American Leftist points to warning signs that the US Military is gearing up to fight for oildemocracy in Latin America as well as the Middle East:

This is a fascinating story, because it suggests that the US military is adopting the doctrine that a rejection of neoliberal economic policies, as in Venezuela and Bolivia, constitutes a threat to the US justifying military action, especially when it involves oil and natural gas production.

Otherwise, why would the Southern Command be undertaking studies of Venezuelan tax policy, Bolivian nationalization and Ecuadorian oil field seizures? In 1942, the Wehrmacht felt compelled to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus. Does the US military perceive a similar urgency when it comes to the oil and natural gas of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and, the great unmentionable . . Iran? And, if so, to what extent has the loss of the war in Iraq, and the inability to open Iraqi oil fields to US investment and exploitation, accelerated this sense of urgency?

In the past, the US’s methods in Latin America have been limited to destabilization, economic warfare and proxy armies rather than outright invasion, at least in the last 100 years or so, Panama and Grenada excepted. The coup avenue has already failed, though, in Venezuela, there’s no army to use as a proxy, and Venezuelan oil’s too valuable to allow for economic warfare, so we might see a return to outright invasion.

I know I have a “US out of Latin America” sign in the closet somewhere.