hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle washington's force regime change strategy targeting venezuela continues unabated everything is going to plan first sanction the country in ways that punish the port second back a so-called interim president in caracas third deny the legitimate government of its export revenues is the use of force next.

talking venezuela i'm joined by my guest problem over at the in london he's a documentary maker and founder of the dot net in claremont we have miguel pinker salis he is a professor of latin american history at pomona college and in venezuela we crossed to paul dobson he is a journalist for venezuela now us is dot com an independent on the ground news outlet our german cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate pallone go to you first in london here the last sentence of my introduction is was is the use of force next please reflect on that. i really hope not i mean anyone that has even a cursory knowledge of a military coup means and that's in america especially one promoted by the us knows that it will end up with hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of people that. human rights. cities that will deeply affect the society for many generations and

we only have to look at neighboring colombia which only two years ago formally signed a peace agreement between the fog and the colombian government and over those nearly sixty years a quarter of a million people died with millions of displaced and human rights atrocities and all this took place with the support of the u.s. government which was supporting the colombian government so i think it's very important to be aware of what the u.s. his role has been terms of military coups in latin america and i think if we if we were i think there are lots of the leaders in europe and elsewhere and lots of the commentary in the media would be much more much more critical when it comes to reporting the regime change agenda that the u.s. government is committing in venezuela you know miguel in the reason i'm asking about force because one has to wonder what role elliott abrams of iran contra fame

and called by many a war criminal is now in charge of the trumpet ministrations policy regarding venezuela he doesn't strike me as a person that would hold back from using force and plus we have on top of that we had the legal pad gate with mr bolton with saying five thousand troops to colombia which of course he wanted the media to see miguel in claremont go ahead obviously i mean i think that elliot abrams is not only has a legacy in terms of the death squads in el salvador and human rights violations in abuses but i think the other thing is what we saw with bolton which is psychological ops that is that the threat the threat of the intervention the threat of a military presence and not just from the u.s. but from. who has been very bellicose on indicating that he was to see regime change in minnesota i mean in colombia the worst case scenario is some sort of border dispute erupts. or is fabricated as we've seen in every build up to an

intervention in the case of iraq weapons of mass destruction in the case of the vietnam war the gulf of tonkin and in the case of the dominican republic the deaths of supposedly thousands of citizens what i worry about is that what i worry about is that as they unleash a strategy that is essentially intended to create fissures in the military and look for ruptures and try to instigate so one faction of the military to attack the other that becomes the basis of potential intervention the social fabric in venezuela has been torn it's very fragile sense of a social fabric so it's very dangerous to play with that scenario ok paul i mean how unified is the military here because of course we had c.n.n. trotting out. a defector or someone that would start working with this illegitimate self-proclaimed interim president here i mean even even the commentary and even in the mainstream media there egging this on how unified is the military in backing

the legitimate government not this government that is trying to come to power with the backing of washington and its allies go ahead. as with any e-mail address i think across the world to some extent in the black box very difficult to know exactly what is going on within the military and how it is worth pointing out that all of the public information which the military has admitted in the last week or say how's that yesterday they are entirely unified behind the constitutional president nicholas miller we've seen statements released not just from the high military command and it generals but also from each on the armed forces and from the middle ranking officials and also action from the base so because we could reinforce this and last week the some opposition activists who are supporting this time it took a proposed amnesty law to the rank and file soldiers of the police officers on their own posts and on you you can see many of these soldiers and setting fire to this law. in front of these activists which sends

a very clear message to you then i think and it's also worth pointing out that the management and i'm forces famous for having a dramatic spirit something which was which will soon after the two thousand and two military rebellion which cause a coup d'etat this is still very fresh in the minds of most of the sandwiches and their very popular take and very ideology behind the vote of our project ok poet let me go back to you in london to me one of the in the toolbox of. john bolton is to use energy as a weapon meaning denying exports and whatever exports it through are frightening in the united states would go to this. individual or supreme power at the behest of washington how effective is could that possibly be and would it put the legitimate government in venezuela at its knees i mean it needs it relies upon these export revenues go ahead in london. well look the strategy that was used in

chile to get rid of again the for example in the seventy's remember richard nixon said that they had to make the chilean economy scream and so when we talk about the crisis in venezuela which is very real it's incredible the the relative absence of a debate around the sanctions that have been in place and what this means. one report put the cost to the venezuelan economy at six billion since two thousand and seventeen and now with the with the new moves to essentially steal the venezuelan oil assets in the u.s. also in the u.k. we've had the bank of england effectively say they won't be given the venezuelan government one point two billion pounds worth of gold that it has a these these are all intended to heighten the crisis and to make the economy scream in the hope that also promotes the social discontent that will lead to the regime change agenda so what we've seen now is simply an escalation

