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Comment by nickik | Hacker News Reader

Actually not really the case. The US never really relied on fossil fuel from the Middle East in the last couple decades.

That oil was important for Europe and most of all Japan and China. And that is still the case in many ways. Of course now the US maybe doesn't want China to have cheap oil anymore.

If it was about securing US oil, war in Venezuela and Canada would be far more sensible.

And even then the US didn't need to do anything, everybody would have happily sold the US oil without the need for any kind of war or US troupes of any kind.

The US increase intervention was required because of policy growth, where the US wanted an ever increasing control over these places for things other then oil. Once the Soviet Union was gone, the US started to dream of reshaping the the region and integrating it fully in the the US system.

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> If it was about securing US oil, war in Venezuela and Canada would be far more sensible.

Is there not a cold war between US and Venezuela right now (over nationalization of formerly American-owned oil production facilities there), somewhat of a proxy for China to attack us, raging since the second Bush administration? I mean, their nationals factually developed many of the US voting systems (because we're stupid, not because they are stealth) and all we have is political rhetoric that those systems are "the most secure in history" and there is "no evidence of hacking". I think most people here, at least, know that the first order of business for modern computer viruses once they penetrate a system is to get rid of the penetration evidence, neutralize system monitoring capacity and start unwrapping preloaded or downloaded payloads. This all feeds back into what America's government is going to do with respect to domestic oil production over the next four years and how that will affect the world's dependency upon the Middle East and Russia. https://gnews.org/556010/ http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/26/c_139467853.htm

As far as Canada, it was far from a cold war, more like two gentlemen getting into an argument at the local country club, but a primary focus was oil (pipelines), no? https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/fs/USMCA/US...

I don't see how voting machines are relevant to what you're saying. Are you arguing that there is or isn't a cold war between the US and Venezuela right now?

Votes are the only way the oil policy towards Middle East and Russia will change anytime soon, directly affecting China which supports Venezuela whose not-arms-length nationals created the voting machines.

Sure. But what was the main idea of your comment? You mention something about a cold war with Venezuela, but I don't see how voting machines fit into that idea.

You say it's about control over the resource, which can be understood as the profit that can be derived from it, but I'd go further and say its just as much about leverage over the regions dependent on that oil or gas.

The US has been vehemently against projects that deliver fossil fuels to Europe by countries that are not its allies, like the Nordstream 2 pipeline or the Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. On the other side, Syria has blocked the US-backed Qatar-Turkey pipeline (interestingly drawing gas from the same South Pars/North Dome gas field), sparking US-Syria tensions around 2010.

Shortage of oil for China and Germany would mean they would raise the prices of Venezuelan and Canadian Oil at home in the USA.

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