1w ago

US forces seize oil tanker off Venezuela coast

www.theguardian.com Venezuela decries ‘act of piracy’ after US forces seize oil tanker off country’s coast

Footage uploaded to X by US attorney general shows its forces landing on the tanker in major escalation of Trump’s pressure campaign

US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.

267 comments

Huh, I wonder why they seized it instead of shooting it like the others? It couldn't possibly be for the oil, right?
- In contrast to people, oil has a market value.
  
  Never heard of human trafficking?
  Oil is just a lot more profitable and easier to work with.
  
  You're not getting paid top dollar for your people? You should see my people guy, he do you a good deal.
  
  That can be changed. Pretty sure Trump is not opposed to slavery.
  
  I genuinelly believe at least some people in positions of power inside and around the MAGA-Fascist party have plans to make Slavery legal again.
  (I would certainly bet that Peter Tiel is one of those).
- I mean, I know what your point is, but can we actually just be thankful that they did not in fact blow up an oil tanker and spill all that into the sea?
  
  Just tow it outside the environment.
  
  The deep water horizon did not show America too concerned about oil in the Gulf. I'm not sure they care where it goes if they can't have it.
  What, have they escalated to blockading Cuba now?
  
  And, uh, kill all of the innocent people on board. Sorry, I just feel like that should be said.
  
  We should not be thankful to nazi shit
  
  No. I will not thank them for seizing the ship. That's a ludicrous suggestion.
  
  For sure. They shouldn't have blown up the other boats either, but spilling the oil into the sea would certainly have been bad.
- I can think of a few reasons why the US Navy wouldn't want to fire high explosives into a contain full of flammable materials, depending on the range of their artillery.
  Also definitely possible they're just doing Privateer shit with Navy assets. I do wonder whether the vessel gets impounded or just escorted to a friendly port in El Salvador or Honduras and quietly re-flagged and titled.
  
  Hegseth issuing letters of marque
  
  They don't really use actual artillery anymore, it would be missiles from the ship or a plane.
- blowing up a tanker would cause a huge hazard to the area, spilling oil all over the ocean.
  
  When you put it like, that, that sounds like exactly what they'd want off the coast of Venezuela right now.

Starting a nonsense war under the guise of "spreading democracy" just to take their oil reserves so that rednecks back home can pollute the air and warm the earth with their oversized trucks. Can it get any more American this?
- He wants to declare war on Venezuela next year (or hopes that he can agitate them enough to commit an act of terror on the US) so he can deny midterm elections because he knows the GOP majority will potentially be cooked
  Remember how much his eyes shifted when he was told that elections can be delayed due to a country being at war
  
  He's not 100% wrong.
  I'm sure he remembers fondly how every single news network praised him profusely when he dropped the MOAB on Afghanistan.
  He knows very well how much the US loves a warmongering president.
  
  Remember
  It looked like he thought no one had ever thought of it before, and that he was a genius.
  
  Do you have a link to that clip of the shifty eyes?
  
  same tactic bush used to get elected, make a ware gives brownie points to the election in thier favor.
- Can it get any more American this?
  Yes. Yes, it can.
- Tradition!

Let me guess... It was carrying drugs? Just packed full of cocaine? Can't wait to hear the justification for this one.
- Oil is drugs mmmkay
  
  It is addictive...
  
  The mere though of getting their hands on so much "free" oil made many in this Administration high.
- It was carrying drugs?
  This type of drug has several street names, among them, black gold and Texas tea.
- Hamas actually \s
- It has been under US sanctions since 2022 for supplying the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. It was spoofing its position. It was flying a false flag.
  As to the legal justification, there are technicalities that could be argued. But that’s incidental to the intention here probably.

“Where’s my Nobel Peace Prize?”
- All you get is a soccer peace prize.
  
  *Football ball-fondling prize
  
  Some random trophy from a pawn shop with a fresh coat of gold paint from a spray can should work.

An oil tanker...full of drugs?
- Petro-terrorists.
  Anything's ok as long as you ad hyphen terrorist to the person, place or thing.
- Take/blow up anything you want with this one simple trick
- more like a drug tanker

Fucking terrorist country

Remember, USA is against piracy lmao

definitely not about the oil!!!
- freedom?

