These currently right-wing governments came belatedly to realise how unpopular and electorally costly such support would become for them at home : especially with the prominent role in the US diplomatic campaign of the universally loathed and infamous Elliott Abrams.

No joke! Talk about image problems. Back in the 80s, Elliott “Santa Muerte” Abrams buried about half of Guatemala in an unmarked grave. Now Bolton wheels him out to be the public face of our little revolución á color in Venezuela ? Really?

You see, this is the benefit of having Trump running our régime-change campaigns, rather than someone competent like Smooth-Move Obama. Under Trump, they are more likely to self-destruct … and probably fast.

A short response to alaffcreator. I strive for accuracy in what I write: this essay was a short overview narrative of a complex story.

On my ‘spiritual glue’ remark about Venezuela: as my preceding sentences made clear, I was referring to the long history and persuasive power in Latin America of simple nationalism and opposition to Yanqui imperialist greed etc. As to Syria, while I share the writer’s admiration for how Assad and the loyal.Syrian Army have withstood and now almost overcome their enemies – and my writing record on Syria proves it – there were initially exploitable sectarian and ethnic fissures in Syria involving Shia/Sunni/Kurd communities and Christianity/moderate Islam/ extremist Islamism that gave initial room for mischief- making by Syria’s enemies. There is nothing comparable in Venezuela. There is just one divide – between rich and poor.

On the reported presence of up to 400 Russian contractors in Venezuela, assisting President Maduro, I have studied all the press including reported comments by Peskov and (on comparable issue of presence of Russian contractors in Syria) Zakharova. I am satisfied that there are some groups of experienced Russians working in Venezuela, possibly under private contractor arrangements. I welcome their presence – I am sure it offers reassurance to Maduro and Venezuelans loyal to his presidency. I would not expect the Russian Govt to issue press releases about this. Peskov did not actually deny their presence , his words were to the effect ‘ sometimes, stuff happens that I would not always be in a position to confirm’.’

I’m not sure about Michael Moore’s overall record on Obama, but his recent film, “Fahrenheit 11/9”, certainly portrayed Obama in a VERY bad light, as he deliberately tried to made fun of a community of people who were being poisoned, for the sake of profit by private water company, by having to drink water that often looked like the raw sewage it contained since they took over. It was a rare sight of Obama unmistakably showing his true colours.

“Venezuela has rich resources of gold, nickel, iron ore, steel, diamond, alumina, coal, bauxite, asphalt, natural gas, and petroleum. In 2014, the extraction of minerals from mines and quarries accounted for about 26% of GDP”. It also has coltan, which is used for, among other things, car batteries – for which demand is rapidly increasing.

Best to keep your mouth shut and appear ignorant (or just plain tupid in your case), than open it and remove all doubt.
Or alternatively at a level that you can understand “stop trying to be a smart-ass; you’re not smart, thus you are just an ass” (or arse if you prefer)

There is a national spiritual glue in Venezuela that was not present in Georgia, Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, or Syria: in all those cases there were deep sectarian or ethnic fissures in society ready for US ‘colour revolution’ regime change architects to exacerbate and exploit.

This statement seems to me fundamentally wrong. At least in relation to Syria. In my opinion, the presence of such a “national spiritual glue” was in many ways the reason why Syria did not fall apart. It is the presence of the “national spiritual glue” among the Syrian people contributed to the many years of successful resistance to external aggression (primarily Western). 8(!) years of war, but Syria is not broken. It is precisely because of the presence of “national spiritual glue”. If Syria did not have this “glue”, the country would have collapsed long ago.

The statement about the presence of “deep sectarian or ethnic fissures in society” in Syria is also very doubtful in my opinion. On the contrary, Syria is traditionally famous for its deeply peaceful coexistence of various nationalities and religious denominations.

…the publicised despatch of 400 Russian ‘technical contractor’ specialists to Caracas.

It is difficult to say something definitely. However, I rather tend to view this information as untrue.
Firstly, there are players in the region who are able to provide assistance of this kind. Mean, Cuba or Bolivia.
I recall that after the appearance of rumors about the “400 Russian guards” the following happened:

Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov officially denied the information of some Western media about Russia sending 400 fighters (either military or mercenaries) to protect Nicolas Maduro.
Russian Ambassador to Caracas Vladimir Zaemsky in an interview with “RIA Novosti” also denied this information, calling it another fake.
Venezuelan Foreign Ministry denied reports that President Nicolas Maduro appealed to Moscow with a request for military assistance.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/28/world/politics-diplomacy-world/kremlin-denies-reports-russia-mercenaries-protecting-maduro/#.XHiBYylv6t8

After all, if there was a need to send people to guard Maduro, why would the Kremlin hide it?
It was possible to declare absolutely calmly that “at the request of the Venezuelan government”, representatives of the Russian armed forces were sent to the country. It is not even necessary to say that it is for the protection of the president. You can always say, for example, that “the Russian military will take part in joint training / exercises with the Venezuelan military”. After all, at the exercises, you can always work out scenarios of a possible attack on the president of the country and repelling such an attack…
By the way, such a signal would become a kind of “sobering factor” for the United States, and would make them think once more when considering the possibility of a military invasion of Venezuela.
But this was not done. Instead, both the Kremlin and Caracas officially denied rumors of “400 Russian guards”.

I repeat, nothing can be said for 100%.
But in this case, I tend to view this news as a fake.
We have already heard such nonsense last year, when Western media claimed that the US airstrike in the Euphrates region allegedly destroyed “many hundreds of Russian military men”. It was fake.
http://russiafeed.com/russia-foreign-ministry-scores-russians-killed-syria-disinformation/

“Wish you’d told us earlier”. — Noriega, Sadam, Ben Laden, Mubarak, the Apart Hate Regime in South Africa, the Nazis in pre-War Germany ….

Who’s next? There’s plenty of room under the bus.

OMG, they are coming for our tantalumized capacitors !! World’s End !

From that font of all knowledge (?);

Coltan (short for columbite–tantalites and known industrially as tantalite) is a dull black metallic ore, from which the elements niobium and tantalum are extracted. The niobium-dominant mineral in coltan is columbite (after niobium’s original American name columbium), and the tantalum-dominant mineral is tantalite.[1]

Tantalum from coltan is used to manufacture batteries for electric cars, and in tantalum capacitors it is used in electronic products. Coltan mining[2][3] has helped to finance serious conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example the Ituri conflict and the Second Congo War.[4][5][6]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan