Vini Vidi Vici Venezuela

Vini Vidi Vici Venezuela

I blame the crisis in Venezuela on my mother. At the end of 1953 my mother had already lived in Venezuela, working for the Rockefeller Foundation, for seven years. She had married a Venezuelan citizen, bought a house, joined several social and sports clubs (Mom was an athlete), given birth to two daughters (the second born in Caracas, so a natural Venezuelan citizen), hired a governess and even bought a dog. Her Spanish was flawless and she was about as integrated into Venezuelan life as anyone could be. She was pregnant with what she knew would be a son and needed to decide where he would be born. Her decision was to fly to Florida for a month’s vacation with the girls to give birth to her son. When asked by friends why bother, she would say that she wanted her son to have the ability to become President of the United States. All her Venezuelan friends would wryly reply that her son could then not become President of Venezuela.

So here I am now, unable to step in and claim my throne as the savior of Venezuela. I was born the same year as Hugo Chavez, so I would have been in the right age zone. But Mom saved me for the USA, so Venezuela dove into the Chavez/Maduro downward spiral that has trashed the country for the past twenty years. They represent the so-called United Socialist Party (PSUV), which I like to call the PDVSA-killer party. The only OPEC country to screw up such a large cash cow (the largest oil reserves in the entire world). Now they have the distinction of being a military dictatorship unable to hold control of their prey. It’s kind of funny that little Juan Guaido has been able to claim the Presidency in January for the Voluntad Popular party. In the process he has secured recognition from forty countries, including us gringos.

I guess Republicans figure that Venezuela is too far to caravan from (thanks mostly to the Darien Gap, the nastiest bit of swamp in the world that disconnects Panama and Colombia). Oh, wait, 200,000 Venezuelans already live in South Florida, mostly in “Westonzuela” (strangely, adjacent to the city of my birth in 1954….Fort Lauderdale). I wonder whether Marco Rubio knows about this? Well, I suspect that he has come out strongly supporting Guaido and his righteous take-over attempt of Venezuela (decidedly not a coup according to Marco, who knows a coup when he sees one). I also wonder if he realizes that 200,000 Venezuelan voters could be a crucial swing block in the 2020 election (the margin in 2016 was 120,000)? My guess is that both he and Trump understand that all too well.

Let’s play this out in good old conspiracy theorist fashion (not an unreasonable posture in these times). There’s an old friend of ours involved in this whole Venezuela situation. His initials are V.P. (No, not Mike Pence) and he has a nice beach house in Havana. Remember those Cuban missiles? Vlad probably cares more about Partagas, Montecristo and Cohiba missiles these days. Missiles are so 1962 and so Pyongyang. Vlad doesn’t need no stinking missiles in Cuba. Better to use Cuba to leverage its support of Maduro against Vlad getting those annoying Magnitsky-esque sanctions removed. Donald owes him, right? And with those Westonzuelans and Little Marco’s re-election and delivering Florida on a platter for Uncle Donald, missiles are so unnecessary.

Now that Roy Cohn Barr says that the President was unjustly accused of colluding with those Russians, who’s going to bother trying to draw that kind of connection a second time? The Ruskies can even graduate from social media and hacking (it’s getting to be a crowded space with all the Chinese and North Korean activity anyway.) It’s a perfect set-up. And while Guaido is getting his ticker-tape parade down Broadway, who’s going to notice Vlad moving on Ukraine once and for all? He will have to beef up Cuban support as well, but PDVSA can help there by pumping it up in Cuba.

While it is probably too paranoid to attribute this sort of three-cushion shot to any of the brain-trusts in the White House (they can’t even spell Machiavelli over there). I’m not so sure Little Marco hasn’t thought this all through. Hmm, a Cuban brokering a deal for Venezuela that involves getting Cuba to pull back with the help of Russia to insure yet another US election for the Dark Prince. That would involve a Cuban nationalist doing a deal with the Cuban revolutionaries and that is no more likely than an American President doing convenient deals with an ex-KGB Russian. Better think this through again.

I have a dear friend Oswaldo who is Venezuelan and still has family living and suffering there. Occasionally he has asked me to help transfer money to them to help them out. The amounts have been $100-$300. I can’t imagine that’s much money to help, but Oswaldo tells me that in Venezuela today, that amount of money can mean life or death. So I always help him with the transfers and pray that things improve there sooner rather than later.

Look, all kidding aside, it’s hard to deny that Maduro isn’t doing any good for the starving people of Venezuela. I have no idea if Guaido will do better than Maduro, but it’s clear the country needs a new leader and you have to hand it to Guaido for being a brave guy willing to risk life and limb against the military thugs that still control the country. I hate to see anything that might help Trump get re-elected and anything that helps Vlad get his moneys worth out of the Trumpster, but my heart genuinely goes out to my people (I still have cousins there) and we’ll go find another 200,000 votes somewhere else in Florida to balance the books.

When Julius Caesar kicked butt in Turkey (then called the Kingdom of Pontus) he sent the Senate the simple message, Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered). Philip Morris viewed the term as their battle cry to spread the wisdom of cigarette smoking across the world. Now, Little Marco is going to conquer Cuba, Venezuela and the US for Vlad and Mr. Evil under the same banner. Go, Marco!