Hundreds of Venezuela's military defect in four days as country spirals into further chaos

Fox News ^ | February 27, 2019 | Elizabeth Llorente

[ETCM]

The news coming out of Venezuela suggests we are in the last week or two.

I don't have any inside knowledge about when or if Maduro will fall, but this would be the point when he is most dangerous. A fight with the USA, or some other boogeyman, would rally Venezuelans to support him against the imperialist invaders and is just what he needs.

It sucks to watch the suffering, but the people of Venezuela (especially the military) need to rise up and do this themselves. We can give them humanitarian aide, and will likely help when the ends comes.

[\/\/ayne]

Almost to the tipping point...

[Buckeye McFrog]

The new government of Venezuela will also be quite socialist. You’ll see.

[ETCM]

Inevitably. Their choice that they will have to live with. But even under socialism, they can do much better than their current situation.

[sergeantdave]

“87% of Venezuelans, per recent poll, want the US to stay out militarily.”

Link to poll?

[Billthedrill]

The news coming out of Venezuela suggests we are in the last week or two. Maybe the last day or two.

Yeah. Tipping point, and the future of the country is wobbling back and forth. This is very unstable now.

I can't help but feel that any military intervention on anyone's part will simply delegitimize Guaido. We can help stock relief supplies at the borders but that's all we ought to be doing for now. Even if Maduro goes there's a long, hard road ahead.

[robowombat]

I suspect the majority of Latin Americans are statist of some sort. Statism has an inherent bent towards paternalistic socialist schemes of governance. This mentality is the result of the state control style Spanish government model. It is very hard to escape the historical experience of centuries. The new president of Brazil is the first free market oriented head of state in LA in decades. One only hopes he is not another phony like Carlos Lacerda. Ironically the last market oriented LA head of state was General Pinochet. A truly vilified hero who first decisively defeated a ever quickening communist coup in Chile and then listened to Milton Friedman to restructure the welfare state top heavy Chilean economy.

[robowombat]

No, but making Wolfowitz the lead man on the Venezuela crisis immediately calls to mind the Contra style operation to further destabilization and damage the decaying infrastructure to accelerate collapse. A ‘free Venezuela government in exile’ may be next on the list. From there things could become interesting.

[hal ogen]

Mad Max here we come! Maybe the venzeulans shouldn’t vote-in socialist/commies? Ya think???