VENEZUELA

Hoy, como parte de la estrategia de “cambio de régimen” planeada, organizada, financiada y puesta en práctica por el gobierno de Donald Trump, para derrocar al Presidente Nicolás Maduro y poner en su lugar al títere Juan Guaidó, una parte (aún no se sabe que tan relevante) del Ejército, se pasó del lado de los golpistas, tratando de tomar la Base Aérea de La Carlota; liberando de su prisión domiciliaria a uno de los principales agentes golpistas de Estados Unidos, Leopoldo López (quien se escondió en la embajada española); y llevando a cabo deliberadamente atropellamientos de los manifestantes convocados por el espurio presidente Guaidó, con objeto de dar credibilidad a las acusaciones repetidas ad nauseam por la amarillista prensa y televisión estadounidense (y sus “minions” latinoamericanos y europeos) de que Maduro está "reprimiendo a su pueblo".

Ya el demente “halcón”, neoconservador y lacayo de Benjamín Netanyahu, John Bolton, asesor de Seguridad Nacional de Trump, señaló públicamente que habían hablado con el ministro de la Defensa Vladimir Padrino; con el presidente de la Suprema Corte, Mikel Moreno y con el jefe de la Guardia Presidencial, Rafael Hernández, quienes “confirmaron” que apoyarían al espurio Guaidó.

La realidad es que todo parece una trampa de Bolton y del secretario de Estado, Mike Pompeo, para generar confusión y desconfianza en el círculo cercano del Presidente Maduro, pues hasta la tarde-noche de este 30 de abril, los principales jefes de las fuerzas armadas públicamente habían dado su respaldo a Maduro.

Pero la realidad es que Maduro, desde la mañana, ya no ha salido a dar declaraciones en público, y una manifestación de apoyo que se organizaba en el Palacio de Miraflores, quedó en suspenso, o al menos los medios occidentales no la difundieron.

A su vez, por un lado Bolton, afirmando que los cubanos que asesoran a Maduro han impedido hasta ahora que las fuerzas armadas lo desconozcan y se pasen al bando del espurio Guaidó; y Pompeo, quien ha afirmado que Maduro ya estaba listo para dejar el país, pero los asesores rusos que están en Venezuela lo convencieron de no hacerlo; están tratando de generar más desinformación entre las fuerzas leales a Maduro y con ello darle más tiempo y margen de maniobra a los operativos de inteligencia estadounidenses que están en el terreno coordinando toda esta operación, a la que cínicamente han llamado “libertad” (sería de risa loca, si no fuera trágico para el pueblo venezolano), para movilizar a más personas que salgan a las calles a generar violencia y caos, que las televisoras occidentales puedan transmitir (como CNN), para que el resto de la población venezolana y la comunidad internacional se “convenzan” de que el gobierno de Maduro no tiene apoyo entre el pueblo.

Aún no se sabe hasta que punto Maduro mantiene el apoyo de las fuerzas armadas, las policías, el aparato burocrático, las bases del Partido Socialista Unificado de Venezuela y de los colectivos de apoyo a la revolución bolivariana.

El bloqueo económico de Occidente a Venezuela, las sanciones económicas, los sabotajes (a la infraestructura eléctrica del país, principalmente), los chantajes y los sobornos a miembros del aparato estatal y de los cuerpos de seguridad; las amenazas a los principales dirigentes de las fuerzas armadas y de las policías, en caso de no aceptar los sobornos (plata o plomo), incluso contra sus familias; y la incesante propaganda contra el gobierno venezolano y quienes los apoyan (que son “terroristas, narcotraficantes, corruptos, usurpadores, tiranos, violadores de los derechos humanos”, etc.), han ido minando y desestructurando al gobierno, su partido y las bases sociales de apoyo en las que se asienta, lo que ha abierto grietas por donde se han infiltrado los golpistas y saboteadores, que cuentan con cientos de millones de dólares provenientes de los Estados Unidos para lograr su objetivo de derrocar a Maduro y volver a poner a Venezuela y sus enormes reservas de petróleo, oro y otros minerales, al servicio de las trasnacionales estadounidenses y del Pentágono.

El inicio de un bloqueo completo a las ventas de petróleo venezolano, principal fuente de ingresos del gobierno, seguramente golpeó duramente al núcleo duro de apoyo a Maduro, tanto entre los civiles, como entre los militares.

