Posted on 05/14/2016 1:23:57 PM PDT by Kaslin
U.S. intelligence officials said Friday they are concerned Venezuela is slipping into a crisis that could lead to a coup attempt or a government crackdown on dissent. Reuters reports:
In a bleak assessment of Venezuela’s worsening crisis, the senior officials expressed doubt that unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro would allow a recall referendum this year, despite opposition-led protests demanding a vote to decide whether he stays in office…
They said one “plausible” scenario would be that Maduro’s own party or powerful political figures would force him out and would not rule out the possibility of a military coup. Still, they said there was no evidence of any active plotting or that he had lost support from the country’s generals…
“You can hear the ice cracking. You know there’s a crisis coming,” one U.S. official said. “Our pressure on this isn’t going to resolve this issue.”
Having witnessed the fall this week of fellow leftist President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil (in what Rousseff termed a coup), Venezuela’s President Maduro is acting more paranoid than usual. Friday he announced a 60-day emergency measure designed to, “neutralize and defeat the external foreign aggression that has been initiated against our country.” The Wall Street Journal reports it could be the first step toward a crackdown on dissent:
To the opposition and constitutional experts in Venezuela, though, the decree sounded like it would lead to a crackdown on dissent. “That decree can restrict the right to hold demonstrations to protest scarcities or the lack of light,” said José Vicente Haro, a constitutional lawyer in Caracas.
Maduro has vowed not to leave office before his current term expires in two years. An opposition attempt to remove Maduro by referendum is being stalled by the socialist government so that, even if the referendum succeeds, Maduro’s vice president would serve out the remainder of his term. That would leave the socialists with enough power to continue blocking any attempts at reform proposed by the recently elected member of the opposition party in the National Assembly.
Maduro has already declared a 2-day work week for government workers in addition to rolling blackouts. Shortages of food and medicine have been a growing problem for more than a year. The country has triple-digit inflation and one of the highest murder rates in the world.
An lesson about what the US would be under Bernie!
Well duh, this has been over a decade in the making.
Chavez wanted to be the new castro,
The news is obama is playing kissy face with them all when we should be bringing the fist down
Not sure how you lump China in with those other two basket cases. They are certainly a dictatorial political system, and the ruling party calls themselves communists, but they haven’t been a communist economic system for decades. In case you haven’t noticed, they have used trade with the USA to lift themselves from a third world economic joke to basically tied with us for the largest economy in the world, and their growth rate while having “cooled off” is still 3 times ours. And they have stolen much of our manufacturing base while doing it.
U.S. intelligence officials fear Venezuelan coup, government crackdown
US now coping with unconstitutional Obama crackdown.
Patriots fear Obama Islamo/Socialist coup.
The only reason they should fear it is if We the People took notes and did the same.
Ooooooh...those fun-loving socialists!!! Who cares if they tumble into their self-imposed abyss. Maybe they’ll learn a lesson.
Why would a revolution something to fear in Venezuela? The only way out of their present situation is through and up, as they are very definitely a failed state now.
Long-term mismanagement by peasants turned tyrants is no way to run any country. There are plenty of other forms of government administration that have no such problems.
All these idiots have to do is blame the U.S. for all their failures and most of the population eats it up.
I remember that murderer, Ira Einhorn traveled around Europe and all he had to do was tell some Euroidiot that the CIA was setting him up. That was the magic word, “CIA”.
Women would swoon, men would admire him. The fact that he was physically ugly, never bathed, stank to high heaven and had murdered his stupid girl friend, stuck her body in a trunk and lived with it in his room didn’t seem to bother them at all.
Same with Venezuela and Cuba. It is the CIA making their life miserable.
The country was very successful with many Americans working there and many companies from all over the world. Then came Chavez.
And here we have hilldabeast and bernie
Hey Venezuela, I hear socialists taste like chicken!
You can hear the ice cracking. You know there’s a crisis coming,” one U.S. official said.
Some could say the same about our nation.
U.S. intelligence officials never noticed what was going on there until now ,well D’oh , Obama must want to save another Communist Dictatorship before he leaves
Just what I was Thinking.
“I’m so glad they’re on top of it.”
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The post of the day !!!!
:-)
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You can tell how concerned the US officials are because they don’t mention that Venezuelan opposition leader German Mavare was assassinated eight days ago. The Hot Air article doesn’t mention it, nor the Reuters article.
I guess last Friday was such a remote part of the past that it’s not worth bringing up when you’re talking about dictators cracking down.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." - D of I
I am glad the French did not think this way in the early 1780s.
Get a Pinochet and warm up the helicopters.
The only good commie is...
Nothing new. I still remember 1973 when Salvador Allende put Chile on the socialist path and soon the same thing happened. Stores were empty. The women took up pots and pans, clanged them together as they marched for FOOD! Loved the photo of him hunkered down in the Presidential Palace with a helmet and a sub machine gun when “THEY” (THE ARMY) came for him.
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