Global War - 'It's the oil stupid'
"It's
the meddling in the internal affairs of the indigenous people of
the region to ensure that said oil stays in the hands of the
privileged few that has led to an enraged underground movement of
terrorists in these lands.... It's our own greed and need for
control that has led us into this petroleum quagmire."
Johnny Angel, Los Angeles
Weekly, September 21 - 27, 2001
First issued by email 30 Sept 2001
Posted to web with additional material Nov 2001
Remember how much George Bush likes avoiding doing anything about weaning America off its oil addiction? Well global warming is not the only problem associated with this.
Ever wondered what the connection between renewable energy and world peace is? Well if not, you may do now after you have read the following extracts from a piece from the Los Angeles Weekly (below).
And whilst doing so remember where Vice President and former Pentagon chief Dick Cheney comes from - Halliburton Corporation, giant US oil and defence contractor (more at: http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm ).
Pollution and war - two of the world's biggest violations of natural law. They both go together.
NATURAL
LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
It's the Oil
Never mind
the pundits, the root cause remains the same
by Johnny Angel
Los Angeles Weekly, Cover Feature
September 21 - 27, 2001
[excerpts selected by nlpwessex;
full text at http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/44/cover-angel.shtml ]
"......What could possibly motivate the propping up of repressive non-democracies like the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families, or murderous regimes like that of Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran? Or pouring billions into the coffers of Saddam Hussein in the '80s, or even creating the monster that is possibly the mastermind of these attacks, Osama bin Laden, beneficiary of CIA lucre and training?
It's the oil, stupid.
Once again, America's twin addictions, that of its people to cheap gasoline and its corporations to billions of petro-dollars, has led us right into the proverbial pit...... So in order to keep this economic balm flowing, to keep the status quo static and the balance sheets of the major oil companies brimming, we've installed our military as a kind of mega police force in the region. Our official reason for being there is to ensure 'stability', one of the great buzzwords in the history of business, but this is nothing more than spin - the military is in the Middle East to guarantee that whatever comes out of the ground is exploitable and controlled by American multinationals.
Speaking to British journalist Robert Fisk in 1996 Afghanistan, bin Laden made clear his agenda. 'When the American troops entered Saudia Arabia [after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait], the land of the two holy places [Mecca and Medina], there was strong protest from the ulema [religious authorities] and from students of the Shariah law all over the country against the interference of American troops,' bin Laden told Fisk, who published the comments in The Nation in 1998. The Saudi leaders made a 'big mistake', bin Laden said, when they responded by suppressing the protests and cementing ties to the U.S. 'After it had insulted and jailed the ulema . . . the Saudi regime lost its legitimacy,' bin Laden said. And so began his deadly fatwa against the United States......
It's the meddling in the internal affairs of the indigenous people of the region to ensure that said oil stays in the hands of the privileged few that has led to an enraged underground movement of terrorists in these lands. And oil is all we're there for - what else of value comes from that part of the world, what strategic value does it have otherwise?
That may seem as obvious as the nose on our collective face, but it's something no one wants to acknowledge. Especially given the ties between the media and the oil companies: ABC is tied to Texaco, NBC to British Petroleum, Time Warner to Mobil Oil, as revealed in the marvelous media-watchdog flier Censored Alert in the summer of 2000. And now the oil industry is entrenched as America's No. 1 player with Bush and Cheney, two oil men (one failed, one successful) in command.
Eliminate the oil, and the American presence ends in the area; the resentment aimed at our land and our people also ends....
It's our own greed and need for control that has led us into this petroleum quagmire. Ross Perot, hardly the voice of progressive politics, made the canny observation in the first presidential debate of 1992 that the Gulf War was fought solely for control of oil and nothing more.
The war we're about to wage will surely be protracted and costly, with profound repercussions, and all because we decided that dealing with our enslavement to gasoline via conservation, alternative energy sources and the like was just too incon-fucking-venient. Feel that way now?"
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline: Unocal
"From the
outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline
we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a
recognized government is in place that has the confidence of
governments, lenders, and our company.....The 1,040-mile long oil
pipeline would extend south through Afghanistan to an export
terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast. This
42-inch diameter pipeline will have a shipping capacity of one
million barrels of oil per day.... The Central Asia and Caspian
region is blessed with abundant oil and gas that can enhance the
lives of the region's residents, and provide energy for growth in
both Europe and Asia. The impact of these resources on U.S.
commercial interests and U.S. foreign policy is also
significant."
U.S. INTERESTS IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS, HEARING
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC OF THE COMMITTEE
ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 12 February
1998 - evidence by Mr. John J. Maresca, vice president of
international relations, Unocal Corporation (US oil company)
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa48119.000/hfa48119_0.HTM
See also: 'Afghan Pipeline: A New Great
Game': BBC News, 4 November 1997
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/analysis/newsid_16000/16777.stm
'South AsiaTrans-Afghan pipeline suspended': BBC News, 22 August
1998 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_156000/156497.stm
The
Taliban had promised to permit construction of giant gas and oil
pipelines from Central Asia - click here
Consortium formed to build Central Asia gas pipeline -
1997
"Now that exploratory
drilling has commenced, the biggest question still facing Caspian
Sea participants is one of export routes. The geopolitics of the
whole region is a serious issue -- it's even the setting and plot
device for the latest James Bond movie -- and a great deal of
foreign policy is being conducted via these pipelines."
