{"id":182751,"date":"2019-01-26T10:01:31","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T10:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182751"},"modified":"2019-01-29T07:04:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T07:04:51","slug":"venezuela-trumps-coup-plan-has-big-flaws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=182751","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela &#8211; Trump&#8217;s Coup Plan Has Big Flaws"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Moon of Alabama \u2013 Jan 25, 2019<\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The U.S. led coup attempt against the government of Venezuela under President Maduro is based on a plan that is similar to <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3zc4bGkU05o\">this one<\/a><\/strong><\/span> (vid).<\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3zc4bGkU05o\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">While U.S. coup plotting against Venezuela goes back to at least 1998 when the deceased President Chavez won his first election, the actual planning for this coup attempt was only done during the last two month. There are many holes in the plan and it involves a lot of wishful thinking. That might give the Maduro government openings to deflect the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">More likely though the insufficient planning, based on false perceptions of the situation on the ground, will lead to demands for escalation and mission creep. Venezuela must thus <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.moonofalabama.org\/2019\/01\/venezuela-the-us-game-plan-and-how-to-respond-to-it.html\">immediately prepare for the worst<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Today U.S. media give some insight into the decision making before the coup attempt. The <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> headline makes it clear that the U.S. is 100% responsible for it:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/a-call-from-pence-helped-set-an-uncertain-new-course-in-venezuela-11548430259\">Pence Pledged U.S. Backing Before Venezuela Opposition Leader\u2019s Move <\/a><\/strong><\/span><em>Trump administration\u2019s secret plan pledging support for opposition leader Juan Guaid\u00f3 was preconceived and tightly coordinated<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The night before Juan Guaid\u00f3 declared himself interim president of Venezuela, the opposition leader received a phone call from Vice President Mike Pence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Mr. Pence pledged that the U.S. would back Mr. Guaid\u00f3 if he seized the reins of government from Nicol\u00e1s Maduro by invoking a clause in the South American country\u2019s constitution, a senior administration official said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That late-night call set in motion <strong>a plan that had been developed in secret over the preceding several weeks<\/strong>, accompanied by talks between U.S. officials, allies, lawmakers and key Venezuelan opposition figures, including Mr. Guaid\u00f3 himself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The leading figures were Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo and Senator Marco Rubio as well as hawks in in the National Security Council.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">A decisive moment came a week later in a White House meeting Jan. 22, the eve of protests in Venezuela, when Mr. Rubio along with Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans from Florida, were called to a White House meeting with Mr. Trump, Vice President Pence and others.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"> &#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"> Other officials who met that day at the White House included Messrs. Pompeo and Bolton, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who presented Mr. Trump with options for recognizing Mr. Guaid\u00f3.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Mr. Trump decided to do it. Mr. Pence, who wasn\u2019t at that meeting, placed his phone call to Mr. Guaid\u00f3 to tell him, \u201c<strong>If the National Assembly invoked Article 233 the following day, the president would back him<\/strong>,\u201d the senior administration official said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Trump himself is only interested in Venezuela&#8217;s oil reserves, which are the largest of the world:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moonofalabama.org\/2019\/01\/venezuela-trumps-coup-attempt-is-based-on-a-seriously-flawed-plan.html#more\">Cont. reading: <em>Venezuela &#8211; Trump&#8217;s Coup Plan Has Big Flaws<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Venezuela\u2019s oil reserves are thought to be the world largest, bigger even than Saudi Arabia. Is this why Trump is backing President Maduro\u2019s rival for power?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182751"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182753,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182751\/revisions\/182753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}