by Peter Hasson
Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley sharply criticized three prominent Democrats — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — for going soft on Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship.
“On the fringes of the left, celebrity politicians refuse to condemn [Venezuelan dictator Nicolas] Maduro. Worse, some have actually embraced him,” Haley wrote in a Monday post for Stand For America, her new political organization.
Haley ticked through the responses from Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Sanders, taking shots at each one.
Ocasio-Cortez dodged when asked if Maduro was a legitimate ruler. “A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed,” commented Haley.
Omar blamed “a lot of the policies that we have put in place has kind of helped lead the devastation in Venezuela” in an April interview.
“When I saw this, I couldn’t stay silent,” Haley wrote, explaining why she slammed Omar’s response in a viral tweet on May 1.
.@IlhanMN the avg Venezuelan adult has lost 24 lbs. Babies have no medicine. Families have to walk miles in the heat to get the only meal they may have that day. All bc of the corrupt Maduro regime. Your comments are so far from the truth. Cuba and Russia appreciate your support. https://t.co/o1ADtlwrtN
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) May 1, 2019
“Rep. Omar needed to be educated; she needed to see what I have seen on that Colombian bridge,” Haley wrote, citing a trip she took to Columbia’s border with Venezuela.
Haley also took a shot at Sanders, whose presidential campaign has consistently trailed former Vice President Joe Biden in national polls.
“While Bernie Sanders has conceded that there are terrible things happening in Venezuela, he has repeatedly refused to label Maduro a dictator,” Haley wrote.
“History has shown that communism and socialism do not work. In their extreme – in places like Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – these dangerous ideologies result in murder, starvation and despair,” she added.
Haley launched Stand For America in February, shortly after leaving the Trump administration, prompting speculation about whether she is positioning herself for a 2024 presidential run.
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Peter Hasson is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson.
Photo “Bernie Sanders” by Michael Vadon. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Nikki Haley is a coward herself. She has had a history of risking the lives of U.S. soldiers in questionable military adventures overseas while she got to stay home in relative safety living off the blood money of those men and women whom she sent in harm’s war, just so she could ingratiate herself with fellow militaristic hardliners at home.
As for Venezuela, the U.S.’s hard-line knee-jerk anti-communism with its economic and diplomatic isolation of Venezuela has played a much bigger role in that country’s suffering. The person whom Vice President Mike Pence and company wants to replace Maduro with is a brutal right-wing thug that Pence and Mike Pompeo want to falsely portray as a freedom-fighter. I am just as critical of certain establishment Democrats as Nancy Peolosi, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, et al. who also want to out-hawk the Pence Republicans. Send all of them there to Venezuela to risk their own lives instead of the lives of U.S. soldiers and of the Venezuelan peoples!
Who let this nut job out of his cage? Apparently Pelosi, Schumer, et al aren’t far enough to the left to satisfy him. I would suggest he look at the unbroken history of failures of socialist regimes. Margaret Thatcher had it right: the only problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money…and then the roof falls in, just as it has done with the USSR, Cuba, and now Venezuela. And anyone who thinks the same thing won’t happen in the USA is a a dangerous fool.