@icetoad.eth
Let's be clear: This is not because the USA needs oil, this is because the USA wants to see the continuation of the petrodollar. Venezuela was about to start trading oil in a basket of BRICS currencies and the USA cannot afford for the largest oil reserves/supply in the world to disconnect from the dollar.
If the world no longer traded oil in dollars then the demand for US treasury bonds would collapse further than it has in the past year. This would cause interest rates to skyrocket and the American debt based economy would implode.
The USA does not want to accept the new multipolar reality of the world. Instead they used the one asset they still have in abundance, military force. What we are seeing is not liberation, it is liquidation. The USA is securing its assets by foreclosing on Venezuela. The Pentagon is now a global debt collector.
This is the return of 19th century gunboat diplomacy and it is being disguised as 21st century humanitarianism.
Note: political content