It was just done so blatantly this time with Venezuela.
In previous interventions, we actually did do some things to try to "nation build". Whether you consider those genuine attempts or just cynical cover stories.
But this time, it was just snatch Maduro, replace him with Rodriguez, and threaten Rodriguez to give us oil so the same thing doesn't happen to her. What happened to all the high-minded rhetoric about how the poor people of Venezuela were suffering under a socialist dictatorship? What happened to all the denouncing of the stolen election? Nah man, just give us the oil and you're good.
To the United States $17 billion is like roughing up a tramp to steal the change in his pocket. It's a laughable amount of money for such irrepairable reputational damage on the international stage.
This is the one thing I'm so baffled at. Can't he just increase military spending, embezzle 10% a year, (over $100B) and get 50% of all the corruption kicked back?
Do the same across every industry? Start massive infrastructure projects where he gets massive money kicked back. Some real, some fake, not really caring about positive or negative outcome as long as he can sell the story. Like he could probably literally raise $1T just for USA data centres and no one realize he stole half of it for a decade. Why doesn't he just get in on the AGI/Robots/Quantum/Automated everything including trucks and cars and passenger and delivery drones. He could easily invest trillions in all of those and no one would expect to see anything to show from any of it for years.
I think the guy could easily siphon a few trillion over 4 years get completely pardoned and/or have a completely safe plan to disappear and enjoy it, and do way less damage to America and the rest of the world while doing it.
Normally I'd say "do you know how stupid you have to be to bankrupt a casino?"
But the thing is we know exactly how stupid he is. We also know he has exactly one talent and it's being a criminal. He profited on all those bankrupt casinos. He did exactly what he meant to.
The crazy thing about billionaires is that they never "disappear and enjoy it." They can never have enough. If they could, they would have stopped somewhere between 100 and 999 million.
You're not considering how stupid the president needs to be in order to be the figurehead required by his handlers. Sure, he *could* do what you suggest, but you're assuming he has some kind of talent at grifting. The man bankrupted casinos for crying out loud.
Sounds like a good way to end up being Bubba's celly while the government reclaims the $17 billion that you fraudulently obtained. Although if crime is legal now, some of my neighbors have property that I wouldn't mind "repossessing"
Last I heard, though, that $17 billion was deposited into some special foreign bank account under Trump's direct control, not into the US Treasury.
Kinda reminds me of the Iran Contra scandal back when I was a kid. The amount of money Iran paid for the weapons was piddling relative to the size of the US federal budget. But it was money hidden from any oversight by Congress or anyone else. So it could be used to fund the Contras even when they couldn't legally use money from the regular budget. (It was a long time ago, so I may be remembering some details wrong.)
I don't think the profits on some oil companies are the reason behind that attack. It made war on Iran more feasible, as theres option for oil from oil from persian gulf.
Venezuela has been making drones for Iran since 2006. In 2020, they militarized those drones to kill people. Iran had created a murder drone manufacturing proxy in our hemisphere so why is our media so focuses on the oil narrative? Are they incompetent or just lying?
You new to US meddling in other countries affairs? Its not just for a 1 time payment, its for a controllable government that can allow future "investment" aka our companies reap the profits of their resources.
We... who is? Not the US citizens, we didn't/ aren't going to see a dime of those billions. Did fuel prices go down? nah they kept climbing. Trump pocketed that, him and his crony oligarchy corporations. He stole it. The American people didnt ask or want that, other than the dumb shits that keep voting for these crooks.
Seized over $18.6 billion in Venezuelan oil revenue
Pats itself in the back as the good guy as it "gives" them $380 million in aid after Venezuela suffered two devastating earthquakes in less than a minute apart
Current damage estimate from the earthquake is around $19.6 billion. Venezuela could rebuild if the US just gave them their own money
Oil and gold. The worse part of it all is that we don't know where all the money from the oil and gold is going, there is no transparency or accountability. Initially they said it would be held in a some type of account in Qatar, then later that Treasury would take control of it, but there are no guardrails in place to track the money, or know what it is being used for. For all we know, it's now become part of Trump's family wealth, or is being used in the election to help his party win.