Welcome to the sixteenth century! When Queen Elizabeth couldn't afford to go to war against Spain so created ‘letters of marque’ which legalised piracy against Spain and its empire. Single handedly created the pirate economy.
Then, welcome to the eighteenth century, when america created the fiction of the Barbary Corsairs to legalise american piracy of the atlantic trade.
Isnt it Mark Twain who states that history rhymes?
- Pirates of the Caribbean!
- Fack.
  I want off Mr. Bones' Wild Ride already.
- No that was George Lucas

Ruh-roh. Trump and Hegseth forgot the US has a 100% losing record against countries that start with V.
- Vietnam lost over a million of its people during the US invasion and occupation. It's all cutesy and smug to tally this as a Big L for Team USA. But I don't think anyone in that country values the W/L record over the hundreds of thousands of family members, friends, and other loved ones who died to feed the American war machine's rapacious appetite.
  That's before we even talk about the ecological damage that haunts Vietnam to this day. Or the deaths in Laos and Cambodia racked up in collateral. Or the tenuous diplomatic relationships between the various South Pacific neighbors based on Cold War grudges, which have re-emerged as a shooting war between Thailand and Cambodia just last month.
  
  Also, weren't the US armed forces prevented from going all out in Vietnam?
- Actually the US has a shockingly short list of wars they have outright won where they were NOT part of an international coalition.
- VCanada

USA turns into Taliban country. Taliban originaly is "political and militant organization with an ideology comprising elements of the Deobandi movement of Islamic fundamentalism and Pashtun nationalism", now is just "political and militant organization with an ideology comprising elements of the MAGA movement of Evangelical fundamentalism and WASP nationalism"
- USA doing the most USA thing possible
  Lemmitor: WHAT ARE WE, A BUNCH OF MUSLIMS?!!
  
  Oilllll
  
  Lemmings
- Taliban
  Remember when the CIA funded and armed what became the Taliban?
  Remember when the CIA had their guy running the Taliban?
  
  Who was there guy that ran it? Never heard that one before.
- Y'all Queda

Surprised they didn't just blow it up. I guess we're doing piracy now.
- Actually, hearing about this, I'm now surprised that our military didn't stop the fishing boats first to siphon all of the gasoline out of their tanks before blowing them up and murdering their crew.
  
  Edit: but for oil
- Always have been

Jesus Christ trump fie already you old fuck
- D I E
  
  Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. they will get as much as they give others.

So we are Iran now. Lol this country has fallen so low.
- The time Iran stole a US oil tanker was in response to the US stealing one of their oil tankers.
  This is how America has always acted.
  
  The US didn’t “steal” it. It executed a european warrant for siezure at the request of the country that had rightful jurisdiction. Iran was just embarrassed that it was only possible due to the crew’s incompetence.
- Yes, just now.
- USA does the most USA thing ever
  Lemmitors: WHAT ARE WE, BROWN PEOPLE??!!
  
  I like how you went straight for color of people when no one is talking about color.
  Good job!! Next time let's talk about religion as well since you know, fuck it.

Well at least we know the real reason for the murders now. Why it it always the most greedy, predictable cause?
- Dude has been saying for 20 years that we should've stolen Iraq's oil. Yet somehow everyone acts surprised when he does pretty predictable things like this.

So piracy?

So who had written "blatent piracy" on his trump bingo card at the beginning of the year? He took almost to the very end to also make you cross out this, but he did.
So, "nuclear test und an uninhabited island" next?
- So, "nuclear test und an uninhibited island" next?
  Un inhabited?
  Edit: apparently you can't have partial words italicized.
  
  oh please don't jinx it more then i do
- We'll be lucky if it's anywhere uninhabited.
  We all know he desperately wants to use the nukes for any reason he can come up with. It's only a matter of time.
  
  It might be the only way to get a boner now when he can’t go to the Epstein’s island anymore.
- Boarding ships & enforcing sanctions is not necessarily a bad thing, albeit im missing details on this specific case.
  France & Finland have both done this to shadow fleet tankers in recent time as well.
  
  It's always best to make comments like this when you are missing details. /s
  
  Go home with your pro-Trump Russian propaganda, Ivan

The tanker was full of fentanOIL…

VERY COOL AND LEGAL

It’s time to hit the button again

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela - a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually. And other things are happening so you will be seeing that later and you will be talking about that later with other people.”
He speaks like a child, a pernicious little child
- He's got the mind of a 4 year-old
- he is a very stunted elderly man. his supporters are equally adult children too.

Time to determine on who's command this was done, and follow down the complete chain to the bottom.
- And do what exactly? They aren't going to get punished for it, so what's the fucking point?
  
  To give them a medal of course
- Why? The one giving the order on the top is ultimately responsible. Insubordination against king Donald of Orange the First will probably get you court martialed and hanged...
  
