Can someone help me out here? What has Venezuela done against the US to earn sanctions?

[kelliekat44]

Why is Venezuela a "threat" to the US? Why is Cuba on the "terrorist" list?
Why isn't Saudi Arabia on the "terrorist list" since 9/11?

[Scuba]

1. Nationalized their oil industry.

[mmonk]

2. You've got it.

They don't play the game. It's true with most sanctioned countries.

[msanthrope]

4. Here are the 7 individuals sanctioned. Can you tell us how any

of their human rights abuses are connected to the nationalization of oil?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6337401

[hobbit709]

8. when it comes to human rights violations, pot and kettle.

[msanthrope]

10. No one has fully clean hands. It

is a facile argument I think, to make in this instance. These sanctions do no more than prevent those seven individuals from traveling freely to America or using American financial institutions to shelter the loot they've made off the backs of the Venezuelan people.

[great white snark]

13. I tell you counselor the easy, lazy equivalency response is now the norm.

Used to be just the province of the Putin apologists.

[JonLP24]

18. Its a double standard

The US has way more business relationships with Saudi Arabia & other Gulf Countries. (Also helping Saudi in their war with Yemen)

Trust me, the vast majority of those business transactions are off the backs of imported labor. Exploited & Abused. That is how their economies are built (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, etc). The Department of Defense gets in on the action as well. US companies human traffic poor Asian & Africa workers.

Offshoring the Army: Migrant Workers and the U.S. Military
http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=6348

Qatar: the migrant workers forced to work for no pay in World Cup host country - video
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2013/sep/25/qatar-migrant-workers-world-cup-host-video

This kind of capitalism has gone on since the US & the CEO Halliburton liked the idea from the first gulf war, they used in the wars since. Open it up to private companies, the US does business with looters all the time. The reason why they care so much about Venezuela is they won't open it up to Shell, Exxon Mobile, & Chevron, etc. Saudi Arabia is the "worst of the worst" of human rights violators but they let the oil & gas companies in and the US kisses their ass.


How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists
The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11110931/How-Qatar-is-funding-the-rise-of-Islamist-extremists.html

The case against Qatar
The tiny, gas-rich emirate has pumped tens of millions of dollars through obscure funding networks to hard-line Syrian rebels (with the help of the CIA) and extremist Salafists, building a foreign policy that punches above its weight. After years of acquiescing -- even taking advantage of its ally's meddling -- Washington may finally be punching back.

<snip>

Hossam is a peripheral figure in a vast Qatari network of Islamist-leaning proxies that spans former Syrian generals, Taliban insurgents, Somali Islamists, and Sudanese rebels. He left home in 1996 after more than a decade under pressure from the Syrian regime for his sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of his friends were killed in a massacre of the group in Hama province in 1982 by then President Hafez al-Assad. He finally found refuge here in Qatar and built his business and contacts slowly. Mostly, he laid low; Doha used to be quite welcoming to the young President Bashar al-Assad and his elegant wife, who were often spotted in the high-end fashion boutiques before the revolt broke out in 2011.

When the Syrian war came and Qatar dropped Assad, Hossam joined an expanding pool of middlemen whom Doha called upon to carry out its foreign policy of supporting the Syrian opposition. Because there were no established rebels when the uprising started, Qatar backed the upstart plans of expats and businessmen who promised they could rally fighters and guns. Hossam, like many initial rebel backers, had planned to devote his own savings to supporting the opposition. Qatar’s donations made it possible to think bigger.

