Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 18-May-16 World View -- Venezuela's Maduro accuses US of planning an imminent invasion

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Venezuela's Maduro accuses US of planning an imminent invasion
  
• Syria peace talks in Vienna collapse in farce - again
  

****
**** Venezuela's Maduro accuses US of planning an imminent invasion
****


Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday (AP)

Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro on Tuesday renewed his accusation
that the collapse of the country's economy is being caused by United
States sabotage. ( "15-May-16 World View -- Venezuela economy close to collapse as Maduro orders jailing of factory owners"
)

And he accused the United States of planning an imminent invasions
because, he claimed, two American military surveillance planes had
illegally entered Venezuelan airspace last week.

According to Maduro on Tuesday:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Our military aviation detected the illegal entry, for
unusual espionage tasks, of the Boeing 707 E-3 Sentry, which is an
airborne early warning control center system that has all the
mechanisms for espionage. ...

Washington conducts these tasks to support communications of armed
groups in war zones or to prepare actions to disable electronic
equipment of the government, the armed forces or the
economy."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Maduro has decreed a state of emergency, giving himself additional
powers that will permit the use of violence and arrests against
opposition protests.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles told his followers to ignore the
decree, said that the army has to make a choice:

[indent]<QUOTE>"We, Venezuelans, will not accept this decree. This is
Maduro putting himself above the constitution. To impose this,
he'd better start preparing to deploy the war tanks and military
jets.

And I tell the armed forces: The hour of truth is coming, to
decide whether you are with the constitution or with
Maduro."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Capriles called on its supporters to take to the streets again
Wednesday. BBC and
TeleSurTV (Caracas) and Deutsche Welle

****
**** Syria peace talks in Vienna collapse in farce - again
****

Every month, the Syria peace talks start up, then collapse a few days
later. Then they would be restarted, and the cycle repeats. I've
reported on several rounds of this just in the last few months.

So it's not surprising that the latest round of peace talks has
collapsed, but this time the impasse is a lot worse since they didn't
even bother to schedule a new date for the peace talks to restart, as
they've always done in the past.

The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said that Syria
might return to full scale war unless the peace talks could resume,
and added some political bromides:

[indent]<QUOTE>"We need to bear in mind that credible intra-Syrian
talks will become credible when [...] there is a credible
development on the cessation of hostilities and a credible
improvement on the humanitarian side."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

In other words, there couldn't be any peace talks between the Syrian
regime and the opposition as long as they were still shooting at each
other.

US Secretary of State John Kerry as usual made a statement that
sounded like an SNL skit:

[indent]<QUOTE>"The challenge that we face now is to transform these
possibilities into the reality of an agreement at some point. And
because of the gains that we've made in recent months, yet because
of their fragility, and we acknowledge they're fragile, and
increasingly threatened by irresponsible and dangerous actions
taken by those who would rather have this effort fail, who want to
create problems, cause rather than solutions, they see a different
outcome, and there are frankly actors on both side."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Kerry referred to "those who would rather have this effort fail," and
that includes pretty much everyone, though for different reasons:

• Syria's president Bashar al-Assad started this war in 2011 by
  starting to exterminate peaceful demonstrators, including women and
  children. If there were some kind of cease-fire agreement, he would
  violate it as soon as another peaceful demonstration started.
  Al-Assad has been carrying out an extermination campaign on Syrian
  Sunni civilians, and he's going to continue until either they're all
  dead or he's dead.
  
  
• The Syrian opposition won't agree to a cease-fire if al-Assad is
  going to keep dropping barrel bombs on their women and children, which
  he is certainly going to do.
  
  
• The jihadist groups, so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL
  or Daesh) and the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front).
  In fact, the peace plans have actually worsened the hostilities, are
  not going to agree to any cease-fire until al-Assad is overthrown, and
  a caliphate can be declared. ISIS and al-Nusra are specifically
  excluded from the "peace talks." This fact alone makes them a
  farce.
  
  
• Russia and Iran don't care how many innocent women and children
  al-Assad slaughters, if they can control Syria. In fact, the leaders
  of these countries are as guilty of war crimes and crimes against
  humanity as al-Assad, since they supplying the weapons and troops to
  allow him to continue is war crimes.

So it's not surprising that the International Syria Support Group
(ISSG), which was meeting in Vienna and which comprises the United
States, Russia, the UN, the Arab League, the European Union, and 16
countries, announced on Tuesday that they had, once again, failed to
reach any agreement to bring peace to Syria. The whole thing is an
international farce.

People always criticize me when I call al-Assad a genocidal monster,
but he's clearly comparable to Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and Stalin
from the last century. There is no mass weapon of destruction, nor
any gruesome form of torture, that he won't use to satisfy his
psychopathy.

Al-Assad is the lynchpin and the engine behind the Syrian war. It
would never have started without him, and would have ended quickly if
he had let it, or if he hadn't been supported by Russia and Iran.
Thanks to his policy of exterminating Sunni civilians, tens of
thousands of young jihadists have come from around the world to Syria
to fight him. This has resulted in the creation of ISIS, and it's
resulted in millions of refugees flooding neighboring countries,
including countries in Europe.

I've written thousands of Generational Dynamics analyses since 2003,
which is the year that the current generational Crisis era began, and
although the types of behavior we're seeing were all predictable and
were all predicted, it's incredible to see them being played out on
the world stage. The world is changing rapidly, as we're seeing
people, especially young people, support Socialism, racism, and
xenophobia in country after country exactly like the 1930s. These
young people have no knowledge of history and the massive disasters
caused by the Socialism or racism or the Holocaust, and are not even
fazed as we see Socialist Venezuela collapse right before our very
eyes.

In 2013, when Hugo Chávez died, Hollywood liberals Sean Penn, Michael
Moore and Oliver Stone were effusive in their praise,
but we haven't been hearing from them lately. Also, Britain's
new ultra-left Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter
and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions to
Venezuela & a very wide world"<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The pathological stupidity of these people is amazing.

Meanwhile, the incredible geopolitical destruction being perpetrated
by Bashar al-Assad is not only tolerated, but is praised by Russia,
Iran and other acolytes. As I've said before, what's happening today
is beyond belief to me, as if I'm watching a bad movie but I can't
leave the movie theatre. But it's increasingly obvious to me what
caused World War II, and that exactly the same things are happening
today. United Nations and AFP and Washington Times and Twitter


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chávez, Henrique Capriles,
Syria, International Syria Support Group, ISSG,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front, Staffan de Mistura,
Bashar al-Assad, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Josef Stalin,
Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, Jeremy Corbyn

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe