Juan Guaidó is considering asking the United States for military intervention in a new escalation to his attempts to seize power in Venezuela. His comments, under the law of most countries, would yet again be considered treason.
Following the farce of last week’s failed attempt at a coup d’état, Guaidó remains at large and has told the BBC that he would “evaluate all options” in his efforts to seize power in his home country.
The move comes as Guaidó had admitted publicly fo the first time that he does not have the support that he believed prior to his attempt to seize power last week, with only a dozen of the Venezuelan military defecting to his cause.
“I think the variables are obvious at this point, maybe because we still need more soldiers, and maybe we need more officials of the regime to be willing to support it.”
Juan Guaidó, Washington Post
In calling for a U.S. invasion of his own country, Guaidó seems willing to sacrifice thousands of his fellow Venezuelans in his efforts to attain the Presidency that was won by Nicolás Maduro in 2018.
The Watson Institute has calculated that death tolls from U.S. action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan number between 480,000- 507,000, with 244,124- 266,427 of those being civilians. The number does not include deadly U.S. action in Syria or Libya, nor the effects of U.S. support for the genocides in Yemen and Palestine, nor the existing effects of U.S. sanctions on countries such as Venezuela or North Korea.
It was just last week that the Washington based Center for Economic and Policy Research found that U.S. sanctions had cost 40,000 lives in Venezuela since 2015, with the majority of the deaths coming in the past two years.
Guaidó, however, seems more than willing to partner with the same people who have already caused mass suffering in Venezuela and would potentially be responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the country should the U.S. invade.
The Venezuelan government has been shockingly tolerant of Juan Guaidó, allowing him airtime on national television to broadcast his calls to arms and allowing supporters to openly protest. Some commentators have suggested that Guaidó is attempting to incite the Venezuelan government to arrest him as a pretext for American military action “to defend democracy”.
While nations such as the United States, Britain and France openly criticise Venezuela, if citizens in their own countries had acted as Guaidó had, they would be rightfully labelled as a terrorist and reaction would be swift, they would be certainly not be allowed the airtime to incite insurrection and killing.
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