In recent months, Qatar’s Rolodex of middlemen like Hossam has proved both a blessing and a curse for the United States. On one hand, Washington hasn’t shied away from calling on Doha’s connections when it needs them: Qatar orchestrated the prisoner swap that saw U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl freed in exchange for five Taliban prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. And it ran the negotiations with al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, that freed American writer Peter Theo Curtis in August. “Done,” Qatari intelligence chief Ghanim Khalifa al-Kubaisi reportedly texted a contact — adding a thumbs-up emoticon — after the release was completed.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/09/30/the-case-against-qatar/

How Does ISIS Fund Its Reign of Terror?
Grossing as much as $40 million or more over the past two years, ISIS has accepted funding from government or private sources in the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait—and a large network of private donors, including Persian Gulf royalty, businessmen and wealthy families.
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/14/how-does-isis-fund-its-reign-terror-282607.html

This animosity has resulted in a new campaign in the west to demonize the Qataris as the key supporter of terrorism. The Israelis have chosen the direct approach of publicly accusing their new enemy in Doha of being terrorist supporters, while the UAE has opted for a more covert strategy: paying millions of dollars to a U.S. lobbying firm – composed of former high-ranking Treasury officials from both parties – to plant anti-Qatar stories with American journalists. That more subtle tactic has been remarkably successful, and shines important light on how easily political narratives in U.S. media discourse can be literally purchased.

This murky anti-Qatar campaign was first referenced by a New York Times article two weeks ago by David Kirkpatrick, which reported that “an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel” is seeking to depict Doha as “a godfather to terrorists everywhere” (Qatar vehemently denies the accusation). One critical component of that campaign was mentioned in passing:

<snip>

The Camstoll Group was formed on November 26, 2012. Its key figures are all former senior Treasury Department officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations whose responsibilities included managing the U.S. government’s relationships with Persian Gulf regimes and Israel, as well as managing policies relating to funding of designated terrorist groups. Most have backgrounds as neoconservative activists. Two of the Camstoll principals, prior to their Treasury jobs, worked with one of the country’s most extremist neocon anti-Muslim activists, Steve Emerson.

Camstoll’s founder, CEO and sole owner, Matthew Epstein, was a Treasury Department official from 2003 through 2010, a run that included a position as the department’s Financial Attaché to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A 2007 diplomatic cable leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks details Epstein’s meetings with high-level Abu Dhabi representatives as they plotted to cut off Iran’s financial and banking transactions. Those cables reveal multiple high-level meetings between Epstein in his capacity as a Treasury official and high-level officials of the Emirates, officials who are now paying his company millions of dollars to act as its agent inside the U.S.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/25/uae-qatar-camstoll-group/



Superme Courts lets victims' 9/11 suit vs. Saudi Arabia proceed
The U.S. Supreme Court gave the go-ahead Monday to a lawsuit by victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the government of Saudi Arabia, alleging it indirectly financed al-Qaeda in the years before the hijackings.

The justices declined to hear an appeal by the Saudi government of a lower-court ruling that the lawsuit could go forward. The high court also declined to hear a separate appeal by 9/11 victims of a lower-court decision preventing them from suing dozens of banks and individuals that allegedly provided financial assistance to the hijackers.

"From our perspective, we are looking forward to having the opportunity to finally conduct an inquiry into the financing of the Sept. 11 attacks," said Sean Carter, a partner at the Center City law firm Cozen O'Connor, one of the firms involved in the litigation against the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has long denied responsibility for the attacks and pointed to a finding by the 9/11 Commission that it had found no evidence that the Saudi government "as an institution" had involvement.
http://articles.philly.com/2014-07-02/business/51005807_1_saudi-arabia-saudi-government-cozen-o-connor

The Missing Pages of the 9/11 Report
The lead author of the Senate’s report on 9/11 says it’s time to reveal what’s in the 28 pages that were redacted from it, which he says will embarrass the Saudis.

A story that might otherwise have slipped away in a morass of conspiracy theories gained new life Wednesday when former Sen. Bob Graham headlined a press conference on Capitol Hill to press for the release of 28 pages redacted from a Senate report on the 9/11 attacks. And according to Graham, the lead author of the report, the pages “point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the principal financier” of the 9/11 hijackers.

“This may seem stale to some but it’s as current as the headlines we see today,” Graham said, referring to the terrorist attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris. The pages are being kept under wraps out of concern their disclosure would hurt U.S. national security. But as chairman of the Senate Select Committee that issued the report in 2002, Graham argues the opposite is true, and that the real “threat to national security is non-disclosure.”