La única forma de aguantar ese bloqueo era con el apoyo de otras superpotencias que pudieran comprar el crudo venezolano. Y esas potencias sólo podían ser Rusia y China, quienes de alguna manera han intentado apoyar a Maduro, pero que definitivamente no desean enfrentarse a Estados Unidos en la que se considera su “zona de influencia”, en donde lleva la ventaja geográfica, en donde cuenta con apoyos políticos y diplomáticos (casi toda Latinoamérica es vasalla de Washington, a excepción de Cuba, Bolivia y Nicaragua), y en donde los estadounidenses están dispuestos a utilizar la fuerza militar para hacer valer su poder.

Ante estas dos realidades, la falta de recursos económicos para seguir pagando a las fuerzas armadas, las policías y al aparato burocrático; y la imposibilidad de que Rusia y China pudieran jugar el papel que la URSS jugó en su momento apoyando y manteniendo a la revolución en Cuba, es que varios miembros del equipo de Maduro estén pensando o ya lo hayan hecho, rendirse ante los estadounidenses y pedirles una salida (a Cuba, Rusia o China), para no ser procesados y enviados a la cárcel, o aún asesinados (hay que recordar lo que le pasó a Gaddaffi en Libia).

Se ve cuesta arriba que el gobierno de Putin quiera o pueda disponer de ingentes recursos económicos y militares para mantener a Maduro en el poder, ya que la distancia geográfica, la evidente ventaja estadounidense sobre los rusos en este hemisferio y la incertidumbre sobre cuánto tiempo tendría que durar este apoyo, que quizás no sería secundado por el gobierno chino, son factores demasiado relevantes como para buscar otra salida a la crisis, que al menos pueda limitar el margen de maniobra de los estadounidenses.

En ese sentido, es posible que Moscú podría buscar una negociación entre los representantes de la revolución bolivariana y la oposición golpista, creando un frente internacional (con China, Cuba, Bolivia, Turquía, Irán, Nicaragua), para que la transición sea pacífica; que Maduro y su entorno puedan salir de manera segura del país a Cuba o Rusia; que no se lleven a cabo represalias militares, jurídicas y económicas contra los funcionarios de gobierno y simpatizantes de la revolución bolivariana; que se garantice el pago de las deudas a todos los acreedores (Rusia y China entre ellos); que se conforme un gobierno paritario de miembros de las fuerzas armadas, de la oposición, pero no de aquélla más identificada con Washington y de personalidades de la sociedad que no se hayan comprometido con alguno de los dos bandos; y un comité internacional encargado de coordinar y entregar junto con el gobierno de transición, la ayuda internacional. Después se vería la forma de organizar unas elecciones en las que los simpatizantes chavistas tuvieran la oportunidad de competir sin restricciones, ni limitantes.

Es decir, si en las próximas horas, días o semanas, es más costoso mantener a Maduro, que crear una alternativa que no le dé el completo triunfo y manejo de Venezuela a Washington, habría que irla conformando y negociando desde ya.

Ahora bien, si Maduro se logra mantener en el poder después de este intento, es seguro que los dementes neoconservadores de Washington intenten un magnicidio o incluso la intervención militar abierta, a través de algún ataque focalizado a los centros de mando del gobierno venezolano y a sus principales jefes.

De ahí que si lo que se busca por parte de los representantes de la revolución bolivariana y sus simpatizantes, así como de sus aliados en el ámbito internacional, es su sobrevivencia, habrá que poner la inteligencia, los recursos, la planeación, la organización y la audacia necesarios para lograrlo, de lo contrario los dementes de Washington dirán que triunfaron en su operación de “cambio de régimen” y eso los envalentonara para intervenir abiertamente en Bolivia, Cuba y Nicaragua, barriendo así los últimos ejemplos de lucha por la independencia, la soberanía y la integridad territorial en nuestra América.

U.S. Peace Council Statement 

Urgent Action is Needed to Defeat the Destructive 2020 Military Budget in Congress!

April 29, 2019

President Trump has submitted a 2020 budget targeting $750 billion, a staggering 69% of the budget Congress votes on, to wage even more wars and profit the Military Industrial Complex. He pays for it by stealing funds from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and gutting public services like food stamps, clean air, and water, education and much more. Join with the Peace Council to build massive opposition to defeat and reverse this cruel and devastating budget.

