It’s always about the oil.

It almost always is.

They are not even pretending anymore.

The invasion and takeover of Venezuela was never about anything but taking control of their vast oil reserves.

It’ déjà vu all over again, but without the pretense.

When Donald Trump addressed the public in a news conference on Saturday, announcing that U.S. forces abducted Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela, and his wife, he barely bothered with the old familiar language about democracy or liberation. He talked about infrastructure, investment, and profit.

He talked about the oil. It wasn’t buried in the fine print. It was right there at the top driving the motivation of the entire intervention. It was framed as management. Venezuela is a failed operation sitting on incredibly valuable assets, and the U.S. is stepping in to run it better.

Trump talks about the oil in Venezuela as if it’s ours for the taking.

Stating “we will run your country and take care of your oil” is not liberation. It’s imperialism and stated without apology.

Hand-cut Collage of appropriated vintage images by Sally Edelstein “Oils Well that Ends Well.”

This lust for oil is not new. It’s an old one, just stripped of ceremony and pretense. We’ve watched it before in the Middle East.

For years, Americans have been told that the era of oil wars is over. Those lessons were learned in Iraq that the U.S. no longer topples governments for resources.

And yet here we are.

With a president openly explaining that the problem with Venezuela is that its oil isn’t being pumped efficiently and that America is here to fix it.

Take My Oil…Please

During his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump used to criticize George W. Bush for failing to “take the oil” during his war in Iraq.

We wondered -how do you “take the oil?”

This is how. You take the country.

Trump, on July 30th, 2015, was interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Kelly Evans:

Evans: “So you would keep troops in Iraq after this year?”

Trump: “I would take the oil.”

Evans: “I don’t understand how you would take — does that mean keeping troops there, or staying involved in Iraq?”

Trump: “You heard me, I would take the oil. I would not leave Iraq and let Iran take the oil.”

The big oil companies have been carrying a torch for the Middle East, creating a whole new alliance- a religious, military, industrial complex. In the great American tradition, the better you live the more oil you use! And the U.S. would be on the march to provide it for you.

Now they have their eyes on Venezuela.

More Oil… You Wanted It… You Got It…You’ll Get Still More

Trump didn’t tell Congress before launching this large-scale operation in Venezuela. But he did tell U.S. oil companies

“We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth from the ground. And it goes to the United States in the form of reimbursement,” Trump said.

Pete Hegseth didn’t even bother with the script, “This is about regime change,” he said. “This is about making sure the resources of this hemisphere serve American interests.”

We have essentially co-opted an entire country’s natural resources for the benefit of U.S. companies.

But as we’ve seen in the past, not oils well that ends well.