Graham said the redacted pages characterize the support network that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur, and if that network goes unchallenged, it will only flourish. He said that keeping the pages classified is part of “a general pattern of coverup” that for 12 years has kept the American people in the dark. It is “highly improbable” the 19 hijackers acted alone, he said, yet the U.S. government’s position is “to protect the government most responsible for that network of support.”

The Saudis know what they did, Graham continued, and the U.S. knows what they did, and when the U.S. government takes a position of passivity, or actively shuts down inquiry, that sends a message to the Saudis. “They have continued, maybe accelerated their support for the most extreme form of Islam,” he said, arguing that both al Qaeda and ISIS are “a creation of Saudi Arabia.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/12/the-missing-pages-of-the-9-11-report.html

Suspicions about the Gulf kingdom intensified in 2003 when the Bush administration blocked the release of a 28-page section of a congressional report on the attacks believed to focus on terror funding in Saudi Arabia.

Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's long-standing ambassador in Washington, was at one point implicated for making donations worth $130,000 to the wives of two friends of the hijackers in San Diego.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3815179.stm

Are Gulf allies are not only brutal oppressors & labor traffickers, they are an enemy to not just us, many others including their own people. Venezuela isn't even close but instead of sanctioning any business individuals or even sanction the country but instead, we have their backs the wealthy Bin Laden family was flown out of here when no one else could travel freely within the country or out of the country.

[msanthrope]

22. And? You seem to be making an argument that we should not proceed on some human rights

violations, until others are addressed.

So should Michael Slager not be prosecuted until Dick Cheney is? No?

[JonLP24]

25. Sanctioning wealthy foreign businessman from doing business with the US?

What I'm saying is if the US was really concerned about human rights we'd see a lot more tough talk & business sanctions on Saudi Arabia or whoever else we call our ally as well as cleaning up our own issue.

I don't know the individuals nor their business relationships so I'm not aware of the evidence against them. I'm well aware of the hypocrisy but it isn't just the sanctions, the US is calling them a threat to "national security" as well as tough rhetoric & recruiting Latin American business allies and all because of oil. Saudi Arabia plays ball with capitalists.

Don't know Michael Slager but I do know Dick Cheney (former CEO of Halliburton)
Halliburton, Kuwait Operation Violate US Labor Laws

Employed by First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, the lead builder for the new 592-million-dollar U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Owen remembers being surrounded at the airport by about 50 company labourers freshly hired from the Philippines and India. Everyone was holding boarding passes to Dubai - not to Baghdad.

"I thought there was some sort of mix-up and I was getting on the wrong plane," said the 48-year-old Floridian, who was working as a general construction foreman on the embassy project.

<snip>

The deception had all the appearances of smuggling workers into Iraq, but Owen didn't know at the time that the Philippines, India and other countries had banned or restricted their citizens from working in Iraq because of safety concerns and growing opposition to the war. After 2004, many passports were stamped "Not valid for Iraq".

Nor did Owen know that both the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon were quietly investigating contractors such as First Kuwaiti for labour trafficking and worker abuse. In fact, the international news media had accused First Kuwaiti repeatedly of coercing workers to take jobs in battle-torn Iraq once they had been lured to Kuwait with safer offers.
http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/66418:halliburton-kuwait-operation-violate-us-labor-laws

Not one of the five different US embassy sites he had worked on around the world compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. The Kuwait-based company building the $592-million Baghdad project is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says “I’ve never seen a project more fucked up. Every US labor law was broken.”

<snip>

By March 2006, First Kuwaiti’s operation began looking even sketchier to Owens as he boarded a nondescript white jet on his way back to Baghdad following some R&R in Kuwait city. He remembers being surrounded by about 50 First Kuwaiti laborers freshly hired from the Philippines and India. Everyone was holding boarding passes to Dubai – not to Baghdad.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14173

Its our friends & the US defense contractors that are humans rights violators doing business in & out of the US much more than Venezuela so unless they're sanctioning the House of Saud any now minute then the US isn't really concerned about human rights. As far as Dick Cheney goes, he should be most wanted because he is responsible for most of it. Aside from him, there are countless wealthy businessmen that are human rights violators doing business either with us, are us, or inside nations that are our allies we should be addressing before these 7 individuals.

