alt Hacker News> A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it.
Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro.
Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take.
There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple".
Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2].
So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better.
And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place.
As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
Replies
I'm a Venezuelan in the USA and I think what happened is an absolutely illegal travesty. Trump and his acolytes are nothing better than criminal thugs and this needs to be fought and protested.
Cubans would be much better off today if Bay of Pigs had succeeded. Venezuela is so bad that around 20% of the population emigrated.
> Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil.
It was about the Soviet Union. The British convinced the US that Mosaddegh was going to align himself with the Soviet-proxy communist party (Tudeh) to stay in power. The British, on the other hand, did it because Iran had nationalized British oil fields. The US' oil interests were in Saudi Arabia.
Also the way people describe this is rather twisted. The Shah was not installed by the US. The Shah had been in power since 1941. He was installed by the British, same as his father. The coup replaced Mosaddegh with Fazlollah Zahedi, not the Shah.
Moreover, Mosaddegh's government was not remotely democratically elected. There's a rather in-depth State department memo from the era that describes how those "elections" worked in Iran which made clear that the people voting had little to do with who won. Elections were full of ballot stuffing, bribery and just outright manipulation by pretty much everyone - the Shah, Mosaddegh, Tudeh, foreign governments, etc. [1]
Plus, Mosaddegh had halted Parliamentary election counting early to prevent more opposition from getting elected risking his majority (his party controlled the more urban areas of Iran which finished "counting" earlier). He began ruling with emergency powers and jailing his opposition. That led to mass resignations in Parliament - to the point where they couldn't even form a quorum. Mosaddegh then dissolved Parliament and granted himself full dictatorial powers and ruled by decree after another sham election where 10% of the population "voted."
And it's at this point that the coup happened. The Shah, using his power under Iran's constitution, wrote a letter dismissing Mosaddegh. He was replaced with Fazlollah Zahedi and the Shah started to take a far more active role in government.
[1] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira...
As far as one can reasonably know something it’s clear that Maduro was not the fairly elected president. Chavez and Maduro were disastrous for Venezuela and millions now have hope for a better future.
Your perception about Iran in 1953 is badly wrong.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articl...
> Which Venezuelans?
All which are currently in foreign countries and are free to express their voices without fear of prosecution. I live in spain with my venezuelan girlfriend, and everybody here from her venezuelan bubble is celebrating and cheering - hoping this is a first step towards freedom. You can turn on your TV to "rtve Telediaro", it is a spanish 24h news channel where they also show venezuelan expats getting together and celebrating from within spain. Other cities in latin america are the same, just watch some news channels from the spanish-speaking world.
They were probably also cheering in the streets in the US, if they weren't afraid of ICE deportations.