The U.S. backed a coup in Venezuela that has failed. And President Trump was the architect of it. This is a farce surrounding an intrigue contained within a tragedy.
What has happened in Venezuela is tragic. Nicolas Maduro is a comical figure straight out of central casting for a South American leader of a junta. But it has been the U.S.’s designs on Venezuela’s oil and gas reserves (the largest proven in the world as of 2017) that is the real story behind this week’s events.
For anyone still harboring doubts as to who Trump truly is Venezuela should end them. Trump’s Energy Dominance policy is at the core of his foreign policy. And he will do whatever it takes to secure that policy and deliver a long-standing order to the U.S. and European oligarchy to gain control over Venezuela.
Energy Dominance
As Alistair Crooke succinctly put it last year at Strategic Culture:
The US – were energy dominance to succeed – simply would control the tap to the economic development – or its lack thereof – for rivals China, and Asia. And the US could squeeze Russia’s revenues in this way, too. In short, the US could put a tourniquet on China’s and Russia’s economic development plans. Is this why JCPOA was revoked by President Trump?
Here then, is the squaring of that circle (more US power, yet less empire): Trump’s US aims for ‘domination’, not through the globalists’ permanent infrastructure of the US defence umbrella, but through the smart leveraging of the US dollar and financial clearing monopoly, by ring-fencing, and holding tight, US technology, and by dominating the energy market, which in turn represents the on/off valve to economic growth for US rivals. In this way, Trump can ‘bring the troops home’, and yet America keeps its hegemony. Military conflict becomes a last resort.
Most of Trump’s supporters refuse to admit this is the plan. They still want to believe that National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were thrust upon him by the nefarious Deep State.
And that Trump is a trapped hero in a cage yearning to breathe free and MAGA, if we just support him a little more. Nonsense.
Trump has been very clear about this policy for years. We take over these places, kill the bad people and pay for it all by stealing their natural resources, in this case oil.
It is Trump’s 17th century view on trade writ large. Since this is a 17th century colonial mindset.
An independent Venezuela, even if it is run by an incompetent bus driver, is something that cannot be allowed to stand. Anyone that refuses to trade that oil on U.S. controlled exchanges, exchanges controlled by Goldman-Sachs, or in U.S. dollars is to be taken over and a puppet government installed, c.f. Iraq, Libya.
But only after your production is removed from the market. So that we can sell ours.
This is geopolitics 101 folks. Nothing new under the sun. Does everyone not remember Trump’s cutting Venezuela from the global monetary system through sanctions last year?
The Socialism Bogey
The worst of the country’s hyper-inflation occurred after this. Sadly, it was cheered on by libertarians and conservatives more interested in proving Socialism is bad than seeing the bigger picture of how it was fomented by immoral U.S. policy under Trump’s guidance.
Because no one f&cks with the Orange Jesus, man. Whoa!
Maduro’s attempts to rebuild Venezuela’s monetary system outside of the control of the U.S.’s dominance of financial markets are a blueprint for resisting Energy Dominance.
Whether Maduro’s Petro cryptocurrency and Sovereign Bolivar succeed are irrelevant. What’s important is that he has gained the backing of both China and Russia in support of the scheme.
They are all, along with Iran, committed to an alternate path to Trump’s Energy Dominance. They have to be, because the U.S. will not stop locking down the world financial system around oil until stopped practically.
And Trump has to continue on the path he’s on, if he believes in America’s Inherent Greatness (which he does), and quash them with everything in his power.
So, now he is taking on the weakest link, Venezuela. A country softened up by Chavez’s idiocy and Maduro’s incompetence. But it took the U.S. leaning on them through ruinous sanctions to destroy what was left and ensure the collapse of its oil industry so ours can thrive.
Then we blame the Venezuelan people for resisting our edicts and electing the wrong man.
This is the John Bolton blueprint for regime change. Demonize the leader of a country that opposes our imperial rule, cut them off from the rest of the world through sanctions and political/military pressure and wait for the society to collapse. Then back a regime change by a U.S. groomed puppet, in this case the nobody who is Juan Guaidó.
