A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of military and civilian sites across Caracas which were bombed by the United States as of last weekend.

As everybody has already known for a couple days, the US has abducted Maduro and his wife in a massive operation (of which the exact details are not currently known, but involved hundreds of aircraft and at least some bombing of military and civilian targets), and has threatened Venezuela and the socialist party with further abductions and widespread murder if they do not hand over control of the country directly to the United States. In a statement that really says it all, Trump said that Machado is not being considered for the colonial viceroy position due to her sheer unpopularity. Various parties and countries around the world - and inside the US - have expressed their disapproval, which, as we all know, will not shift US foreign policy a single iota.

A few months ago, when the pressure campaign on Venezuela began, I speculated that Maduro was going to be killed or captured eventually. Flagrantly illegal and violent American military campaigns in Latin America are not new. The US has been invading land, looting banks, assassinating democratically elected leaders, and otherwise overthrowing countries in the region for their own economic benefit for the better part of two centuries, under both Democratic and Republican parties. Unfortunately, we all know that Russia and China are unlikely to do anything meaningful to contest the US in their attempt to more violently assert hegemony in Latin America. I doubt very much that the China of today will come out to bat for Venezuela and start meaningfully pressuring the US economically. For better and worse, we are far from the days of the USSR.

However, Latin America has, historically, met the US in its radicalism, committed to wars of anti-colonial nationalism, and carried out successful revolutions against the dictators placed in control from the US. As history continues ever onwards and conditions develop, I can only assume that we shall once again enter that radicalizing cycle. In that vein, the big question on my mind, and everybody else’s, is: what comes next? Does the Venezuelan socialist party have the social and military cohesion to wage a years-long guerilla war against occupying troops? Can they quickly transition from a conventional to guerilla force as their military facilities are bombed, or will it take several years? Can they prevent the theft of their oil resources and make the attempt at foreign occupation more costly in both the manpower and economic costs than what that war will generate? Can Venezuela manufacture weapons for this guerilla war in a state of blockade? Will this military campaign begin immediately upon soldiers landing, or will it take a period of relatively unopposed occupation of months or even years? Will Cuba, Colombia, and even Mexico be in the same situation by the end of the year, with abducted leaders?

Yemen is the very recent proof that seemingly weak countries can force the American military to retreat in defeat. Can Venezuela follow? We shall see what Maduro has done to prepare the country for this war very soon. The only certain thing is that the murderous violence propagated by a trembling and dying empire shall be defeated eventually, whether it takes months, years, or decades, and the end result will be a socialist victory.

Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

  • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    45·
    2 months ago

    https://archive.ph/B4kQX

    US oil groups warn they will need guarantees to invest in Venezuela

    Donald Trump to hold more talks with industry bosses as president flexes power over energy markets

    “No one wants to go in there when a random fucking tweet can change the entire foreign policy of the country,” said one private equity investor who specialises in energy.

    more

    US oil companies want “serious guarantees” from Washington before they make splashy investments in Venezuela as President Donald Trump urges them to back his bid to reshape energy markets. American officials held crunch talks with top energy executives in Miami on Wednesday, just as Trump made a show of raw power over global crude markets, seizing control of Venezuela’s oil sector and ordering US special forces to capture a Russian tanker in the north Atlantic. Trump has also summoned executives from some of the country’s biggest energy groups to a meeting at the White House on Friday. The executives are expected to press the president on providing strong legal and financial guarantees before they agree to commit capital to Venezuela, according to people familiar with their plans.

    Earlier this week Trump said the American oil companies could be “reimbursed by us, or through revenue” if they invested in Venezuela. But executives remained cautious, with some citing the erratic policymaking. “No one wants to go in there when a random fucking tweet can change the entire foreign policy of the country,” said one private equity investor who specialises in energy. The discussions in Miami on Wednesday came just hours after Trump said Venezuela would surrender millions of barrels of oil to US-chartered vessels that would sail the crude to the US, where Gulf refiners are gearing up to process it. The White House said Washington would control Venezuela’s oil “indefinitely”, seizing the lifeblood of one of the Opec cartel’s founding members. After bombing Iran and Nigeria, “Venezuela is the third OPEC oil producer to be attacked by the US in the last year,” said Bill Farren-Price at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “This is a global agenda that will increasingly refashion global energy trade to US terms and conditions,” he said.

    But Trump’s plan to revive Venezuela’s oil sector has already met with scepticism among US executives, who say political and legal risks, coupled with low oil prices, are obstacles. US energy secretary Chris Wright met senior officials from Chevron and ConocoPhillips, delivering Trump’s message that America’s biggest oil groups must pour billions of dollars into Venezuela’s battered energy industry. The US also signalled on Wednesday that it would open the door to American oilfield services companies to work in Venezuela and begin rolling back some of the sanctions that have hobbled its economy. But Wright acknowledged in remarks at the Goldman Sachs conference in Miami that US oil giants were not going to “put billions of dollars building new infrastructure in Venezuela next week”. Major players in the energy sector and investors said the US would need to backstop big projects. “There would have to be some serious guarantees from the government to get the big boys back in Venezuela,” said a senior executive at a large US energy company. “It’s going to take a while to see real investment in the country and then longer to get production up.” Chevron finance chief Eimear Bonner sounded a cautious note in closed-door remarks to investors on Tuesday and gave no indication of plans for near-term expansion in the country, according to people present. Chevron is the only American company that holds a US licence to export Venezuelan crude, and is seeking to amend its agreement with the US Treasury department to sell more of the country’s oil.

    Executives from the biggest US oil groups, including Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, are among those expected to meet Trump at the White House on Friday. Amos Hochstein, managing partner at investment group TWG Global and a former adviser to former president Joe Biden, said investing in Venezuela was fraught with legal, financial and political risk. American oil companies needed to know whether they would be shielded beyond Trump’s term in office, he said. “US companies need to know who their counterparties are. Are they signing deals with the Venezuelan government? Is the Venezuelan government legitimate?” Hochstein added: “For the next three years these companies will have to put money in and no revenue will come out until much later. And at that point Donald Trump will no longer be the president.” Neil McMahon, co-founder of energy investment group Kimmeridge, said US companies would need formal financial guarantees from the administration before committing money.

    “Companies are all concerned about what legal framework these new contracts would take just given the fact they have been burnt so many times before.” One leading private equity investor said his firm was “ready to get down and start looking at stuff” but cautioned Venezuela was “as risky as it gets”. “This government’s basically going to have to guarantee it,” he added. “Short of something like that, no investor, no public company that has shareholders can put their capital to work in a country that doesn’t have real laws and takes profits and confiscates assets.”