dictator? She's been President since 2005, Maduro
since 2013. The US’ FP is super racist.
— 🌹 (@AlytaDeLeon) November 18, 2019
Warren reiterates her neoconservative policies against Venezuela
Elizabeth Warren repeated her support for regime change in Venezuela in an
interview in September with the Council on Foreign Relations, a central gear in
the machinery of the military-industrial complex.
“Maduro is a dictator and a crook who has wrecked his country’s economy,
dismantled its democratic institutions, and profited while his people suffer,”
Warren declared.
She referred to Maduro’s democratically elected government as a “regime” and
called for “supporting regional efforts to negotiate a political transition.”
Echoing the rhetoric of neoconservatives in Washington, Warren called for
“contain[ing]” the supposedly “damaging and destabilizing actions” of China,
Russia, and Cuba.
The only point where Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that
“there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela.”
Elizabeth Warren soft-pedals the far-right coup in Bolivia
While Warren endorsed Trump’s hybrid war on Venezuela, she more recently
whitewashed the US-backed coup in Bolivia.
On November 10, the US government backed a far-right military coup against
Bolivia’s democratically elected President Evo Morales, a leftist from the
popular Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party and the first Indigenous head of
state in a country where nearly two-thirds of the population is Native.
Warren refused to comment on the putsch for more than a week, even as the
far-right military junta massacred dozens of protesters and systematically
purged and detained elected left-wing politicians from MAS.
Finally, eight days after the coup, Warren broke her silence. In a short tweet,
the putative progressive presidential candidate tepidly requested “free and
fair elections” and calling on the “interim leadership” to prepare an “early,
legitimate election.”
What Warren did not mention is that this “interim leadership” she helped
legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian fundamentalist, the
unelected “interim president” Jeanine Añez.
Añez has referred to Bolivia’s majority-Indigenous population as “satanic” and
immediately moved to try to overturn the country’s progressive constitution,
which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after
receiving an overwhelming democratic mandate in a 2009 referendum.
Añez’s ally in this coup regime’s interim leadership is Luis Fernando Camacho,
a multi-millionaire who emerged out of neo-fascist groups and courted support
from the United States and the far-right governments of Brazil and Colombia.
By granting legitimacy to Bolilvia’s ultra-conservative, unelected leadership,
Warren rubber-stamped the far-right coup and the military junta’s attempt to
stamp out Bolivia’s progressive democracy.
In other words, as Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal pointed out, Liz’s Big
Structural Bailey compliantly rolled over for Big IMF Structural Readjustment
Policy.
Ben Norton
Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor
of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he
co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets
at @BenjaminNorton.