Venezuelan President Blames US For Unrest: Iranian Gov't Jumps Right On The Story

[ScottL]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/02/21/351637/venezuela-president-slams-us-meddling/

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the US is meddling in the country’s internal affairs, adding that it is promoting ongoing protests by siding with protesters and opposition leaders.

In a communiqué on Friday, Maduro hit out at US President Barack Obama over his call for the release of prisoners in Venezuela, saying the US’s claims on the ongoing unrest is “gross interference” in internal affairs of the South American state.
The Latin American leader also demanded that the US explain its motives in “financing and defending” members of the opposition that promote violence against the country.

Maduro has repeatedly accused Washington of trying to regain dominance over the South American country. “There is an international campaign to justify a foreign intervention in Venezuela,” he said on Wednesday.
​

Earlier this week, Maduro ordered the expulsion of three American consular officials. Venezuela’s president accused the diplomats of meeting with student protest leaders under the guise of offering them visas to destabilize the country.

(Now they want to expel CNN for feuling protests LOL -- SL)
(By the way Maduro is the idiot that blamed the US for giving Chavez cancer -- SL)

Washington, however, denied charges against its diplomats, saying the allegations that the US is helping to organize protesters in Venezuela is “baseless and false.”
Deadly protests kicked off in Venezuela last month over mostly economic issues. According to reports, at least six people have died in the unrest. The government blamed the western-backed opposition for the deaths while the opposition blames the security forces.

 

[ScottL]

 

[Acebb]

Is Obama trying to convince those socialists to crack some hippy protestor skulls or what?

Stop-SS--

 

[ScottL]

Interesting the Socialists who rule Venezuela are blaming the (some refer to him as a ) Socialist US president for protestors seeking to rid Venezuela of Socialism.

 

[The Guesser]

Interesting the Socialists who rule Venezuela are blaming the (some refer to him as a ) Socialist US president for protestors seeking to rid Venezuela of Socialism.

Exactly. Kinda like the Muslim terrorists blaming the(some refer to him as a)Muslim US President for killing Muslim Terrorists. Since Obama is neither a Socialist or a Muslim, common sense people see right through those laughable claims.

 

[ScottL]

He's neither of them. But he's closer to becoming either of them than I am. He's definitely trying to redistribute the wealth in this country, and that's what brings the accusations of Socialism.

People who are driven and work hard shouldn't have to support people who don't want to work.

 

[superbeets]

[h=1]Venezuelan violence has roots in obscure incident[/h]
SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (AP) — Major Venezuelan cities have been roiled by violent protests in recent days but the unrest actually began far from the capital with a little-known incident on a college campus in a city that now seems under siege.
Just over a week before the coordinated Feb. 12 opposition rallies across the country, students at the University of the Andes in San Cristobal were protesting an attempted rape of a young woman on campus.
The students were outraged at the brazen assault on their campus, which underscored long-standing complaints about deteriorating security under President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks next to a painting of the late Hugo Chavez, during a news conference at Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Feb. 21, 2014. Speaking Friday to international media, Maduro called out what he said was a "campaign of demonization to isolate the Bolivarian revolution." (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

But what really set them off was the harsh police response to their initial protest, in which several students were detained and allegedly abused, as well as follow-up demonstrations to call for their release, according to students and people who live in San Cristobal, a city on Venezuela's remote Andean border.
"It was shocking not just to students but to all of San Cristobal," said Gaby Arellano, a 27-year-old student leader who has been involved in the national opposition campaign. "It was the straw that broke the camel's back."
The protests expanded and grew more intense, drawing in more non-students angry about the dismal economy and crime in general, which led to more people being detained. Students at other universities decided to march in Caracas, which grew into a nationwide campaign when the prominent opposition leaders decided to get involved.
The main rally on Feb. 12 in the capital turned violent, resulting in three deaths from gunshots and then the jailing of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez. Now, protests that continued throughout the country Friday, and are particularly fierce in San Cristobal, rarely, if ever, mention the attempted rape.
"I'm protesting because of the insecurity, for the scarcity and the abuse of power that we have been experiencing," said Maria Garcia, a 30-year-old mother in the Los Agustinos neighborhood of San Cristobal, where patrolling soldiers have strung coils to control protesters who lob rocks and Molotov cocktails. "I'm tired of waiting five or six hours in line for a kilo of flour."
Today, as the anti-government movement has snowballed into a political crisis, the likes of which Venezuela's socialist leadership hasn't seen since a 2002 coup attempt, San Cristobal remains a hotbed of unrest. Protest rallies are expected throughout the country on Saturday.
The government on Thursday said it would send paratroopers to aid hundreds of soldiers already in place to restore order and the president has said he would consider imposing martial law in the area.
Maduro, it should be noted, has a very different version of events in San Cristobal, which is in the western state of Tachira that borders on Colombia.
Maduro says the city is under siege by right-wing paramilitaries under orders from former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who dismisses the allegation as an attempt by the Venezuelan leader to distract people from an economy beset by shortages of basic goods and inflation of more than 56 percent.
Maduro said Friday that San Cristobal Mayor Daniel Ceballos, a member of the same party as Lopez, would soon join the jailed opposition leader behind bars for fomenting violence. "It's a matter of time until we have him in the same cold cell," Maduro said.
Residents on Friday tried to resume their normal activities as the smell of burnt trash still lingered. Public transportation has yet to be restored, many stoplights are out and students are gearing up for what they promise will be an extended fight. As warplanes buzz the sky, there is also widespread resentment of the heavy troop presence.
"Why is the president sending these troops here? As far as I know, the military is supposed to protect Venezuelans, not attack them," said Jose Hernandez, a 31-year-old construction worker.
San Cristobal, a rural city 400 miles (660 kilometers) from Caracas, would seem an unlikely place to be at the center of a national crisis. But with its disproportionately large student population and longstanding cultural and economic ties with its more conservative neighbor, it has long been an opposition stronghold.
The state of Tachira, of which San Cristobal is the largest city and capital, was only one of two where opposition candidate Henrique Capriles defeated Hugo Chavez in 2012 presidential elections. Last April, residents of San Cristobal voted nearly 3 to 1 in favor of Capriles in the race against Maduro to elect Chavez's successor.
Its independent streak may have to do with its isolation, said Arellano, who grew up in Tachira.
"I think people in Tachira have always stood against abuses and being trampled," she said.

