Looks like sanctions will be lifted on Venezuela.

I would not call it "working on it" but instead fielding the environment to see if something can be done. I can assure you that if any deal was to come in place, that the money Venezuela receive will be limited to certain in country improvements and not funding terrorists.

 

Again, that's why you have diplomats. Venezuela is hurting badly, they'll be reasonable.

 

Yes professional diplomats are working on this, not someone like Richard Grenell or DJT.

 

In your mind, how is funding world terrorism good news again? Are you someone who wants Iran to get nuclear weapons? Or you just don't care what the consequences are in your fit of pique over where oil comes from these days? You don't seem to like Saudi Oil, why again? Why not US oil? or Canadian, or Nigerian? There are lots of sources, but for some reason, you think it's cool to fund world terrorism instead.

 

With what again?... perhaps our collective might perhaps?

 

Looks to me like we are playing whack-a-mole with sanctions.

 

Terrorism, the way you are using it, means we don't like them. They have an even better case for accusing us of terrorism. We did cause them to lose a generation of males.

Obama got us a nuke deal, Trump killed it. Pretenses aside, Trump is on your side of the fence...

As I pointed out above, this is a piss poor time for sleazy politics. I don't imagine you have anything else to offer.

In a different thread, I said we needed to suck up to MLB.

We need to expand production. It will take a while for us to ramp up production. If you mean Keystone, that's low grade diesel, not something Europe wants, or something we would allow to be used here.. If you can come up with a way to increase Nigerian extraction and cracking, I'd love to hear about it.

 

Probably best to make nice with Venezuela now while Russia is down and we have this unique opportunity to help keep Russia out of Latin America as much as possible while also easing global oil supplies as many countries seek to get away from Russian exports. We should do what we can to shore up unity with Latin America in general.

 

No, actually it means Iran is a sponsor of terrorism. Ask the UN. Who is it you're shilling for here? Iran? Really? Obama paid billions to create the fiction that Iran stopped research. Clearly that didn't happen, and paying Iranians to more fully fund the terrorism cells they support was a direct contravention of US national security. He's literally paying for the terror that attack US interests globally.

So, in your mind, you'd like to flow money directly to a Putin acolyte, (Maduro) and at the same time pump up funding for global terror by resuming the flow of world money into the Iranian coffers. These are literally antithetical to US security, and interests. If this doesn't make him a traitior , why does his continued support for a war for oil policy? Riddle me that.

 

As suspected, you can't be bothered with the real world.

 

For some reason, it seems familiar. Much like Afghanistan, this sure is starting to feel like how the US engaged in Afghanistan. Russia will become the nasty Taliban, evidently, and the Washington folks are salivating over the billions in future spending it will require to grind Ukraine under the horror that will be the conflict that Biden et al seem to be willing to take us into battle over. And while you can't be bothered to explain suddenly how enriching Russian satellite states like Venezuela and Iran, you should start considering just what it is you're willing to sign the nation up for.

 

You are welcome.

 

That's right, caveman, our collective economic might. And it has already had an impact-- or do you think it is typical for there to be runs on Russian banks, because of the Ruble's free fall, so that the national bank interest rate needs to be doubled, to fight fears of runaway inflation?

And extended closings of the Russian Stock market, in even greater nose dive, to prevent its bottom falling out, you see as customary practice?

Since you apparently don't watch or read anything that could qualify as legitimate news, I guess I will need to be the one to inform you, that we & our allies have also supplied Ukraine, with a great deal of military equipment, including anti-aircraft weaponry and drones, which have resulted in the downing of many Russian helicopters & jets.

That is not to say that we could not do more; or that we won't do more. My comment--

DEFinning said: ↑
Congratulations: that is precisely the ideology which the world, & we, are standing up against, toward Russia.

-- was a reply to:

ShadowX said: ↑
There is no such thing as moral high ground in war. Only might matters.


My point, if you missed it, is that we do not wish to live in a world in which everything is decided through military might, and so conflict. This has been the goal of the United Nations, and an image of world politics, driving U.S. foreign policy, since back to the end of the First World War (in case you've missed that, as well).

 

Off topic but anyone wonder why all the countries the US has sanctions on tend to have oil?

Seems like an interesting coincidence.

