Hunting Hugo: The US and Venezuela's Vast Oil Reserves

[BurtWorm]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/25/hunting_hugo.php
Hunting Hugo
Conn Hallinan
October 25, 2006

...

That one of the U.S. military's most powerful arms should find itself deep in the energy business should hardly come as a surprise. Four months after Bush took office, Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group recommended that the administration “make energy security policy a priority of our trade and foreign policy.” The administration has faithfully followed that blueprint, using war and muscular diplomacy to corner U.S. energy supplies in the Middle East and Central Asia.

What most Americans don't know is that Venezuela's reserves are enormous. According to a department of energy estimate, they are considerably greater than Saudi Arabia's, and may be as high as 1.3 trillion barrels. Most Venezuelan oil is heavy and expensive to refine, but as long as oil stays above $50 a barrel—and few doubt it will go lower—it is an almost endless gold mine.

The bone the U.S. is picking with Hugo is not about bombast. It's about oil.

...

The campaign against Chavez on the executive side is matched by a similar push in Congress. Senator Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently urged the Bush administration to adopt “contingency plans” in case of a disruption of oil supplies from Venezuela. In a July letter to Rice, the senator said that Venezuela has an “undue ability to impact USA security and our economy.” Lugar went on to warn that there was a “real risk” that Venezuela could “act in concert” with other countries and that “we have a responsibility to plan appropriate contingencies that protect the American people.”

The current campaign against Chavez is really Round Two in the White House's drive to unseat him. As Freedom of Information Act documents reveal, the Bush administration already tried to overthrow Chavez in an April 2002 coup.

[aquart]

1. Just genius to make an enemy of Chavez. Genius.

If Bush was an enemy agent he could not have screwed us more.

[Selatius]

2. Honestly, why do they in Congress think the world condemns us?

It's not because they're jealous of our wealth or power. It's because in too many cases, we have interferred in their internal affairs and lives and that we have, at various points, help to inflict misery upon them by supporting thugs and murderers for the sake of US corporate interests at their own expense.

I guarantee you'll never hear a major Dem or Repub candidate talk so bluntly as I have as to why the rest of the world hates the federal government. It's easy to point fingers at others, but it's a lot harder to look in the fucking mirror at yourself and your crimes.

[Vexatious Ape]

3. There wouldn't be any disruption of oil supplies

if we could just act like good neighbors and not fuck with the guy. It's their oil, not ours.