Venezuela continues to rot under Maduro's cruel mafia state without much attention. And despite socialist propaganda that it cares about the people, socialist governments care more about preserving its power.
Venezuela is no longer a functioning state:
The Venezuelan regime is not just a military dictatorship but also a criminal enterprise. Rather than a Weberian rational-bureaucratic state, what Maduro leads is a loose confederation of criminal chieftainships where he plays the role of capo di tutti capi—the boss of bosses. Normally, Maduro is able to arbitrate disputes between his captains. But sometimes, as in Apure, the system breaks down and violence erupts.
In Apure, Maduro's military was defeated by local gangs spun out from FARC who retain control of the region outside of Maduro's authority.
The mafia state Maduro presides over seems remarkably similar at a high altitude level of comparison to Saddam Hussein's Iraq prior to 2003:
Under Saddam, the Shia south was kept under sullen control after mass killings and continuous oppression. Western Anbar was subcontracted to the Sunni Arab tribes and not under control of Saddam. The Kurdish north was de facto independent under American and British protection. And even the center was largely subcontracted out to criminal gangs. The Iraqi state was really Saddam's family and favored Tikriti Sunni Arabs plus the security apparatus and a UN seat. It lived off of the people of Iraq but was not a country at all. No unity and no stability except the quiet calm of a corpse, and surely not even Korb believed Saddam was winning those elections at 99+%.
Of course, nobody is going to invade Venezuela to topple the fragile system. So Venezuela may allow us to see how staying out and just letting the locals sort out their differences without our "horrible" influence could have worked out in Iraq--if Libya post-Khadaffi isn't enough of a lesson.
Of course, the authors lean into that belief with his condemnation of Trump's verbal campaign against Maduro. If only he hadn't gotten local hopes up at being saved from abroad they could have ... what? ... defeated the thugs who have the guns and food? Sided with other gangs who had guns and food to resist Maduro locally?
Hell, Maduro has wrecked the chances of the vast majority of people just to survive with some dignity:
Venezuela on Friday launched its second monetary overhaul in three years by cutting six zeros from the bolivar currency in response to hyperinflation, simplifying accounting but doing little to ease the South American nation's economic crisis.
Sucks to be the Venezuelan lab mice who can't escape, as 20% of the population already has. The survival treadmill is speeding up and soon nobody will be able to run fast enough.
