{"id":6472,"date":"2015-03-13T06:09:40","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T11:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=6472"},"modified":"2015-03-13T06:09:40","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T11:09:40","slug":"maybe-obamas-sanctions-on-venezuela-are-not-really-about-his-deep-concern-over-suppression-of-political-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=6472","title":{"rendered":"MAYBE OBAMA\u2019S SANCTIONS ON VENEZUELA ARE NOT REALLY ABOUT HIS \u201cDEEP CONCERN\u201d OVER SUPPRESSION OF POLITICAL RIGHTS"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2015\/03\/11\/maybe-obamas-sanctions-venezuela-really-deep-concern-human-rights-abuses\/\" target=\"_blank\">MAYBE OBAMA\u2019S SANCTIONS ON VENEZUELA ARE NOT REALLY ABOUT HIS \u201cDEEP CONCERN\u201d OVER SUPPRESSION OF POLITICAL RIGHTS<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>The White House on Monday\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2015\/03\/09\/statement-press-secretary-venezuela\">announced<\/a>\u00a0the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself \u201cdeeply concerned\u00a0by the Venezuelan government\u2019s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents\u201d:\u00a0<em>deeply concerned.\u00a0<\/em>President Obama also,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2015\/03\/09\/us-usa-venezuela-idUSKBN0M51NS20150309\">reportedly<\/a>\u00a0with a straight face,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2015\/03\/09\/fact-sheet-venezuela-executive-order\">officially declared<\/a>\u00a0that Venezuela poses \u201can\u00a0extraordinary threat to the national security\u201d of the U.S. \u2014\u00a0a declaration necessary to legally justify the sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>Today, one of the Obama administration\u2019s closest allies on the planet, Saudi Arabia,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/mar\/11\/saudi-arabia-jails-human-rights-activist-mohammed-al-bajadi\">sentenced<\/a>\u00a0one of that country\u2019s few independent human rights activists, Mohammed al-Bajad, to 10 years in prison on \u201cterrorism\u201d charges. That is completely consistent with that regime\u2019s systematic and extreme\u00a0repression, which includes\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.vice.com\/article\/woman-is-publicly-beheaded-in-saudi-arabias-tenth-execution-of-2015\">gruesome state beheadings<\/a>\u00a0at a record-setting rate,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.vice.com\/article\/imprisoned-saudi-arabian-blogger-raif-badawi-is-awarded-geneva-summits-courage-award\">floggings and long prison terms<\/a>\u00a0for anti-regime bloggers,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/oct\/16\/saudi-arabia-death-sentence-shia-nimr-baqir-human-rights\">executions<\/a>\u00a0of those with minority religious\u00a0views, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/articles\/news\/2014\/07\/new-anti-terror-law-used-imprison-saudi-arabian-human-rights-activist\/\">exploitation of terror laws to imprison<\/a>\u00a0even the mildest regime critics.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Absolutely nobody expects the \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d President Obama to impose sanctions on the Saudis \u2014 nor on any of the other loyal\u00a0U.S. allies from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2014\/10\/16\/egypts-u-s-backed-military-regime-brutalizing-student-protestors\/\">Egypt<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/articles\/news\/2014\/11\/uae-ruthless-crackdown-dissent-exposes-ugly-reality-beneath-fa-ade-glitz-and-glamour\/\">UAE<\/a>\u00a0whose repression is far worse than Venezuela\u2019s. Perhaps those who actually believe U.S. proclamations about imposing sanctions on Venezuela in objection to\u00a0suppression of political opposition might spend some time thinking about what accounts for that disparity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MAYBE OBAMA\u2019S SANCTIONS ON VENEZUELA ARE NOT REALLY ABOUT HIS \u201cDEEP CONCERN\u201d OVER SUPPRESSION OF POLITICAL RIGHTS The White House on Monday\u00a0announced\u00a0the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself \u201cdeeply concerned\u00a0by the Venezuelan government\u2019s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents\u201d:\u00a0deeply concerned.\u00a0President Obama also,\u00a0reportedly\u00a0with a straight face,\u00a0officially declared\u00a0that Venezuela poses \u201can\u00a0extraordinary [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2422,584,1109,701,851,877],"class_list":["post-6472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-obama","tag-sanctions","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-venezuela","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6473,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6472\/revisions\/6473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}