Sell it all the entire time as a failure of the other guy in charge. For Chavez and Maduro the spectre of Socialism is all it takes, especially now with the Democrats and the media championing our own female Che, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as the bogeyfem.
If that fails and it looks like it has then threaten to invade on humanitarian grounds. The only way this works with a U.S. population weary of two straight decades of war is for things to get so bad our intervention makes us look like the savior of a blighted people.
The Good Guy Blueprint
Guess what? This is the exact groundwork Bolton is laying for Iran. Squeeze them until they pop and then back a coup by the Mujahadeen al-Khaq (MEK). Who, like Guaidó, have absolutely zero support within Iran and would be the exact antithesis of what the Iranian people would want.
In other words Shah 2.0.
And are both some flavor of communist, just like Maduro. But don’t tell the MAGApedes this it’ll make them cry.
This is why we refused to work with Venezuela and sanctioned them instead. Maybe the reason Maduro wouldn’t work with us is because he knew what the ultimate plan was.
But the real tragedy here is that Trump has now embraced interventionist foreign policy completely. He’s like Arnold’s character in James Cameron’s True Lies. When his impossibly hot wife finds out who he truly is she asks him, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
And he quips like a little boy, “Yeah, but they were all bad.”
This is how he’s selling this betrayal of his base and MAGA. Because Venezuela today, Iran tomorrow.
The Steps to Not MAGA
Go back to the Crooke quote above. Shoring up the flow of how and in what currency oil is traded is one part. This is why Saudi Arabia is doomed, because to survive they need U.S. diplomatic and military backing and to maintain that they need to only accept dollars which is destroying their fiscal position.
The next part is have the U.S. produce the marginal barrel of oil, giving us pricing leverage over Russia. The Saudis and the rest of the Arab world will take whatever we allow them to have.
The alternative is written in today’s headlines — demonization, impoverishment, regime change and seizure of natural resources.
That mean Trump needs low interest rates for the capital intensive and, to this point, capital destructive, fracking industry to maintain the fiction that we can outproduce the Russians on a price per barrel basis.
Venezuela, with a currency which trades outside the SWIFT system, can and will produce oil at far lower prices than U.S frackers in the Permian Basin can. And it can drive domestic wealth generation again.
The last part is what he’s selling to the MAGA crowd, bringing the troops home. But Trump said this morning he doesn’t rule out military intervention in Venezuela to oust Maduro from power. What happened to ‘no regime change’ and bringing the military empire to an end, OJ?
As long as all of the above works he will be able to substitute the troops overseas for control of the flow of energy, except where the bad guys need to be killed of course.
The Failure is Complete
Look around you. Do you really think that’s working?
- China’s petroyuan contract is a runaway success. Russia is selling so much oil there in yuan and converting it to gold it is now supporting global gold prices.
- Maduro has survived the coup to this point. Russia has made it clear they will assist Maduro stay in power by flying a nuclear-bomb carrying TU-160 bomber to Caracas. Putin and Maduro just signed a multi-billion dollar exploration and production agreement.
- No Exxon-Mobil in sight folks.
- Iran is selling oil to India at 2017 rates still, using rupees. Most of 2018’s increase was in anticipation of Trump putting sanctions on, so the fall from the peak is irrelevant — simply front-running Trump’s predictable policy.
- Turkey will still buy Iranian oil at whatever rate they want.
Nordstream 2 is under construction and Exxon-Mobil and Uniper just signed a big LNG supply deal in Germany. Since Uniper is a part of the Nordstream 2 consortium, do you think sanctions are incoming now? No.
And neither is energy dominance.
I read that Russian private military contractors are coming to Venezuela as we speak.That might be sign that Russians are preventing Syria scenario happening and preparing to stop the flow of US weapons coming from Colombia as Moon of alabama predicted to be the case.
