Venezuela

[Spoonsky]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47066906

Is this how WW3 starts? Where do you stand?

[mugbull]

Nah, it's just a tinpot dictator meeting tinpot resistance. At least there's more of a US/Russia counterweight than there was during the Cold War, what with the EU and China, but of course the retards in Britain and Poland are really into the idea of shooting themselves in the foot, so it might not be to last past this

[Queenslander]

All about oil.

[SincereTheRebel]

and oil is worty dying for.

[Queenslander]

Australia will happily take on all of the refugess carrying the genetics associated with the Miss Universe breeding program.

[Spikey M]

Free Tibet.

[Magic]

Lol as if a shit event in some shithole country could have such global repercussions.

[Spikey M]

Did you vote yes or no Magic?

[Lewis]

We should leave them to it as to further discredit their system. Let the entire country starve.

[Magic]

Did you vote yes or no Magic?

NO to INDYREF.
YES to REMAIN.

Now I wish I'd have voted for Independence.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

It was better when they tried a drone attack to kill Maduro.

[Pepe]

We should leave them to it

That I agree with.

[Spikey M]

NO to INDYREF.
YES to REMAIN.

Now I wish I'd have voted for Independence.

Bottled it.

[Spikey M]

Henry do you think they should be left to it?

[Panda Bear]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySko8ux2cl4
If you have the time, this is a good watch.

[bruhnaldo]

Watching the republicans run to Miami and twitter to champion the "Venezuelan resistance" has been a bit lol but I get it. Already got the Cuban vote sewn up why not try to take another little chunk out of the liberal south and hope it all evens out across the state.

[Henry]

Henry do you think they should be left to it?

Depends what "they", "left" and "it" mean in this context. :D

The US interference is a disgrace - they haven't even bothered to hide the fact that they want to get their hands on the oil. I think that the Venezuelan people should decide what happens, not anyone else. There should be talks to that end and other nations should promote that.

[Shindig]

But Venezuela's not a democracy. Not one I would trust to have a clean election, at least.

[Henry]

But Venezuela's not a democracy. Not one I would trust to have a clean election, at least.

There were serious issues at the last election, but the attempt to portray Venezuela as an autocracy is erroneous and the attempt by the opposition to do so over the last couple of decades through many free elections (in league with a foreign power who has been actively and successfully working to sabotage the economy) underscores how it is not simply Maduro whose trustworthiness is in question.

I mean, there are serious issues with US elections too. Should someone else intervene there?

[Boydy]

Probably.

[phonics]

There's only one option when you read stuff from the likes of John Bolton saying "It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela."

You know what side you should be on.

[Henry]

The US embassy in Cairo tweeted yesterday about their concern for human rights and free elections in Venezuela. It's utterly shameless.

[Spikey M]

In fairness there hasn't been a good invasion for a while now.

[phonics]

In fairness there hasn't been a good invasion for a while now.
Four years ago. It ended in a pasenger airliner getting blown up.

[Spikey M]

That's a whole World Cup ago. We need a smaller event like the Euro's so we have something every other year.

[phonics]

That's a whole World Cup ago. We need a smaller event like the Euro's so we have something every other year.

Yemen/Syria are the League/Champions League if you're looking for your week in/week out brutal murder of innocent civilians.

[Baz]

Yemen/Syria are the League/Champions League if you're looking for your week in/weed out brutal murder of innocent civilians.

And most of it is available on catchup on Documenting Reality.

[bruhnaldo]

"Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world—larger than Saudi Arabia's"

Wtf are we waiting for? You guys are looking at this all wrong. Invade, conquer, set up puppet government, etc. etc. etc. etc.

[Pepe]

I thought we would all be driving electric cars before the end of the decade.

[Giggles]

Time is probably still important to too many people.

[Shindig]

So ... do they just need to be shown how to get the oil out of the ground? Because they banked on the black stuff being their lifeblood since the 50s.

[bruhnaldo]

So ... do they just need to be shown how to get the oil out of the ground? Because they banked on the black stuff being their lifeblood since the 50s.

Apparently "sAnCtIoNs" are stopping them from exporting at the rate they were previously, per the 3 or 4 sentences of various stories that came up as article previews on google that I read.

[Lewis]

The oil sanctions came in about ten minutes ago. They had already long since ballsed that sector up in true socialist fashion.

[bruhnaldo]

Sorry, I guess it does paint it as "potentially" on second view.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-02/venezuela-oil-output-to-drop-by-18-on-u-s-sanctions-woodmac

[Henry]

The oil sanctions came in about ten minutes ago. They had already long since ballsed that sector up in true socialist fashion.

