By Luis Manuel Aguana
Social networks are scandalized by
the issue of foreign military intervention in Venezuela. Opinions range from
denial (there will never be a foreign military intervention in Venezuela) to
the substantiation of the inconvenience for the country of such intervention
because it would aggravate our already compromised situation.
Most of the arguments against
foreign military intervention in the country, and especially in the United
States, have a high ideological component. In a continent that has a century
rejecting "imperialism", it is not at all easy to assimilate such a
proposal culturally. And much less accept willingly that the restitution of
normality in the country necessarily passes through the application of the
force of arms to the service of democracy in order to oppose the force imposed
by the regime to subject Venezuelans to a dictatorship.
The first thing we should consider here is where we are today in Venezuela. In a last note (see Military intervention or rescue in an undeclared war, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_45.html) I highlighted a report published by Adam Isaac, an expert in security and defence (see Adam Isaac, “Thinking about the unthinkable: US Military Intervention in Venezuela”
https://adamisacson.com/thinking-about-the-unthinkable-u-s-military-intervention-in-venezuela/) which is what's here now: “…Look at the “Bolivarian militias” alone.
They have between 500,000 and 2 million members. Many are poorly trained, and
probably undisciplined. Still, if even 10 percent of the low estimate opt for
clandestine warfare, that’s 50,000 fighters from this force alone. At its
height, Colombia’s FARC had half that. And again, add to them the armed thugs
in the “colectivos,” the FAES and other police units, the
SEBIN, the FPL, the ELN, and any other radical elements who opt for violence....”.
In a very interesting interview by
Venezuelan journalist Idania Chirinos to Joseph Humire, executive director of
the Center for a Free and Secure Society, in NTN24, and published on March 26
(see in Spanish Why does a war in Venezuela benefit Russia and Iran? https://youtu.be/BgP0RGjK54I) the expert
reveals little-known data from this world of military intelligence that changes
the commonplace that is usually argued in this discussion of whether or not a
U.S. military intervention in Venezuela is possible.
In response to the point made by journalist Chirinos, "The Russians would be training the
militias that in Venezuela are going to surpass the number of the Armed Force's
own assets", Humire answers something extremely critical:
"That's very important because what we see in
Venezuela as a democratic country many times is that we try to use our
democratic system to look at the country. We look at the President, Vice
President, Ministers, but I assure you that it doesn't work that way. There is
a parallel state that is made up of the criminal paramilitary civic structure
and that controls territories more than it controls functions, and within that
we have to understand that the Russians are getting stronger. And why are they
going to do this? Suppose all the
military are going to support the constitutional president of Venezuela, Juan
Guaidó. What's going to happen there? Those soldiers are going to confront the
irregular forces that are better equipped, better trained, and already proven
in combat. I assure you that the Venezuelan Armed Forces are not
trained for combat. I was a U.S. soldier and I assure you that it is not that
day by night I put on my uniform and I go to Iraq to grab a rifle and start
fighting. There are tests that I have to pass to be approved and ready for
combat operations. The Venezuelan military was not maintained that way for
long. And if we can appreciate that institutions like PDVSA is an energy
institution that doesn't work because it was neglected and involved in
organized crime, we must appreciate that the military institution also has that
same weakness that is not ready for a kind of confrontation with these forces
that have experience.
It follows that according to this
expert, there is no military capacity in Venezuela to confront WHAT ALREADY
EXISTS as a consequence of the deepening, not only of the socialist regime of
Hugo Chávez, and now of Nicolás Maduro Moros, but of the entire communist
strategy of appropriation of power in the whole region through insurgency and
the force of arms, with the help of countries such as Russia, China, Cuba,
Turkey and Iran. Those are the facts. We are already in the hands of that
parallel state of which Humire speaks "which is made up of the criminal
paramilitary civic structure and that controls territories more than it
controls functions. And the realistic state decision that must be taken as Venezuelans
is how we will resolve that with the least number of deaths possible.
