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If you think this is primarily about drugs and authoritarianism, don't overlook this one important dimension: the country with the largest proven oil reserves i
by ternaryoperator 9mo ago
If you think this is primarily about drugs and authoritarianism, don't overlook this one important dimension: the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world is...Venezuela.
[0] https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8yuyf-scaled.jpg https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8...
- torlok 9mo agoIt's not just oil, it's heavy crude oil; the type US is equipped to process, and rapidly running out of.
- jjtheblunt 9mo agoa nice visual in support of your comment https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-oil-reserves-by-country-in-one-visualization/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-oil-reser...
- regenschutz 9mo agoThat's a terrible diagram. I would have assumed that Iran and Saudi Arabia have the biggest oil reserves from looking at that diagram, since they are front and centre on that visual. Why aren't the shapes uniform? And where is the legend? What do the colours mean? Why are Libya and China the same colour?
- jjtheblunt 9mo agoall good questions but you'd have to ask the site that published it. ..i thought it unclear that Venezuela was biggest from the graphic too, had to really stare at it to figure it out. it seems the colors are continents.
- ronbenton 9mo agoTrump pardoned a drug kingpin exactly one month ago. Of course this isn't about drugs.
- flumpcakes 9mo agoIt also is predominately heavy crude oil, something the US lacks (it's what it mainly imports, with domestic shale oil being 'light') even though a lot of it's refineries are optimised for this.
- nag34 9mo ago[dead]
- the_gipsy 9mo agoMore importantly, they recently started trading in yuans.
- piekvorst 9mo ago[flagged]
- internetter 9mo agoHow are we not thugs in this situation? We're taking resources on other's land.
- piekvorst 9mo agoIf resources don’t have a legitimate owner, they’re effectively unowned. This is the case of all dictatorships. Any free country can take those resources and integrate them into their system, provided they recognize and enforce property rights. Otherwise it’s anarchism, a dysfunctional hybrid of old dictatorship and American pragmatic profit, not a secure system of property rights. (Assigning ownership to nation as such wouldn’t fix the problem. A nation without property rights cannot own anything.)
- pests 9mo agoWhy should a second country take the resources, instead of making Venezuela free and they keep their own?
- piekvorst 9mo agoIf “making free” means building outside a system of freedom, that’s too expensive. The U.S. tried to build a “democracy” in Iraq but failed. If “making free” means just leaving people alone do what whatever they want, it’s not necessary. (They’d end up with another warlord anyways.) If the citizens of a free country want resources, why not provide them with a legitimate way to get it? The U.S. could, instead of making hypocrite puppet regimes, fully integrate (with military if needed) the resources they need into her system.
- bigyabai 9mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
- dystopiandevel 9mo agoI certainly didn't. Along with the oil is more distraction from the Epstein files. Call me jaded but he has done this several times as a distraction.
- wand3r 9mo agoThis really doesn't have much to do with oil. This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge and subscribe to an absurd notion of Domino Theory where communism will fall. Maduro already promised to stop trading with China and negotiate absurdly favorable mineral and energy deals. He even conceded to give up power on a 2-3 year timeline. Obviously, we will go in and control the nation and take a ton of resources. However, this was primarily about Marco Rubio living out his father's fantasy as outlined in his autobiography. It was sold to Trump as a drugs bust because he is an absolute moron and needed a distraction from Epstein. Honestly, this is disgusting. Trump is personally renting and selling out America for personal profit. To Israel and now a cadre of South Floridians. He is selling passports and pardons and letting countries have trade deals or bases. I simply do not understand how everyone with power is letting this happen. This is not even ideological. The country is in recession and we are attached to 3 wars. WTF IS HAPPENING?
- matheusmoreira 9mo ago> This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge Maybe. Combating communism in south america is certainly a noble goal. Maduro is one of many communists that plague this region and his fall will undoubtedly contribute to significant power shifts in south american politics. But it's not Marco Rubio who holds the power, it's Donald Trump. And Trump absolutely will deal with communists if it's profitable for him and/or the USA. His dealings with Brazil prove it. He embarrassed not only Rubio but various other staff and arguably his entire administration by leveraging tariffs and Magnitsky sanctions into some kind of deal with the communist brazilian president. Trump could not care less about communism in south america. His past discourse on the matter of Venezuela is entirely focused on oil. He's been talking about seizing the resources for years. It's also easy to see how doing so benefits him and his country greatly. I was hoping that he'd also end up unwittingly fighting the communists and drug gangs over the course of his war so that south america as a whole might at least reap some benefit but now it looks like even that was too much to hope for.
- OCASMv2 9mo agoOil that was being given to Cuba, Iran, Russia, China...
- SanjayMehta 9mo agoIt's their oil to give.
- hcurtiss 9mo agoWho is “they”? Maduro is not the elected leader of Venezuela.
- arunabha 9mo agoHow did you come to that conclusion?
- SanjayMehta 9mo agoWestern logic.
- hcurtiss 9mo agoLiterally nobody believes he won the last election. Biden said this repeatedly.
- SanjayMehta 9mo agoNeither is your Trump the elected leader of Venezuela.
- culi 9mo agoBy "given" you mean sold and by "Cuba, Iran, Russia, China..." you mean the only countries that aren't gonna follow the US' absurd sanctions that have led to so much suffering inside of Venezuela https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.1638094 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16... > This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
- scuff3d 9mo agoThey aren't even trying to hide it. The administration has openly stated this is about recovering "stolen" oil resources.
- lofaszvanitt 9mo agoAnd yet, somehow, people are poor.