President Donald Trump is truly the celebrity apprentice of the US empire. Instead of firing the neocons and globalists driving his foreign policy, Trump is promising more intervention, despite the flop that was the attempted coup in Venezuela.
“A full and complete embargo, together with highest-level sanctions, will be placed on the island of Cuba,” Trump threatened in a Tuesday evening tweet, hypocritically ordering Cuba not to intervene in Venezuela.
This glaring admission of weakness from the deal-maker-in-chief came as reality dawned on him that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist regime was holding steady against Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly leader who, standing with a small group of military members, urged a coup hours earlier.
Amid the quick pace of Tuesday’s events, the ex-CIA director turned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on CNN to blame “The Russians” for giving Maduro the courage not to flee Venezuela. Meanwhile, Democrats eyeing 2020 are apparently too stuck on Russiagate to know how to react to the news.
If only there was a fresh face in the Democratic field who could make a coherent argument against CIA and US military intervention abroad, who also saw through the Russiagate nonsense. Oh, wait, that was supposed to be Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who inexplicably deleted this video from her Twitter account.
The attempted coup in Venezuela on Tuesday was cheered on immediately (synchronistically even) by the same old warmonger types such as Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton. Bolton, by the way, couched the Trump administration’s views on the situation in speculative terms, telling reporters, “The Cubans, we believe, have played a very significant role in propping Maduro up today, possibly with help from the Russians, that’s the speculation.”
So, at least 69 people were hurt in the violence in Venezuela, reports AFP. And 25 Anti-Maduro Venezuelan soldiers have been granted asylum within a Brazilian embassy, as a result of the failed coup. Similarly, opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez took refuge in Chile’s embassy in Caracas.
Making America great again is over. Trump is ostensibly now in “keeping America great” space, as the 2020 campaign ramps up. But how can that case be made without laughter if his focus is now set on Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia?
After Tuesday’s embarrassing display, there is no hope that the next time US interventionism blows up in Trump’s face, he will tell any of his neocon or globalist staff, “You’re fired.”