(np) Common Sense imho

[Michael Bailey]

https://www.gregpalast.com/how-to-stop-putins-war-windfall-by-ending-our-embargo-of-venezuelan-oil/



“This is a country which has a 2 million barrel a day OPEC allotment, and
we’re getting almost none of it. And they have tremendous gas reserves. So,
if the Germans are afraid that Putin will cut off their pipe, well, stop
cutting off Venezuela’s pipe. Because it’s not only the United States, it’s
the European Union and Britain, which are saying we won’t take Venezuelan
oil.

“And even more, we won’t let Venezuela pump the oil, because the embargo
has stopped them from getting the parts and equipment that they need to
keep their oil industry running, which is quite complex because it’s based
on heavy oil, so it’s very difficult without the parts, the expertise, and
the funding.

“For example, the Koch Brothers have a refinery on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
They were the number one customer of Venezuela. We took the oil that
Venezuela sent us to the Koch Brothers’ refinery, and the US treasury
seized all the money. When Venezuela sells oil, they can’t get the money,
so, obviously, they’re not going to sell it to us or to Europe because they
can’t get the money, so their oil production is extremely limited.

“People are literally starving in Venezuela, and they don’t have medicine
to fight COVID. It’s cruel. It’s horrible. If Putin were doing this in
Ukraine, we’d be screaming and hollering, but yet we’re doing it to
Venezuela. And who’s suffering from it? We are, because we’re knocking more
than a million barrels a day out of the world market.

“This is a leftover Trump disaster. Trump cutoff Venezuela, ordered the
embargo, ordered the blockade. Why? Well, number one, they say Venezuela is
not really a democratic nation. So, instead we’re getting our oil and gas
from the democratic nation of Saudi Arabia? By the way, our biggest source
of imports to the West is Russia. So the great democracies we’d rather get
our gas from are Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, and Kazakhstan? These are the
great democracies we’re getting oil from instead of Venezuela?”