What the United States is doing in Venezuela is against international and United States law. This morning, as I sit here, I’m incredulous that Trump stated that America has the right to take back the oil that was ‘stolen from it.’
Are you shitting me?
Stolen from it? The argument can be made not just equally but with ever more conviction, that Mexico should seize the SouthWest United States as it was ‘stolen’ from them or that international oil companies are ‘stealing’ the natural resources of other countries like Canada, for example.
If a nation determines that it is not deriving ‘fair compensation for its sovereign assets’ it absolutely has the right to compensate the company and then take back its sovereign assets. Otherwise, international corporations could steal or strip another country of its assets and be deemed legal in that action.
What of the rights of those within the country being so defiled?
Nation states have the right to control their own resources. Otherwise the entire international order becomes nothing but a farce, as international companies have more power than the government of any given country.
One can make the complete opposite argument.
If that’s the case, then conversely, all of the oil that American owned companies have taken out of the ground from Canada is also illegal.
The whole rationale is ridiculous, childish and fucking dangerous.
Simply put, based on Trump’s actions today, any country that America wants to invade can be then be invaded by the U.S., China or Russia, as is the case right now with a Rogue President who chooses to do so, and believes he can rewrite international law.
It’s time for the world to stand up to a criminal kleptocracy and plutocracy. The United States is not simply going rogue, it is stating to the world that ‘America can do whatever it wants’, because ‘might is right’.
America should be very careful. Remember 911?
If a foreign nations people feel that they are being ‘attacked’ by the U.S., then what stops them from doing so in return to the United States?
Apparently, if America proceeds with this action, then there is no longer International Law or any value in the United Nations and the international order. It will simply become anarchy and open warfare.
As Stephen Kotkin in this months Foreign Affairs article, “The Weakness of the Strongman”, states;
“The United States can topple weaker authoritarian regimes, but it cannot ensure their replacement by a better alternative. Time and again, Washington has demonstrated that it lacks the complex toolkit, cultural understanding, and sustained attention to establish enduring rule-of-law institutions, and democratic political cultures on foreign soil, whether by force of arms, diplomacy, trade, or some combination thereof.”
And once again an authoritarian American President ignores his hubris, ignorance, inability and the facts, in order to either create regime change or simply invade another sovereign nation.
Venezuela’s Fifty Year Old Decision
Venezuela officially nationalized its oil industry on January 1, 1976, under President Carlos Andres Perez, creating the state-owned company Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) to take over operations from foreign firms. It was the culmination of efforts to gain state control over “its own resources”.
These weren’t owned by the United States. That fallacious and stupid argument would suggest that all any nation need do is invest in another country and then it would have the recourse to claim the resource.
That’s completely asinine. But that seems to be the rationalization of this current federal administration in the United States of America.
Robert Rapier, in Forbes, Jan. 29th, 2019, stated;
“Let me state clearly up front that this article is in no way an argument in favour of meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs. Despite my criticisms of how Venezuela has managed its oil industry, I would not suggest that the U.S. attempt to force a solution upon the country,”
And, America has been ‘responsible for much of the failure of Venezuela’s oil industry, as sanctions, and now embargo and the seizing of sovereign Venezuelan assets ‘illegally’ under the pretence of a cause that is a ‘complete lie’ , occurs.
The U.S. Justice Department states;
“I think it is a fair reading of international law today that military intervention by an individual state is not permissible under the United Nations (“U.N.”) Charter.
As none of the four ‘permissible’ situations exist that intervention should be allowed, what America is doing is illegal, full stop.
What is the difference then from what Russian has done in Ukraine, if the United States states that it has the ‘right’ to invade another sovereign nation that poses no risk, and has taken no action against the United States in terms of military force?
The United States is actually providing Russia with the rationale for its invasion of Ukraine and is proving the validity of Russia’s argument in doing so, both of which are wholly fallacious and illegal.
America is no longer a democracy. The American people, to date, have had no say in its government in blockading another country, seizing its assets under some pretence, or actually invading and attacking a foreign sovereign nation.
It is all the more evident to anyone with reasonable intelligence, one working eye and bordering on deafness, that what the United States is trying to accomplish in Venezuela is regime change so that it may ‘steal’ the oil resources of the country. America will overthrow the Maduro government and install a puppet government in order to then take the oil it desires to feed its refineries on the Gulf Coast.
America is a predator nation. An illegal and illegitimate action is being taken by Donald J. Trump, simply because the American public is fearful of action against him. America is a rogue state and an international pariah.
What of its next actions? Shall it seize Greenland, or go whole hog and attack Canada?
The world should be condemning these actions, or America itself may find itself embroiled in either a civil war or a war inside America by foreign nationals feeling they have nothing to lose, as America is simply a criminal enterprise intent on stealing whatever isn’t nailed down globally.
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