Already an international specialist
like Joseph Humire is telling us that these countries would benefit from a
scenario of war in Venezuela:
"There are two factors that are driving this war on the part of the
Russians, the Iranians and the Turks. One is the economic factor. These
countries don't have much more life. Their regimes are weak on the economic
factor. Iran has hyperinflation, Russia has hyperinflation, the price of oil
has gone down too much and they are oil-producing countries. We all know that
impact in Venezuela but Venezuela is a proxy for them, so what they want to do
is take advantage of this moment to be able to promote a war to take the
resources out of Venezuela and use them to stabilize their currencies...".
"They are taking advantage of this situation to improve their own
economies because they are not free market economies, they are war economies.
What is Russia's first export more than oil? Weapons. This is one reason. The
other reason is that I believe they see an opportunity with the Trump
administration to delegitimize the United States in a way they never could.
But I ask myself: how else can you
make an omelet without breaking eggs? How else can such groups be neutralized
without the presence of highly trained militaries that only have a power like
the United States and others internationally? Will it be possible for the
United States and the International Community to put such pressure on those
countries to withdraw from Venezuela without firing a shot? I don't know.
That's not what we saw on the border with Colombia and Brazil on Feb. 23.
Everything that has happened indicates that they don't want to do it, first of
all because they have already gone too far. They have control of a country with
extraordinary resources and a population subjugated by arms. To affirm that we
resolve this with elections or diplomacy, living with the enemy in a sort of
transitional government with an authoritarian enclave of the regime - as is the
official opposition proposal - without taking into account all this war
situation is to live on Fantasy Island. To ignore or not take into account the
component of foreign military force in this equation is to deliberately ignore
this continental geopolitical scenario.
Looking at things from a realistic
perspective, we should already be assimilating what has happened in Venezuela
as a fait accompli. There are already more communist militia trained from
abroad, and mainly by Russia, to fight in favor of the regime than the Armed
Force itself, although all of it pronounces itself in favor of democracy. Let's see Humire again:
"And Russia is part of the tragedy of Venezuela
... "Russia is strengthening Nicolas Maduro not only with its military but
unofficially with its contractors. That group that Reuters reported two months
ago, the Wagner Group. You have to understand what the Wagner Group is. That
group is heavily involved in Syria working together with Hezbollah to train
militias to protect Bashar al-Asad and they are experts in clandestine
operations. And if some of the Wagner Group arrive in Venezuela, it's worrying.
I'd say it's more worrisome that these technicians arrive from official Russia."
The other is who will fight this war
that is already here and they brought it to us (seein Spanish, An alien war, in
http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2017/02/una-guerra-ajena.html). It is clear to me that it will only be the
Venezuelans who will have to face this problem. But will we do it alone and
without help, as the opposition leadership stupidly suggests? Impossible. If
the regime has Russia and experts in clandestine operations trained in the
Middle East, it would be unthinkable not to have in the country Venezuelan
military trained to fight that war against the regime's militia, but formed by
the United States and other powers of the Western world.
And that's the real aid we need now,
in addition to humanitarian aid. That is why we urgently need countries to
assume the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to Venezuelans as soon as
possible to stop the crimes against Human Rights in which the regime has
incurred in this work of continental ideological domination through war. That
war has already begun against us on the part of the regime. Just seeing how
they no longer worry about appeasing the peaceful demonstrations with water and
light, using tear gas, but rather sending armed militias to shoot at the people
who protest, gives them an idea of how the castro-chavista-madurista revolution
is facing the resistance of the Venezuelans.
Who then
should decide in relation to a foreign armed force coming to help us? The
politicians? The National Assembly? The President in Charge Juan Guaidó? At
this point and the level of aggravation of the problem, I believe that it would
be up to the Venezuelans to decide that because it is the people who have put
the dead of this homicidal tyranny and who will have to pay the consequences,
bad or good, of that decision.
Caracas,
April 1, 2019
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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