Venezuelan opposition figure Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, according to to Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken, will travel to Oslo to collect her Nobel Peace Prize on December 10.<\/p>\n
As news goes, Machado\u2019s alleged trip pings three different stories.<\/p>\n
First, there\u2019s the story of whether someone who\u2019s supported multiple violent coup attempts,\u00a0 backs international sanctions, and calls for foreign military intervention, all to put herself in political power, really deserves a \u201cpeace\u201d prize.<\/p>\n
Given the warlike records of past recipients such as Woodrow Wilson and Henry Kissinger, I guess Machado\u2019s not really an outlier, but rather an exemplar of the politicized nature of the award. The only metric by which she really looks very good is by comparison to the regime she opposes.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the story of the reaction from that regime, headed by \u201cpresident\u201d Nicol\u00e1s Maduro (who seems to have lost the last election, even after banning Machado\u2019s candidacy, yet remains in power). If she leaves the country, Maduro\u2019s attorney general says, Machado becomes a \u201cfugitive.\u201d She\u2019s so far avoided (recent) arrest, mostly remaining in hiding, and it\u2019s unlikely that she\u2019d face extradition back to Venezuela and into the regime\u2019s hands if she leaves, but it\u2019s still not a very good look (Maduro and Co. are masters of the not very good look).<\/p>\n
The biggest story, though, is the US regime\u2019s continuing escalation in and around Venezuela.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump embarked on a serial murder spree around the Caribbean in September, ordering boats (and people) blown up by US military forces on the pretense that he\u2019s fighting a \u201cnarco-terrorist cartel\u201d headed by Maduro (on whose head he\u2019s placed a $50 million bounty). He\u2019s also steadily increased the US military presence in the region, rattling the American saber for \u201cregime change\u201d in Caracas.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been tempting, so far, to write Trump\u2019s belligerence off as an attempt to distract from his domestic political failures (including the longest \u201cgovernment shutdown\u201d in history) and personal scandals (such as his long, close personal relationship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein).<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if he\u2019s really going to take the US to war with Venezuela, what better moment \u2014 for theatrical and propaganda purposes \u2014 to launch a full-scale attack than just as his quisling of choice accepts a \u201cpeace prize\u201d in Oslo?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an evil and stupid idea, but given the US government\u2019s long record of evil and stupidity when it comes to Latin America, it shouldn\u2019t exactly surprise anyone.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tempting to hope for a war in which both authoritarian kleptocracies find ways to lose. Unfortunately, the biggest losers in every war are the civilian non-combatants of all the countries involved.<\/p>\n
If the program is really\u201dAmerica First,\u201d the policy will be \u201chands off Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas L. Knapp (X:\u00a0@thomaslknapp<\/a>\u00a0| Bluesky:\u00a0@knappster.bsky.social\u00a0<\/a>| Mastodon:\u00a0@knappster<\/a>) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism<\/a>. He lives and works in north central Florida.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Venezuelan opposition figure Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, according to to Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken, will travel to Oslo to collect her Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. As news goes, Machado\u2019s alleged trip pings three different stories. First, there\u2019s the story of whether someone who\u2019s supported multiple violent coup attempts,\u00a0 backs international sanctions, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[816],"class_list":["post-56540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"0","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56543,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56540\/revisions\/56543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56540"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=56540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}