Preparing to Storm America’s Castle

 

A foreign power that controls the Caribbean Sea could cripple the U.S. economy.

The United States is being threatened by hostile nations taking over the Caribbean Sea. Major news sources pay little attention to this region, but the Caribbean is vital to U.S. security. This sea not only connects the East Coast with the Pacific Ocean via the Panama Canal, it guards the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico. Half of America’s seaborne trade passes through the Gulf. So a foreign power that controls the Caribbean could cripple the U.S. economy by restricting its access to oceanic shipping.

This geographic reality is why Russia and China want to challenge U.S. dominance in the Caribbean. These aspiring superpowers are forging alliances with socialist governments in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. If these Latin dictatorships become staging grounds for Russia and China, a coalition of nations could potentially cut off U.S. access to the Panama Canal and seal off the Straits of Florida and the Yucatan Channel.

As shocking as this scenario sounds, the Bible reveals that enemies will seize control of the world’s most strategic maritime choke points and lay siege to the United States. America is going to lose access to the Panama Canal, the Straits of Florida, the Windward Passage, the Yucatan Channel and many other shipping lanes that its people rely on for food, electronic components, oil, raw materials and other goods.

The results will be devastating.

Venezuela Has 20 Tons of Gold Ready to Ship. Address Unknown

Venezuela Has 20 Tons of Gold Ready to Ship. Address Unknown (Yahoo!)

 

(Bloomberg) — Venezuelan lawmaker Jose Guerra dropped a bombshell on Twitter Tuesday: The Russian Boeing 777 that had landed in Caracas the day before was there to spirit away 20 tons of gold from the vaults of the country’s central bank.

The claim set off a welter of social media speculation and outrage. When asked how he knew this, Guerra provided no evidence.

Report: Russia Sends ‘Security Contractors’ to Venezuela to Protect Maduro

(Photo Credit: The Kremlin)

 

The Wagner Group is the same quasi-independent mercenary group that was routed by U.S. forces in Syria last year.

Russia has reportedly doubled down on its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by sending “security contractors” to Caracas to provide protection for the dictator.

Venuezuela’s socialist nightmare could be ending; Military no longer ‘faithful’

Venezuelan opposition supporters take to the streets to protest against the government of President Nicolas Maduro on Jan. 23. / Yuri Cortex / AFP / Getty Images

 

With support from the U.S., opposition leaders in Venezuela have sparked what they hope is the beginning of the end of the socialist regime of President Nicolas Maduro.

Reports on the ground say smaller-scale demonstrations that began on Jan. 21 began to spread on Jan. 22 with protests erupting in more than 60 neighborhoods across Caracas and in interior states.

Moscow To Set Up Military Base In Caribbean

 

“According to military envoys, Russian authorities have made a decision (and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro did not object) to deploy strategic aircraft to one of Venezuela’s islands in the Caribbean Sea, which has a naval base and a military airfield. Ten years ago, Russian experts and Armed Forces commanders had already visited the island of La Orchila, located 200 kilometers northeast of Caracas. Venezuelan laws prohibit the setup of military bases in the country, but a temporary deployment of warplanes is possible,” reported Russian state news agency TASS.

The Biggest Threat To Dollar Dominance

 

Russian oil exporters are pressuring Western commodity traders to pay for Russian crude in euros and not dollars as Washington prepares more sanctions for the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Moscow, Reuters reported last week, citing as many as seven industry sources.

While it may have come as a surprise to the traders, who, Reuters said, were not too happy about it, the Russian companies’ move was to be expected as the Trump administration pursues a foreign policy where sanctions feature prominently. This approach, however, could undermine the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the global oil trade currency.

‘Man-made crisis’: Venezuelan hell destabilizes region

Venezuelan refugees line up for food donations at Simon Bolivar Square in Boa Vista, Brazil. / Andre Coelho / Bloomberg

 

UNITED NATIONS — It didn’t have to be this way. An oil rich, economically prosperous middle class country, once a stable Latin American democracy, is disintegrating into a socialist dystopia plagued by hunger, corruption, hyper-inflation and churning political unrest.

While petroleum remains Venezuela’s major export, now tragically it’s the people too who are fleeing this twice California sized country.

Maduro admits failure: ‘No more whining . . . We need to make Venezuela’ (great again)

 

During a speech in which the power went out while he was on live television, Venezuela’s socialist president admitted his economic model has “failed.”