On March 11, President Trump submitted his $750 billion FY 2020 military budget to the Congress. According to the Wall Street Journal, his proposed military budget includes “adding $33 billion to fund efforts against China and Russia ... North Korea and Iran,” and expand the so-called US war on terror “in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other nations.” According to the Journal, the Pentagon’s proposed 2020 budget, which shows “a 5% increase” over 2019 budget, “includes $165 billion for overseas military operations.”[1]

The $750 billion number, however, is absolutely misleading. This number does not include other war and military-related expenses that are listed under other government agencies’ budgets. The actual FY2020 military budget includes the following items: $576 billion baseline budget for the Department of Defense; an additional $174 billion for the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), i.e., the war budget; $93.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs; $51.7 billion for Homeland Security; $42.8 billion for State Department; an additional $26.1 billion for State Department’s Overseas Contingency Operations (regime change slush fund); $16.5 billion for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (nuclear weapons budget); $21 billion for NASA (militarizing outer space?); plus $267.4 billion for all other government agencies, including funding for FBI and Cybersecurity in the Department of Justice. The FY2020 Discretionary Budget also includes $8.6 billion in funding for the southern border wall, split between increased funding for the Department of Homeland Security and funding for military construction.[2]

In fact, the proposed FY2020 military and war budget makes up $989 billion of the Federal Government’s $1,426 billion Discretionary Budget.[3] This represents a staggering 69 percent of the total Federal Discretionary Budget for FY2020![4]

Since 2015, the total US military and war budget has jumped from $736.4 billion to $989.0 billion, a $252.6 billion (about 35%) increase in five years! And since 2001, the government has spent $2.4 trillion (more than 10% of United States’ annual GDP) on the so-called “War on Terror!” As a result of this astronomical military expenditure, which has consistently increased in the past several decades, the Federal Government’s total national debt currently stands at $22.028 trillion (105% of the current GDP and more than three times that of 2000); and the amount of interest the government will be paying on this debt is $479 billion for the fiscal year 2020 alone.[5]

As mind-boggling as these numbers are, their true destructive impact will not be clear unless we look at the simultaneous cuts in the government’s non-military spending. In Trump’s FY2020 proposed Discretionary Budget, the total funds allocated to the Departments of Education ($64 billion), Health and Human Services ($89.6 billion) and Housing and Urban Development ($37.6 billion) together add up to a mere $191.2 billion, i.e., less than 13 percent of the total Discretionary Budget, less than 20 percent of the total military budget, and less than 40 percent of the interest being paid on the $22 trillion debt accumulated as a result of excessive military expenditure through the decades. Trump’s FY2020 budget, while increasing the military budget by $33 billion, openly proposes direct cuts in spending on all social needs — Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, food stamps, clean air and water, education, and much more. Here are some of the biggest proposed budget cuts:[6]

• $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years, implementing work requirements as well as eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds $1.2 trillion for a “Market Based Health Care Grant”— block grant to states, instead of paying by need. It’s not clear whether that would be part of Medicaid.
• An $845 billion cuts to Medicare over 10 years, about a 10 percent cut...
• $25 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years, including cuts to disability insurance.
• A $220 billion cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps, over 10 years, including mandatory work requirements. The program currently serves around 45 million people.
• A $21 billion cuts to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, an already severely underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation’s poorest.
• $207 billion in cuts to the student loan program, eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized student loans...
• Overall, there is a 9 percent cut to non-defense programs, which would hit Section 8 housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, among others. 

An important feature of the Trump administration’s proposed military budgets have been the consistent reduction in the share of Pentagon’s normal operating budget and a drastic increase in the share of its Overseas Contingency Operations (war) budget. The US is currently involved in at least 14 ongoing wars and the Trump administration is pushing for new ones with Iran and Venezuela, while Cuba, Nicaragua, and others are on their waiting list. The increase in the OCO portion of the military budget is also aimed at accelerating the building of a vast arsenal of weapons, including new nuclear weapons, and expanding military bases in foreign countries on nearly every continent as launching pads for new aggressive wars against other countries.