China has to step in in bigger way at this point if they want to challenge US .They can’t leave this on the Russians alone again.I think it is time for them to go in in more assertive way. The war is on and they either step in or lose.
I think….. why wouldn’t Maduro simply call their BS and agree to elections at this point? He would still win i think.
This story is as far fetched as that supposedly “native American” who beat his drum in the face of the young school kid in D. C. and the media accused the Kids of racism.
If you don’t understand what I have written here. All of which is documentable back to The Donald himself then you are willfully part of the problem. In case you don’t know I voted fir Trump specifically to end these foreign policy interventions and this situation in Venezuela is textbook US policy.
If it’s documentable then document it. Talk is cheap. As it stands you’re talking out your ass.
Read the Crooke article I linked to which in turn links to Donald’s Energy Dominance speech. Everything else flows from that and then it’s just like, you know, my opinion man….so salt to taste. But this is the policy. This article is simply an interpretation of what the man himself has said and what he has done. You choose to discount that, that’s your business, but you will remember this article and maybe, if you have at least half an open mind, you’ll do your own DD to refute me. If not, talk is really cheap.
Frankly there is nothing worse at this point than MAGApedes who can’t handle the truth about Orange Jesus.
Energy dominance is the game in the world in case you haven’t noticed. Everyone is playing and if you don’t play you’ll definitely lose badly. Its laughable to think that you wouldn’t be the one complaining the loudest if or when that happened. This isn’t bombing some third world country. This is winning a game of finance against a (once) very wealthy first world country that was playing the same game, very hard, against us. But ultimately blew it because they put an idiot in charge.
So by all means hate your country and your fellow countrymen for the crime of being the best at it and winning and protecting their own. Even when you can see clearly that the current fate of Venezuelans is what was awaiting the loser. This loser mentality is nothing new, or fresh, or even worth reading.
I get it. You like being a warmonger. Nothing new or even interesting to see here. Typical ugly American exceptionalism covering up disgusting amoral behavior.
The best thing we could have done for the people of Venezuela was to keep trade open to them. Not close it off. It has never worked to impoverish a people and collapse a government. While Maduro is a horror show, it’s only made worse by our meddling, not better.
I agree. Poorly researched conjecture at best. When was the last time Tom was in Venezuela I wonder? The only difference between this article and Anderson Cooper reporting it in front of a blue screen with a picture of Venezuela in the background, is the blue screen. There are thousands of Venezuelans ‘staging’ themselves in Florida, waiting out their visas as long as possible in the hopes that some semblance of stability returns to Venezuela. One was staying with my family. Many are staying with families I know, right now. Every weekend they’re doing fundraisers so they can send much needed necessities back to their friends and families still trapped there. Pray tell, what are YOUR sources Tom? To the one, none of them support Maduro and none of them want to go back to a Venezuela ruled by Maduro. Call Guiado a puppet if you want, but the the fact remains that he is also AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE SOCIALIST DICTATORS THAT HAVE DESTROYED ONE OF THE WEALTHIEST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD. Venezuela was on that path to destruction nearly two decades before Trump even considered entering politics. It takes a HUGE suspension of logic and reason and knowledge of history to chalk up the events in Venezuela to some Trump-engineered world domination scheme or even any kind of US engineered scheme. Chavez tried to beat the system, failed and took a bunch of innocents down with him. We don’t own that. Winning at finance, trade, production, etc, are totally fair game as I see it (maybe the game itself isn’t fair, but is laughable to suggest that Maduro is the model of integrity. Or Russia. Or China. Or Saudi Arabia). As is leveraging the opportunities created because your rival is a corrupt dictator that squandered one of the greatest troves of wealth in the world. That is all Trump is doing. Venezuela was destroying itself long before Trump came along. Its one thing to not agree with the policies. I’m not 100% on board myself. Its another thing to put fake words into people’s mouths to support the ridiculous implication that if we did nothing at all the people of Venezuela wouldn’t still be eating their pets. Or that they don’t want or need our help when they so desperately do.