“The production models we’ve tried so far have failed and the responsibility is ours, mine and yours,” President Nicolas Maduro told his ruling PSUV party congress on July 30.

Coup Attempt in Caracas

 

CARACAS/BERLIN (Own report) – Serious allegations are being raised against a partner cooperating with Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FDP) in the context of an attempted putsch: The US Bloomberg news agency has reported that opposition officers had planned to storm the presidential palace in Caracas, capture President Nicolás Maduro and stop the May 20 presidential elections. The conspiracy was discovered and several putschists were arrested in mid-May. According to Venezuela’s military prosecutor’s investigations, an opposition politician María Corina Machado was involved in the attempted coup. Machado, who is said to be very popular within the military, denies the allegations. She is the leader of the “Vente Venezuela” party, which joined the “RELIAL” network last fall. The network was initiated and is backed by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FDP) and includes several parties who, in the past, have overthrown or attempted to overthrow democratically elected governments, for example in Honduras (2009) and in Paraguay (2012).

Iran and Russia Just Revealed How They’ll Upend the Petrodollar

 

Iran and Russia just took a page out of Venezuela’s playbook.

Like Caracas announced on Dec. 4, Moscow and Tehran are looking into cryptocurrencies as a means of upending the U.S. petrodollar’s reign over the global oil market, Cointelegraph reported on Dec. 11.

For its part, crypto’s rise in popularity of late does make for an enticing investment choice, especially with Bitcoin’s 150% surge over the past month.

Venezuela quells attack on military base, two killed

VALENCIA/CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug 6 (Reuters) – Venezuelan authorities quelled an attack on a military base near the city of Valencia by soldiers and armed civilians on Sunday, killing two of them in a dramatic escalation of unrest in the protest-convulsed South American nation.

The pre-dawn raid coincided with a video circulated on social media showing more than a dozen men in military uniform announcing an uprising to restore constitutional order following the creation of a pro-government legislative superbody on Friday, condemned internationally as a power grab by President Nicolas Maduro.

Colombia: Venezuela Crumbles Into Uncertainty

While Venezuela is drifting towards mass starvation, government collapse and civil war Colombia has managed to avoid all that and then some. What Colombia did was not easy. It required nearly two decades of effort to reach the point where a peace deal was agreed to and succeeded in disbanding the major leftist rebel group FARC. With that accomplished (as of the end of June) the second largest leftist rebel group (ELN, a third the size of FARC) now wants to talk peace as well. All these leftist rebels got going in the 1960s but by the 1990s were rapidly losing popular support. It got worse after 2000 because by then the drug gangs and leftist rebels had merged in many parts of the country, and the war was increasingly about money, not ideology. A new reform government took advantage of this and organized an offensive that sharply reduced crime and gave the economy a chance to become the most successful in South America.

Maduro Orders Army Into The Streets Ahead Of “Mother Of All Protests”

 

With the world’s attention focused on Syria and North Korea in recent weeks for obvious reason, another geopolitical hotspot is on the verge of eruption. According to AFP, after weeks of increasingly more violent protests, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the army into the streets as the insolvent nation braces for what the opposition has vowed will be the “mother of all protests” on Wednesday.

Maduro, who recently backed down from a bid to usurp supreme power after a Supreme Court decision left the local Congress powerless, only to reverse itself following furious blowback even from his own party, has faced violent protests over recent moves to tighten his grip on power, and ordered the military to defend the leftist “Bolivarian revolution” launched by his late mentor Hugo Chavez in 1999.

‘The people’ turn on Venezuela’s president, chase him through the streets

 

Fed up with what socialism has wrought in their country, angry Venezuelans on Sept. 3 chased President Nicolas Maduro through the streets during what was supposed to be a routine political event.

Maduro had traveled to Margarita Island off Venezuela’s northern coast to inaugurate a number of new public housing units and give a televised address during which he denounced his opponents’ demands that he step down from office, calling them “vampires”.

Venezuela Will “Purge” All State Workers Who Sign Maduro Recall Petition

Last week we reported that in addition to confiscating the guns of Venezuela’s famished population, president Maduro had a warning for would-be coup plotters (perhaps sensing that a coup is imminent): “Did you see what happened in Turkey?” said Maduro, in a televised public event on Thursday evening. “Erdogan will seem like a nursing baby compared to what the Bolivarian revolution will do if the right wing steps over the line with a coup.”