There is no doubt that this huge redirection of social funds toward military and war expenditure is a result of the increasingly belligerent and militaristic US foreign policy, which is being carried out under the guise of the so-called “War on Drugs,” “War on Terror,” and “Humanitarian Intervention” — all covers for the US imperialism’s violent drive to dominate the world.

To stop this belligerent and militaristic foreign policy, which is pushing the whole of humanity toward an irreversible catastrophe, the source of its funding must be urgently cut off. We must stop the runaway United States war budget if we want to safeguard the survival of humanity.

Where is the Congress?
Where are the Presidential Candidates?
Where is the National Debate on the Military Budget and the War Policy?

One would expect that the gravity of the present situation — 14 ongoing wars, allocation of 69 percent of the social resources to war and destruction, drastic cuts on social services, thus causing tremendous suffering for the majority of American people, especially the most vulnerable social groups: the aged, poor, low-income working families, communities of color, immigrants, unemployed, etc., etc.) — would bring the issue of the military budget and the war policy to the top of the national agenda in this election cycle. But, ironically, there is almost a total silence about all of this both in the Congress and among the presidential candidates of both establishment parties.

Rather than totally rejecting the obscene funding of this militaristic drive, the “opposition” Democratic Party in Congress is once again compromising on the lives of the people of the United States in exchange for some crumbs thrown at them by the Trump Administration. But we cannot provide for the desperate needs of civil society as long as the treasure of our people is poured into weapons and war.

It is long overdue that the American people raise their voices and take to action against the economic and militaristic crimes that are being committed against them, and the rest of the world, by both ruling parties.

We call on the American public to resist and oppose this military attack on our communities, our livelihoods, and our lives. We must act urgently to force Congress to reject and reverse the Trump Administration’s military budget and the US Government’s militaristic foreign policy. We must act decisively now!

— Demand that your Representative and Senator vote against the military budget and the militaristic US foreign policy. Take a delegation to their offices.
— Demand that the issue of war and peace and the military budget be included in every presidential debate.
— Educate and organize members of your community against the US war policy.
— Sign the U.S. Peace Council Petition against the military budget and ask all your friends and acquaintances to do the same.

Urgent action is needed to stop this runaway war machine!

___________________

[1] Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2019.
[2] Kimberly Amadeo, The Balance, https://www.thebalance.com/current-us-discretionary-federal-budget-and-spending-3306308, updated March 13, 2019.
[3] Federal Government’s Discretionary Budget includes all Federal Budget categories except Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which is under Mandatory part of the Federal Budget. 
[4] Kimberly Amadeo, op. cit. 
[5] op. cit., https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-budget-deficit-3305783 
[6] Tara Golshan, Vox, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/11/18259789/trumps-2020-budget-proposal-cuts, March 11, 2019.

LA POLÍTICA DEL PODER Y EL MUNDO MULTIPOLAR

Estamos viviendo una etapa de la historia mundial en la que la potencia hegemónica durante el último siglo está experimentando cada vez más límites a su poder, y ello está generando una respuesta agresiva de su parte, para mantener su dominio sobre la mayor parte de la sociedad internacional.

Hablamos de sociedad internacional, retomando la definición de Georg Schwarzenberger:

“La sociedad es el medio para un fin, mientras que la comunidad es un fin en sí. La sociedad se basa en el interés y el miedo, mientras que la comunidad requiere autosacrificio y amor. La una se funda en la desconfianza, mientras que la otra presupone la confianza mutua. En las palabras de Toennies, los miembros de una sociedad permanecen aislados a pesar de su asociación. Los miembros de una comunidad están unidos a pesar de su existencia individual”[1].

Claramente, el mundo intentó infructuosamente, después de las dos guerras mundiales del siglo XX, dirigirse hacia una “comunidad internacional”, principalmente mediante la creación de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), pero dicho esfuerzo, si es que en algún momento fue sincero, ha fracasado rotundamente, en especial después de la desaparición de la Unión Soviética en 1991, y el surgimiento de la “unipolaridad” estadounidense.

Esa unipolaridad se orientó al dominio político, económico y militar del planeta, y no a crear una comunidad internacional, en el sentido apuntado antes.

