Future Oil Wars in Forgotten Nations

From Random Hipatia

Trinidad is today in some ways rather peaceful. It’s marina’s are filled with tall ships of a forgotten era, often harbored in Trinidad over the winter, and not the navel armada and amphibous assault craft of today’s imperial power that may yet one day appear again.

At night, on the southern tip of Trinidad, one can see the dark coast of Venezeula looming in the distance. Not only are these two nations geographically close, but they also share a common destiny in oil. Indeed, the oil offshore from Trinidad is likely a continuation of the same offshore oil deposits of Venezuela. So then, who’s oil fields are they? This then is part of the rub.

Trinidad and Venezuela are not the only South American nations troubled by a shared oil resource. Seriname and Guyana are locked in a fundimentally similar dispute.

For those locally, how such issues play out will deterime which nations prosper during the years of declining world oil, and which will not. Left onto their own, they may largely settle them, or they may not. However, for the U.S., they cannot be left on their own, and this then is where I believe the 21st century version of America’s “bananna wars” will likely play out.

While most are familiar with Venezeula, I believe these other players are generally ignored in the popular press, and even the alternative media, except in Washtington, where places like Suriname have already received “very special attention”.

Suriname is holding elections, and already there are claims of American interference. Indeed, much like the approach in Nicaragua, the U.S. has threatened to sever relations if Suriname does not happen to elect the “right” leader; and where in Nicaragua the “wrong leader” is Ortega, in Suriname it is the currently favored Desi Boutersi. But after all, this surely does match the current administration’s understanding of “democracy” from 2000 and 2004.

Whether we happen to like or dislike the person a nation chooses as it’s leader, in a true democracy, this is and must be the choice of those who are it’s citizens. Does Washington really believe it should have the special right to exercise a “veto” over central and South American democracy, tenous as it already is?

On Trinidad, at night, the streets often come alive. This has been the pattern here for centuries now, even as imperial powers come and go, and will likely continue for centuries more, long after this era’s imperial power is gone and forgotten.