Continuing to try to adjust the narrative of US meddling in Venezuelan,
officials have settled on a new course of action in the past few days:
flat out lying. Officials, and parts of the US media, are now referring to Juan Guaido as the “duly elected president of Venezuela.”
In reality, Guaido was not duly elected as president, nor indeed did he
ever participate in a Venezuelan general election for president. He was
elected to parliament in 2015, and has risen to a position of
substantial power within parliament, in no small part because of US
support.
Then in January the Trump Administration started pushing Guaido to try
to take the country over. The legal pretext was that the constitution
allows the head of parliament to be an “interim president” if the
president-elect doesn’t show up for his inauguration.
President Maduro was actually inaugurated on January 10, after being
elected. He held the inauguration in front of the Supreme Court instead
of the Assembly building however, which led some to claim it didn’t
count. The US wanted to see Guaido replace Maduro, however, so they
insisted that this was fine, and Guaido is president now.
While the US recognizing Guaido’s on-paper takeover as legitimate was a
fairly cynical move, calling him duly elected president is an absolute
lie. It’s not even clear where this lie started, though it is clearly
spreading.
Probably be doing Maduro a favor to invade. Show what a naked power grab this whole effort is. And delegitamize anything Trump does as theft and worse. I don’t think that such a power grab will succeed in the South at this time if the Russians and Chinese will truly stand with Maduro. It I could divide SA into unhappy blocks of pro and anti U.S. islands of strife. It could be the end of all of Trumps fuzzy plans of American greatness. Being dragged into another Iraq type asymmetrical warfare scenario with the two big boys China & Russis providing plenty of kenrtic surprises to producd shovel ready enterprise in the form of American occupied body bags needing placement. Why is Trump forgetting everything he campaigned on about on getting played into such a loser wars on other people’s turf. It’s worse than the blowback of all the refugees invading Europe. It will be happening to the U.S. Unwise to the max…
Hillary did the same in Honduras. She’d have done the same here. It is the US policy in the region, not Trump. See the role of those who opposed Trump but now run the policy, like Abrams.
Yes, it always goes back to Hillary, and now those Never Trumpers too. If we would all just sit down, shut up, and let Trump run everything without question or interference, it world be great. Make America Great Again by completely abandoning its founding principles.
Trump boogeyman has become the excuse for Hillary’s bad behavior.
“Anybody but Trump” must not become Trump (D).
How come Pelosi didn’t think of that to become the President?
Suppose Trump and Pence declared the Republican National Committee to have replaced Congress, and then Congress impeached and removed them.
The RNC would insist that Trump was still president. Congress would say Pelosi was now president pursuant to the succession protocol.
There are some slight differences between that and the situation in Venezuela. The National Assembly declared an election invalid rather than impeaching Maduro. But overall it’s pretty much the same scenario. Maduro tried to replace the legislature, now the legislature is trying to replace Maduro.
Guaido was “duly elected” president — of the National Assembly. And apparently the National Assembly held that the presidential election was invalid so as to invoke a constitutional provision making the president of the Assembly the “interim” president due to a vacancy in the office. So I guess “duly elected president” isn’t as much of a stretch as some political claims.
On the other hand, just calling him the “duly elected president” skips a whole lot of other stuff (like the fact of a presidential election which some say was legit and some say wasn’t, the fact of the replacement of the opposition-controlled National Assembly with a Maduro-packed “Constituent Assembly,” etc.).
Both sides are going to make their claims and skip the stuff that doesn’t support those claims. And it’s probably useless to look for good guys at the top of either competing power structure.
Maybe “Duly Elected President*”?
*= Subject to double-speak.
I clicked on the link and found this at the top of the story on the UPI site:
“Venezuelan protestors clashed with government forces Wednesday, as President Nicolas Maduro dug in against what he calls an attempted coup, including repeated calls by opposition leader Juan Guaido for more insurgency in the streets of Caracas.”
They refer to Maduro as the President in the article, and Guaido as the National Assembly President once in a photo caption. Doesn’t look like the UPI is parroting the Trump Administration’s bellicose viewpoint at all.