[merrily]

27. Didn't someone just mention false equivalency?

[JI7]

84. yup, i wonder if these people think we should not be critical of Netanyahu and Israel

[Monk06]

14. Those guys are less violent than the LAPD.

Two people dead by all in that group. Violence, including sexual violence and use of live ammunition on civilians.

LAPD is much more terrorist than that or Ferguson or SC cops for that matter.

[msanthrope]

23. And you seem to be making the argument that all other justice stops until the people

you think should be locked up are dealt with.

Does this mean we hold off on Michael Slager until Dick Cheney is under the jail? Why not?

[Monk06]

72. No I'm saying we live in a topsy turvy world when the state police force of a supposedly

terrorist supporting nation is less arbitrarily violent than a CHP cop or an LAPD goon abusing poor people.

You have perfectly legal shoot to kill policies for municipal cops in the US yet the US government wants to impose sanctions for the death of 43 people in a civil war in a foreign country. A civil war the US is supporting and has directly aided in the past.

Hypocrisy thy name is America

[LittleBlue]

63. And as I've pointed out to you

Those sanctions are selectively applied. If they had done what the US wanted, there would have been no sanctions regardless of the human rights violations. See: Saudi Arabia, UAE, and many others- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authoritarian_regimes_supported_by_the_United_States

[newfie11]

5. Thank you

[DeSwiss]

37. !

- And, they refused a couping. When we coup somebody, they had better stay couped!

[jwirr]

56. Bingo. They used their own resources instead of letting us have them.

[sabrina 1]

57. Yes, how dare they and they paid off their IMF loan, meaning they became independent of the Western

Imperialists who kept over 80% of the population in extreme poverty, that's the way the Imperialists believe it should be, and illiterate, numbers which have now been reduced since after the Bush coup failed.

We don't like Countries not led by Dictators. Dictators, see Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia eg, will allow Corporate control of their assets.

It is a disgrace that all the good that was done for the people of Venezuela is being undone by the same far right Corporate tools who are doing it all over the world.

[hifiguy]

61. Bingo.

Same as Mossadegh in Iran in the 1950s.

[msanthrope]

3. Venezuela didn't get sanctioned. 7 individuals from Venezuela

did, pursuant to legislation passed in 2014. So far, no DUer has been able to explain to me why any of these seven individuals deserve to not be sanctioned for their human rights abuses......


http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6337401

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. When did human rights violations by individuals in another country become a threat to US

national security? There are worse human rights violations by Saudi Arabian government members every day.

[msanthrope]

21. When they funnel cash through US financial institutions, then our banking

system directly helps fund terror. That's a threat to national security.

Sure, SA should be subject to the same, but does that mean we do nothing until we address SA? Like....should we not prosecute Michael Slager until Dick Cheney is prosecuted for war crimes? Or does only apply to criminals you have sympathy for?

[merrily]

28. "does that mean we do nothing until we address SA"

Another false equivalency.

Until? When do you think we'll get around to "address" Saudi Arabia? Not only is it a massive violator of human rights, but it funded terrorists who were attacking us with frickin' telethons.

[msanthrope]

31. I wasn't the one who brought up SA. Why not address that poster

directly?

[merrily]

33. I am addressing your comment--rather question--not what another poster said about Saudi Arabia.

That's why. That should have been obvious. And you made that kind of comment--rather question-- more than once on this thread.

Does that mean I can't address your post about SA until I address every other post on this thread about SA?

[msanthrope]

35. Merrily. ...in our last interaction, you got very frustrated and insulting.

I suggested to you then that you refrain from engaging me for awhile.

So, do you really want to continue this exchange? Given how angry you were over the last exchange?

[joshcryer]

42. Good luck.

Some posters can't help themselves.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. So, that would be for at least the past 40 years, in the case of Saudi Arabia

but probably the last 70 years.

"does that mean we do nothing until we address SA?"

