The Fire Is a Mirror, 59th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Deneb): The Stable Genius told reporters today that Venezuela "illegally took" US oil and "we want it back." 

“They took all of our energy rights, they took all of our oil from not that long ago, and we want it back. But they took it, they illegally took it.” he said. 

As Hands Off South and Central America (HOSCA) points out, oil reserves in Venezuela, a sovereign nation, never belonged to the U.S. Some U.S.-based oil companies may have had contracts to extract petroleum from Venezuela, and Venezuela may or may not have terminated those contracts according to certain agreed-upon terms, but it was never "our" oil.

The Stable Genius is a stone-cold idiot. He's already moved thousands of troops and nearly a dozen warships, including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, to the Caribbean north of Venezuela in the past couple of weeks, and he's obviously trying to provoke a war.

The Stable Genius Deviant of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine is to develop a western sphere of influence in the Americas under U.S. control, and encourage the region’s governments to align with U.S. principles and strategy. The Stable Genius says he will promote stability in the region by focusing the U.S. military on Latin America, and use lethal force when necessary to secure the U.S. border, defeat drug cartels, and extract resources from the region. He says this will “make neighboring countries as well as our own more prosperous,” but he's never been known to look out for anyone's interests but his own. 

His financial backers and donors and the U.S. oil-and-gas lobby want greater access to Venezuela's oil reserves, and the Stable Genius will start a full-blown war if necessary to grant their wish. Venezuela is home to the world’s largest oil reserves but only produces about 0.8% of the world’s output because of struggles in the wider economy and its state-owned oil company.  It exports about 900,000 barrels of oil a day, mostly to buyers in China, a fraction of the almost 22 million barrels of oil produced by the US. Still, oil is Venezuela's main source of revenue, with profits from the sector financing more than half of the government’s budget. 

Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976, bringing it under state control. Some U.S. firms, notably Chevron, operate in Venezuela through special licenses, partnering with PDVSA, the state-owned company, to produce oil. U.S. sanctions heavily impact Venezuela's oil exports, although Chevron operates under specific exemptions granted by the Stable Genius to export oil to China. ConocoPhillips and other U.S. companies have sought compensation for assets expropriated by Venezuela, and the Stable Genius is framing these legal disputes as Venezuela "stealing" oil.

So here's a question: are you willing to see U.S. lives lost and U.S. dollars spent on a military adventure, guided by our black-out drunk of a Secretary of Defense, to enhance Chevron's and ConocoPhilips' access to Venezuelan oil reserves?

HOSCA's not, and I agree with them.