There's much ado in the US and WW MSM about Maduro's alleged blocking of aid on the Tienditas Bridge (Puente Binacional Tienditas).
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posted on Twitter:
The Venezuelan people desperately need humanitarian aid. The U.S. & other countries are trying to help, but #Venezuela’s military under Maduro’s orders is blocking aid with trucks and shipping tankers. The Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE.
(Hard to metally picture Pompeo actually caring about starving people but anyway)
However, here's a photo uploaded to Google Maps:
The photo was uploaded in June 2017. Tienditas Bridge, reported throughout the media as blocked by Venezuela this week, has in fact been blocked for at least 18 months!
There is also a Wikipedia article on Tienditas Bridge (in Spanish). It says of the bridge (translated to English with Google Translate):
It was concluded in early 2016, but due to the crisis between Venezuela and Colombia in 2015 and the border closure of Venezuela the bridge has not been officially opened.
This is backed up by a reference to an article from La Opinion, a local news site of Cúcuta in Colombia (also in Spanish), which states:
Sheltered by an old rusty gate and a guard, this binational work is still useless because of the border situation, despite the fact that the Invias has already completed 100 percent of the route.
The Google translation may not be perfect, but it seems that Tienditas Bridge has never opened even though it was finished three years ago, due to a dispute between Colombia and Venezuela. And the now familiar “rusty gate” has been there all this time. It’s a complete falsehood to say that Maduro “blocked” the bridge this week, that it must “reopen”, or that Venezuela erected “makeshift fencing” this week.
Does all this mean that Maduro isn't blocking aid? No. But it does prove how eager the MSM are to run with unsubstantiated claims (which they then don't submit to any fact checking scrutiny), as long as these claims put Maduro in the worst possible light.
So where are the tankers?
ReplyDeleteps -That isn't the only bridge to Columbia.
The gas tankers are a recent addition. Venezuela thinks that the US troops will use that bridge to cross their M1-A Abrams tanks and other invasion forces... and THAT is why there are now tankers on the never-opened border bridge.
ReplyDelete"Venezuela thinks that the US troops will use that bridge to cross their M1-A Abrams tanks and other invasion forces."
ReplyDeleteAnd who can blame them for thinking that, eh? 'All options are on the table', after all.
Venezuela's Deputy Minister of Public Security, Endes Palencia (first from left), reveals the shocking discovery of a cache of weapons that was delivered on by a commercial cargo plane from Miami on Sunday. Without offering any evidence, the government has blamed the United States government of organizing a coup.
So where are America's T-AK maritime prepositioning ships? If they aren't in a Columbian port, the Venezuelan's shouldn't have any worries.... unless you think that the US is flying them to Columbia, one C-5A flight at a time.
DeleteIt took month's for HW Bush to preposition his forces for liberating Kuwait.
Delete...because I don't think that 19 automatic rifles are going to be enough to liberate the country.
Delete...and last I checked, they were training in Thailand.
DeleteOr maybe they'll just all come ashore at Maiquetia...
ReplyDelete...but I think we'll need a LOT more LCACs!
I think that the Venezuelan's just need a good traffic reporter!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile... at the bridge to nowhere...
ReplyDeleteI'm scared!
ReplyDelete