Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
Back to Main

February 23, 2015
White House Denies Interference In Venezuela – Promises More Of It

White House Press Briefing by Press Secretary Josh Earnest, 2/20/2015

To Question 1: "We, of course, do not interfere in Venezuela!"

Q: What is the reaction of the administration to the latest events in Venezuela? And also, President Nicolás Maduro accused the government, the U.S. government of trying to overthrow his government in a plot that they say they discovered last Wednesday.

MR. EARNEST: These allegations that we’ve seen from the Maduro government, like all previous such allegations, are ludicrous. The fact is the Venezuelan government should stop trying to blame the United States and other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela. The Venezuelan government actually needs to deal with the grave situation that it faces.

The United States is not promoting unrest in Venezuela, nor are we attempting to undermine Venezuela’s economy or its government.

To Question 2: "We, of course,  do interfere in Venezuela! We obviously will now do even more of it!"

Q The U.S. government has already taken some actions against Venezuelan individuals with some sanctions. Are you considering any other action? Are you seeking — maybe seeking help from other countries in the hemisphere, like Brazil, that could put pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro?

MR. EARNEST: Well, I can tell you that the Treasury Department and the State Department are obviously closely monitoring this situation and are considering tools that may be available that could better steer the Venezuelan government in the direction that they believe they should be headed. That obviously means that we’re continuing to engage other countries in the region in talking about operating in coordinated fashion as we deal with the situation there.

Do these spokespersons even recognize how those proclaimed positions, uttered just seconds apart, conflict with each other?

Posted by b on February 23, 2015 at 19:14 UTC | Permalink
Comments

I seriously doubt it, due to the fact that nobody seems to be running the show there, as in free for all. When the asylum are open, the inmates will roam. Can we expect anything else to be?

Posted by: Norman | Feb 23 2015 20:16 utc | 1

White man speaks with forked tongue, same as it ever was.

Posted by: farflungstar | Feb 23 2015 20:30 utc | 2

i will hate myself for bothering to comment, yet… the inculcated chauvinism + the relentless, cradle to grave distraction and domination of what are now called electronic media result in a population incapable of reflective thought. most adults i know would not even notice the contradiction and would need to put effort into understanding it. i lived through the 60s and that was a naive world. today’s usa has not even that much awareness. the us is a lost cause. even putin has realized that. try talking dimitrov’s 3rd international description of fascism being finance capital and they will return a blank stare as though one is a newly arrived martian. in fact, i could arouse belief in extraterrestrials more easily.

Posted by: bolasete | Feb 23 2015 20:31 utc | 3

There’s good meddling, bad meddling and ugly meddling. This is ugly meddling. Russia’s meddling in Ukraine is bad. The West’s meddling in Ukraine, whilst an unwise strategy, is good meddling but failing. Like lying, you should meddle well and for all the right reasons. This Venezuelan meddling is not in accord with that maxim.
Show Your Meddle

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Feb 23 2015 20:42 utc | 4

White man speaks with forked tongue, same as it ever was.
I agree — Russians are liars and cheaters.

Posted by: Cold N. Holefield | Feb 23 2015 20:43 utc | 5

Cold N. Holefield @ 4
and then there’s cheap meddling…like why don’t you go rent a billboard or something, you fucking freeloader.

Posted by: john | Feb 23 2015 21:24 utc | 6

@Cold #5:
You obviously have an inferiority complex with respect to Russians. Otherwise you wouldn’t be bringing them up all the time when they’re not at all relevant. In your posts, you compulsively try to reassure yourself that you are superior to Russians, but deep down, you know you are inferior.

Posted by: Demian | Feb 23 2015 21:40 utc | 7

How do these Wormtongues sleep at night? When they hug their children, do they have to fight back the temptation to bite them?
I feel so terribly sorry for what a powerful faction of “my” government is and has been doing to the good people of Venezuela. If there are gods and goddesses, the payback to the powerful is going to be wrathful and filled with righteous vengeance. So mote it be.

Posted by: Benu | Feb 23 2015 22:14 utc | 8

So many countries to overthrow and so little time to do it when you are potus.