 

So, the fantasy. A world where only what then matters? The purity of your ideas? Intellectual might? At some point, even that model requires the use of force to enforce does it not? The united nations only goal is to wealth transfer to themselves and their collected NGOs. The idea of the UN is nice, for sure. But unless you're willing to abdicate all national sovereignty to it, it clearly doesn't work except as an entity that gets rich off of the funding sovereign nations supply it with. And, of course, lots of that money that actually does go out quite often ends up in the private bank accounts of the leaders of the destination tagged funds. Wilson was one of the first globalists. He literally was one of the architects that created the conditions for WWII.

 

Before the official beginning of WW1, Brits were fighting German mercenaries in what we now call Iraq, over oil.

In WW2, when we invaded Africa, we cut a deal with the Saudi. That worked our nicely for both, for a very long time. While the oil companies were toppling governments, killing leaders, funding revolutionaries, the Saudi were protected from that.

The reason Syria is such a mess is because there was a tug of war over a pipeline. Syria got ripped apart.

It's no coincidence.

It also makes things awkward for me. A lot of the guys here have extremely limited ideas about how the world works. Diplomacy is extremely complicated, the number of people on this forum that has more than a superficial understanding of diplomacy you can count with the fingers of one hand.

And that's not counting the guys that have no sense of governance. They're in it for the destruction.

There's a bunch of books on oil, I started with Yergin.

 

Putin has things so messed up, it's going to be extremely difficult to navigate this without a major war breaking out.

Venezuela is a mess, at this point they will be reasonable. We had a deal with Iran, things were getting better, then your guy (don't bother pretending he's not) broke the deal, and made things a lot worse.

It's weird to the point of insane to call them Russian satellite states when Russia itself is on the warpath. Cutting deals with them hurts Russia economically, and has the opportunity for us to pull them into a stable relationship with us.

If they don't play nice, it's not like we can't go back to killing them with sanctions.

Why is you guys keep trying to turn win/win situations into unmitigated disaster?

Or to put it differently, WTF is wrong with you?

 

Bet you still wear a mask!

 

They will likely hold off as it gives them leverage with the US regarding their potential nuke deal.

 

Welcome to the real world where fantasy notions like those you hold don't actually hold up to the real world. If you can't understand the dynamic, why lash out against those of us who do?

 

You're not doing Republican propaganda, nor the usual suspects, and I suspect you're not going to acknowledge that your position benefits Putin. Republicans are trying to make sure nobody remembers they had been getting in bed with Putin.

In the real world, we had a deal with Iran. As I have pointed out before, you don't do reality. Ukraine is a lot more important
to us than Iran or Venezuela. And if it doesn't work out, we can always slap sanctions back on.

 

If they had wanted nukes, they could have built them over 20 years ago. They have everything needed.

But they will hold out for a better deal, after Trump, who could blame them?

 

Re instate the Monroe Doctrine and push Chinaand Russia o

They are still chafed that Trump didn’t take their money, and instead gutted the price of oil hurting their national income.
They have been pouring money into congress since the 60’s.

 

The only thing real about your advocacy here is that these Russian satellite states funnel money back into Russia. You just got caught, but you can't internalize this, so you lash out. Either nation, Venezuela or Iran, will benefit Putin. You just refuse to acknowledge it. I can't help you there except to introduce you to the realities of the world where Biden creating these entanglements is really not all that different that continuing to purchase oil from the guy. You're advocacy helps the Russians by giving them ancillary revenue streams at a time when the public rhetoric of the administration is this super macho BS about 'taking the fight to Putin' or other such inanities.

 

Iran was never a Russian satellite state. They were our satellite after we had a coup install a dictator. He was thrown out sometime in the late 70s. The Mullahs took over, and while they did business with Russia, they really didn't like atheism, or that Russia helped Saddam during that horrible war.

They have had a long and complicated relationship with Russia that goes back before there was a USSR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Russia_relationscomplicated relationship with Russia.


"Economic considerations provided additional reasons for Moscow to develop closer relations with Caracas. Venezuela became a significant market for Russian energy companies and arms makers, as Venezuela used Russian credits to buy $4 billion worth of weapons from 20056 to 2008;7 the principal Russian oil company, Rosneft, began to invest heavily in Venezuela."
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-...ias-intervention-in-venezuela-whats-at-stake/

Giving Venezuela billions in credit is a very risky proposition for Russia. It's also the OPPOSITE of what you said. Russian money was flowing into Venezuela.

Why do you deliberately get everything wrong?