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Venezuela, theoretically one of the richest nations in the world thanks to oil, has slipped back into what some are calling “the Middle Ages.” No power, no running water, no food.
This is how the citizens of Venezuela are living right now:
El Avila, a mountain that towers over Caracas, has become a place where families gather with buckets and jugs to fill up with water, wash dishes and scrub clothes. The taps in their homes are dry from lack of electricity to the city’s water pumps.”
“We’re forced to get water from sources that obviously aren’t completely hygienic. But it’s enough for washing or doing the dishes,” said one resident, Manuel Almeida.”
Because of the long lines of people, the activity can take hours of waiting.”
Elsewhere, locals make use of cracked water pipes. But they still need to boil the water, or otherwise purify it.”
“We’re going to bed without washing ourselves,” said one man, Pedro Jose, a 30-year-old living in a poorer neighborhood in the west of the capital.”
Some shops seeing an opportunity have hiked the prices of bottles of water and bags of ice to between $3 and $5 — a fortune in a country where the monthly minimum salary is the equivalent of $5.50.”
Many inhabitants have taken to salting meat to preserve it without working refrigerators.”
Others, more desperate, scour trash cans for food scraps. They are hurt most by having to live in a country where basic food and medicine has become scarce and out of reach because of rocketing hyperinflation.”
The latest blackout this week also knocked out communications.”
According to NetBlocks, an organization monitoring telecoms networks, 85 percent of Venezuela has lost connection.”
In stores, cash registers no longer work and electronic payment terminals are blanked out. That’s serious in Venezuela, where even bread is bought by card because of lack of cash.”
God help us if Venezuela suddenly has a disease outbreak of any kind right now.
Meanwhile, Nicolas Maduro is now welcoming Russian troops to prop up his regime – which does not make President Trump or John Bolton happy at all.
“We strongly caution actors external to the Western Hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations,” White House national security adviser John Bolton said in a statement.”
“We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and security in the region,” Bolton added.”
Russia said on Thursday it had sent “specialists” to Venezuela under a military cooperation deal but insisted they posed no threat to regional stability, brushing aside a call by Trump for Moscow to remove all military personnel from the country.”
Trump said on Wednesday that “all options” were open to make Russia pull troops out of Venezuela after two Russian air force planes landed outside Caracas on Saturday carrying nearly 100 Russian troops, according to media reports.”
There is nothing good that is going to come out of having Russian troops just chilling out in Venezuela. Odds are good that the Maduro government is hoping to get a handle on the ongoing electrical blackout/brownout with Russian help, in an attempt to quell the people’s complaints (and shut down opposition leader Juan Guaido). But we all know that when Putin’s troops show up, they have a tendency not to leave.
This is a mess, and it’s a dangerous mess. Do we really want to use military force in Venezuela? No, and we really don’t want to start anything with Russia on another country’s soil, either. But neither can we just leave Putin and Maduro to just sit in Venezuela while people starve.
Nations of the Americas long ago agreed to prevent & repel threats against any of the nations of region. The introduction & expansion of Russian military personnel in #Venezuela is a provocative violation & must be regarded as a direct threat to Inter-American peace & security. https://t.co/PErTlk5lAi
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 29, 2019
What happens now is anyone’s guess.
Featured image via Pixabay, Pixabay license free for commercial use
parker says: Ah, the heavy weight of the “massive right wing conspiracy ” blinds us to the socialist utopia where people eat zoo animals and then rats, mice, and small repiles.
Jack_of_Spades says: Do we really want to use military force in Venezuela? No, and we really don’t want to start anything with Russia on another country’s soil, either.
Whether we want to or not, whether we should or not, I think going up against Russian troops in Venezuela would be very different from going up against them in Syria.
GWB says: very different from going up against them in Syria
In what way? Better? Worse?
GWB says: no running water
You know, you don’t have to have running water to live healthily and to have some manner of civilization. But, when you’ve built up your society around municipally delivered water, and municipally removed waste, when that breaks down you’ve got no other way to make it work, generally. So, here comes the cholera, the dysentery, the typhoid.
But, everything they’re describing is NOT “medieval”. It’s really just pre-industrial. Their conditions seem about the same as colonial America. What makes it medieval is the gov’t, living high on the backs of the serfs.
carrying nearly 100 Russian troops
Pfft. That wouldn’t even be an adequate reinforcement of their riot squads. There were more Cubans in Grenada than that! Though, they might be there to help out with those three guys in the training video Maduro released – ’cause even the Russians are better than that.
Do we really want to use military force in Venezuela?
If we weren’t tied down in the Middle East, it might be easier.
And, if we could still get away with “private armies”, Venezuela is the perfect opportunity. Go down and take over one of the oil-drilling areas, set up a small state with freedom and prosperity, and gradually expand as Maduro’s troops inevitably defect. All I need is a rich backer and some guys with military experience who are willing to do a little “missionary work” on behalf of freedom and justice………
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