Stephen Lendman

Since Hugo Chavez’s democratic ascension to power in February 1999, Washington tried assorted dirty tricks to topple him unsuccessfully, including an aborted April 2002 two-day coup.

In March 2013, it succeeded, after multiple operations to save him failed. At the time, acting Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro said he “was poisoned by dark forces in order to hit at the Venezuelan people and Latin America.” Obama killed Chavez. Did Hillary Clinton order his death? During his tenure, he received numerous death threats. Fidel Castro once cautioned him to be careful what he ate or drank.

Fidel miraculously survived hundreds of US assassination attempts. On August 13, he’ll be 90 years old: Un feliz cumpleanos muy especial y muchos mas, Fidel (a very special happy birthday and many more, Fidel).

He remains the world’s singularly redoubtable anti-imperialist figure, preserving Cuban sovereign independence against what he called the criminality of “yankee imperialism.”

Since Nicolas Maduro was popularly elected to succeed Chavez in April 2013, Washington waged relentless economic and political war to replace Bolivarian fairness with predatory capitalist exploitation - wanting another regional client state and control over all that oil, the world’s largest reserves.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton’s dirty hands were involved. Emails WikiLeaks revealed showed US efforts to undermine Venezuela’s government under Chavez and Maduro.

Publicly she expressed friendship toward their governments, privately wanting them toppled and replaced by puppet regimes Washington controls.

According to Venezuela Solidarity Campaign’s Francisco Dominguez, Washington hit Venezuela’s economy hard, making it scream, a process continuing relentlessly - “in particular food distribution, holding back food which forces people to queue up.”

“By forcing them to queue up, people become discontented…very unhappy, particularly the poor. The idea…is to undermine” popular support for Bolivarian governance, creating conditions similar to the overthrow of Salvador Allende on 9/11/73.

General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship replaced him, transforming model Chilean social democracy into laissez fair hell.

Coup d’etat viciousness enforced it. Crony capitalists benefitted hugely. Chile today remains a model of social injustice.

Neoliberal harshness robs millions of futures. Washington wants Venezuela transformed the same way.

Maduro survived death threats and coup plots to topple him, for certain Hillary’s dirty hands involved.

Will further attempts prove his undoing? Will yankee imperialism prevail over Bolivarian fairness? Or will Venezuelans rise up en masse to prevent the takeover of what’s too vital to lose?

We’re all Venezuelans in the struggle for world peace, equity and justice - the most important just cause of all.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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