De ahí que el surgimiento de una potencia económica como China, que no dedicó la mayor parte de su potencial al gasto militar, ni a la guerra, le permitió colocarse como un serio competidor del liderazgo económico estadounidense, que ha visto como en los últimos 20 años, su hegemonía en ese campo se ha erosionado; mientras en el rubro estratégico, Rusia ha recuperado su status de superpotencia, con una creciente presencia política en el ámbito internacional.

Estos retos a la unipolaridad estadounidense son considerados como riesgos de una posible nueva guerra, pues como lo señaló Paul Kennedy, estudioso del “auge y caída de las grandes potencias”:

“Si la existencia de potencias en ‘auge’ y en ‘decadencia’ en un orden mundial anárquico debe conducir siempre a la guerra, es algo que no puede asegurarse con certeza…Los que presumen que la Humanidad no sería tan estúpida como para enzarzarse en otra guerra ruinosamente cara entre grandes potencias, tal vez deberían recordar que esta creencia fue también ampliamente sostenida durante gran parte del siglo XIX...”[2]

Así como en los últimos 500 años, nuevamente estamos ante una competencia de grandes potencias por la hegemonía mundial, que no puede descartarse que derive en una guerra generalizada, con el riesgo adicional de que ahora las potencias involucradas cuentan con arsenales nucleares que terminarían con la vida en el planeta.

Se supone que esa conciencia del poder de destrucción con que cuentan las lleva a limitar sus decisiones respecto al uso de estas armas, pero ello no elimina la posibilidad de cálculos erróneos, decisiones precipitadas o el ascenso al liderazgo de dichas potencias de dirigentes imprevisibles y sin escrúpulos que puedan provocar el cataclismo nuclear.

En la última década la lucha por el poder mundial entre la coalición que encabeza Estados Unidos y el creciente poder económico de China  y la presencia estratégica de Rusia se ha expresado en una guerra “híbrida”, mediante la cual ambos bandos han estado utilizando todas sus capacidades económicas, políticas y de manera focalizada, militares (en teatros de guerra en los que no se enfrentan directamente, como Siria, Ucrania, él Mar del Sur de China y últimamente Venezuela) para limitar el poder del contrario y eventualmente “vencerlo”, sin tener que llegar a una guerra abierta.

En este contexto el que potencias medianas o menores deseen o intenten “elevar a la sociedad internacional al nivel de comunidad cuenta poco si las potencias mundiales no pueden o no quieren cambiar su enfoque en las relaciones internacionales”.[3]

Estados Unidos encabezó el esfuerzo de institucionalizar la sociedad internacional que surgió de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, con una serie de organismos multilaterales que tenían dos objetivos primordiales: evitar una nueva guerra entre grandes potencias que devastaría al mundo; y, asegurar el predominio de las potencias vencedoras de la guerra, pero especialmente, de los Estados Unidos.

Pero la competencia entre dos grandes potencias con sistemas económicos y políticos contrapuestos, como la URSS y Estados Unidos, mantuvieron al mundo ante el inminente peligro de una Tercera Guerra Mundial, a lo largo de toda la así llamada “Guerra Fría”; y si bien Estados Unidos se mantuvo como la primera potencia mundial, el reto soviético permanente, mantuvo en vilo dicho liderazgo hasta la desaparición de la Unión Soviética (por “implosión” económica, social y política),  a principios de los años noventa del siglo pasado.

Pero ahora, ante la creciente disminución de su ventaja económica respecto a sus competidores (China principalmente, pero también la Unión Europea, Japón y la India), y la reafirmación de la presencia estratégica rusa en varias regiones del planeta, una parte de la élite dirigente de Estados Unidos, ha decidido comenzar a desbaratar esa institucionalidad internacional que habían promovido como manera de asegurar su hegemonía, pues ahora advierten que dicha institucionalidad les restringe su margen de maniobra para enfrentar el reto a su dominio por parte de chinos y rusos, principalmente,.

Así, el gobierno de Donald Trump se ha retirado de tratados (el de cambio climático; el de restricción nuclear a Irán; el de armas nucleares intermedias, y el de comercio de armas) y organismos (UNESCO, Derechos Humanos de la ONU), o ha amenazado hacerlo (NAFTA, OTAN, Organización Mundial de Comercio), con objeto de obligar al resto del mundo a aceptar su hegemonía, sin la existencia de ningún contrapeso o restricción que la limite.

