"That said, the US is not helping with the idiotic sanctions. They've had the obvious effect of forcing Venezuela to cozy up to Russia, which is NOT something we need right now. The best thing we could do is end them immediately." DARKVADER
Well, most of your post was correct but Chavez was cozying up to the Russians, Cubans and Chinese durning his tenure. Without their help Maduro would not be able to hold onto power. He really needs to go and when he does Putler will suffer some problems for it and the Chinese too will have more issues getting that oil. I have taught and played sports with many of my Venezuelan neighbors coming into Santiago, Chile since 2015. The first four years I was teaching engineers, doctors, lawyers and nurses and then the next wave of folks from there were the semi illiterate and many of them are just straight up gangsters who along with the the Colombians have flooded Latin America with weapons(mainly smuggled in via Texas) and Chile never had gun issues before but now every teenager is armed and robbing everyone else. We also now have 38 car jackings per day. Kidnapping for extortion is now a thing and there is even shanty towns that the Haitian immigrants started all over the country with some of them having up to 15,000 people crammed into their makeshift towns within cities. Vigilanteism is all the rage and criminals that get caught by neighborhood people robbing and hurting get serene rapped to telephone poles after a beating and salt poured on their wounds until the cops finally get off their asses and show up. Now, the newer immigrants with their gangs from Venezuela
and Colombia have taken up residence inside the Haitians communities and have their own cemeteries where they bury their kidnap victims of the families that could not pay up the ransom. These people steal the water, electricity and anything not nailed down from the poor Chileans who live in legal housing nearby and Chileans have had it with Venezuelans and Colombian gangster who also have thousands of barber shops all over the country now(eight within two blocks in my barrio alone) where they wash drug money. They also control the migrants who sale stuff on the street by renting them sidewalk space and murder and robe and rape with no thought to the locals and within the migrant communities. Loud all night criminal parties destroy the peace of the neighborhoods and people have become xenophobic with good reason towards them. The congress here has made a new law especailly for these criminals that they catch that attempt to play stupid and have no legal identification to prove who they are so now if they get caught and play that game they stay in jail until they can legally prove who they are and from where they come. Some of the criminals decided to leave but the countries of Peru and Bolivia, which they came through to get to Chile, refuse to let them back in and Maduro refuses the Chilean air force to fly them back into Venezuela after they kick them out. I am an old airborne soldier and tell people we can put parachutes on these deported criminals and drop them off with a strong back breeze into that gawd awful country two hundred at a time from Ecador or Colombia. I will even teach them to land as I am so sick of them. My sister in law has been robbed five times by Venezuelans
and many of my other friends and family also has been robbed and hurt by them. All because Maduro has to stay in power.
This guy is a full on Russian agent posing like he represents the West and Silly Con Valley. He is just a traitor to his host's country and need to spend the rest of his life in prison and the government needs to take all his wealth and give it to Ukraine so as to start to undo some, just some of the damage he has done to them. I would advocate for the death penalty but rich guys would rather have that then live in a 5'x 5' cel for the rest of their days.