Comment by ciconia
3 days ago
> I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
The greater good of whom? Regardless, we have international organizations where action can be taken by a coalition is states, which provides not only legitimacy but also some level of judicial control.
This is so obviously an imperialist power play for the world's largest oil reserves. That some would portray this as acting for the greater good is beyond ridiculous.
> world's largest oil reserves
With no infrastructure, and ten years of massive investment needed, I read.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy95pr790pro
Sounds like an opportunity for some lucrative contracts to go to US companies, while forcing the new Venezuelan government to foot the bill.
Which would happen anyway because only US companies are (maybe) capable of extracting Venezuelan crude at a profit.
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OK, but the other piece of international aggression in the news recently was yesterday, when Trump promised that the US would "come to the rescue" of protestors in Iran if the regime starts killing them. Possibly this and Venezuela are related, and oil is involved, but in a strategic way rather than any immediately rewarding treasure-seeking.
From your source: "Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day," Florida Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar said in a recent interview on Fox Business. "American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipes, the whole oil rigs and everything that has to do with... oil and the derivatives." Trump might seem open to such arguments. He campaigned on the slogan "drill, baby, drill" and has generally called for expanding oil production, which he has tied to lower prices for Americans. /quote
It then goes on to note that output could be more than doubled in two years. That alone would put them as the 11th largest oil producer and the third largest in the Americas. The decade timeline and budget was for creating maximalist infrastructure for fully exploiting the resources.
The strongest proof that the article has that trump isn’t interested in oil is his word that he isn’t interested in oil. How much faith do you put in Trump’s honesty?
The 2023 Trump quote is "We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil". But I think war-for-oil explanations are too pat, generally. Just because he shamelessly says the oil is a motivation doesn't mean it makes sense as a motivation.
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All they have to do is keep power for ten years and keep renewables being illegal (Trump already banned offshore wind turbines because he can see some from one of his overseas golf courses)
Mr. Zelensky would like to have a word.
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To be fair we don’t know the atrocities the US would have committed in those regions if the UN didn’t exist. I’m not saying I know either obviously! But it’s not like the world seemed to be a better place before the UN.