Mgxr44
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It’s about oil, and it also likely plays a huge role in why we basically refuse to save the climate. The less the demand for oil, the less the petro dollar matters
A reminder that the US has messed with Venezuela for decades due to their oil. They have backed various dictators and coups. They even succeeded in couping Chavez, but he was so beloved that the US had no choice but to put him back in power. When the switch was made is when the US under Obama started up the imperial war machine again, culminating in what Trump has done.
The good news for the world (not the US though) is that this will likely backfire and expedite the collapse of US hegemony. The VP has already said she won’t bow to Trump, and the people of Venezuela (the ones actually in Venezuela) are showing they won’t either. Either Trump will have to fully occupy the country (Vietnam 2.0) or he just simply won’t gain control over them. Either way, this will make the chavistas massively more sympathetic to the people.
azazyel
I think the price tag for the kidnapping was around $1B.
bleepbloopbleep33
First as tragedy, then as farce.
flordelasantillas
American greed: America invaded Iraq for its oil. America invaded Libya for its oil. America will invade Venezuela for its oil and minerals. America threatening to invade Greenland for its oil and minerals.
khora
#1 The WMD existed, but Iraq themselves destroyed them, but kept it secret to be able to continue threatening to use them.
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Mgxr44
Lololol. Mmmkay bud.
WaxedApple
Its always been bipartisan. The most you can say for Trump is that he's rude and willing to say the quiet part out loud, but the US being an out of control vicious empire has always been a bipartisan stance
brownribbon
I want sources on all of these claims. I smell, at best, obfuscation of the facts.
flyintheoil
and bonus! in keeping with tradition. the US invaded a country to steal its oil and yet my price per gallon goes up!
PersonalityFire
It's worse: *The Administration* invaded for numerous reasons, including oil. But what oil companies are interested in glutting the market?
Mgxr44
“The empire feeds off the republic” Parenti. Or to put it another way, you’ll pay for the imperialism, but you’ll never see the reward! 🥳 wooo
zHurk777
To be fair bush#2 inherited a $250-BILLION surplus from Clinton, then said deficits don't matter and range up massive deficits with unnecessary tax cuts and 2 wars and ended his term with TheGreatRecession. ... to the idiot magas: his policies were in fact "deficits don't matter", regardless of who in his adminstration made the statement (VP Cheney).
DownUpUpDown
Funny how the price of oil went up today on this fantastic news....
MrKirkwood
Will drumph award himself the bounty?
42Singularities
I don’t think you can compare Libya to Iraq then or Venezuela now.
Libya was more complex - Gaddafi did most likely commit crimes against humanity - and at least the intervention had a legal basis.
The impacts were catastrophic of course and there were of course also profit and regime change motives involved.
But a different case then the other two nonetheless.
esparadrapo
The democrats too? Impossibiru! I've been told that everything would be fixed if democrats ruled.
L1ttl3J1m
#3 oh, hey, any word on who's going to claim that bounty...?
Daliena06
It's up to $50 mil now. Pretty sure Drumpf will pay it out to himself from the taxpayer coffers.
rustyroo1
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Baconlovesyoutoo
He's already said he deserves at least part of it.
L1ttl3J1m
I am Jack's total lack of surprise.
420supercoolusername69
Putting the drug charges aside, it’s reaaaallly important for people to understand that Maduro is basically a South American Drumpf. He’s been doing the same shit Drumpf is doing but for about a decade: arbitrary detentions of citizens, journalists, and political opponents. Actively interfering in elections…
Mgxr44
Idk if you read my comment above, but how do you have a fair election when a small impoverished country has the imperial boot on their neck demanding you bow to them? I just don’t think you can.
Ircy
None of which makes it ok. Specially as the post says and as those paying attention new it's just another oil grab for the US. It's the same story over and over again.
