«Arguably the real military power behind the throne in Venezuela today is the tens of thousands of Cuban operatives in the country. These range from bodyguards protecting Maduro (a sign he cannot trust his own people) to intelligence operatives, to “sports advisers” to ground forces which are not called as such. Estimates of the total number of Cuban operatives range as high as 30,000.
One of the reasons Maduro has been unable to flee is that the Cubans, reportedly, were threatening to kill him if he did. Cuba needs Venezuelan oil to live, otherwise its regime could fail. The Cuban economy is a mess and the island has suffered regularly from power outages. Venezuelan fuel is keeping it going. The slow down already in oil deliveries because of the US attacks over the last few months has been felt seriously in Cuba.
If those Cuban forces remain in Venezuela, they will almost certainly try and play a role in trying to replace Maduro with another Maduro—which is why the US cannot hope to succeed unless they get the Cubans out.»
Prepare for a mess.
anthk•1mo ago
Some Spanish politicians tried to shift Venezuela into a former social-democracy and this move will just make Venezuela shield over and probably have a good reason to actually support China, Russia and undesirable forces and OFC Cuba.
And, ironically, Cuba was an ongoing process to liberalize the country under an hybrid regime making good support for capitalist small and medium sizes companies. IDK if they were co-operatives or vertically founded, but I'm pretty sure the companies where not under a state 15-year plan.
Under a cooperative you are both an employee and a member, and before being employed you need to pay some relatively-high initial invest for a blue collar worker. But later the company profits/surpluses are more evenly shared.
That should have been the rational step in order to avoid this mess. But you know, when cult irraltional nuts rule everything (in both political sides) you just get fancy in-book theories but disastrous outcomes.
PD:Cuban die-hard socialists would just accept collecting taxes to support the rest of state-funded infra, such as healthcare. The money moves between the Cubans and the state would just work as before but with less bureaucracy. And this way you would avoid both the state and private monopolies picking up all the profit.
FrankWilhoit•1mo ago
The goal is to prevent any successor regime from arising.
bediger4000•1mo ago
If I wasn't an upper middle brow news consumer, I just might think Trump is desperately trying anything to avoid focus on his appearances in the Epstein files.
exceptione•1mo ago
anthk•1mo ago
And, ironically, Cuba was an ongoing process to liberalize the country under an hybrid regime making good support for capitalist small and medium sizes companies. IDK if they were co-operatives or vertically founded, but I'm pretty sure the companies where not under a state 15-year plan.
More on cooperativism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
Under a cooperative you are both an employee and a member, and before being employed you need to pay some relatively-high initial invest for a blue collar worker. But later the company profits/surpluses are more evenly shared.
That should have been the rational step in order to avoid this mess. But you know, when cult irraltional nuts rule everything (in both political sides) you just get fancy in-book theories but disastrous outcomes.
PD:Cuban die-hard socialists would just accept collecting taxes to support the rest of state-funded infra, such as healthcare. The money moves between the Cubans and the state would just work as before but with less bureaucracy. And this way you would avoid both the state and private monopolies picking up all the profit.