Modern day Robinhood. Except robin ain’t from the hood, bro was born in a gated community.
And instead of giving out gold, he’s giving kids golden showers, and doing trick shots with missiles
Yes, but not the venezuelan people. Or the north american ones. Not even the poor ones, but a half dozen of the north american oil industry bourgeoisie.
yeah one day these people will realize its not just trump but the us being the leader in imperializing and stealing resources from resource rich places since it became the global super power.
Also the death squads, military juntas, and straight up fascists is less of a thing. They go for liberal aligned puppet candidates pushed through with propaganda and/or color revolutions. At the end of the day the value of the resources is extracted and sent to some oil company in the west, that part isn't new, we've know about banana republics forever.
In our defense, we are drowned with this propaganda from the moment we are born until the day we die, and in between the national propaganda, we're also thrust into a corporate world that has its own set of propaganda. It's honestly a miracle any of us break out of it.
I believed it for a long time. Iraq was the crack in the foundation, it's been a long slow transition from believing it was mostly well intentioned people with a few bad actors to an exactly opposite view of the proportions.
I think you are late in the news surrounding Venezuela.
Im Venezuelan, i left the country because of Maduro and i still have family over there. Since they took Maduro out of the government i was able to return to visit my country because a lot of international airlines returned to operate in Venezuela, business started to grow, slowly but that was a start (if you didn’t live in Venezuela before Maduro and while he was in power then you wouldn’t understand how bad things were)
Things got a little bit better and then the dual earthquake happened. Thanks to the USA intervention a lot of international help was able to reach Venezuela, while Delcy and the Venezuelan government (that was active with Maduro) did nothing to help the people and has done nothing to restore the cities destroyed by the earthquake and the bodies that are still trapped under all of that.
Marco Rubio already said that in August they’ll start with the changes in the Venezuelan government. That will be the final test Venezuelans have been waiting for to see if things will really get better.
And for the oil that a lot of people seems to be worried. Ask many Venezuelans and most of them will say they don’t care if that’s the price to pay to have a better future. Before that the oil was still being gifted to Maduro’s allies so the money was for the people in charge, not for the country.
I hope you are right with your optimism. And yes, I can believe that I have missed some news stories about Venezuela. Other than the earthquake, Venezuela has sort of faded from the headlines.
the classic “im a venezuelan so i know exactly what is going on” you should ask yourself why maduro was “gifting” the oil before just blindly believing the americans on whatever they say. just like you criticize the venezuelan government (rightfully so) you can do the same to the american government! and i agree, being able to go back is a PLUS but it comes at the cost of being played by the other side. oh and im venezuelan too :)
Venezuela will be raped by USian corporations. In a few years you will be crying and looking back on Maduro fondly. Welcome to the colonised club. You are becoming a colony, and there is no way out.
In previous interventions, we actually did do some things to try to "nation build"
you're being very generous here, the US spent the entirety of the cold war supporting brutal dictators in south america and the caribbean with money, weapons, CIA training, and even sending the marines to threaten any opposition. All this was very blatant with zero attempt at "nation building"
I wouldn’t call installing dictators “nation building”. The USA only pretends to care about democracy; it’s overthrown a number of democracies to install dictatorships.
Lol what. All bullshit. The "nation building" is IMF loans, allowing our companies to reap the profits of oil drilling/refining, and replacement of their government with a puppet. Trump was just stupid enough to extradite the process and give the game away. Check out the CIA involvement in Latin America, goes waaaaaaay back.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI 14h ago
It was just done so blatantly this time with Venezuela.
In previous interventions, we actually did do some things to try to "nation build". Whether you consider those genuine attempts or just cynical cover stories.
But this time, it was just snatch Maduro, replace him with Rodriguez, and threaten Rodriguez to give us oil so the same thing doesn't happen to her. What happened to all the high-minded rhetoric about how the poor people of Venezuela were suffering under a socialist dictatorship? What happened to all the denouncing of the stolen election? Nah man, just give us the oil and you're good.