​

 

[superbeets]

Part of the Axis Of Evil.

 

[Acebb]

So how much do you have to donate to Obama to become the Ambassador to Venezuela?

 

[ScottL]

So how much do you have to donate to Obama to become the Ambassador to Venezuela?

Write a number on a piece of paper that's larger than the one on every other guy's piece of paper

 

[The Guesser]

So how much do you have to donate to Obama to become the Ambassador to Venezuela?

Won't matter, since we don't have an ambassador to Venezuela. Shush()*

 

[ScottL]

Guesser be quiet, we have a man there. He left right after the Superbowl Shush()*

 

[Willie99]

gee, people want their freedom and it's out fault. The big Satan in the sky

kinda like debating politics within our own country. All our problems are created by the people who work hardest and accumulate assets, makes everybody else look bad

"people think they're successful because they work hard"

"you didn't build that"

it's mine, all mine, I did it, I know what to do with it, gimme gimme gimme






OK, I went off on a wee bit of a tangent, sorry

 

[mplastered]

He's neither of them. But he's closer to becoming either of them than I am. He's definitely trying to redistribute the wealth in this country, and that's what brings the accusations of Socialism.

People who are driven and work hard shouldn't have to support people who don't want to work.

Well, that got a lot of response.

 

[JudgeWapner]

I'd say with the track record of the US, there is a high probability that we are poking a hornet's nest with a stick down there.

 

[Dave007inVegas]

The world as it is and the world as it should be.

 

[Dave007inVegas]

[h=2]The streets of Venezuelan cities are aflame as Nicolás Maduro's thugs try to snuff out opposition to his regime. Ukrainian patriots eager to join the west are digging in at the barricades in Kiev. And yet the revolutionaries of Occupy are nowhere to be found. The website of Occupy Wall Street calls for "World Revolution." Well, the day of insurrection has come, and the Occupiers are almost completely oblivious to what is happening in the world.[/h]That's not to say the Occupiers are inactive. They're exchanging activist strategies and new stats about the "one percent." But as far as the actual cause of freedom is concerned, they don't care. Scan the Occupy Twitter feeds; you detect a faint interest in the clashes of Kiev and ambivalence about the abuses perpetrated by Hugo Chávez's successor: criticism of his methods but resentment that some bourgeois claim victim status.

To Occupy, the only revolution worth noting is a struggle against global capitalism and the state infrastructure that capitalism deploys in its defense. In that sense, Occupy is the alter ego of Barack Obama, who has returned yet again to the theme of inequality as his focus. That theme shapes Obama's foreign policy as much as his domestic policy, as he has sought to undo American hegemony and establish a "new equilibrium."

In practice, that new equilibrium has meant allowing tyranny and autocracy to advance. The "reset" with Russia meant abandoning the young democracies of Eastern Europe, accepting the Assad regime in Syria, and allowing Vladimir Putin to assert control in the former Soviet empire. The attempt to achieve peace at any price with Iran has allowed the ayatollahs to shore up their regime, join in the Syrian slaughter, and threaten democratic Israel.

In general, the revolutions that have seized the streets around the world in recent years have targeted the regimes that Obama's foreign policy has served to keep in power. Recall that the Obama administration sought to cut off funding to pro-democracy groups, reversing George W. Bush's freedom agenda. It said Hosni Mubarak was not a dictator and claimed that Bashar al-Assad was a reformer, before flip-flopping as the tide turned.

The Occupy movement took heart from the successful rebellions of the Arab Spring. So, too, did the left-wing protesters who encircled the state capitol in Wisconsin in 2011, who declared Gov. Scott Walker a "dictator" for seeking to pass collective bargaining reforms that ultimately saved public sector jobs. They declared, "This is what democracy looks like!" as they occupied the building and tried to prevent the legislature from voting.

The truth is that Occupy was never interested in democracy or freedom. It wavered between a preference for a redistributionist socialist state on the one hand and collectivist anarchy on the other. President Barack Obama supported the movement and appropriated its "ninety-nine percent versus one percent" rhetoric. Indeed, twenty years before, Obama the community organizer would likely have been among the Occupiers themselves.

The Occupy movement, like Obama, is more concerned with punishing success than helping the oppressed. Both have shown a lack of interest in events in Venezuela and Caracas—with Obama merely urging both sides in Kiev to show restraint and dispatching Vice President Joe Biden to make calls. The revolutionary pretensions of both ought to be remembered the next time a group of well-off radicals throws a tantrum against the system.

 

[ScottL]

Above article written by Joel B. Pollak. Sadly, I agree with most of it.