So pray tell, what is the problem we are a part of Tom? And do you think Russia, China, etc, will stop stop playing this same game in Venezuela just because we made whatever decision you think is the ‘right’ one? That’s pure fantasy.
No one here, especially me, is arguing for Maduro. I think I made it clear that I consider him and Chavez both grossly incompetent. But it takes a special kind of willful ignorance to believe that we have not had a direct hand in both Chavez’ coming to power as a reaction to our meddling there and the ascension of Maduro after that.
We are guilty of intervening in places we shouldn’t, don’t understand or don’t care about the consequences of.
This isn’t just about Trump. Maduro’s mess was collapsing on its own.. Trump seized the opportunity to pour salt on the wounds of the Venezuelan people by systematically cutting it out of the global financial system and making it impossible for anything other than this outcome to come about.
Trump loves this. 800,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan oil has been removed from the market. He’s gunning for another 1.5 million from Iran. Refuses to leave Iraq to keep those barrels off the market….. We destroyed LIbya for the same reason.
Policy is the same, presidents change to sell it to different groups of people… today it’s the right after 8 years of selling it to the left under O-Bomb-ya.
Interesting analogy but a false equivalency. If you don’t know what comparative equivalency really is … try comparing the situation in Venezuela with pre-invasion Libya – including the situation re; oil trading.
You can’t help but be faced with a symmetry between “what-difference-does-it-make” Hillary Clinton and “honestly-she-should-be-in-jail” Donald Trump. They are a mirror image of each other.
Unfortunately, the Presidential election in Venezuela did not happen. The opposition candidate was banned, so a large majority of the voters stayed home, boycotted the sham election. It is also unfortunate that the Communists stole the assets of Exxon and other American companies. Chavez had labored not to do that. So now we have the Jew Abrams assigned to head this inter-agency coup in Venezuela. I do not see any good guys in this struggle.
I don’t either but given the state of affairs it also doesn’t mean that Trump has to exacerbate the problem by working for regime change. Putin is right, Presidents change, policies don’t.
“Venezuela, with a currency which trades outside the SWIFT system, can and will produce oil at far lower prices than U.S frackers in the Permian Basin can. And it can drive domestic wealth generation again.”
There is some reason to believe that Venezuelan oligarchs will join in a nationalist regime if it meets them halfway. Consider an alternative view that takes this into account. For readers who see only black and white hats, the following will will be deemed utterly irrelevant. If the article linked below actually represents reality in Venezuela, it’s the analysis that sees only black and white hats that will in hindsight be seen to be not only irrelevant, but also the equivalent of building new Ford class US aircraft carriers and thinking that is a sensible military posture for the US.
“FLORES: This Is The Hour, Maduro’s Position Is Strong”
The Venezuelan model never did away with the oligarchy, it split them away from their traditional positions. Previously, the oligarchs were naturally a comprador bourgeoisie – their inter and intra-familial power struggles were no different than those in old Verona, but expressed in the parliamentary duel for favoritism between center-right conservative and progressive-conservative liberal forces.
21st Century Socialism is brilliant and strong here precisely where it is weak. While contrary to the propaganda, the Venezuelan military and a whole part of the comprador bourgeoisie were transformed. The nationalism and life/death cult palingenesis and antiquinarianism of the Venezuelan elite military forces, death squads, steeped in the occult mysticism of the Popol vuh, an ideological project seen elsewhere in the region as well, as an anti-communist bulwark, was transformed into a popular nationalism of the same – an ideological transformation or more properly ‘culture jamming’ of the ultra-right Venezuelan military forces into ultra-left ‘Bolivarian Circles’.
A whole part of the comprador bourgeoisie was then set to become a national bourgeoisie, nominally private owners, and retaining the lion’s share of the wealth, all of the privilege, in exchange for some control. That’s the military’s deal. The comprador bourgeoisie was split by Chavez, and a national bourgeoisie was created and poised against the compradors.