  Following illegal commands is no legal protection. See: Nuremberg trials.
  
  not the point, though. The Cowards are using him as a shield. They have been for years. They are every bit as much to blame as he is (and he absolutely is to blame, just not the only one). Once this all falls apart they will say it was all his idea and blame him for everything, to avoid criminal repercussions. People will be so happy to see the king fall that they will give all of The Cowards immunity just to get rid of him, and the cycle will continue.

A little on the nose, no?
It's like a complete package, the actual visual representation of what they want to do with Venezuela.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, the USA has stooped to the same low level as the Somali Pirates.

Cool I guess we’re doing piracy now 🤦‍♂️

we need to organize a bit harder, everyone. seriously!
- You all are sleep walking into another forever war nobody wants. I implore everyone to read your own and Latin American history from the last 50 years. It's not taught.
  https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/901/The-School-of-the-AmericasMilitary-Training-and (Ask Anna for a copy.)
  Venezuela
  Name: Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda
  Country: Venezuela
  Dates/courses: Attended the SOA in 1988; 1972
  Info: Both Vasquez and Poveda helped to lead a failed coup in Venezuela in April of 2002, despite supposedly receiving training at the SOA that encourages respect for democracy and civilian governments. Otto Reich, then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, shared his support for the coup and a new government, and in the same year was appointed as a WHINSEC Board of Visitor member to "oversee" democracy and human rights curriculum, as well as operations at the school. Reich met with these SOA graduates prior to the coup and advised business leader Pedro Carmona, who subsequently seized the presidency.
  Name: General Ramon Davila Guillen
  Country: Venezuela
  Dates/courses: Attended the SOA in 1967 for Irregular Warfare training
  Info: General Guillen was indicted in November 1996 in connection with a shipment of one ton of cocaine into Miami in 1990, which he says was authorized by the CIA in an effort to catch drug dealers. In 1993, the CIA called the shipment "a regrettable incident" and dismissed the CIA agent involved. (CAP, 9/21/97)
  https://soaw.org/notorious-soa-graduates
  
  do you think i should study a bit more socialist theory, and is there any way i can study in layperson's terms without losing focus quickly?
- does anyone think i should study a bit more on socialist theory, and is there any way i can study in layperson's terms without losing focus?
- Organize against what, exactly?
  The way I see it, it's two assholes fighting. (Edit: two asshole governments, I meant. The Venezuelan people are innocent and shouldn't be involved in that conflict. That was my point).
  Both suck and are responsible of crisis and death of their own country people. Let them fight, then. Though I know Venezuela doesn't stand a chance, unfortunately.
  
  you're aware who does the actual fighting and whom the bombs will be raining on??
  
  Ah yes you are displaying the kind of intelligence the US military favours in its recruits. Non at all.
  
  Replying to your shit take as soap box to answer your question and remind everyone that one the things we should be organizing is a GENERAL STRIKE
  GeneralStrikeUS.com
  Congratulations to Portugal for committing to a GENERAL STRIKE and gaining massive leverage: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/portugal-general-strike-stalls-transport-closes-schools-labour-reform-protest-2025-12-11/
  
  Whatever the situation is in Venezula, it's not going to be a good thing for America to get entangled.
  Hussein was a pretty bad dude, but our intervention in Iraq ultimately was bad for America and didn't exactly make things in Iraq better.
  
  It wouldn't be a fight, it would be a massacre. Untold thousands dead, millions of refugees. Knowing this, how could you possibly wish for it?
  
  would there a marxist revolution against both maduro and trump in venezuela? NOT repeating any US state department talking points (looking at you, hexbear!), just asking. seriously!

Piracy.

Why is it possible to seize assets of weaker countries like Venezuela but not war mongers like Russia and the USA ?
- Bullies never go for hard targets they go after weakness
- Because Americans would rather pay thugs to make their rulers richer than have healthcare.
- russia has the conservative and right wing groups in control over the world, plus the nuclear weapons. iran,venuzuala, the middle east, s america had resources but no military that would be able to fight back as easily.
  
  i know thats all true, but where is Team America! Fuck Yeah!
- Gun

Immediately proves what the war is really about

US Navy in the Red Sea:
We are conducting freedom of movement and trade, anti piracy operations.
US Coast Guard in the Caribbean:
Look at me, look at me.
I am the pirate now.
- true pirates get drunk off rum and find treasure

According to the NY Times the tanker in question is flying under a flag where it is not registered, and is linked to smuggling Iranian oil.
- So is the US going to start seizing all the Russia ghost tankers doing the same?
  
  The Chinese ghost fishing fleet too, imo
  
  Yes, they should but Ukraine's drones are already on it.
- The phrase "is linked to" should be a massive red flag.
  If it was smuggling Iranian oil it would say, "is smuggling Iranian oil", not "is linked to smuggling Iranian oil".
  