To be consistent, yes. The USA for decades has encouraged human rights abuses by officials in foreign countries, and kidnapped victims to send them for torture. What Venezuelans do is chicken-feed, compared to what US allies have done. Hell, it's not as bad as what the USA itself did in Guantanamo this century.

Calling this a 'national emergency' and a 'threat' to 'national security' is hypocritical bullshit.

[msanthrope]

32. Blame Congress, then. The EO is pursuant to 2014 legislation. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. The sanctions "go beyond the requirements of this legislation" - see #20

Those are the words of the White House.

[msanthrope]

47. Good. Which one of the 7 named are you defending? nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

48. Guess.

[Comrade Grumpy]

65. Who signed that bill into law?

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. Are you connecting Venezuela, or the 7 named people, with terror?

Or is that a reference to Saudi Arabia and support of terror - an accusation that is easier to back up, given the origin of several 9/11 hijackers?

[SummerSnow]

77. But, but, but they have oil.

snark

[joshcryer]

41. +1

Focused sanctions are clever.

[joshcryer]

43. Gotta love the boligarchs.

[Comrade Grumpy]

59. Obama formally named Venezuela a threat to the national security of the US.

Which is, of course, total bullshit. I hope he at least felt bad telling such a whopper.

So there is that.

[COLGATE4]

81. You'll be waiting a long time for any

rational response. So far, all I see is "'cause they nationalized their oil" and "what about Saudi Arabia". Not terribly convincing.

[SidDithers]

6. When was Venezuela sanctioned?...

Link?

Sid

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Any past or present members of the Venezuelan government can be targeted

so that is a fairly good fit to 'Venezuela is being sanctioned':

President Obama today issued a new Executive Order (E.O.) declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela. The targeted sanctions in the E.O. implement the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014, which the President signed on December 18, 2014, and also go beyond the requirements of this legislation.
...
The E.O. also authorizes the Department of the Treasury, in consultation with the Department of State, to target any person determined:

to be a current or former leader of an entity that has, or whose members have, engaged in any activity described in the E.O. or of an entity whose property and interests in property are blocked or frozen pursuant to the E.O.; or

to be a current or former official of the Government of Venezuela;

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/03/09/fact-sheet-venezuela-executive-order

So this is a "national emergency"; there is an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States". And, for good measure, this is not just soemthing Obama had forced on him by Congress - he's saying he's going beyond that. And it doesn't matter if someone has actually done anything bad; merely belonging to the Venezuelan government is enough for them to be targeted.

[msanthrope]

24. 7 Chavistas equals Venezuela? Um, no. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. No, *every past or present member of the Venezuelan government* equals Venezuela

That's the point. Anyone who has ever been in a Venezuelan government is covered by this "national emergency" and "threat to US national security".

[msanthrope]

34. Yes....they can be named specifically, but so far, only those 7

have been sanctioned. Can you tell us which of the 7 should not be?

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. As I've said, there are many members of past or present governments all over the world

that should be sanctioned before worrying about the Venezuelans. Some of them really are a danger to US national security - like Dick Cheney.

[hobbit709]

7. didn't kiss the corporations' asses

[malaise]

9. Because both Cuba and Venezuela insist that their sovereignty be recognized

and bullies do what they want

Maybe Cuba is on the terrorist list because up is down - remember who bombed hat Cubana plane full of Caribbean citizens in 1976 - the first act of terrorism on an aircraft in our hemisphere - perhaps Poppy Bush can answer that one

[DeSwiss]

40. +1000

[B Calm]

11. because the oil lobbyists demanded their puppets in Washington to do it!

[Adrahil]

12. Cuba has granted asylum to terrorists and hijackers in the past....

... and still protect some, but as I understand it, Obama is considering pulling them off that list.

He should. Enough of this crap. Time to mend that fence. I don't like the Cuban government, but this nonsense has gone on long enough.

We should seek fully normalized relations.

[akbacchus_BC]

17. Cuba is still existing inspite of American sanctions for over

50 years. I wish Cuba could have set foot on a part of America and claimed it like America has done to Guantanamo Bay!

