The US attack on Venezuela relies on the same deception that justified the war in Iraq: the idea of self-financing wars with oil.
President Trump said Saturday that the US will run Venezuela following the capture of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. “It won’t cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial,” he said at a Saturday press conference at Mar-a-Lago following news of the US attack. But we’ve been down this road before.
“There’s a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn’t have to be US taxpayer money,” Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz claimed about Iraq in March 2003, the same month as the US invasion. “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” He said oil revenues could bring $50-100 billion over the first years of the invasion.
That wasn’t the case, and just like what would happen in Iraq, the military campaign in Venezuela is likely to have steep costs.
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Government: The voters want me to tell you to give up some of your profits to finance the war that got you all this oil.
Oil companies: No.
Government: OK cool just making sure.
It’s piracy by another name.
Robbery by daylight.
Nah, it’s a self-funding maritime expedition
Colonialism is almost always a net drain on the state, because paying for an occupying force is very expensive. Even during the height of British colonialism they were spending more on the colonies then they were getting back in tax revenue from them.
Colonialism only helps the oligarchs / capitalists who are able to exploit the new resources and cheap labor.
If we actually do get in a protracted quagmire in Venezuela it will cost the US taxpayers $1 trillion and make Exxon and friends $1 trillion.
Bullshit. US oil majors will extract all the oil wealth they can offshore and onshore, sell that oil internationally, keep the profits, pay a (small) portion in taxes and other fees, meanwhile the US will spend another 10? 20? years and fuck knows how many trillions of dollars in another endless vague undefined war while the defense contractors old and new (Google, MS, etc) get rich
It’s not exactly a lie.
The value of the US dollar, in part, comes from selling oil in USD. Every oil source that exists outside of the dollar market hurts the value of the dollar, and sanctions on Venezuela have been encouraging oil investment and sales in yuan instead of dollars. That’s partially where the inflation came from, demand for dollars by oil traders has fallen, which means stopping this leak.
Although electrification continues, which also weakens demand for oil traded in dollars, and obviously there’s Russia and the other sanctioned countries who don’t trade in dollars. The age of oil wars paying for themselves is probably ending.
This sounds interesting. Can you suggest any additional articles on the topic?
