here is a reasonably concise discussion of the latest 'effort' of the empire's spreading 'democracy' and as usual causes me to wonder when the empire will give america democracy;

Are Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and (farcically titled) Special Envoy for Restoring Democracy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams agents of influence for Russia and China? The idea has a lot more going for it than most of the ridiculous paranoia sweeping Washington over the past years.

If Russia and China really wanted to subvert the national security of the United States, they would seek to plunge Washington into a completely new, open-ended war with no practical resolution in sight on another continent far away from either of them where the United States itself had absolutely no major strategic interests at all, apart from fantasies of domination and greed.

Such a war would also serve the purpose of burning up an increasing share of the defense budget that otherwise could be spent on modernizing the US armed forces.

Repeated congressional testimony over the past two years by Service chiefs confirms that these forces remain woefully aging and out of date despite record size defense budgets. This is testimony to the incompetence, corruption and sheer wastefulness of the military-industrial-congressional-complex (MICC).

Most of all, such a war would weaken the US armed forces and distract them from what is now supposed to be their primary strategic goal, as set out by the Trump administration itself of focusing on great power competition, primarily with Russia and China........https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/02/24/charging-into-venezuela-disastrous-overstretch-for-us.html