[okaawhatever]

50. Huh? We have a lease for the base at Guantanamo. nt

[JonLP24]

62. There is nothing legal about the place

The treaty for the "coaling & a naval station" agreed by a US-backed brutal dictator Bautista

Cuba

The United States supported the Batista dictatorship as it created the repressive conditions that led to the Cuban Revolution, killing up to 20,000 of its own people. Former U.S. Ambassador Earl Smith testified to Congress that, "the U.S. was so overwhelmingly influential in Cuba that the American Ambassador was the second most important man, sometimes even more important than the Cuban president." After the revolution, the CIA launched a long campaign of terrorism against Cuba, training Cuban exiles in Florida, Central America and the Dominican Republic to commit assassinations and sabotage in Cuba. CIA-backed operations against Cuba included the attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs, in which 100 Cuban exiles and four Americans were killed; several attempted assassinations of Fidel Castro and successful assassinations of other officials; several bombing raids in 1960 (three Americans killed and two captured) and terrorist bombings targeting tourists as recently as 1997; the apparent bombing of a French ship in Havana harbor (at least 75 killed); a biological swine flu attack that killed half a million pigs; and the terrorist bombing of a Cuban airliner (78 killed) planned by Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who remain free in America despite the U.S. pretense of waging a war against terrorism. Bosch was granted a presidential pardon by the first President Bush.

http://www.alternet.org/world/35-countries-where-us-has-supported-fascists-druglords-and-terrorists

Nothing about a prison which features indefinite detention, torture, & a host of other issues which has been opposed since the Cuba revolution where treaty payments haven't been cashed & obviously the treaty was agreed at gunpoint.

[akbacchus_BC]

15. It made the US President an asshole when President Chavez

gave free oil to poor people in the US.

The US is a bully, just check out the way they invaded Grenada in the Caribbean.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 but that country paid the price and is still suffering.

Anyways, Americans used to carry Canadian mini flags to stay safe but Canada is now the war mongerer in Afghanistan and a lot of our young soldiers who returned from Afghanistan are committing suicide.

Saudi Arabia will never be held accountable for 9/11 and I have no idea why Americans are not asking how come five planes could be hijacked simultaneously!

[JonLP24]

16. Not a damn thing

He kicked out US diplomats and arrested some pro USA politicians (I don't have the facts)

For any other reason the US is hypocrites because then some House of Saud members would be sanctioned, we should be sending troops to overthrow the House of Saud and we'd stop our partnership. The thing is, we don't because they give us full access to private oil & gas companies & Venezuela nationalizes it.

This is why Iran is a so-called enemy (and who are friends are their enemy)

National Iranian Oil Company
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) (Persian: شرکت ملّی نفت ایران‎ Sherkat-e Melli-ye Naft-e Īrān), a government-owned corporation under the direction of the Ministry of Petroleum of Iran, is an oil and natural gas producer and distributor headquartered in Tehran.

[merrily]

26. I must acknowledge Chavez for this:

Joe Kennedy, Jr. ran a charity that provided home heating oil to New Englanders in need, no questions asked. Call him and, if he had the oil, the truck would be at your door.

He went to every US oil company for donations. Each and every one refused. "The good people of Argentina," as the charity's ads said, were the only ones on the planet who stepped up.

The program probably saved lives.

Whatever other pros and cons may be, that deserves mention.

[DeSwiss]

39. !

The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program has helped more than 1.7 million Americans in 25 states and the District of Columbia keep warm since it was launched back in 2005. The program is a partnership between the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), its subsidiary CITGO and Citizens Energy Corporation, a nonprofit organization founded by former US Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II that provides discounted and free home heating services and supplies to needy households in the United States and abroad. It has been supported from the beginning by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/324-100/15947-venezuela-donates-free-heating-oil-to-100k-needy-us-households

[merrily]

45. Thanks, gracias and merci, DeSwiss. I assumed it was only regional.

I had no idea it was half uor states, plus D.C. plus abroad.

The Boston area sure could have used every bit of free oil this past winter,. Wind chills were around 40 below some overnights--and that was Boston, which is not usually as cold as the western part of the state.