a month escalation of a longstanding policy of regime change where making the economy scream is a fundamental pillar. i don't pull this off i mean what kind of backing that is he have i mean before all this started before he swore him self in one in five minutes wayland's even knew who he was and that changed since he took that he like napoleon he put in the crown on his own head here has that change what is his position to be the people in public opinion i always say the very beginning when white those who are himself in it was really a coup we did the right as well in many ways bottled up a lot of very small party that only has a handful of delegates in the national assembly it was catapulting above all other parties and white all declaring himself president some ways was also usurping that position within the right they are there not oh there are no united they're all united in wanting to oust model but they're not united in terms of what comes next or who should be the leader of the country. so in this sense i think though is

playing a very precipitous game as well in terms of positioning himself in terms of trying to utilize but i think we need to look at long term i think what we're looking at is the potential of that making that economy scream means that that will eventually exacerbate conditions in the country that that will exacerbate when food is not available more there's already scarcity there's already shortages there's already long lines so to exacerbate that that's the strategy it seems and if you go and his group begin to receive funding from abroad and can present an alternative pole that will further exacerbate the contradictions they're talking about bringing ships they're talking about rain end quote unquote humanitarian aid so again that's the context in which way though is maneuvering and it's a very it's a very dangerous area as a very difficult area but what he seeks to do is to find cracks again within the lower ranks of the military whose families are also suffering whose families are not receiving the products and goods that they would like so again that's part of

the contradiction you know paul revere would you reflect on that because i mean the opposition it's well known in venezuela that they actually support sanctions against bin is way to the worse the better ok i mean how can how how can people like that be trusted or is it desperation that will trump at the end of the day go ahead paul i think it may get pointed out it is dangerous to talk about the opposition as a unified block we contract sent to them with the same policy. and in general there are elements of the opposition which operating sanctions yes they're currently in washington they're in madrid they're in brussels calling on the international powers to in fact worsen the economic situation in venezuela we kids abscess not but they're all sentiments within the opposition who put the sanctions who want to play by the rules who are democrats who are out in the community to political will have to try and win a to support this and these are the sort of managements we saw dissipating in last

may presidents. elections the problem means as me get a point and that either elements do not have the backing of the white house and a surge and happy push to a second level behind that if you lead by one where you know. in london i mean the mature a government has. reached out force for dialogue and it's being repeatedly rejected and it seems to me that the european union and its recent actions are are very misguided instead of pushing for some kind of dialogue to avoid the kind of violence that you have suggested could happen it's real it's really misdirected from abroad that it seems to me that they're also culpable in making the situation worse last thirty seconds before we go to the break go ahead powell in london. absolutely the european union have filed a very important test and i think we now need to look at the more measured heads in the situation of people like them and governments of mexico the governments of europe why they have just called for an international conference on thursday the

seventh of february in order to find the resolution and to restart peace talks within dialogue between both groups that have been taking place which is not reported on which contributes to people's misunderstanding of what's taking place today well certainly western media is doing its best to miss present what's going on in venezuela gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on venezuela's state with. u.s. veterans who come back from war often tell the same stories. we're going after the people who were killing civilians they were not interested in the wellbeing of their own soldiers either they're already several generations of them so i just got

this memo from the star great event that says we're going to attack and destroy the government and seven countries in five years americans pay for the wars with them money on those with their lives if we were willing to go into harm's way and willing to risk being killed for a war. surely we can risk some just come for more easiness for. max keiser one more of my guide to financial survival this is on a device used by professional galley lags to earn money. that's right these as far as are simply not accountable and we're just going to move them. totally destabilize the global economy you need to protect yourself and get in for kaiser. i've been saying the numbers mean they matter us is over one trillion dollars and.

