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At The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan makes clear that the Venezuelan crisis is not one the U.S. should be involved in militarily. The country has vast oil wealth, and its government poses no imminent threat to America or Americans. Pat writes (abridged):
“The brutal repression of the Venezuelan people must end, and it must end soon,” said Trump. “People are starving. They have no food; they have no water. And this was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world.”
This civil conflict is not our war. We have not been attacked.
No massive human rights violations going on in Venezuela to justify military intervention. Indeed, there appears to be a conscious effort on the part of Maduro to minimize casualties and bloodshed.
Troops are not firing indiscriminately on protesters, though rock throwers in the streets are provoking the soldiers.
U.S. intervention in a nation of 30 million people, with an army of scores of thousands of troops, would enable Maduro to cast himself in the role of martyr of Yankee imperialism.
Finally, time is on our side, not Maduro’s.
The Venezuelan economy, one of the richest in the hemisphere owing to the world’s largest oil resources, is now in shambles. Some three million people, one in every 10 Venezuelans, have fled the disaster that Maduro and his mentor Hugo Chavez created.
The currency is sinking to Weimar levels. Oil exports are falling. Shortages of food and medicine are spreading. Power blackouts have been reported. It is difficult to foresee any turnaround the Maduro regime can execute to revive the economy or prevent the continued exodus of its people. Most of the nations of Latin America are with us and against Maduro.
Venezuela’s situation is not sustainable. Let the fate of the Marxist socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro be decided by the people of Venezuela.
Read more here.