[DeSwiss]

71. De nada

[jwirr]

58. That program was not only in New England. Some of that was also delivered to Indian Reservations

and other areas of poverty. But hey that was a communist plot. Sanction them!

[DeSwiss]

44. There are none.

This is a daylight heist in-progress. And the criminals dares anyone to try and stop them.

- The good news?, we dare.

K&R

These criminals who are running our government have only the power we give away to them.....

[center]






OPEN YOUR EYES SO THAT YOU MAY SEE.[/center]

[KoKo]

52. ...!

[Octafish]

46. Threat comes from having economic independence.

That means the Venezuelans want to profit from their national resources, not its true owners cough Wall Street.

Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC talked about it in 1933:

On War (1933)

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

SOURCE: http://co.quaker.org/Writings/SmedleyButler.htm

Apart from the ability to vaporize all of humanity at the push of a button, things haven't changed all that much.

[Zorra]

51. The excerpt below will explain it to you, precisely, and concisely:

The global power of the financial centers is so great, that they can afford not to worry about the political tendency of those who hold power in a nation, if the economic program (in other words, the role that nation has in the global economic megaprogram) remains unaltered. The financial disciplines impose themselves upon the different colors of the world political spectrum in regards to the government of any nation. The great world power can tolerate a leftist government in any part of the world, as long as the government does not take measures that go against the needs of the world financial centers. But in no way will it tolerate that an alternative economic, political and social organization consolidate. For the megapolitics, the national politics are dwarfed and submit to the dictates of the financial centers. It will be this way until the dwarfs rebel...

http://struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

It's not rocket science.

[Bigmack]

53. Why?... Talkin' back... that's why. nt

[elfin]

54. Also, they have become a narco state, funneling vast amounts of drugs...

... primarily cocaine. Hideously corrupt and also creating chaos and more corruption at the end route - Western Africa on the way to Europe. Profits fund terrorism. Even Shabab and Isis in on the money.

Saw on recent HBO Vice program.

[Comrade Grumpy]

60. Oh, that's funny. Venezuela is a narco state because drug flow through there.

I wonder what that makes Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, where all that cocaine comes from?

Or Mexico?

[elfin]

66. While others produce and get it to the U.S. - Ven. gets it to terrorists

That is what I understood from the Vice HBO program. In unbelievable quantities., helping to fund terrorist groups.

Yes, they are all narco states, but apparently Ven. is really really in it huge with efficient and large scale shipping.

The terrorist connection is what sets them apart.

[JonLP24]

68. It goes all over

From Columbia it is transported up Central America to the US or west into Venezuela & out to the US, Europe, and Africa where those terrorism dealers are


When it comes to heroin, most of it comes out of Afghanistan and a lot of that is used to fund terrorism


CIA was responsible for some of it
During the raids, he tells me, Baramcha's inhabitants would flee across the border to Pakistan, where Pakistani forces would line up and stand guard until the Americans left. "The drug smugglers and the ISI are tight together," he says, referring to Pakistan's intelligence service. Sami makes similar claims about Baramcha's leadership. "They have houses on the Pakistani side," he says. (The ISI denies any connection to smugglers or the Taliban.)

The U.N. has estimated that the Taliban makes hundreds of millions of dollars from taxing opium and other illicit activities. But that's only a fraction of the $3 billion that Afghanistan earns from the drug trade. To find the biggest beneficiaries of opium, you need to go from the poppy palaces in Baramcha to the ones in Kabul.

The United States' alliances with opium traffickers in Afghanistan go back to the 1980s, when the CIA waged a dirty war to undermine the Soviet occupation of the country. Though opium had been grown for centuries in Afghanistan's highlands, large-scale cultivation was introduced in Helmand by Mullah Nasim Akhund-zada, a mujahedeen commander who was receiving support from the ISI and the CIA. USAID's irrigated farmlands were perfect for cash-crop production, and as Akhundzada wrested control of territory from the Communist government, he introduced production quotas and offered cash advances to farmers who planted opium.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/afghanistan-the-making-of-a-narco-state-20141204#ixzz3X3P6ts6k
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Same thing in Venezuela

Venezuelan General Indicted in C.I.A. Scheme

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22— A Federal grand jury in Miami has indicted a Venezuelan general who led a Central Intelligence Agency counter-narcotics program that put a ton of cocaine on the streets of the United States in 1990, Government officials said today.

