Andrew Cawthorne at least reported that Cuba, not just Venezuela, is mocking Obama’s announcement that there is Venezuelan threat to the “national security” of the USA that is “unusual and extraordinary”.

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, called it a “bad joke” which at least approximates an appropriate description of Obama’s assertion. The mind boggles attempting to envision a statement by Obama that would be crazy enough for a corporate journalist to acknowledge as nuts. Maybe if Obama announced that he is really a Martian.

Note how Cawthorne does give himself license to speculate about Maduro’s motives in responding to Obama:

“Maduro may be calculating that stirring nationalist sentiment will rally strained support among the traditional ‘Chavista’ power-base of Venezuela’s poor, and unite ruling Socialist Party factions, ahead of a parliamentary election later this year.”

What is Obama calculating with his lunatic assertion? That would require saying that Obama’s motives are not what he claims – not allowed with the Imperial Master –even when the stated motives (protecting the USA from a Venezuelan national security threat) are totally insane.

There are a few things Obama is calculating.

1)      Nothing he says about Venezuela will be ridiculed by the corporate media no matter how crazy. There is no political downside, thanks to the far right Congress and incredibly one-sided media coverage of Venezuela in the USA, to ramping up belligerence towards Venezuela.  It will not help the USA become less isolated in Latin America but Obama’s government is too arrogant to care, much like the international press.

2) This move – targeting specific Venezuelan officials – is an attempt to promote “strife and mistrust within Chavista ranks” as Venezuelan opposition blogger Juan Nagel approvingly suggested in the comments to his own post. In fact, the USA deployed this strategy to help oust Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. As offense – aimed at regime change – it makes sense. As defense, as claimed by Obama, it is beyond preposterous.

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