420supercoolusername69
Im not defending the action, just pointing out the irony
Daliena06
While true, it's also important to remember that the odds of anything changing for the better are astronomical. I can just about guarantee you that things won't get better for Venezuela, it's just gonna be homegrown dictator replaced with a US brand dictator instead.
iRegretThisUsernameAlready
"Astronomical" means extremely large (think about the kinds of objects and systems astronomy studies). You might have been thinking of "infinitesimal".
Daliena06
I could go with "the odds of an astronomical object actually hitting the Earth because *space is really goddamn big*", but yeah, okay. You kinda got a fair point
Trunkmonkay
Damn, just gonna rewrite history and say America invaded Libya over oil, and that the civil war and mass murder of civilians had nothing to do with western intervention in Libya. Ghadaffi was "murdered" by his own people, on behalf of the US who wanted their oil? Yea ok
Mgxr44
Btw, this post isn’t really trying to saying that anyone is good. Rather that the US is bad and does bad things for power and money. Both of which it gets from oil
Mgxr44
https://inthesetimes.com/article/new-clinton-emails-expose-collaboration-with-media-on-benghazi-coverag1
Mmmkay pumpkin
Trunkmonkay
Cool anti Hillary article, are you going to recognize how many civilians Ghadaffi had killed before the west intervened or are you going to continue peddling the fiction that nothing was happening in Libya and then the US showed up because Ghadaffi, a man of peace and reason™, made a threat against oil.
Mgxr44
Buddy, I want you to google “the Tripoli documents”. We were literally sending them people to torture. This is after we found out we were directly torturing people in Guantanamo and in abu ghraib. (Cause as long as we aren’t the ones directly doing it it’s ok right?) we have ZERO problem with human rights violations. We have ZERO problems with genocide and ethnic cleansing (see Palestine) it was because he was challenging US hegemony dude. Largely through oil and pan Africanism
Trunkmonkay
Damn, you'll do anything but answer the question huh.
allergictocantaloupe
Biden tried two different coup attempts in Venezuela. Tried to recognize Juan Guaido (the guy who lost the election) as the true legitimate leader, and tried to get Maduro arrested. You could call them soft coups, attempting/encouraging regime change. Obama/Biden built the cages, Trump filled them. I think Obama's still ahead in terms of # of countries bombed, but tied in # of coups (Libya). There's an uncomfortable level of similarity that people don't acknowledge enough, imho.
Mgxr44
Ooo man, careful saying that on this app though. The libs don’t like that particular fact
ReaperCDN
Is this your first day here? It's perfectly fine to critize any and all leadership. The left doesn't rabidly defend bad decisions made by leaders they elected.
Mgxr44
Lololol. Buddy, look at my posts and the comment sections 😂 you know how many times I’ve been called a fascist because I said I won’t vote for anyone who is ok with genocide. I’m guessing by “left” you mean “liberal”. Which is about as far as you can go before the liberals turn feral
ReaperCDN
You're talking to a modern socialist (democratic socialism.) I'm Canadian, much, much farther left than any concept of American liberal.
You know what I see from the outside of America? People criticizing Clinton, Biden, Obama, and Harris. All kinds of opinions from all sides of the aisle, and from all over the world, surrounding these people. The one thing that has united all of these different views is the objectively terrible things Trump specifically has done. /1
ReaperCDN
Bush Jr received about the same level of criticism. The only outlier here is Trump.
And if you didn't vote during the 2nd round of Trump, you are absolutely part of the problem. Not voting means letting other people make up your mind for you.
Nobody cares who you didn't vote for. Not the winners, not the losers, nobody. Your non vote is you getting up and saying, "Fuck it, you decide." That's abdicating your obligation to the society you live in. /2
Mgxr44
One last thing: idk if Maduro is a good guy or if their elections are fair, but it’s worth noting all the people telling you he’s bad and they aren’t are the same people telling you there isn’t a genocide happening in Gaza and that Israel is the good guy. It doesn’t mean they are wrong, but it does mean they aren’t a trust worthy source. I’m also not sure there is such a thing as “fair” elections when the worlds super power is crushing your economy and does everything to cause regime change 🤷🏻
JohnWickdidnothingwrong
If you don't even know those first two things, how much gravitas do you think the rest of your insight carries? Regime change is fully bullshit but "Is he a bad guy, who can say" is too and disinclines readers from crediting the rest of your observations.
