Whatever in the world would cause Mad Maduro to go so over-the-top at the news that Britain sent one of its PATROL ships – which works to interdict drug traffickers across the Atlantic – to Guyana? Boasting that Venezuelans were “warriors”, the fella went ballistic – calling Britain “a decadent, rotten, ex-empire” and warning that “no one should mess with Venezuela”!! And he didn’t stop with his chest-beating like a Venezuelan Tarzan in the Venezuelan jungles. The ex-bus driver put on a military cap and ordered 5682 soldiers; 3 ocean patrol vessels; 7 missile boats; 12 Sukhoi planes, AND a host of amphibious vehicles into a military exercise near Essequibo!!
We know he’s mad, but surely he didn’t think that a single British ship with not more than 50 men, with mere cannons – presented such a threat to his country?? Let’s face it: while Brittania might’ve once “ruled the waves”, so that it could transport its army wherever it wanted to back up whatever claim it asserted, those days are long gone!! In fact, as far back as in 1976, George S. Brown – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter – dismissed Britain and its military as “pathetic.” For good measure, he added, “They’re no longer a world power. All they’ve got are generals, admirals and bands. They do things in great style…on the protocol side. But it makes you sick to see their forces”!!
But maybe because – even after such disparagement – just six years later, Britain was able to whup Argentina’s a55 some 8000 miles away and recover its Falklands Islands – led by a woman (Margaret Thatcher), of all people!! – it still irks Mad Maduro’s Latin machismo?? Could be…you can never tell what goes on in the mind of a people scorned. And Britain’s view of Venezuela and the other Latin American leaders – as dictators parading around with chests bedecked with ribbons, but who’ve never actually seen battle!! – had to have irked. Especially when Mad Maduro’s always conscious that, unlike his mentor Chavez, he never was even in the military, and their “loyalty” to him has to be bought!!
However, the truth is – almost fifty years after Brown’s bleak assessment – Britain’s forces haven’t been noticeably empowered. Its army is just about half of Venezuela’s, at 78,000 troops – less than during the Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1815! ! Its Navy’s fleet has shrunk to fewer than 20 surface ships and 10 submarines. Its newest aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, cannot launch or retrieve conventional aircraft. Its Air Wing consists of the vertical take-off and landing F-35Bs. And its famous RA has fewer than 300 fixed-wing aircraft!!
Is Mad Maduro quaking because he knows his forces are paper tigers??
…social media??
A lot of folks are getting their drawers and bucktas in a knot over concerns raised by the Government in regard to incendiary and divisive rhetoric being spewed over social media! Now, your Eyewitness has already addressed the issue from a free-speech perspective by pointing out that, even in the most liberal of societies that worship free speech – the US – “you can’t yell “FIRE!!!” in a crowded theatre!!
But there’s far more to it than that!! Back in the 60s, “the medium is the message” was a phrase created to signal the form a medium embeds itself in the message – creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. Well, we’ve come a long way from TV, where broadcasters’ idiosyncrasies had to be curbed by legislation!! With social media, there are no rules of the game – and messages are no longer “mediated”!!
We must all be concerned we don’t allow folks to scream “FIRE” that’s gonna consume us all!!
…development
It would appear that there are some among us who fear development – like the Luddites of yore, who broke factory machinery that was “taking away peoples’ jobs”! History shows that, after an initial imbalance, jobs should match people!!
