U.S. labels Venezuela 'threat' while backing human rights abusers

Barack Obama has upped the ante in his aggressions against Venezuela. The U.S. president claimed Monday that the democratically-elected Venezuelan government poses a "threat to national security," due to a full compliment of alleged human-rights abuses.

"... the Government of Venezuela's erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to anti-government protests, and arbitrary arrest and detention of anti-government protesters, as well as the exacerbating presence of significant public corruption, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," Obama claimed, before announcing imposing financial sanctions on top Venezuelan officials.

Yet this preoccupation with human rights becomes perplexing when one considers that many of the chief recipients of U.S. aid — a combination of military and economic assistance — or support employ highly-questionable practices to prop up their regimes.

Israel and Egypt, who receive some of the highest military financing from the US, have both been in the spotlight for a whole host of human-rights abuses in the past months, while Saudi Arabia, who Obama sycophantly labelled as the U.S.'s "greatest ally," has a long history of violent state repression. Colombia, the tenth overall highest recipient, and the highest in Latin America, has jails crammed with political prisoners.

U.S. arms the Israeli war machine

Aside from Afghanistan, which the U.S. has poured staggering amounts of money and blood into over the last decade to fund a messy war, Israel tops the chart as most deserving of U.S. aid, receiving US$3.1 billion, according to the most recently-available figures. Israel is also the highest net receiver of U.S. aid since World War II.

The 50-day conflict between Israel and Gaza last year once more brought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's human rights abuses hurtling to public attention. 2,200 Palestinians were killed in the war, almost a quarter of whom were children. A further 100,000 lost their homes. The Israeli military reported 73 casualties.

A recent report by Physicians for Human Rights revealed that Israel's army used "heavy explosives ... in residential neighborhoods, resulting in multiple civilian casualties." Another reported tactic was targeting the same area twice in short succession, so those giving aid to the people hit in the first round were killed themselves in the second.

This assault, merely the latest in a growing chorus of allegations of Israeli war crimes on Palestinian territories, is being examined by the International Criminal Court. But U.S. funding is set to continue.

Egypt's jailing of journalism

Also in the top four U.S. aid recipients is Egypt. In his denouncement of Venezuela, Obama cited "curtailment of press freedoms" as a basis to declare a national emergency. But in Egypt, where the government is gifted US$1.4 billion by the U.S., at least six journalists have been killed since al-Sisi took power in July 2013 while reporting anti-government protests. At least 12 reporters are in Egyptian prisons on jumped-up criminal charges, unlike in Venezuela, where none are.

"Referring journalists to military tribunals and condemning them to heavy sentences sets a dangerous precedent and will eventually prevent journalists from reporting independently in sensitive areas involving the military," the rights group International Federation for Human Rights said in a report published on Egypt.

Furthermore, more than 15 people were killed in Egypt in January in anti-government protests marking the 4th anniversary of the popular uprising that toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011 alone, adding to the list of police brutality there.

"Courageous" Saudi Arabia beheaded dozens in 2014

Saudi Arabia is also no stranger to targeting the press. The regime sentenced liberal blogger Raif Badawi to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam in his blog.

While the oil rich Arab nation does not feature highly on the U.S. list of donors, Obama made clear his support and admiration for the regime with a message of condolence when the medieval King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz passed away. He hailed the monarch's "vision" and "courage" and and saluted the departed despot's commitment to the sacred "partnership" between the U.S. and the Saudi kingdom.

The "courageous" king oversaw a country brutally repressed by laws against crimes including adultery, homosexuality and political opposition to the regime. Each carry capital punishment, such as public stoning. The Kingdom beheaded 83 people in 2014, with four killed in the first week of that King Salman assumed power following the death of King Abdullah.

Colombian political prisoners

One of the triggers of the U.S. declaration appears to have been the imprisonment of some right-wing politicians in Venezuela, charged with seeking to incite violence and their involvement in coup plots.

The contrast with Colombia is stark. Colombia gets US$644 million from the U.S. kitty. Colombia also has hundreds of political prisoners in "overcrowded jails," says Justice For Colombia. Trade unionists, student activists, community and indigenous leaders, human rights defenders and academics "all imprisoned for their opposition to the Colombian regime."

And while the current government is making steps towards ending more than 50 years of violent conflict in Colombia, state atrocities remain well within living memory. Those include the 2008 "false positives" case, when soldiers, paid US$500 for each guerilla they killed, murdered 22 innocent men from the town of Soacha, and dressed them up in rebel uniform before claiming their prize.

Likewise, despite the ongoing crisis around the 43 forcibly disappeared Mexican students, Obama met with Mexican President Pena Nieto in January at the White House, where not a word of condemnation was made about the tens of thousands of disappeared afflicting the US ally. In fact, Mexico continues to receive hundreds of millions in US aid.

In spite of all these blatant and well-publicized human rights abuses, these countries continue to receive large sums and support from the U.S. Venezuela, on the other hand, which in 2012 was elected the United Nations Human Rights Council for the first time with 154 votes, is deemed a threat.

The hypocrisy of the U.S. in funding actions abroad, while having the highest prison population in the world at 2,228,424, and whose police force is continually criticized for murdering innocent black and Latino people, appears to know no bounds.