After an investigation that lasted more than five years, the grand jury handed up a sealed indictment earlier this week against Gen. Ramon Guillen Davila, the officials said. The general was the chief of a program set up by the C.I.A. in the late 1980's in conjunction with the Venezuelan National Guard, which sought to infiltrate Colombian gangs shipping cocaine to the United States.

The C.I.A., over the objections of the Drug Enforcement Administration, a branch of the Justice Department, approved the shipment of at least one ton of nearly pure cocaine to Miami International Airport as a way of gathering information about the Colombian drug cartels.

But the cocaine ended up on the street because of ''poor judgment and management on the part of several C.I.A. officers,'' the intelligence agency said. One C.I.A. officer, Mark McFarlin, resigned after an internal investigation, and the agency's station chief in Venezuela was recalled to Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/23/us/venezuelan-general-indicted-in-cia-scheme.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm

[MFrohike]

70. That is kind of funny

I wonder what HSBC and Wachovia laundering money for the cartels makes the UK and US by that standard.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, I'm just chuckling at the obliviousness of our so-called news.

[Comrade Grumpy]

73. What terrorists?

[elfin]

83. Al Shabab and ISIS

Watch the documentary, yes via HBO.

Made sense to me. When drugs come into US - a huge problem, but money not yet traced to terrorist acts, but other horrific consequences.

If the money supports groups like Al Shabab and ISIS, a different topic and different fears and possible outcomes.

Continue flame fest, but please track down the report first. Don't know if available apart from HBO membership.

[DeSwiss]

75. HBO?

Of course, the MSM is going to trash Venezuela. Because who the hell runs the MSM?

Wakeup People. Goddamn!

[Cleita]

55. Because they elected a communist for President.

The communist went about nationalizing the oil fields and other interests that were being exploited by American companies. The same happened in Cuba under Castro and in Chile under Allende. They all became our enemies.

The Saudis on the other hand are a brutal totalitarian monarchy and we seem to like those kind of governments better.

[COLGATE4]

79. Christ, if you're going to post about Venezuela

at least get your facts right. Chavez didn't "nationalize the oil fields" - that was done more than 40 years before Chavez.

[Cleita]

82. I wasn't talking about oil fields. Others were, but I wasn't.

We didn't have a hard on about Venezuela until Chavez became President and started upsetting the status quo. It was their elite ruling class that got their panties in a wad about not being in charge of things anymore and they got their US buddies to back them up in a coup against Chavez and the lies haven't stopped since then. I was wrong saying the commies nationalized them but they did divert the revenues to the populace.

[Puglover]

64. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Thom Hartmann said on his Friday show. The US is up to it's not so unusual bullshit of trying to undermine and change the PTB.

[riderinthestorm]

67. The sanctions are trumped up to target 7 individuals but in reality they are punishment

For nationalizing their oil and thumbing their nose at the US.

We've been "embarrassed". So they have to pay. It reflects badly on Obama and is a mistake. And it overshadows his incredible accomplishment with Cuba

[COLGATE4]

80. Then they're a little late. Check when Venezuela

nationalized its oil. (Hint - a long time ago).

[hunter]

69. The sacred link between the U.S. dollar and oil must be preserved.

Anyone who threatens that must be crushed.

[Doctor_J]

74. dared to try an alternative to vulture capitalism. The oligarchs do not tolerate heterodoxy

Resistance is futile, and dangerous

[SummerSnow]

76. Saudi Arabia practices human rights violations and were allies with them?

Oh wait, WE practice human rights violations too

[Octafish]

78. It's late president said the truth about George W Bush, "Dangerman," at the UN

"It smells of sulfur here." -- Hugo Chavez, speaking at the UN 24 hours after George W Bush.