Posted by: jo6pac | Feb 23 2015 22:24 utc | 9

@jo6pac #9:
Yes, the Saker has a chilling piece on how the US will try to open two more fronts on Russia (the first being Ukraine):
Three fronts for Russia: How Washington will fan the flames of chaos in Central Asia

Posted by: Demian | Feb 23 2015 22:36 utc | 10

/There’s good meddling, bad meddling and ugly meddling./ bla bla bla !
what did Noland, McCain, Hunter and Joe Biden, Bernard Levy in Ukraine? Prayers of the saints?

Posted by: ALAN | Feb 23 2015 22:42 utc | 11

@8
No gods, no goddesses. We’re the only ones here.

Posted by: jfl | Feb 23 2015 22:50 utc | 12

Poor Venezuela, they win elections but the sob olygarchs own the economy. Vnzla doesn’t produce almost anything and the olys import almost everything.

Posted by: Victor J. | Feb 23 2015 23:01 utc | 13

@bolasete, 3:
I was born in Venezuela and spent part of my youth there. Here in the US people do look at me as thought I’m an extraterrestrial when I tell them that I’ve had more intelligent political discussions with Venezuelan country folk than with college-educated US citizens. Yet somehow our task here is to reintroduce the US people to the rest of the planet, to history and geography, and to causes (in every sense of the word)…

Posted by: Vintage Red | Feb 23 2015 23:31 utc | 14

thanks b for pointing out this.. it is such a regular phenomenon!
@3 bolasete.. thanks for sharing your views.. with a name like bola sete, perhaps you live in brasil or have a good appreciation of his music..

Posted by: james | Feb 23 2015 23:36 utc | 15

@14 VintageRed
I had been reading here and following links for well over 2 years before de-lurking. Your posts have always been most welcome to my eyes. And I have learned much. You are doing well at “your task” — I understand your dismay, but keep up the good fight. Many are listening and learning even if they don’t speak.

Posted by: Benu | Feb 23 2015 23:48 utc | 16

In 2002 I thought the Chavas government in Venezuela was toast. It seemed to me that the US could not be defied. But then the US military was directed to make war in Iraq. US imperial interests were distracted and the Chavas government survived. It seems that the US can not make war in multiple theaters in spite of their announcements that we can engage in multiple wars all over the globe.
Given that the US has withdrawn resources from Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe they now believe they can go back to South America and reassort control. If I was Manduro I would seriously worried.

Posted by: ToivoS | Feb 24 2015 1:03 utc | 17

Venezuelanalysis.com has excellent reporting on this latest attempt to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution. Internal security and young officers have exposed this attempt but I fear it won’t be the last.
The smell of sulfur is again in the air and the arrest of the conspirators will only add fuel to the Hegemons torches and claims of dictatorship.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Feb 24 2015 1:19 utc | 18

Josh Earnest was in earnest when he said the US would sustain its long-standing effort to subvert the government of Venezuela but when he denied the US was trying to subvert the Venezuelan government he was joshing.

Posted by: Roger Milbrandt | Feb 24 2015 1:31 utc | 19

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Will_Not_Be_Televised_(film) about Bush Jr.s successful overthrow of the Chavez government in 2002. Chavez only returned to power by the longest of long shots. It was all about “the transition back to democracy” then too.

Posted by: gersen | Feb 24 2015 1:53 utc | 20

@ Roger 19
LOL. You here all week? 😉

Posted by: Benu | Feb 24 2015 1:56 utc | 21

I don’t know how many here are native American English speakers, but the name “Josh Earnest”, as an official spokesman, is priceless. Dickensian or Nabokovian or some such adjective. It combines Importance with utter lack of seriousness.

Posted by: john c. halasz | Feb 24 2015 1:59 utc | 22

VR @ 14:
“Yet somehow our task here is to reintroduce the US people to the rest of the planet, to history and geography, and to causes (in every sense of the word)…
Like a salmon swimming upstream brother (or sister). I’m afraid the lights are on, but, nobody is home.

Posted by: ben | Feb 24 2015 2:17 utc | 23

@ b (initial post)

Do these spokespersons even recognize how those proclaimed positions, uttered just seconds apart, conflict with each other?