more than ten dollars i'm tempted. eighty five percent of global well you want to be rich eight point six percent market so thirty percent your home with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and point rose to twenty thousand dollars. china is building a two point one billion dollar a. but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need to remember one one you know to miss the one and only. welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to

remind you we're discussing venezuela. ok let me go back to miguel and claremont i listen to mike pompei always a speech at the united nations security council and i i was just. aghast that he's pushing the democracy card as usual ok when it is anything but about democracy but from a venezuelan perspective we've talked about the misery that's going on in venezuela because of the economic situation here but would you say that within venezuela there is a democracy deficit from you know people on the ground looking up go ahead. i think that there are multiple ways of interpreting that question i think that you have have had the empowerment of new sectors of the population who in the past have been excluded from the democratic process remember what brings us the power is the fact that you have a calcified political system

a pact of democracy essentially between two political parties the christian democrats and the social democrats who are excluded progressives sector is what excluded people from the lovato's and from the heels of that i guess and from other other areas and essentially govern the country in a way that favored the middle and upper classes so what you have administrator with the right will of which i was the election of which obviously is in many ways the opening up of that space and that creates a bifurcation that creates a clash because many in venice reddit were not used to that they were used to their privileges they were used to their position as a country merging supposedly into the modern era and they weren't used to hearing voices from below voices from the sides and i think what we've had a minister is that dramatic opening know what has happened since the death of chavez yes there has been some actions on the part of the government that i would consider authoritarian yes there has been some actions on the part of the government that i would not support in many ways i think there has to be

a greater opening a greater level participation and the way to accomplish that is through negotiations this is not going to be resolved militarily long term fabric has to be reconstructed imatest and people need to understand that they can be participate in this process you know the put their hands on very well put you know paul it is there it is one of the objectives of these right wing parties is to go back to the status quo before chavez meaning silencing these voices here and a side question. why do in his ilk are they are left to pull on a national scale like for example could big. collectively which they have not done in the past. back a presidential candidate. if there were to be elections meaning a lot of these oppositions around the world they're very vocal but they're not electable ok so is that a return to the past and are they electable that's why they actually want outside intervention because democracy that they can't seem to make the system more for

themselves go ahead paul in venezuela. well one way though i'm going to stop by pointing out something which western media has really even looked in all of its coverage of the situation in venezuela one way though a man who says that the electoral system fraudulent doesn't work the president actions were and there isn't a democracy in the country not such he has to be president this man was elected by the venezuelan people as a deputy of the national assembly some years ago by the same electoral system which was used last may with the same automated voting machines which have used the last may with the same electoral authority the same international observers and everything which makes up the electoral system in venezuela he was elected he was declared free in a fairly he took a vote and when he won of course those are three in a fair election according to him but when he lost or when his people lost his party's. you know this is

a contradiction and we show you the real hypocrisy of these sorts of people and whether the opposition will actually be electable in the national scale i think what i can say is that they will certainly get that big chunk of the event whether they will pass a fifty percent or not i don't know and i think i'm aimin to the current demographics in venezuela we have a certain significant percentage of their voters who have emigrated outside of the country and not registered to vote and i think it would be difficult for them to win the presidential election in venezuela even if they were unified and of course venezuelans have emigrated that right to it but they have to register a most of them have not registered to vote and this is a sort of frustration. the consistent leading of these sort of national elections and we're going to lead people like one way only and put a lot of it in others to see ultra right measures extralegal measure this week you know we seem to end manifested today in i think maybe an illegal unconstitutional

coup d'etat oh in london i mean you know looking at the last presidential election voter turnout which were actually quite low and one of the reasons for that is that the opposition parties boycotted it so if we have the current president if he didn't win who did in that election. and i mean clearly one that's my point that's my point that when i was there what there were two opposition kind of the one the mother or the rest boycotted it and the funny stat is that you know venezuela is demonized it's democracy is vilified and a country like chile is put forward as a kind of near liberal democratic. in the chili and the last chilean election the turnout rate was pretty much the same as in the last one as well in the election when there was a boy caught by a large section of the opposition so it speaks to the to the type of the this speaks to the disenchantment that people in countries like chile which are put

forward and obviously we know that have been subject to u.s. military interventions which of brutalize their societies reprogram them from socialist orientate is societies to very individual capitalist near liberal societies yet in these countries people don't turn up don't want to turn out to vote even when there isn't any type of boycotting of elections people just kind of stats when talking about venezuela and i think you know paul mentioned the hypocrisy and there are a hypocrisy as abound when talking about venezuela when thousands of children died in colombia a couple of years ago the media didn't have week long programs discussing that and this isn't the government funded by the u.s. . you know by the u.s. government as well but yet that death of kids in colombia don't make the news but the very real crisis in venezuela seems to be in everyone's face twenty four hours a day and so we have to really ask ourselves what are the agendas on corporate and

