[EBT]

I just saw this video clip come up in my X timeline:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1997645437801730104

At around the 20-second mark, I see a Canadian Naval frigate. Assuming that this is not stock footage, is Canada joining along with the United States in an illegal, unjust war with Venezuela?

Perhaps some of the military people on this forum can shed light on this.

 

[kEiThZ]

You're forgetting about the most deserving candidate of them all
View attachment 701116

Honestly, Putin outplayed everybody. Looking back now, Obama laughing off Russia as a threat in the debate with John McCain was a bad idea.

 

[Admiral Beez]

From today’s NYT. What the heck was Biden thinking? It’s as if Biden was intentionally provoking American’s inner racist and populist tendencies. Either way, you can’t argue that Trump’s migrant and border crackdown has not been effective.

 

[kEiThZ]

At around the 20-second mark, I see a Canadian Naval frigate.

Canada has participated in counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean for nearly two decades.

Operation Caribbe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We've also sanctioned the Chavez/Maduro resume for over a decade. Might come as a surprise to some that we don't like dictators who might drive more refugees to our shores.

Assuming that this is not stock footage, is Canada joining along with the United States in an illegal, unjust war with Venezuela?

Canadian frigate is part of the counter-narcotics task force. Their ROEs aren't likely to allow them to participate in any invasion. And I'm not sure what capabilities they have that could contribute to landing forces in Venezuela anyway.

 

[kEiThZ]

From today’s NYT. What the heck was Biden thinking? It’s as if Biden was intentionally provoking American’s inner racist and populist tendencies. Either way, you can’t argue that Trump’s migrant and border crackdown has not been effective.

View attachment 701168

I said this before on here. And was ignored or people brushed it off as a trivial detail. That surge in illegal immigrants was worse than the abuse of LMIAs and student visas in Canada. And came just as the economic situation was deteriorating with high inflation and growing unemployment. Backlash was almost inevitable.

Broadly, there's no way to have 3-4% of the country living illegally in basically a completely parallel society and economy and not have this become a point of contention eventually.

Doesn't help that Democrats are perceived as weak on illegal immigration. Not just in the US. Clearly the smugglers and illegals think they'll have fewer consequences when Democrats are in office too. They really need to change this. But I'm not sure that's possible with a wing of the party that wants to normalize acceptance of illegal immigration. Ironically, old school leftists like Sanders long imposed immigration (illegal and legal) for the detrimental impacts on the economically disadvantaged.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I said this before on here. And was ignored or people brushed it off as a trivial detail. That surge in illegal immigrants was worse than the abuse of LMIAs and student visas in Canada. And came just as the economic situation was deteriorating with high inflation and growing unemployment. Backlash was almost inevitable.

Broadly, there's no way to have 3-4% of the country living illegally in basically a completely parallel society and economy and not have this become a point of contention eventually.

To avoid or mitigate this in Canada I propose that the annual permits for PR, asylum seekers, students and TFW be linked to the number of deportations and voluntary exits of anyone in the country whose visa or status has expired. So, if the goal is, for example 200k TFWs and foreign students, but we have 10k previous TFW and students that have not been verified to have exited, the annual goal is reduced by 10k.

 

[kEiThZ]

To avoid or mitigate this in Canada I propose that the annual permits for PR, asylum seekers, students and TFW be linked to the number of deportations and voluntary exits of anyone in the country whose visa or status has expired. So, if the goal is, for example 200k TFWs and foreign students, but we have 10k previous TFW and students that have not been verified to have exited, the annual goal is reduced by 10k.

Why? We don't have a problem with illegal immigration. We have a problem with legal immigration. We can and should reduce TFW and student permits. And LMIAs granted to students to transition to PR. The problem isn't people crossing the border illegally and working for cash at Tim's. It's that Tim's franchisee putting in an LMIA saying he needs a manager from abroad cause he can't find one in Canada for $70k.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Why? We don't have a problem with illegal immigration.

How would we know? We don’t verify that student and TFWs have left when their visas expired. And we’re seeing thousands of international students now making asylum claims, in the knowledge that they can stay another 1-3 years while their claim is reviewed. If we want to avoid the public rage that led to Trump, we must manage immigration (both temp and PR) properly.

Thousands of former international students’ visas will expire soon. What happens next is murky

Economists and immigration experts wonder how many will stay in Canada as undocumented residents

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[EBT]

Canada has participated in counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean for nearly two decades.

What is happening now in the Caribbean is not "counter-narcotics operations". Trump is planning a regime change war in Venezuela. Trump is determined to "take the oil," and Canada is apparently stupidly going along with this.