Since when in the last 45+ years has ‘reality’ mattered in those quarters? Entrée for becoming an acolyte requires believing in six impossible contradictory things before breakfast. That is how the test for true is passed and mind-control is proven.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Feb 24 2015 8:57 utc | 24

@Benu, 16:
Thank you; I am very glad you have found my contributions of value. Please don’t worry for my own morale, though–my general mien is more that of determination than dismay (if I didn’t post under “Vintage Red” I’d probably post under “Grim Optimist” as an alternative).
@ben, 22:
I’m male, at least for this mortal coil, so brother it is–well met!
“I’m afraid the lights are on, but, nobody is home.”
For some reason your observation reminded me of doing neurological assessments to determine levels of consciousness. I can just imagine a post-US international political paramedic team arriving on these shores, shining light into our dilated peoples: “Hello, hello? Can you hear me? What’s your country’s name? Can you point to it on a world map? How many political parties do you see?”
Hopefully we can instead rouse ourselves from the corporate media coma in time to give our banksters and militarists a pink-slip-with-revolutionary-justice while we still have a climate to speak of, and greet the rest of the world with a long-overdue “Well met!”…

Posted by: Vintage Red | Feb 24 2015 9:46 utc | 25

b
Oil, once again, and again! Keystone XL was a ‘given’ after the RINO Congress of 1000 Years was selected. KSA knows this. KSA is doing their level best, along with the Houston Oil Patch, to blow up Iraqi oil supplies … again. Libya is threatening to shut down all their pipelines if they don’t get US boots on the ground. This is what KSA and Houston want.
That Venezuela has the largest pool of sour tar sands in the world is NOT what Koch and TransMountain and KoAlberta want, especially with oil hovering around $50, far below their profit price point. US/KSA will keep working I$I$ destruction of Iraqi/Libya oil production and US/CN will keep working VE overthrow and shutdown, until they get oil back to $147/bbl, and KXL built, then all of USA hollowed out and shipped off to the mandarins in Chindia.
And all their cash will go into real property inflation for the Rentier class, ala Israel and Palestine. “We won, you lost. It’s just business, get over it. Now GET OFF MY PROPERTY.”
“They don’t give a frack about you!
They don’t give a frack about you!
They don’t give a frack about you!”
George Carlin

Posted by: ChipNikh | Feb 24 2015 11:58 utc | 26

“White House Denies Interference In Venezuela – Promises More Of It”
aka Fractured Fairy Tales.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 24 2015 12:32 utc | 27

Venezuela: A plan for coup d’état and assassination of Maduro

Posted by: nmb | Feb 24 2015 15:27 utc | 28

4
Another Homo Inferior speaks. Meddling is meddling and the more the USA, France and UK meddle the bigger the mess. Any external that imposes it’s will or favors a certain group in any sovereign country is simply creating an artificial problem that will exacerbate any current problems in that entity. You as an slave/stooge/agent/pig of empire favor meddling because it’s part of your job to fling mud and destroy or simply ruin other more virtous/better/honest/true peoples lives. I hope you burn in hell come mierda.

Posted by: Fernando | Feb 24 2015 18:37 utc | 29

Obama failed his coup in Venezuela
by Thierry Meyssan (Voltaire.net)
http://www.voltairenet.org/article186879.html

Posted by: crone | Feb 24 2015 21:21 utc | 30

From Global Research:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/op-ed-on-venezuela-and-cuba-slips-past-nyt-factcheckers/5432667

Posted by: ben | Feb 25 2015 17:41 utc | 31

While I absolutely believe that the US is interfering in Venezuela https://thebiasedreporter.wordpress.com/2015/02/14/us-backed-coup-in-venezuela-thwarted/
the question where Earnest responds to “tools” is specifically about sanctions, not that sanctions aren’t a way to interfere in a country
here is the full quote where he replies “tools”
Q The U.S. government has already taken some actions against Venezuelan individuals with some sanctions. Are you considering any other action? Are you seeking — maybe seeking help from other countries in the hemisphere, like Brazil, that could put pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro?
MR. EARNEST: Well, I can tell you that the Treasury Department and the State Department are obviously closely monitoring this situation and are considering tools that may be available that could better steer the Venezuelan government in the direction that they believe they should be headed. That obviously means that we’re continuing to engage other countries in the region in talking about operating in coordinated fashion as we deal with the situation there.

Posted by: BiasedReporter | Feb 26 2015 3:43 utc | 32

Back to Main