western state funded media here you know it was kind of genetic oh my god i am go ahead paul go go go to hell go to tell tourist and then we go go ahead paul. yes very quickly i want to throw it to your attention of the view is that there might be beating this coup second this president donald trump the man who claims that the administrators it paid to ship that there is no democracy and so on and so on and so despite the fact that the new american international service look david in it he is in the clear that three and a donald trump was alleged to have less votes in his competitor so it's a good thing with with what more authority can he claim there is no democracy in venezuela when they lose a man in the united states is elected president well i mean if i can say it all if i could say to all three of you i mean. the rank hypocrisy of alleging russian metally very proudly and the mainstream media trumps along with him ok i mean that kind of hypocrisy is just you know it's a stinks to high heaven miguel you want to jump in go ahead ok the question of the

may twentieth elections last year because precisely because the opposition was going to boycott there was also a lot of number of individuals who have been part of the political process and venezuela who opted not to participate what it essentially that's called a what took a punishment vote not only was by the leader of the recipient of that childless again the recipient of that as well and we're also hearing from the opposition that if they come to power they will not be elections in thirty days as the constitution indicates but they are going to wait a year until all the people outside of the country can register until they get. the electoral roll. makes sure that the outcome i would assume is something that they're more favor with the large question's going to be if they topple model how will they fight among themselves to put forth a candidate or we're going to see each one trying to preserve their power base oh no each one of them let me go back to each one of them and going back to london here they'll all go to washington and they'll figure it out in washington maybe in

langley somewhere that's what they will do. where is this going because it seems to me that with this abrams appointment there is a real. for regime change here and it's also given the fact that in really the entire south america the continent of south america the absolute distaste of american military intervention this is a very nasty brew presented to us and like i've said i'm going to stay with this topic on my program here it's the poorest people of these countries that always suffer the most go ahead in london. absolutely i mean i think the us has shown that it has no interest in democracy in venezuela obviously not the reason why he wants regime change of venezuela i think the appointment of a abrams is extremely dangerous and completely meant to signal to the venezuelan society that they should expect to be brutalized by the u.s.

government and the one that looks into this guy's record shows he's involvement with criminality in what happened with the with and the cut i will with the contras in the salvador his role in the you know iraq he's these this is a signal to say that we will want regime change and we are prepared to be very brutal about bring in it and it reminds me of you know the quote by madeline albright about the price worth paying over half a million iraqi children i mean the u.s. basically is desperate for regime change and it is willing to sacrifice. tens if not hundreds of thousand people to achieve what something that it's been trying to get for for twenty twenty years now ok miguel getting us will suffer the most. give you the last word of forty seconds how it is well oiled play in all of this petroleum forty seconds go ahead oh it's always going in the background oil continue to be in the background i'm not convinced that in this particular moment given the blood of oil in the world markets that oil is the central concern i think

it's ideological in many ways i think it's a return of bolton abrams and the crew of their central america and he got out. iraq they want to remake america and we've seen this clearly with bolton speech about the troika of tyranny which the venezuelans first but then will come in and out well and then we'll come to you so that they want to be able to clearly establish their head gemini over the continent and they still to see this as unfinished business unfortunately may go i think you're absolutely right you know this is a this is like ideological possession it's the goal is a an ideology but the but in practice it has nothing to do with the well being of the people on the ground gentlemen that's all the time we have many thanks to my guests in london clermont and in venezuela and thanks to our viewers for watching us here in our d.c. you next time and remember crosstalk. the

united states and he's head of. news and it's a tax on other countries. economic sanctions or are often just the beginning another thing you like to do is place some military pressure on the countries a true talking about. and there has to be an effort to demonize that country and the leader of that country. we have a responsibility for the home. and we need to make rules for the rest.

because without us there will be. speaking a stale a country's oil you know just touch on this for a moment charlie i mean scotland does have a lot of oil and the whole thing was mightily confusing so the u.s. could consider invading britain right now during this breaks of turf awful and take control scottish oil i mean i'm all for that. but you're the stand. alone white house. right now a good i know there are a lot of trouble at the for the. profit off the for corporate america.

i'm going to let them but i'm going to cut him a new cut and kick. i have to lose a child for truffle. in the living. room. because it's whole full. pay i think the time in theory has a. zip up. from my last farthing will fuck around with mr hate for jim and then we were hoping that are fairly new. zealand.

i. i. pad launch this hour here when our two venezuela's self proclaimed interim leader of refuses to rule out a military intervention the crisis in the country intensifies putting get more pressure on the government of president nicolas maduro. french police are under scrutiny after over a hundred cases are open.