Esto es prueba de que la superpotencia advierte una disminución real de su capacidad de dictar el curso de la economía, la política y los asuntos estratégicos internacionales, pues por un lado, las propias reglas y organizaciones internacionales que se conformaron para evitar que nuevas potencias pudieran poner en peligro el liderazgo estadounidense, ahora se convierten en lastres que no le permiten a Estados Unidos utilizar toda la gama de su poder para enfrentar a potencias que en ese mismo contexto, han logrado equiparársele en materia económica y en alguna medida, en el ámbito militar.

Por otro lado, Estados Unidos intenta reconfigurar la sociedad internacional de forma tal que no sea la diplomacia, los organismos internacionales y los flujos normales de comercio, inversión y migración, así como los avances científicos y tecnológicos los que definan a los ganadores y perdedores en dicha sociedad, sino el poder puro y duro de la potencia que tenga más medios para imponer su voluntad, que para todo efecto práctico en esta época sigue siendo Estados Unidos.

El gran riesgo que esto implica es que si las potencias emergentes o retadoras, en este caso primordialmente China y Rusia, no están dispuestas a someterse a la voluntad estadounidense, entonces la apuesta puede ir creciendo para obligarlas a ello, hasta llegar al punto de que la guerra sea el último recurso, y cuando se quiera revertir la situación, por cualquiera de las potencias involucradas, ya sea demasiado tarde.

---

[1] Schwarzenberger, Georg; La Política del Poder; México; Fondo de Cultura Económica; 1960; 1ª. Ed.; traducción de Julieta Campos y Enrique González Pedrero; p. 11.

[2] Kennedy, Paul; Auge y Caída de las Grandes Potencias; México; Plaza y Janés; 1998; 4ª. Ed; trad. J. Ferrer Alen; p. 834.

[3] Schwarzenberger, Ibidem. P. 15

US oil embargo will see Venezuela turn to China, Russia for salvation

Esteban ROJAS, Alexander MARTINEZ

,

AFP• April 27, 2019

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-oil-embargo-see-venezuela-turn-china-russia-142324004.html

Caracas (AFP) - The US oil embargo on Venezuela that comes into effect on Sunday will deepen the South American country's economic crisis without necessarily forcing President Nicolas Maduro from power and force Caracas to turn to China and Russia for salvation.

Until now, US sanctions directly targeted the upper echelons of Maduro's regime in the hope of weakening his grip on power in favor of a transition to opposition leader Juan Guaido, who in January declared himself acting president. Then, Washington led more than 50 countries in endorsing his claim.

But these new sanctions will bite hard in a country that has suffered five years of recession marked by shortages of basic necessities such as food and medicines.

Venezuela is almost entirely reliant on oil revenue, with 96 percent of its income from crude and the US its single largest customer.

Michael Shifter from Inter-American Dialogue says "there is certainly no guarantee that the petroleum embargo will result at the end of Maduro's rule."

But he added: "It may contribute to the desperation that fuels street protests and that ultimately leads to the regime's collapse."

Caracas is exporting 500,000 barrels a day to US companies, which accounted for three-quarters of its liquidity by the end of 2018.

The new sanctions not only ban US companies from buying Venezuelan crude but also all foreign entities from using the American banking system to purchase the black gold from Caracas.

It means China and Russia may have to be Venezuela's "lifesavers," specialist Luis Oliveros told AFP.

- Oil production to fall? -

US-based consultancy Rapidan Energy Group says Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA's production could temporarily fall by 200,000 barrels a day.

That would be a grave loss in production that has already crashed from a high of 3.2 million in 2008 to just 840,000 in March.

"It will get even harder" for the government to keep supplying heavily discounted fuel to its people, says Gorka Lalaguna, from consultants Ecoanalitica, which could lead to rising discontent.

In a bid to circumvent the sanctions, Caracas has turned to Chinese and Russian companies to act as intermediaries.

"It's using (Russians) Rosneft and other companies to place its crude," said Oliveros. Rosneft denies the claims.

Venezuela had its eyes on India to try to make up its shortfall.

After the US measure was announced in January, PDVSA president Manuel Quevedo traveled to India with the goal of doubling the 300,000 barrels a day Venezuela sells to companies such as Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy, which is part-owned by Rosneft.

