NEWS South America under extreme duress

[FLGUY]

If only that were as far-fetched an idea as it was a decade ago...

Why can’t we all just get along ?

 

[sevenhelmet]

Why can’t we all just get along ?

Because fomenting divisiveness is profitable.

 

[Flash]

Key word being "yet." The oil field off Guyana is the same kind of heavy crude Venezuela produces and the big oil companies have been rushing in. It's apparently really good for producing kerosene-based products like jet fuel, and now there's change to access it without dealing with all that chavismo nonsense in Venezuela. Guyana's gone from "not much besides rainforest" to oil boomtown practically overnight; Guyana's GDP has almost quadrupled in the last seven years.

Venezuela still would need to exploit it, and they are not the able to do so with their current capability. What little they produce now is with what little capability they have left over after nationalizing their own country's oil industry, and it is the reason for the collapse of their production capacity over the last 20 years. If they seize Guyana's oil fields they won't be able to much of anything with them, the current oil companies will leave and Venezuela won't be able to do jack or shit with it themselves. China would likely stay away and even if Russia wanted to help they don't have the money or the means to do so. After all, neither has done much to help out their current oil industry.

From what I've read about the region it is almost entirely jungle with very few people living there and almost no development aside from a few very small towns. Taking it over would be 'simple' at first holding it would be very difficult. Dropping a literal handful of bridges would very likely cut off whoever was in the region. And while Venezuela's military is quite sizable, and Guyana's very small, I doubt their capability to occupy and hold such a large area if even small steps are taken to counter them.

 

[Griz882]

…while Venezuela's military is quite sizable, and Guyana's very small, I doubt their capability to occupy and hold such a large area if even small steps are taken to counter them.

Hey, Venezuela has two Enstrom Griz-O-Copters! Terrors of the Guyana skies.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Venezuela still would need to exploit it, and they are not the able to do so with their current capability. What little they produce now is with what little capability they have left over after nationalizing their own country's oil industry, and it is the reason for the collapse of their production capacity over the last 20 years. If they seize Guyana's oil fields they won't be able to much of anything with them, the current oil companies will leave and Venezuela won't be able to do jack or shit with it themselves. China would likely stay away and even if Russia wanted to help they don't have the money or the means to do so. After all, neither has done much to help out their current oil industry.

From what I've read about the region it is almost entirely jungle with very few people living there and almost no development aside from a few very small towns. Taking it over would be 'simple' at first holding it would be very difficult. Dropping a literal handful of bridges would very likely cut off whoever was in the region. And while Venezuela's military is quite sizable, and Guyana's very small, I doubt their capability to occupy and hold such a large area if even small steps are taken to counter them.

I dont think any of this is actually about the Guyanan fields. Venezuela as it is still has more proven reserves than KSA, ffs. Insomuch as it’s about the oil fields at all it might be about eliminating a rival - someone selling the same product as you at a better price. This is mostly about a dictatorship whipping up the populace to distract them from the regime‘s long slow slide into disaster.

 

[Southie0174]

U.S. to free ally of Venezuela's Maduro in exchange for 36 prisoners- 🤔
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us...resident-swap-jailed-americans-ap-2023-12-20/

 

[mmx1]

Yea, but they’re handing over Fat Leonard too

 

[JTS11]

I saw that report today about Fat Leonard being exchanged. I had either forgotten, or never knew, that after cutting his ankle bracelet in SD and hopping into Mexico, that he made it to Cuba and then Venezuela, with ultimate goal of making it to Russia.

Oh well...glad he'll serve out his sentence here.

 

[Brett327]

I had a Sailor just check in (ASAR) who hails from Guyana. Kinda interesting, with what’s going on in that region.

 

[Flash]

Yea, but they’re handing over Fat Leonard too

Not the biggest fan of some of these recent prisoner swaps but this one is more palatable than some others, especially with Fat Leo included in the deal.

 

[Mirage]

Not the biggest fan of some of these recent prisoner swaps but this one is more palatable than some others, especially with Fat Leo included in the deal.

I agree. This one doesn't seem as bad, but seems like the US, and more recently Israel, repeatedly set the precedent that we will give them more people than we get in return. Seems like a bad precedent to set.

 

[Uncle Fester]

I agree. This one doesn't seem as bad, but seems like the US, and more recently Israel, repeatedly set the precedent that we will give them more people than we get in return. Seems like a bad precedent to set.

Numbers matter less than who is involved in exchanges. The Venezuelans obviously scored big when they nabbed Fat Leonard, since they knew we’d want him, and he’s nobody to them, politically. But we got about a dozen US citizens as well, plus around twenty Venezuelans turned loose, mostly political prisoners who worked for Maduro’s opponents in the upcoming election. The latter must have been some kind of credible threat to Maduro or presumably they wouldn’t have been locked up. In exchange for Maduro’s buddy/finance guy, I think on the balance we probably came out ahead.

“No negotiation for hostages” sounds great in theory and sometimes you have to play it like that. But I think with all the terrorist kidnappings in the 80s most countries learned that you wind up with a lot of dead hostages that way, and it’s doesn’t really deter further kidnappings. There’s no one answer for every scenario.

 

[Southie0174]

The Venezuelans obviously scored big when they nabbed Fat Leonard, since they knew we’d want him, and he’s nobody to them, politically.

Great point.

 

[Mirage]

Numbers matter less than who is involved in exchanges. The Venezuelans obviously scored big when they nabbed Fat Leonard, since they knew we’d want him, and he’s nobody to them, politically. But we got about a dozen US citizens as well, plus around twenty Venezuelans turned loose, mostly political prisoners who worked for Maduro’s opponents in the upcoming election. The latter must have been some kind of credible threat to Maduro or presumably they wouldn’t have been locked up. In exchange for Maduro’s buddy/finance guy, I think on the balance we probably came out ahead.

“No negotiation for hostages” sounds great in theory and sometimes you have to play it like that. But I think with all the terrorist kidnappings in the 80s most countries learned that you wind up with a lot of dead hostages that way, and it’s doesn’t really deter further kidnappings. There’s no one answer for every scenario.

Agreed it's not just about how many, but who.. which has made some of our deals that much worse (see Griner, Brittney).

 

[Flash]

Apparently the Venezuelans led Fat Leonard into thinking he would get out of prison at the end of the year, I guess he did...for a brief time.

As recently as Monday, Leonard Glenn Francis thought he was on the verge of permanently gaining his liberty after 15 months of trying to outrun U.S. officials, according to Francis’s attorney and others who have been in contact with him. He texted his mother from a Caracas prison to let her know that Venezuelan officials had promised to release him from custody to receive medical treatment and that he expected to win his complete freedom by the end of the year.

In fact, it was all a ruse hatched by Venezuelan security officials so Francis wouldn’t legally contest his transfer back to U.S. custody as part of a larger prisoner swap that the two countries negotiated in secret over the past several months.