RE:RE:RE:OBFUSCATELol Phantomblogger, I've been forwarding stuff on my Whatsapp feed here to a buddy in Guyana. He was trying to figure out Maduro's motivations. The stuff that I forwarded was solid political analysis from experts here. I'll briefly summarize it: Maduro is looking for an external threat/crisis so that he can declare martial law, suspend constitutional gaurentees with the end game being the cancellation of the presidential elections slated for next year so that he can perpetuate himself in power.
If that's true, then I suggested to my buddy in Guyana that Guyana could help Maduro out by getting some Guyanese soldiers to shoot peas at Venezuelan troops with pea shooters. Maduro could hype it up thar Guyana was shooting at his troops, declare martial law but not invade Guyana because that would anger China and Maduro doesn't want to mess with that Asian tiger.
I added that I don't really care who runs these countrues - dictatorships or democrats. I want an administration that grows the private sector. That's the key for me. I'd much rather live under an efficient, wealth creating dictatorship like in Singapore which delivers very high standards of living than some of the wasteful, stupid, run by morons democracies in the world.
So whatever grows the private sector pie bigger is fine with me. Maduro stays in power and goes to live on a nice beach somewhere turning administrative control over to puppets of external interests who see huge potential in this entire continent. I hope that the Americans, Russians, Chinese come up with some plan to get these economies really going. Essequibo is loaded with highly sought after resources. Maybe China brokers a deal with Maduro. Lay off Guyana and we'll pump billions into your part of the Guyana Shield. Something like that anyway. Put the dispute back on the back burner for a few more decades.