India has emerged as the "largest cash flow generating market" for Venezuela, according to the Washington-based Wilson Center.

Indian companies bought 22 percent of Venezuela's crude in 2017, behind only US (41 percent) and Chinese (25 percent) firms, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

However, Reliance told AFP last week it was reducing its imports of Venezuelan crude and suspending the export of diluents -- which Caracas needs to refine its oil -- due to the new sanctions.

India backing off leaves China and Russia as Venezuela's main customers.

But crude supplies to those two countries are mostly to pay off loans amounting to a fifth of Venezuela's $150 billion in foreign debt. It won't bring in desperately needed liquidity.

- 'Share of the blame' -

Maduro has hung onto power thanks to the armed forces, one of the main beneficiaries from PDVSA's revenue.

If the purse strings tighten, Maduro's government "will use what resources it has come in to prioritize the military," says David Smilde, the Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America.

While the latest sanctions will crank up the pressure on Maduro, Shifter says Guaido will not be immune to criticism.

"Guaido runs a big risk if the embargo fails to bring down the government and only exacerbates a profound humanitarian crisis. As interim president, he could well get a share of the blame."

But Hakim says the added pressure could turn the military against Maduro -- something Guaido has failed to achieve -- although that won't necessarily benefit the opposition leader.

He says the economic collapse itself may not force out the socialist president but rather lead "to  military action to replace Maduro -- perhaps with a military leader."

In any case, Hakim says, history shows that US sanctions rarely work.

"Maduro may just end up with the staying power of the Kims of North Korea, (Bashar al-) Assad in Syria or the Iranian supreme power."

Trump has the Jewish establishment at each other’s throats (and that’s a good thing)

US Politics

Philip Weiss on April 19, 2019

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/04/establishment-anothers-throats/

Donald Trump is the most disruptive president in anyone’s memory, and that disruption has brought shockwaves to the culture. (Would #MeToo have happened if we had gotten the first woman president, rather than a Groper In Chief? I don’t think so.)

Trump has also disrupted the Jewish community, in a very good way indeed. His extreme pro-Israel policies have fostered a widening split among Israel-lovers. Rightwing Zionists love what Trump is doing. Centrist Zionists who worry that Israel is going off the rails are disturbed by Trump’s actions.

The two groups are now at one another’s throats.

This week each faction sent a letter to the president. The one from a group of centrist/liberal Zionists, including the ADL, implored the president not to approve Netanyahu’s plan to annex West Bank settlements. The other, from conservative Jewish groups, asked Trump to support annexation of the West Bank!

The centrists clearly reflect the Democratic Party leadership. But the rightwing Zionists still hold the advantage inside the American Jewish community for a simple reason: It has long been a principle of the Israel lobby never to allow daylight between the Israeli government and the American government. So the rightwingers were swift to attack the centrists’ letter for apostasy. Ron Kampeas:

The letter is unusual, if not unprecedented, in mainstream Jewish groups pleading with a U.S. president to take steps to restrain an Israeli prime minister.

Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which signed the pro-annexation letter, seeks to enforce the traditional line, We don’t send our kids to the army there so we need to support everything Israel does:

I’m sure this will get a lot of hate @ me. Amer Jewish orgs should not tell the democratically elected govt of Israel what to do. They’re a sovereign govt, not a satellite chapter of their group. Just in the same way Israeli orgs shouldn’t tell the US govt what to do.

Jonathan Tobin also savaged the letter as a betrayal of the “Jewish nation.”

American groups and denominations that wasted no time in not merely denouncing a newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but called for the U.S. government to override the will of the Israeli people should reflect on the damage they are doing to the Jewish nation.

And look at the anguish these attacks produce in one of the signatories of the letter, Michael Koplow of Israel Policy Forum. He is extremely defensive:

The letter did not demand that Trump take any action. It did not ask him to sanction Israel. It did not ask him to threaten or pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu. And it was a letter from Americans addressed to our elected president, not a letter from Americans to the Israeli government or Israeli officials.

Koplow wishes to maintain the Zionist consensus that has dominated Jewish communal life for 50 years now: To be Jewish means to support Israel. That consensus was often enforced by totalitarian proscriptions. You can argue privately but the one thing you must not do is differ publicly over Israel. Because we are such a small community, if we divide, then it will give American politicians permission to debate Israel. And all our efforts must be bent to make sure that supporting Israel is an article of faith for Americans. No debate! So two Jewish organizations that led the opposition to settlements — Ameinu and Peace Now — stayed on the board of the Conference of Presidents even as the Conference was supporting settlements, because– Jews must not divide publicly.