Maduro isn’t going anywhere
Thus the opposition is also quite fundamentally dishonest in their international propaganda. This isn’t a contest of communism against capitalism per se, but is the ongoing battle between Venezuela’s oligarchs, some of whom have thrown their lot in with the direction of events that they saw unfold – with the ‘right side’ of history. This ties in with ideas of cultural hegemony, winning the battle of democracy, and creating a national-sovereigntist culture within the language of socialism – one that even ‘progressive’ oligarchs could hang their hat on.
As an aside, a specific indicator of the prevalence of this ‘pro-people’ cultural hegemony is precisely the kind of protest movement leaders, tropes, memes, and images being used by the U.S. They have nearly abandoned the old model, of appealing overtly to the race-classism and to the Church. In a very superficial, and cultural way, the Church has moved nominally ‘leftward’ and has a ‘new face’ in much of Latin America – its dirtiest work is still being done in Africa, the West Balkans, and the Ukraine.
https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/01/flores-this-is-the-hour-maduros-position-is-strong/
Good article Tom, however I’m somewhat confused as to why China is not more involved other than the standard “we condemn” garbage they always trot out. After all they more than any other country have invested nearly 45 Billion. Apologies for my bad written English.
“I voted for Trump specifically to end these foreign policy interventions”
As a Lebanese/Syrian who’s family was effected by Americas uncalled for interventions in Lebanon and especially Syria, I was very happy when Americans elected Trump and then like many supporters from outside of USA, was very disappointed to see how quickly he changed. After reading your replies in this thread, it gives me great hope that are still many wonderful Americans like yourself out there. Thank you.
I too voted for the O.J., only because I’m tired of decades of war ( been there..done that got the T-shirt and the mental scars to boot, being an ex combat infantryman). At this point, Trump is going to be far more dangerous to this country than if Hillary had won the election. Why? Because he is going to legitimize what all the other war criminals (Both Bushes, Clinton & Obama) did before him.
Under Obama, the Obamanites totally accepted with open arms mister Peace Prize bombing more countries that needed “democracy”. Now we got the Q-tards and MAGApees doing the same.
WTF? Wake up! It totally disgusts me
luongo is full of s hit. the oonly reason cross hairs on Venezuela is they are accused of giving aid to Hezbollah and Gaza. satanyahu runs the US foreign policy so here we are. that is why bibi is all over SA recently giving his new servant billionaro of brazil his orders. I am sick of the bull s hit on how we want the oil. if we go there build up their oil industry make a deal to get the oil cheap save billions. PUTIN WILL DO JUST THAT AND OUTDO THE J EW RUN US AGAIN LIKE IN SYRIA
Mr. Meener, I happy for you to disagree with me over what’s going on here, but I’m also not at all interested in listening to ‘Jews are all-powerful’ nonsense when that is clearly not the case.
look Tom I know in order for you not be shut down and your life ruined you have to play like Limbaugh and Hannity outlying all the problems but NEVER connecting them to the jews. that did not work out for alex jones
satanyahu speaks in front of congress gets more standing ovations then ANY president in US history. then bibi goes on telling congress he guarantees taking out saddam Hussein would greatly stabilize the Mideast. then ordering trump to stay in Syria. I could go on but there is not enough bandwith on the net to list it all. good luck being a cuck and a fake for a paycheck and hope you do not end up like alex jones
Boy, this post really smoked out the MAGAtards. Until the recent Venezuela related posts here I had not specifically considered that the Iraq-Libya-Syria-Venezuela-Iran policy Axis of Amorality was predominantly an energy dominance strategy. It had registered more as the latest in a long line of the noxious litany of empires gonna empire, invade the world / invite the world, etc.
But Trump’s own words indeed point in that direction. If if this is all to prop up a cash flow negative fracker energy sub-sector, then, as I think Bugs Bunny once put it: What a maroon.
Keep up the good work on connecting the dots, Tom.
Thank you WTF.