like a good neighbor, ahmadinejad is there
by Jason Bradley
Published: February 7, 2008
Question: Which country is run by a populist leader that vehemently despises the Bush administration - often publically chastising the policies of the United States, is rife with political polarization, maintains a politicized military, internally struggles with drug-related violence and drug consumption, is over-dependent on the oil industry and nearly all of the US oil imports come from nearby countries?
You guessed it: Venezuela.
In fact, nearly 12 percent of the United States oil imports are from Venezuela.
The majority (53 percent) of the United States oil imports in 2007 were from our hemispheric neighbors: Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador and Columbia, in addition to those from Venezuela.
Only a fraction, a mere 17 percent, of our oil imports are from the Middle East.
And, yet, during this campaign season, a lot of lip service is given to the United States being overly dependent on Middle Eastern oil.
Come on, candidates. Wake up!
We’ve implemented policies that have left our southern neighbors without much economic opportunity.
Consider the following:
- One in seven eligible Mexican workers are presently in the United States and are most likely building, cleaning or maintaining your house and lawn.
- Only 34 percent of the Latin American population has a favorable opinion of the United States - the perception being that the United States only interjects itself into Latin American affairs when it is beneficial to U.S. global strategy. Evidently they don’t remember that time we… oh wait, that time didn’t happen. My bad.
- Over 200 million Latin Americans live on less than $2.00 per day and many see the United States as the land of opportunity for them, where they can send much-needed funds back home to the families they have left behind.
This unequal distribution of wealth has left these countries searching for a helping hand - and often they will take whatever aid is offered to them. Even from the Axis of Evil.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently swept through Latin America offering aid and support to their economies and governments; an underhanded move to say the least.
Ahmadinejad and Bolivian populist President Evo Morales are working together to increase Bolivian natural gas reserves.
Iran and Venezuela have signed over 180 trade agreements since 2001 worth over $20 billion.
Iran is opening an embassy in Quito, Ecuador for the first time in history.
President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua accepted Iranian aid for 4,000 tractors, construction of a number of milk-processing plants, 10,000 houses, piers and the construction of a farm equipment assembly plant. In exchange, Nicaragua agreed to export coffee, meat and bananas to Iran.
Iran is purposefully positioning itself as the Great Humanitarian State in places we’ve forgotten about ” in places we neglect.
“Who would fall for that,” you ask? Well, they will - all of them. Go figure.
The United States cannot sit by while the tide turns against us to the South; walling off Arizona and Texas is not going to help repair our status at all.
If the world were to stand up to the United States and withhold their crude oil, we’d quickly find ourselves in a sorry state. And if trade agreements between our suppliers and our so-called enemies continue to rise, our future looks dim.
We must make amends with our energy-benefactors in the form of food, medicines, hospitals, schools, clean water, sewage systems, jobs and neighborly kindness.
The next administration would do well to realize that the real danger to our energy supply lines lies in our own backyard - not halfway across the world.
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