{"id":178093,"date":"2019-03-10T18:03:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T23:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/03\/10\/what-a-surprise-the-venezuela-aid-story-was-a-lie\/"},"modified":"2019-03-10T18:03:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T23:03:00","slug":"what-a-surprise-the-venezuela-aid-story-was-a-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/03\/10\/what-a-surprise-the-venezuela-aid-story-was-a-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"What a Surprise, the Venezuela Aid Story Was a Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"
There was a confrontation at the Columbia-Venezuelan border over the US aid convoy 2 weeks ago, and it appears that the narrative stating that the Venezuelan Army had burned the convoy was a lie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I would note that, until dozens of alternate sources had, and revealed the footage, the New York Times<\/i> had bought into the previous narrative:<\/div>\n

The narrative seemed to fit Venezuela\u2019s authoritarian rule: Security forces, on the order of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, had torched a convoy of humanitarian aid as millions in his country were suffering from illness and hunger.<\/p>\n

Vice President Mike Pence wrote that \u201cthe tyrant in Caracas danced\u201d<\/a> as his henchmen \u201cburned food & medicine.\u201d The State Department released a video<\/a> saying Mr. Maduro had ordered the trucks burned. And Venezuela\u2019s opposition held up the images<\/a> of the burning aid, reproduced on dozens of news sites<\/a> and television screens<\/a> throughout Latin America, as evidence of Mr. Maduro\u2019s cruelty.<\/p>\n

But there is a problem: The opposition itself, not Mr. Maduro\u2019s men, appears to have set the cargo alight accidentally.<\/p>\n

Unpublished footage obtained by The New York Times and previously released tapes \u2014 including footage released by the Colombian government, which has blamed Mr. Maduro for the fire \u2014 allowed for a reconstruction of the incident. It suggests that a Molotov cocktail thrown by an antigovernment protester was the most likely trigger for the blaze.<\/p>\n

At one point, a homemade bomb made from a bottle is hurled toward the police, who were blocking a bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela to prevent the aid trucks from getting through.<\/p>\n

But the rag used to light the Molotov cocktail separates from the bottle, flying toward the aid truck instead.<\/p>\n

Half a minute later, that truck is in flames.<\/p>\n

The same protester can be seen 20 minutes earlier, in a different video, hitting another truck with a Molotov cocktail, without setting it on fire.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Accidentally?<\/p>\n

This guy threw Molotov Cocktails at at least 2 trucks over a period of 20 minutes, and you are calling it a f%$#ing, “Accident”?<\/p>\n

More like a deliberate false flag.<\/p>\n

BTW, in related news, another New York Times<\/i> story, about the widespread power outages in Venezuela buries the lede<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The blackout will further depress Venezuela\u2019s already collapsing economy, which is being squeezed by bad governance, graft and sanctions imposed by the United States<\/span><\/b>. The sanctions have affected Venezuela\u2019s ability to import and produce the fuel required by the thermal power plants that could have backed up the Guri plant once it failed<\/span><\/b>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n

This is why, when I want accurate stories regarding US foreign policy, I go to the foreign press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a confrontation at the Columbia-Venezuelan border over the US aid convoy 2 weeks ago, and it appears that the narrative stating that the Venezuelan Army had burned the convoy was a lie. I would note that, until dozens of alternate sources had, and revealed the footage, the New York Times had bought into …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,490,387,485],"class_list":["post-178093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-foreign-relations","tag-hack-journalism","tag-hypocrisy","tag-latin-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}