Chavez: Oil prices will soar to $200 a barrel if the US attacks Venezuela

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.aztlan.net/chavez_oil_$200_barrel.htm

The President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez Frias said recently that world oil prices would surge to $200 dollars a barrel if the United States attacks his country. President Chavez added, "We are preparing for the resistance!"

In a CNN interview Chavez said "if they attack us with their battleships, with waves of intelligence officers, bombs, marines and all of that, well, you can forget about oil."

Chavez, has charged the United States with drafting a plan to attack Venezuela but he says that any such invasion would leave Venezuela and the Americans without oil. snip

Despite the antagonism between Caracas and Washington, Chavez on Sunday said his country will continue to send one and a half million barrels of gasoline to the United States to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, mostly Afro-Americans. "Citgo" gasoline stations in the USA owned by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. are selling gasoline and heating fuel at one half the prices being charged by Chevron and similar companies that are gouging the American people.

[guajira]

1. I'm Buying Only Citgo Gas - Out of Respect for Chavez

He knows he is a target of *B, and is smart to go on the offensive. It's good to see some world leaders have the guts to defy our idiot pResident.

[longship]

2. Headlines: "US Declares War On All OPEC Nations"

In a unprecedented Congressional session today, the US House of Representatives declared war on all OPEC member countries. This historic session was a result of President George W. "Two-terms Mandate" Bush Tuesday night speech where he declared that the United States has a right to every drop of oil on the planet. At the very contentious session fourteen fist fights took place and 31 representatives from both sides of the aisle were frog-marched off the House floor in handcuffs for assault, aggrivated assault, and disturbing the peace. Some Congressmen were injured, but injuries were mostly limited to bruises. However, medical staff did report 64 broken Congressional noses.
:sarcasm:

[Just Me]

3. Chavez must be in league or something. He's really being brazen.

I admire his courage in taking a vocal stand for the interests of human beings,...a LOT! Yet, I am naturally concerned about his safety because, everytime a vivacious human advocate gains popular recognition, the engineers of human greed attack.

Please, be safe, Chavez. I sincerely hope your inspiration spreads to more leaders.

[Earth_First]

4. Question:

Is this allocation of gasoline actually meeting with the demographic it intends to benefit? It seems to me that this would be a difficult task to direct to a specific region/demographic with the government the way it is and all...

[NNN0LHI]

6. I found this

http://www.american-reporter.com/2,726/16.html

<snip>Gas gouging: We visited the Chevron refinery near Pascagoula, south of Moss Point, and saw it guarded by the Mississippi National Guard. Many workers whose cars were not flooded or crushed went from shelters to work to keep the gas flowing. Employees set up information wagons so that workers could get food and services for their own families while they worked.

Most of the gas stations that were not flattened or blown away had gasoline for $2.80 to $3.00 per gallon. Some limited customers to $10 purchases.

The exception was Venezuelan-owned Citgo. Citgo stations charged $2.49 to $2.79 per gallon, depending on location and state taxes. That was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's humanitarian aid - he donated a million gallons of gas. Rev. Jesse Jackson's personal mission to Caracas to negotiate cheaper oil for the U.S. may have paved the way for that. Well, this is where it gets really tough for the conspiratorial, anti-liberal theorists who over-analyze every event.

The way it actually works: people waited in fairly short lines for Citgo gas. Most of the credit-card readers did not work at the pump, so you went inside and paid cash or presented your credit card. You pumped your gas, and your wife, son, or buddy, emerged from the only flushing toilet and running water in the area and exited the Citgo station. Leaving, the tired-looking people often carried an ice-cold bottle of Mountain Dew (beer and wine is banned in some disaster areas). They also had stale Moon Pies, and pork rinds. If you were really lucky, you got to personally ladle out the last container of boiled peanuts.

You then got in your car and drove away, not giving a second thought as to exactly why Citgo was 30 cents cheaper than Shell.

[Earth_First]

7. Thanks for the response...

"You then got in your car and drove away, not giving a second thought as to exactly why Citgo was 30 cents cheaper than Shell."

Sadly enough, it's true.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Military force not necessarily the best means to ensure access to oil

From a recent Tom Dispatch commentary by Professor Michael Klare:

It has long been an article of faith among America's senior policymakers -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- that military force is an effective tool for ensuring control over foreign sources of oil. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to embrace this view, in February 1945, when he promised King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia that the United States would establish a military protectorate over his country in return for privileged access to Saudi oil -- a promise that continues to govern U.S. policy today. Every president since Roosevelt has endorsed this basic proposition, and has contributed in one way or another to the buildup of American military power in the greater Persian Gulf region.

American presidents have never hesitated to use this power when deemed necessary to protect U.S. oil interests in the Gulf. When, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the first President Bush sent hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia in August 1990, he did so with absolute confidence that the application of American military power would eventually result in the safe delivery of ever-increasing quantities of Middle Eastern oil to the United States. This presumption was clearly a critical factor in the younger Bush's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.

Now, more than two years after that invasion, the growing Iraqi quagmire has demonstrated that the application of military force can have the very opposite effect: It can diminish -- rather than enhance -- America's access to foreign oil.

<snip>

Despite the debacle of Iraq, most senior policymakers appear to retain their blind faith in the efficacy of military force as a tool for securing access to foreign sources of petroleum. This, as Iraq makes painfully clear, is delusional. Yet they persist in risking the lives of young Americans and others in their continued adherence to a failed and immoral strategy. Any attempt to reconstruct American foreign policy on a more rational and ethical basis must, therefore, begin with the repudiation of the use of force in procuring foreign oil and the adoption of a forward-looking energy strategy based on increased conservation and the rapid development of alternative fuels.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=22859