The new "oil sanctions" are merely the latest round.
Financial sanctions imposed in 2017 - whereby the oil industry lost access to credit markets - have been a very large part of the problem and are what turned the crisis caused by low oil prices into an implosion.

The failure to diversify the economy away from oil in the first place is clearly the fault of the Chavez/Maduro governments, but hardly an intrinsic failure of "socialism". Venezuela has always had that issue.

Have a graph.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/files/images/%5Bsite-date-yyyy%5D/%5Bsite-date-mm%5D/frod_graph.png

[Lewis]

Which is why Russians and Iranians were also reduced to eating the zoo.

[Shindig]

It should be easy though.

1. Find oil.
2. Build stupid landmarks.
3. Use stupid landmarks to boom tourism.
4. Steal Columbia's drug trade.
5. Profit!

[phonics]

1093242965697409030

lol i'm enjoying that everyone is so aware of what's happening that the corruption is just happening in public at this point.

[bruhnaldo]

Apparently they've blocked a main road from Colombia that could be used to provide such aid:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2019/02/06/TELEMMGLPICT000187656640_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqwV-8WoS_tWKjVWeS7sRIj5x0XFVDjNA-v0HcLknofys.jpeg?imwidth=900

[mugbull]

I think Cold War style geopolitics will be unavoidable for the rest of human existence. If the US lets Venezuela go how they want, it’ll be the Russia-China alliance that will be pulling the strings there. Same with every other nation that encounters political turmoil. That’s obviously undesirable to an American, or a European. And so it will continue until some world-changing event.

I just wish we would take a more strategic approach along the lines of how China is spreading its impact around the world. We’re stuck with these archaic fuckwits like Bolton who think the best and only way to assert yourself on the world stage is by trotting in some thousands of ground troops, which is what this is gonna come to eventually.

[Spikey M]

Yeah, we should all wish the US was more like China.

[Shindig]

I'd say we've been getting away from the boots on the ground mentality, to be fair.

[mugbull]

Yeah, we should all wish the US was more like China.

You should. They’re way better at what they do.

[Spikey M]

I suppose they are famous for their love of Human Rights and self-determination.

[Lewis]

The Chinese have just got notes burning holes in their pockets so flush them out to Africa. Closer to home everyone hates them and Taiwan still exists, so they aren't that great.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Americans have always been amazing at soft power (cf: Hollywood, Elvis, the sausage & egg McMuffin) but terrible at hard power.

The key difference between them and Russia is that they only have one land border (Canada does not exist) which has stopped them from ever honing their, how can I put this, social skills.

[mugbull]

Yeah, we always manage to humiliate world leaders with our self-righteous proclamations about the necessity for a rule of law / democratic governance / bla bla bla. The Russians and Chinese don’t go around publicly chiding everyone they meet, and so automatically start on the front foot. Wish we’d give up on that too

[phonics]

Yeah, we always manage to humiliate world leaders with our self-righteous proclamations about the necessity for a rule of law / democratic governance / bla bla bla. The Russians and Chinese don’t go around publicly chiding everyone they meet, and so automatically start on the front foot. Wish we’d give up on that too

Lol that shit has nothing to do with it you just don't pay enough bribes. Go to sub-saharan Africa and you'll see giant motorways that have absolutely nothing on them apart from Chinese trucks and the governors newly constructed palace in the background.

[Jimmy Floyd]

There are some countries, including some quite big ones (hi India) where you literally can't do straight business. Corruption is such a way of life there that the whole place would grind to a halt without it. I think it's only protestant countries where that isn't the case, actually.

[phonics]

My next door neighbour worked for Camel in Kenya. They sent him there because they'd stopped taking the bribes to let the trucks into the country. They had white guys doing it previously and then got caught in a sting operation so they'd only talk to people who looked suitably African.

[mugbull]

Lol that shit has nothing to do with it you just don't pay enough bribes. Go to sub-saharan Africa and you'll see giant motorways that have absolutely nothing on them apart from Chinese trucks and the governors newly constructed palace in the background.

Well the reason we don't have shit for power in Africa is because we don't do foreign public investment. We're gung-ho about developmental aid instead. The Chinese can get away with their form of economic colonialism because it's China.

[Lewis]

Having influence in Africa is and always has been largely worthless. Having a slice of Djibouti makes sense to some extent at the moment, but owning the road network in Matabeleland right yeah enjoy that mate.

[mugbull]

Yeah highly doubt that 50 years from now that will be anybody's belief

[Lewis]

Africa will be one gigantic warzone in fifty years, so I suppose the roving massacre units might get something out of all this infrastructure spending.

[Spikey M]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-47346253

Looks pretty grim.