Then came the disrupter-in chief: moving the Embassy, trashing the Iran Deal and UNRWA, and giving campaign gifts to Netanyahu –the Golan Heights — so that Netanyahu could win reelection.

Trump has done everything that his biggest donor, Netanyahu-supporter Sheldon Adelson, would want him to; and that has divided the Jewish community.

Liberal-centrist Zionists are seeing the death of the two-state solution in the Trump/Netanyahu actions, and they’re so panicked that they’re actually taking on the rightwing Zionists publicly.

Leave aside the horrible consequences of Trump’s policies for Palestinians (thousands maimed and 260 killed in nonviolent protests in Gaza stemming from his Jerusalem move). Or for the world (the Iran deal was a tremendous step forward in lowering the temperature of the Middle East). Trump’s extremism on Israel has a, forced American Zionists to choose sides at last, and b, exposed the inherent extremism of Israeli policies.

The result is something that Zionists have long warned us about and that we anti-Zionists have been praying for: an end to the era of Zionism as Judaism, an end to the era of slavish American Jewish establishment devotion to Israel.

As Koplow points out, the mainline Zionist community went hook line and sinker with Netanyahu against the U.S. president when it was Obama’s Iran deal:

It should not escape notice that when an Israeli prime minister came to Washington to publicly and directly lobby against U.S. foreign policy set by a president who had been elected twice by a majority of Americans, that was not viewed by the people who howled the loudest this week as trashing the verdict of American democracy…

So the apparent lesson to be learned is that in hindsight it is perfectly fine for Americans to weigh in with their elected leader on a matter of American foreign policy so long as it only supports whatever Israeli action ….

(Cue Ilhan Omar on allegiance.)

Koplow fears that the Jewish community is going to be divided permanently by “communal boundary markers,” and this looks like an existential question to him.

First, if we allow the Jewish community to be defined by anyone other than the Jewish community, we are setting ourselves up for a tragic and irreversible schism whose trajectory will be controlled by others. Second, the Jewish community’s strength is reflected in the fact that it is not just another interest group defined by politics alone, but that it represents something larger and loftier.

Liberal Zionists should be in crisis. What is “larger and loftier” than bearing witness against persecution? The young Jews of IfNotNow would lump IPF and ADL and the other signatories of that letter against annexation as enablers of occupation inasmuch as they have done nothing to actually put pressure on Israeli occupation for more than 50 years. Even now Koplow protests that we don’t want to threaten or pressure the Israeli government, or God knows, take any meaningful action to get it to change.

And meantime Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is reflecting the progressive base, a good portion of which is young Jews, when she says the U.S. ought to condition aid to Israel in order to put pressure on the occupation and on child detention practices. That’s simple diplomacy, the diplomacy that centrist and liberal Zionists have avoided for half a century.

Koplow says the order threatened here is the order established by the Jewish community itself when it created the Conference of Presidents in order to engage in politics. The Jewish community must “decide the parameters of its own boundaries.” Exactly, and what were the communal boundaries? Israel. The American Jewish community decided that the tent would be, Zionism. That was the only qualification, you must be a Zionist. If you’re anti-Zionist, you’re outside the tent.

That is the real basis of the crisis here. Liberal and centrist Zionists have been going to occupied Jerusalem for more than a generation and seeing a 26-foot wall that reminded them of the Berlin wall on steroids, and seen bright red occupation signs warning Jews against going into Palestinian areas that remind them of South Africa. And they’ve done nothing. Not even said openly what is in their hearts. Any community that participates in such a willful misrepresentation of reality ought to be in a moral crisis.

We can thank Trump for the disruption. As well as the fact that the Democratic Party base now includes great numbers of anti-Zionists who are demanding a voice. But the crisis is self-inflicted. A community that cherishes equality and the separation of church and state in our country as the basis of our own freedom has supported exactly the opposite political principles in a faraway land, where people of different ethnicity are bearing the cruel force of those policies. We should only hope that the Jewish establishment crumbles over these questions.