We recently seized another oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, under the theoretical aegis of it being “sanctioned”. The only problem is that neither the oil or the ship, sailing under the flag of Panama, were in fact sanctioned. The seized ship is a private vessel and despite protestations to the contrary, there is not a blanket sanction on Venezuelan oil. Unless you want to believe cosplay Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noempathy – and why the hell would you do that? – when she says it was being “illicitily moved” (?) to fund narco-terrorism. Um, what? So the US Coast Guard, with support from the US Navy, is now committing piracy on the high seas. Lovely.
Speaking of piracy, Senator Bob Lee, (Rep. Utah) has proposed legislation to revive “letters of marque and reprisal”. And, no I’m not kidding. This somewhat dodgy, albeit semi-brillaint practice comes from the Age of Sail, when heads of state basically sent private mariners out to attack and seize ships from other states. Dodgy because it was as simple as turning pirates into privateers. Picture Captain Jack out searching for merchant ships to plunder. He doesn’t care which country’s flag it flies, he just wants its booty. This is obviously bothersome to everyone involved and most countries were forced to start arming and/or protecting their merchant fleet as a result. But then somebody came up with the bright idea that if it was made legal to take the enemy’s stuff as long as you left ours alone, we would sink two ships with one cannonball. Semi-brilliant, but with a couple of flaws. The pirates, now the more respectable privateers, weren’t all that careful about who they attacked and looted. Second, quite a few of these legal privateers, acting exactly as illegal pirates, had letters of marque from both sides. Handy. Hey, potayto/potahto, insurgent/revolutionary, freedom-fighter/terrortist, pick your poison. What could possibly go wrong with Lee’s proposal? I consider it akin to giving badges to the self-appointed border security guys, also known as vigilantes. Oh, wait, we did that, too. My favorite part of this little plan is that these letters would be signed by Fearless Leader himself.
So it isn’t bad enough that we have attacked 27 boats and killed 104 people without providing any evidence of their alleged crimes, now we want to let wannabe Blackbeards head into the Caribbean and start boarding whoever. It has worked so well for us we might as well – or not – we might as well get private citizens involved. By the way, should by some stroke of luck one of these privateers actually stop a boat carrying illegal drugs, what happens to said drugs? Or the people who are stopped? Or their boats? It is all well and good to have drone footage of our own military’s illegal piracy and murder but who is going to watch the privateers?
This is all, of course, just another provocation to get Maduro to say or do something dumb enough to justify us actually declaring war on Venezuela. Blowing up “narcoterrorists” didn’t do it – and it sure as shit didn’t do anything to stop fentanyl, now “officially” a WMD, from entering the US, the ostensible justification. Blockading Venezuelan airspace didn’t do it. Building up military forces in the Caribbean and South America didn’t do it. Seizing non-sanctioned oil and tankers hasn’t done it so far. And not for nothing, the claim that Venezuela “stole” American oil is just silly. When they nationalized their oil back in the 70s, not only were we okay with it (why should we care if Big Oil took a multi-billion dollar bath?) but actively supported it. And the oil companies, despite the ding they took, were okay with it, too because in the long run it meant cheaper oil and larger profits for them. So, no, we never “owned” any Venezuelan oil. But boy does it make a good excuse, better at least than stopping fentanyl. And it is a triple whammy for Lord Dampnut as he gets a personal win by getting Maduro, makes his Big Oil Mira Lago buddies happy and stands to make a bunch more money himself. Mark my words, as soon as Donny Boy and Co have themselves positioned correctly in the market, they will get tired of looking for justification and pull the trigger. And besides, as I mentioned before, a war is almost always good for approval polls.
Lee Ving and Fear were onto something. Explicit lyric warning. Thanks for reading.