'Explorer' - February 2000
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/archives/02_00/caspian.html
"If USA actions in Afghanistan
would be successful and Taliban regime will be replaced with new
leaders the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline
(previously promoted by Unocal) could become an attractive
project again."
Caspian Oil Industry News, 21
October 2001
http://www.first-exchange.com/fsu/azer/news/news102001.asp
Same story in the Balkans
"This
is about America's energy security. It's also about preventing
strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're
trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west.
We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and
political interests rather than going another way. We've made a
substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very
important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come
out right."
Bill
Richardson 1998, US energy secretary, on US policy on the
extraction and transport of Caspian oil, quoted in the Guardian
15 February 2001: 'A discreet deal in the pipeline - Nato
mocked those who claimed there was a plan for Caspian oil'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,438134,00.html
"As
the starting date nears for building the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, it
becomes harder to base plans on the possibility of Kazakh oil.
The BP message may be that if the project cannot rely on
Kazakhstan's commitment, then Kazakhstan cannot depend on the
pipeline's availability, either."
Problems with alternative route for Caspian
Sea oil to Mediteranean
'Azerbaijan: BP Denies Seeking To Exclude
Competition In Caspian Oil Pipeline', Radio Free Europe, July
2001
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/07/04072001121711.asp
The 'Great Game'
"A new and
potentially explosive Great Game is being set up and few in
Britain are aware of it. There are many players: far more than
the two - Russia and Britain - who were engaged a century ago in
imperial rivalry in central Asia and the north-west frontier. And
the object this time is not so much control of territory. It is
the large reserves of oil and gas in the Caucasus, notably the
Caspian basin. Pipelines are the counters in this new Great
Game....This is the region both west and east have their eyes on.
It is rich in untapped oil and gas while US reserves are running
down, China is desperate for more oil, and no one outside the
Gulf wants to rely on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iraq - which have
the biggest oil reserves. Oil is the bait as the US, Russia,
Turkey, Iran - and Nato
- jockey for alliances, power and influence in this highly
combustible but, for most people, little-known, region.....There
is also a plan, backed by the US, for a pipeline running from the
Bulgarian Black sea port of Burgas through Macedonia to the
Albanian Adriatic port of Vlore. While the US and Nato
- and now the EU - hold out the prospect of untold wealth for the
Caucasian states of the former Soviet Union, the west will also
have an important economic stake in Albania and Macedonia. The US
already seems to take the view that all Serbs are bad and all
Albanians good. The implications for Kosovo, a Serbian province
with an overwhelming ethnic Albanian population, and for
Macedonia, with armed groups from Kosovo stirring up trouble
among the ethnic Albanian population, are potentially immense.... [hence the CIA funding of
terrorists in Macedonia - see London Times, 4 September 2001 - nlpwessex]"
'The
new Great Game' - London Guardian, 5 March 2001
"Nothing better
illustrates the deepening rift [between Saudi Arabia and the US]
than a letter from Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud
to President Bush. Sent before Sept.11 but leaked by Saudis last week, the
letter states that because of disagreement over the
Israeli-Palestininan conflict, 'it is time for the United States
and Saudi Arabia to look at their separate interests'. The
tension is worrying: America relies on Saudi oil...."
Time Magazine, 12 November 2001
"The oil
economy makes industrialised countries more vulnerable and
reduces our diplomatic options. A long-term security strategy
requires a fundamental shift in energy policy....Renewable energy
can provide a substitute for oil. According to the firm of
international engineers BDSP partnership, just 3% of wind
resources could provide 30% of global energy needs. Solar power
has the potential to provide a similarly limitless
capacity....All major car companies have now developed engines
using advanced fuel cells running on water. In his Presidential
campaign Al Gore went so far as to propose eliminating the
internal combustion engine in 25 years....But there are three
major obstacles which must be overcome before we can take oil off
the list of key objectives for our military and foreign policy.
These obstacles are the the difficulty of changing official
thinking, the vested interests of the oil companies, and the need
for a transition strategy....Once free of the oil imperative many
objectives for reducing the tax burden of defense spending and
enabling a stronger world development policy will be easier....At
a time when many feel all too helpless in the face of unfolding
military activity a change in fundamental strategy is something
that we can and should work for....Citizens in a democracy must
be actors and not just observers or victims. "
London Observer, 7 October
2001
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,564525,00.html
"The CPC [Caspian Pipeline
Consortium] project also advances my Administrations National
Energy Policy by developing a network of multiple Caspian
pipelines that
also includes the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa, and
Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipelines and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas
pipeline. These projects will help diversify U.S. energy
supply and enhance our energy security, while supporting global
economic growth."
George Bush, White House Press Release, 28 Nov 2001
Afghanistan - Needed for Oil and Gas Pipelines - Background
US funds terrorists in Eastern Europe - Bush
must go - 31 Oct 2001
The Real Bush Agenda
- 28 Oct 2001
Islam, Vedic Defence and
World Peace - 24 Oct 2001
Sept 11 Deja Vu? - 22 Oct
2001
"What a curious
phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of
the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed
to free themselves from their own individual bondage."
Bruce Barton (1886-1967)
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex