The US’s first overt attack on an Amazon nation last weekend is a new phase in its extractivist rivalry with China. The outcome will decide whether the vast mineral wealth of South America is directed towards a 21st-century energy transition or a buildup of military power to defend 20th-century fossil fuel interests.
Doesn’t mean anything of the kind. Everyone, everywhere, is going to pay market prices for those minerals. So there is no “direction” of what they get used for. Certainly nothing that’s directed by whoever’s in government.
When the former Guardian journalist Seumas Milne and I interviewed Nicolás Maduro in 2014,
Ah, well, there’s a sign of the terminally stupid then, woprking with Seumas.
The unreality of the minds of modern westerners is such that they think this should be a fair fight, or perhaps even that China should win.
This frivolous and decadent brainwank drives me nuts.
Interested, hasn’t that been the mindset of western liberals for decades? The useful idiots who went (and even more of those who didn’t, like Fred Kite) to the peoples paradise of the USSR and came back to tell us how wonderful it was and just how much better off we would be under socialism for example?
Mr Orwell had a few things to say on our ‘intelligentsia’ too.
Yeah I can remember a conversation with a N. London socialista bint just got back from a holiday in Cuba.
“Oh it’s a wonderful country! Wonderful friendly people”
“But did you see the real people? Go out in the countryside? Visit small towns? Have drink in a local bar? Meet normal Cubans?”
“Oh they don’t take you there”
“What do you mean take you? Couldn’t you just get a bus? Find out for yourself”
“Oh they don’t let you go on the buses outside of the city. Wonderful friendly people. So hospitable!”
Even in democracies, people select nice places. They say they want to travel, but go to Bourton-on-the-Water, St-Emillion, Venice. Which are now just selling to tourists.
If Cuba became a free market democracy, tourists would go there and still want 1950s cars and hand-rolled cigars.
You don’t have to go to Cuba for hand rolled cigars. The first job my brasiliera amiga had when she was 14 was doing exactly that. And the business she was doing it at is still operating today.
Yep, this loon seems to be genuinely positioning China as the good guys. I hold no candle for the Septics but, within living memory, the CCP has slaughtered and starved 50m of its own and they like everyone else a whole lot less.
Positioning the ruination of Venezuela’s oil industry as climate positive is quite the stance, I must say!
Seamus Milne, eh? I’d forgotten about that cunt.
Wut, Trump’s attacked Brazil? An “Amazon nation”? I though he’s attacked Venezuela, which is definitely *not* in the Amazon basin. Venezuela is in the *Orinoco* basin.
Orinoco was my favourite Womble.
I think he’s conflating anything that has a bit of the “Amazon Rain Forest” in it as “Amazon Nation”.
Which ….is about right for Groaniad “Journalistic Accuracy”..
It’s not as if the usual readership of the Graun have any more geographical knowledge of which bits go where, and it gives a nice hook into the “Eco Angle” for the Narrative.
Come on! What’s a South American national frontier more or less when you’re one of the adults in the room?
What’s a FUCKING GREAT MOUNTAIN RANGE when you’re trying to push a narrative?
BiS…One of the Funniest Things where there’s currently Discussion about is the “ex-Dutch” claims fomr Suriname against the Other Guyanas.
That’s areas even the bloody Bush-Niggers didn’t penetrate.
That means it’s an area with …enough Challenge to beat Australia. Hands Down.
From my experience no-one in Suriname actually wants to *be* there, but simply magically reap its Potential Rewards.
And Bush-Niggers *know* their Jungle and went where the “authentic aboriginals” said “no thankyouverymuch, fuckthat…”
Even as a Biologist, and “Wittie” I would not go there voluntarily without a local guide…
This is the “newspaper” that published maps with Newcastle in Teesside.
The US’s first overt attack on an Amazon nation last weekend is a new phase in Guardian stupidity. With all the assets available to Jonathan Watts – like the fucking internet – it is fucking impossible for him to get this wrong. It is not possible to be so stupid.
Mentioning Seumas Milne, I wondered what happened to him. He’s one of those ultra left wing nutters born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Apparently he’s descended into anonymity, not even going back to the Graun, after his spell in Corbyn’s limelight. We are thankful for small mercies.
He’ll be back. I veery much doubt he’s learned anything.
Not even how to spell Seamus.
I support peace.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JHb5QZUXe1Q
That Essequibo province is quite something – the one that forms over half of Guyana which is claimed by Venezuela. Almost no population away from the coast, an abandoned mineral line, machetes needed to advance 1km an hour, horrible snakes and insects, and if it’s anything like Darien even grazing your arm on a sharp-leaved plant will knock you down with a fever for two days.
Apart from offshore, there’s nothing in this for the USA over the lifetime of the Pres. Imv of course.
“ Everyone, everywhere, is going to pay market prices for those minerals. So there is no “direction” of what they get used for.“
My understanding is that only the US is going to be able to buy the oil. Not China, not Cuba, no matter what they bid.
Doesn’t matter. The oil that the US would have bought if they didn’t buy from Venezuela is now available for China/Cuba to buy. This is how commodity markets work – they’re commodities.
The main point is that it’s no longer going to be available free to Cuba and at a huge discount on market rates to China. That fucks things up for them, especially Cuba, and Trump is in no way unhappy about this.