Why Should you Care? Oil, Gold, Copper, Lithium, Water
Listening to an old keynote speech by Southern Command General Laura Richardson to The Atlantic Council, I got the sense that she was unintentionally letting the viewer in on how America elites think about extracting resources from “partners” operating under the purview of the Southern Command region (our “back yard”).
Why South America matters:
- oil
- gold
- copper
- lithium triangle
- rare earth elements
- fresh water
- fresh air (Amazon)
Regions:
- Northern Command
- Southern Command
- Africa Command
- European Command
- Central Comman
- Indo-Pacific Command
(click on the quotes below to view video and its context)
1) Drop the pretense: Why South American matters?
Why this region matters: with all of it’s rich resources and rare earth elements you’ve got the lithium triangle, which is needed for technology today. 60 percent of the world’s lithium is in the lithium triangle — Argentina, Bolivia, Chile. You just have the largest oil reserves , light sweet crew discovered off of Guyana over a year ago. You have Venezuela’s resources, as well with with oil, uh copper, gold. China gets 30, 36 percent of its food source from this region. We have the Amazon lungs of the world. We have the 31 of the world’s fresh water in this region too. I mean it’s just off the charts!
2) US should build more infrastructure in Southern Command:
American critics of the MICIMATT often comment about inadequate US infrastructure. Richardson talked about investing in infrastructure in the Southern Command Region to counter China (the PRC ).
You’re actually talking about the U.S investing more in in critical infrastructure talking about making economic Investments right in the region. Absolutely, absolutely, so if I’m the uh as the the uh, not a lot of visitors maybe or folks that are going into the country or the opportunity that I have while I’m there that I get to see this meet with leaders talk to them about their challenges
3) The Military acts as “Muscle” for US Corporations. It should act as Lobbyist too.
I go back to the equipment we see now all of a sudden you know looking elsewhere other than U.S equipment who has a better finance package oh but minister you’ve got to look get the equipment you’ve got to look at what you get. You can’t compare well. I need to know, you know, what about the financing that’s more important to me right now. But Russia can’t be provide. I can’t have the ability to provide many of these countries with with resupply or new weapons. I mean they’re struggling to supply themselves in many cases for Ukraine so is that presenting an opportunity for maybe the U.S to slide in? Absolutely and we’re taking advantage of that I’d like to say so we are working with those countries that have the Russian equipment to either donated or or switch it out for United States
More Information:
There were other topics covered in the speech, such as suppression of narcotics, but I thought coverage of the above three topics was illuminating.
You can view the whole speech on YouTube.
More by Me:
- CiteIt App: expands Contextual Citations – aims to build reader trust in writers which show the context of their quotations.
- Monster Mash: Military Industrial Complex Song, set to the classic Monster Mash tune.