TheJuiceLoosener
It's something that good leaders should be open about with their citizens - that implementing socialist policies will result in a lot of brutal attacks by the forces of global capitalism. That's not a reason not to do it, but there's no point in being caught unawares. "You let one ant stand up to us..."
Mgxr44
That’s totally fair. It’s brutal trying to stand up to the US. It’ll be interesting to see if other western nations continue the trend as the US falters
ButtscratchMcPherson
"One last thing: idk if Maduro is a good guy or if their elections are fair." Stopped reading right there. He's not a good guy and his elections weren't fair. No, that doesn't justify Trump's actions, but you might want to get educated on some basic facts. Especially after tossing in that "Maduro was so beloved by his people" line.
Mgxr44
Chavez was the one they loved dummy. The US removed him from power and the people protested in such numbers that they didn’t have a choice but to bring him back… which they did. Maybe don’t brag about not reading and then… show us why reading is important.
brownribbon
How did the US remove Chavez from power? Also, Maduro was Chavez’s VP, so it makes sense he would become president if Chavez somehow couldn’t execute the duties of the office.
Jyx123
Fwiw, they seem to have said that line about Chavez, his predecessor.
Does that make it true or their case any better, maybe not. But at least attack/criticize them from what they did say, if quoting.
loma45
Here, let me help clear up your lack of knowledge around Maduro and the "elections" that legitimized him: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/venezuela-canada-maduro-election-president-1.4671883
I'm not sure why you'd go through the effort of making a post on Venezuela and Maduro, but not do the slightest bit of research to educate yourself on the topic first.
Mgxr44
You think the cbc, which is government funded, the same government that participates in imperialism all over the world… is a reliable source. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Mgxr44
“Why didn’t you google what the imperialist countries think about the nation they are currently doing imperialism too?!? So lazy” 😂🤦🏻♂️
loma45
Riiight, so the governments of: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru are just spouting Imperialist nonsense, but Maduro is singularly trustworthy and being unfairly persecuted!
That's definitely the more fact based, logical stance to take.
Mgxr44
But in all seriousness, this is a cbc article talking about Gaza, now I want you to read it and notice how they speak differently when it comes to Palestinians or hamas than the do isreal or the idf. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-israel-hamas-truce-9.7027660
IMPERIALIST SOURCES ARENT TRUSTWORTHY
loma45
I'm not relying on the CBC's unimpeachable trustworthiness here (they are flawed, like any other news org) - they're just reporting the joint statement by the governments of over a dozen countries. That statement is independently verifiable.... if you cared enough to do so.
But it's much easier to "just ask questions" and dismiss anything you don't like.
Mgxr44
Oh, so you’re saying the imperialist countries themselves are trustworthy… gotcha 😬
loma45
Let me put it this way. They're currently a whole lot more credible than you. Show me real evidence from a trustworthy source that disagrees with this and I'll be happy to look.
Right now it sure seems like your geopolitical analysis is heavily driven by vibes and feelings.
Sonicschilidogs
Pretty sure the Venezuelan kid refugees I teach don't tell me there isn't a genocide in Gaza....
Mgxr44
You think the kids of people who left understand what’s going on? Hell, half this country thinks trumps the good guy and about a third thinks he won in 2020 😬
Sonicschilidogs
I think they know more than you about the situation, especially considering when I say "kids" I'm talking about high school aged children and their families.
Mgxr44
So the point that seems to have gone over your head is that anecdotal evidence is worthless 😬
Sonicschilidogs
I think you have brain damage.
MKESewerRat
A better response might be "There are American families in Russia, right now, talking about how unlivable life was under Biden and how they had to flee." It's not that firsthand accounts aren't legitimate, it's just that people will leave their countries for good and bad reasons.