Going against the grain: A Venezuelan refugee speaks her experience [Video]

As I have watched the fallout from the recent US raid and capture / kidnapping / extradition / brutal seizing (etc…) of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, most of the news sources I see, whether US or outside, seem to take issue with President Trump for all sorts of things they say he did wrong, like:

• Not seeking Congressional approval for this raid
• taking Maduro and his wife
• invading a sovereign nation
• that the notion that Venezuela is indeed invested in “narcoterrorism” is a farce…
• … just so that the USA can get Venezuelan heavy crude (because if America wants oil for cheap, this is inherently “bad”, because… America. (but Russia and China and Iran are perfectly fine getting it.))
• Trump was wrong for doing it, but Obama was wrong for NOT doing it…

Get the idea? There are all kinds of reports like this from all the greats, even here.

Now, to be sure, when I report on things for The Duran, I am just as quick to be critical of the US when it does things wrong.

When this attack came, I was surprised; in fact the last article I saw the morning of the attack was that Mr. Maduro was offering the US very attractive terms for a negotiated settlement to the standoff. It looked to me like things were going to work out as what I had hoped for – submission to Trump’s pressure without a military engagement on Venezeulan soil. I still believe that sending American troops to that country is a dangerous idea.

But one of the things I noticed is who is doing the talking and opinion-making about Venezuela: Fox News hacks, CNN, RT, even us, Dr. Mearsheimer, Col. MacGregor, Larry Johnson, everyone that is on the pro-Russian side of the geopolitical fence. Everyone to a person has condemned or cast aspersion that President Trump is showing imperialist tendencies, fear-mongering to the idea that neo-con-ism is back and badder than ever. All of it.

But we are not Venezuelans. I had not heard any Venezuelan speak at length on this matter until yesterday, when KATV Channel 7, from Little Rock, Arkansas, interviewed a Venezuelan who is living in the USA now as a refugee from the Chavez/Maduro governments.

Her interview is long-form, she speaks very freely about her own perspectives as a refugee, and I think this is exactly the sort of thing we should be looking for in terms of getting an idea about how things really stand for the Venezuelan people about this issue. This woman is starkly in favor of what happened, and she gives reasons to back her view. This is an exceptional bit of journalism because it does NOT feature framed questions from Fox like “Aren’t you glad that the evil murderous dictator who doesn’t even like McDonald’s cheeseburgers is now removed from the downtrodden country of Venezuela which has been screaming for US help for the last thirty years – er wait, for the last three thousand years, because after all America is the only hope for all people?!”

This woman admittedly could have put on a show, in fact the flag behind her falls down a few minutes in – read what is written on the flag. Some things are definitely “prop” work.

But the interview is compelling. It also requires more such journalism, from people who DO support Mr. Maduro and the direction Venezuela has gone over the last twenty five years or so.

I would personally trust the Venezuelan people to bear the most honest and accurate witness to what is going on in and about their nation, not some talking head from anywhere else. My opinion and analysis means nothing. I have never been there. This woman apparently lived there and fled. Her experience counts for something.

Further, a word to all of us: I love Russia and I am interested in Chinese efforts as well as Russian efforts to become the great powers they are and should be. I hold Russian citizenship partly because I believe in what Russia is trying to become. I am, to the best of my knowledge, the only Duran contributor who actually lives in Russia all the time; I am not a visitor; I am a part of the flow here as much as I can be. It still isn’t as “in” as a regular Russian citizen’s would be, but I am not an American “expat” living in a little bubble far away. I try to integrate into Russian society as much as I can, not to isolate myself from it.

My question, therefore, comes from experience this way and as a critical American as well. That question is the same for all sides: Who do we support, and why? 

Russia and China supported Maduro because the USA did not. Right? Russia supports Iran because the USA does not. Right?

Now, granted, the US has supported awful people in its history for sure: bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, B.B. Netanyahu, the new guy in Syria whose people slaughtered Christians in Syria before “reversing course…” – it still goes on. Sometimes, as in the case with Napoleon, the US supported him though he was invading Russia, because France helped the US against the British. Complicated stuff, and interestingly both the USA and Russia claim Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture as a patriotic hymn of tremendous importance, though these nations were on different sides in the war!

But what, if anything is redeeming about the people other Great Powers support? Those guys seem not so great either.

As a Christian, I have had to wonder about this game. Geopolitics is a stinking cynical field, is it not? It is full of the belief that nothing is true, real or good, and if it is, it cannot possibly be generated by Great Power X (in the USA, that X is Russia or China or Iran, in those countries X is the US of A…) – and the sum total of all this is division, war, strife, argument, not unity.

Today is Christmas Day on the Julian calendar, followed by hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians in Russia and elsewhere in the world. “Peace on earth, goodwill to men” is not the wish of many in our crowd, sometimes myself included! Yet, we are still facing this fact, that Christ came to us, and the angels that proclaimed His birth in the cave in Bethlehem carried indeed the message of Peace and Goodwill to all.

If I have not aggravated all readers by this point to give me thumbs-downs and angry responses, you are probably either as silly as I am, or as blessed. I don’t know yet which one it is. But we might all do well to think about what we think about. Do we really know what is going on in Country X? I know a lot of folks in the USA don’t know what is going on in Russia. Many Russians I know do not understand what is going on in the USA – but I do, I travel, I watch, I communicate. Like this Venezuelan woman, I can give my experiences, and opinions formed from those experiences. If we spent more time looking for stuff like this, we might actually become carriers of more helpful messages, and maybe even, carriers of the Lord’s peace.

Merry Christmas to all!