Two crises: Ukraine and Venezuela. Both heartbreaking and, unfortunately, intractable. Yet even as hawkish pundits are practically chiding U.S. President Obama for not threatening war with a huge nuclear-armed country over Ukraine, Venezuela is almost ignored. Venezuela sits alongside Colombia, where I live, on the northern coast of South America. It’s a lovely country that I’ve had the fortune to visit. With a population about that of Saudi Arabia, it has more known oil reserves — indeed, the most in the world. It’s also blessed with a cornucopia of other resources such as natural gas, gold, nickel, iron ore, steel, diamond, aluminum, coal, bauxite, and lots of arable land instead of blowing sand.
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