Listen to Donald Trump in his own words, "when I left Venezuela was ready to collapse, we would have taken it over, we would have gotten ALL THAT OIL

https://twitter.com/x/status/1757176546681307257

Under Trump's DUI hire, Pete Kegseth, the Americans are committing cold-blooded murder on the high seas, violating every norm, including carrying out "double tap" strikes on shipwreck survivors.

How many Canadians agree with this? The boats that the Americans have been blowing out of the water were not even headed to the United States; they don't have the range to reach American shores without being refueled about 20 times. If the boats were ferrying drugs, those drugs were intended to go on ships headed to West Africa and onward to Europe.

Why would Canada's Navy be involved in counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean? How many narcotics arrive in Canada from South America by these fast boats? The answer is none. Meanwhile, cocaine arrives by air at Pearson Airport from South America via places like the Dominican Republic, while Canadian authorities look the other way based on my own investigations (I could tell you a story about that!).

We've also sanctioned the Chavez/Maduro resume for over a decade. Might come as a surprise to some that we don't like dictators who might drive more refugees to our shores.

Canadian frigate is part of the counter-narcotics task force. Their ROEs aren't likely to allow them to participate in any invasion. And I'm not sure what capabilities they have that could contribute to landing forces in Venezuela anyway.

Why is Canada sanctioning Maduro and, before him, Chavez? What did Venezuela do to Canada? For that matter, what did Venezuela do to the United States? Going back to Hugo Chavez's time in office until he sadly succumbed to cancer, CITGO, the Venezuelan state oil company, would donate millions of barrels of heating oil to poor Americans living in the Northeast to heat their homes each winter. Trump confiscated CITGO and handed it to one of his billionaire donors, Paul Singer, but that is a story for another time.

As for driving refugees to our shores, it was Trump's attempted regime change during his first administration that caused the exodus of Venezuelans to North America, including hard-core criminals, as was done decades before by Castro. It was predictable. Why wouldn't Maduro unleash hardened criminals on the United States after Trump tried to assassinate him in a failed drone attack and placed starvation sanctions on Venezuela? Actions have consequences.

 

[kEiThZ]

How many Canadians agree with this?

Enough to have had these operations running for nearly two decades across three Prime Ministers and two governments. You discovering Canadian foreign policy this week doesn't doesn't mean you speak for all Canadians.

 

[kEiThZ]

Listen to Donald Trump in his own words, "when I left Venezuela was ready to collapse, we would have taken it over, we would have gotten ALL THAT OIL

Trump is a clueless moron who says a lot of things. Venezuela's low quality oil is not much use in a world where oil demand is plateauing. He can believe what he wants. But reality is very different.

 

[EBT]

Trump is a clueless moron who says a lot of things. Venezuela's low quality oil is not much use in a world where oil demand is plateauing. He can believe what he wants. But reality is very different.

Venezuela's "low-quality" heavy oil is much like Alberta's heavy crude "tar sands". Canada pumps 4 million barrels of this heavy crude down to refineries in Texas and Louisiana to refineries that are specifically set up to process this heavy oil. They rely on this heavy crude! There is a specific need for heavy grades of oil as opposed to sweet crude.

Why is the Trump administration trying to use Venezuela to replace Canada as its source of heavy crude? Is it because Trump wants to break us to own us? We need to WAKE UP!

As for "oil demand is plateauing," of course it is. Trump is driving the United States and the world into a deep recession, if not depression.

 

[afransen]

Trump is a clueless moron who says a lot of things. Venezuela's low quality oil is not much use in a world where oil demand is plateauing. He can believe what he wants. But reality is very different.

Venezuala's oil is only useful as a substitute for Canadian heavy crude for the Texas refineries.

 

[kEiThZ]

You've got quite the main character syndrome. It's really a stretch to imagine that Trump wants to invade Venezuela to replace Canadian oil in the US.

 

[kEiThZ]

Venezuala's oil is only useful as a substitute for Canadian heavy crude for the Texas refineries.

Venezuela's oil sector is in tatters. Ironically, Chavez nationalizing their oil sector was great for Alberta who got a massive one time injection of specifically trained talent from Venezuela.

They can't reconstitute any of that any time soon. Would take them a decade at least to get Venezuela back to the levels it produced before nationalization. All for what? To replace the discounted Canadian crude they already get and re-export into a shrinking global oil market?

The US is self-sufficient in oil production now. They don't need it for themselves. The global market got oil is peaking thanks to China pushing electrification everywhere. So in this world you think American oil cos are going to invest tens of billions in Venezuela? Why? And the more capacity they add to the global oil market, the lower the global price.

I think it's really simple here. Trump isn't mostly dictating things. Those around him are. Witkoff wants business with Russia. He gets that. Rubio gets to live out the Cuban American fantasy of crushing Commies in Latin America. Hegseth gets to have the kind of war he wasn't allowed to have in uniform. Etc.