  Also all lots of "may" and "[unnamed] American official claimed" in the article.
  The whole thing reads as Propaganda, which makes sense given that we're talking about the pro-Zionist New York Times (which also has a long history of backing American warmongering in, for example Iraq) - morally a little propagandizing to whitewash American Administration's piracy on the high-seas is nothing compared to relentlessly providing cover and support for the active mass murdering of Palestinian children in Gaza for more than a year.
  The Pravda in the days of the Soviet Union had more truth than this Propaganda Outlet.
  
  The ship was already sanctioned in 2022 tho
- The problem is Trump has no credibility. Nobody is going to believe it.
  
  The US has no credibility, from the USS Maine to the Gulf of Tonkin to this
- Did they say why Venezuela would smuggle Iranian oil? I thought it was an oil rich country? I didn’t see it in the article. Maybe I missed it.
  
  If so, that would be a money laundering thing where they relabel the oil as from them to avoid sanctions on iran oil export.
  
  Venezuela wants to sell oil, but is under sanctions. Iran wants to buy oil, but is under sanctions.
- Why are you quoting Israeli propaganda? The New York Crimes has lost all its credibility with the constant support of genocide in Palestine
- Fuck the new york times, fucking imperialist propaganda outlet

2 two things america likes most: oil and drugs. No wonder they had to do it

Next time Iran or the Houtis steal a tanker, they can point at the US and smile.

They're going to find $50 worth of weed in one of the sailor's personal quarters and claim that the multi millon dollar tanker carrying millions worth of crude oil was a drug running vessel.

Shame. Also fuck you Amerikkka!

What the man. What the fuck are we doing?
- This is not at all like America. I'm quite shocked, really.
  
  Missing an /s?
- This is what the USA has done for its entire history, bullying oil-rich countries that don't submit to US imperialism
  
  if the us were a socialist country, we WOULDN'T rely on imperialism so much. seriously!
- You did it in iraq already
  Why are americans surprised witht his? Also why isnt the american left on streets yet against this iraq war 2.0?

How much oil do we truly have left in the world. When I was a kid I heard we would run out of in 2000s. Don't remember if it was 2030 or 50 could been longer. But just how much?
- That was the peak for the cheap oil. Now we're working on the peak for the medium to expensive oil. They kinda blend into each other, but the price at the pump goes up a lot more.
- You heard about peak oil, not oil exhaustion. We hit peak extraction around 2008ish but added new extraction technologies like shale oil and since then we have no expectations of hitting a peak extraction any time soon.
  Now the expectation is that consumption will hit a peak and collapse oil prices sooner than extraction will hit its peak. This is expected due to electricit cars and green energy production reaching a sufficient volume to make oil less in demand.
- Enough to destroy life on earth if it's all burnt or turned into plastics. Giant reserves have been discovered in a few places including Antarctica. We didn't know about these when you or I were kids.
- How much of the world is left if we keep burning oil is the relevant question now. We've found lots more

Might not be able to buy groceries but at least we have $3.00/gallon, or $0.80/liter, fuel for our planet destroying pickup trucks!

USA Piracy

So what determines if oil is being used by terrorists? Hella vague

It's an oily amuse bouche before the land invasion

So... Privateering? Like Royalty.
- Working up to plain ol' colonization.
- Can’t be a privateer if they’re not private.
  
  I think some privateers were royal navy.

Why didn't they just bomb it?
- We need to protect the innocent oil on board at all cost
- big badaboom
- If you want the orange child rapist to bomb something then first you need to put an innocent fisherman on it.
  It doesn't matter what it is. It could be a fishing boat, a lawn chair, or a baby's bed. As long as there's an innocent fisherman nearby he'll bomb the fuck out of it. Then declare it as very legal and very tremendous.

Sigh... That's not good...

So. It begins

In another timeline, Hegseth confusingly bombed the oil tanker and blamed Biden.

Whelp that's a casus belli…
- Ship siezures are not, under international law.

And they don’t seize Russian tankers? Wankers!

Not putting to bed accusations about motives at all the opposite really.

Now we get to the meat of the matter.
The arabs hire trump muscle to knock off the Venezuelan government putting the arabs in charge, this gives the arabs unlimited unrestricted gulf drilling access.
The Saudis have run out or are almost out of oil. They like making billions for doing nothing and do not want the big bucks to stop.
So the gulf is drilled unrestricted, the oil shipped up to east Houston refineries, then shipped out to the nations paying the most for it.
What a deal.
When will trump start working for Americans?

267 comments