We can’t stray to far from the idea that we have bought and supported “unelected” authoritarian regimes with our sale/gifts of military hardware and protection. It always seems to eventually come back to haunt us and as the peoples of these countries start demanding their personal freedom of choice, they sometimes choose those less friendly.
We really can’t be blamed when this support of the enemy of my enemy is my friend mentality started out of necessity to win a world war. We are still living with the aftershocks.
Ultimately, like giving those in other countries the freedom to compete with us world wide has hurt our standard of living, so will giving other peoples freedom to choose for themselves. It will hurt all of us in the pocketbook for a little while; but it’s always the right thing to do.
Support them we should. Arm them to fight each other and help diminish our deficit is the difficult choice when China and the Soviet Union are sitting there waiting to fill the void. Let’s work harder to make oil a commodity we can do without it in such volatile regions. Then make the right moral choices and not have to cave in to our strategic needs. That’s the best thing we can do long term.
That’s true, and when he disbanded Venezuela’s supreme court and legislature, I really cringed. The people of Venezuela didn’t seem to mind. I don’t think they have any sense of history.
“Most of the Mideast oil flows through the Suez Canal”. That was true until 1967!!! Then the canal was shut down by war damage and the newer larger tankers built afterwards went around the Cape to get to Europe. Today, at most only 2 million barrels per day out of some 50+ million barrels per day of Mideast oil goes through the Canal. Most tankers today are too large to go through either the Suez or the Panama Canal, for that matter.
" But it is still the primary shaper of things in most of Latin America."
You make it sound like there is no choice: either a defacto dictator or a foreign-controlled government. Many other Latin American countries have advanced - Colombia (despite its huge struggles with cocain), Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile. No ‘requirement’ that Venezuela continue down a failed path.
Followed by Mexico. Neither of those should cause any surprise. The noise of the news media often drowns out the truth. Richard Nixon thought Japan was the US’s biggest trading partner, because all those Japanese cars and electronics were so visible. In reality, at that time, and until last year, Canada was the US’s biggest trading partner by far. China now has replaced Canada.
Canadian exports, except for whiskey and hockey sticks, are largely invisible (hard to identify); they comprise US designed cars and trucks, oil, gas, lumber, nickel, and many other semi-finished and raw materials.
Ever try to enter Canada with anything of value that you may have the idea of selling there? These Canadians can get very rough when it comes to activites that could potentialy harm the cut they get on the transfer of goods, in other words, they are not giving that oil away.
Our country has a dismal track record if money is involved. If we think we can make money then we look the other way…Every president since Nixon has given China favorable trade status…I wouldn’t consider China a very democratic country. South Africa and apartheid. South America and the Sandinista.
Canada is our biggest supplier by convenience. Oli is as internationally fungible as it is domestically. Any interruption, anywhere will be felt. When that happens, as always, oil goes to the highest bidder. Canada will then be our biggest supplier, at a much higher price.
Oil prices have nothing to do with the cost of production, of course. Middle East oil (Arabian Light) costs 60 cents a barrel to produce, while Canadian oil ranges from $7 to $30 depending on the source. Prices are set by international demand (and fear); we have Texas intermediate, which determines the price Canadians and Mexicans get, and UK Brent Sweet, which determines largely what Europe and rest of the world pays.
You know that look someone gives you when they think you’ve said something bizarre? In the context of Latin America I’m looking at the word “choice” like that.
In the USA, oil is freedom. More precisely, being able to drive where you want, when you want is freedom. That’s why it’s so hard to get the elderly to give up their cars.
We stand for freedom and democracy, but Egypt is about to undergo dramatic change, revolution, and I don’t think we have any business trying to tell them how they should handle it or what they should become. Freedom means the Egyptions being able to choose to become what THEY want, not what we think they should be. Their future system of government should be chosen by the Egyption people themselves, not by us.
What we should be doing is preparing for our best interests based on all the possible outcomes of their revolution. If we do try to interfere in any way, we may not be doing ourselves any favors in terms of strategic partnerships. Should someone come into power that we’ve ticked-off, we may not have Egypt as a partner anymore.