War against terrorism? Not really. - Pipelineistan

[freedomburns]

http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/DA25Ag01.html

Asia Times

Central Asia/Russia

THE ROVING EYE
Pipelineistan, Part 1: The rules of the game
By Pepe Escobar

War against terrorism? Not really. Reminder: it's all about oil.

 

A quick look at the map is all it takes. It's no coincidence that the map of terror in the Middle East and Central Asia is practically interchangeable with the map of oil. There's Infinite Justice, Enduring Freedom - and Everlasting Profits to be made: not only by the American industrial-military complex, but especially by American and European oil giants.

Where is the realm these days of former US secretary of state James Baker, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, former White House chief of staff John Sununu and former defense secretary and current Invisible Man Dick Cheney? They are all happily dreaming of, and working for, the establishment of Pipelineistan.

Pipelineistan is the golden future: a paradise of opportunity in the form of US$5 trillion of oil and gas in the Caspian basin and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. In Washington's global petrostrategy, this is supposed to be the end of America's oil dependence on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). This is of course the heart of the matter in the New Great Game - compared to which the original 19th-century Great Game between czarist Russia and the British Empire was a childish tin soldier's diversion.

Afghanistan itself has some natural gas in the north of the country, near Turkmenistan. But above all it is ultra-strategic: positioned between the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia, between Turkmenistan and the avid markets of the Indian subcontinent, China and Japan. Afghanistan is at the core of Pipelineistan.

The Caspian states hold at least 200 billion barrels of oil, and Central Asia has 6.6 trillion cubic meters of natural gas just begging to be exploited. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are two major producers: Turkmenistan is nothing less than a "gas republic". Apart from oil and gas there's copper, coal, tungsten, zinc, iron, uranium, gold.

The only export routes, for the moment, are through Russia. So most of the game consists of building alternative pipelines to Turkey and Western Europe, and to the east toward the Asian markets. India will be a key player. India, Iran, Russia and Israel are all planning to supply oil and gas to South and Southeast Asia through India.

(read the rest of the article)
 
http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/DA25Ag01.html

[freedomburns]

To give you more details, between 1991-1997, major U.S. oil companies including ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell and Enron directly invested billions in cash bribing heads of state in Kazakhstan to secure equity rights in the huge oil reserves in these regions. The oil companies further commited to future direct investments in Kazakhstan of $35 billion. Not being willing to pay exorbitant prices to Russia to use Russian pipelines, the major oil companies had no way to recoup their investments. [Source: "The Price of Oil" by Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, July 9, 2001 - The Asia Times, "The Roving Eye Part I Jan. 26, 2002.]

On December 4, 1997 representatives of the Taliban were invited guests to the Texas headquarters of Unocal to negotiate their support for the pipeline. Subsequent reports indicated that the negotiations failed, allegedly because the Taliban wanted too much money. [Source: The BBC, Dec. 4, 1997]

On February 12, 1998 Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca -- later to become a special ambassador to Afghanistan -- testified before the House that until a single, unified, friendly government is in place in Afghanistan, the trans-Afghani pipeline needed to monetize the oil will not be built. [Source: Testimony before the House International Relations Committee: http://www.house.gov/international_relations/105th/ap/wsap212982.htm

freedomburns

[KEmperor]

Ok Mr. Moore:

Another falsehood. Although there were likely military contingency plans for the event of a war, this is not the result of some oil pipeline deal. In fact, these talks were initiated under the Clinton Administration a fact you omit, and were dropped in 1998 another fact omitted. The only role Bush ever had in the oil pipeline talks were to suggest a pipeline being built from Pakistan that avoided going through Afghan territory.

[freedomburns]

Ok Mr. Moore:

Another falsehood. Although there were likely military contingency plans for the event of a war, this is not the result of some oil pipeline deal. In fact, these talks were initiated under the Clinton Administration a fact you omit, and were dropped in 1998 another fact omitted. The only role Bush ever had in the oil pipeline talks were to suggest a pipeline being built from Pakistan that avoided going through Afghan territory.

Ok, Mr. O'Really:

There is no falsehood here.  This is all well-documented.  The only falsehood is in your subjective view of reality.  

You are wrong that I omitted the fact that this was begun durring the Clinton Administration.  The dates are clearly laid out.  And I am not pointing fingers or being partisan here.  I profess to hate the Dems almost as much as the Republicofascistos.  They are both equally corrupt.  Bush is hell of annoying though.  He flaunts his irony, ya know?  Like having a dyslexic President isn't ironical enough already.

freedomburns

[KEmperor]

Ok Mr. Moore:

Another falsehood. Although there were likely military contingency plans for the event of a war, this is not the result of some oil pipeline deal. In fact, these talks were initiated under the Clinton Administration a fact you omit, and were dropped in 1998 another fact omitted. The only role Bush ever had in the oil pipeline talks were to suggest a pipeline being built from Pakistan that avoided going through Afghan territory.

Ok, Mr. O'Really:

There is no falsehood here.  This is all well-documented.  The only falsehood is in your subjective view of reality.  

You are wrong that I omitted the fact that this was begun durring the Clinton Administration.  The dates are clearly laid out.  And I am not pointing fingers or being partisan here.  I profess to hate the Dems almost as much as the Republicofascistos.  They are both equally corrupt.  Bush is hell of annoying though.  He flaunts his irony, ya know?  Like having a dyslexic President isn't ironical enough already.

freedomburns

Your premise is that the war on terror is about an oil pipeline, and the implication is that Bush is fighting all these wars to secure that pipeline.  The fact that negotiations for said pipeline both started and ended during the Clinton administration, and that there is no such pipeline planned, kind of makes your point not have a point, wouldn't you say?

[freedomburns]

Ok Mr. Moore:

Another falsehood. Although there were likely military contingency plans for the event of a war, this is not the result of some oil pipeline deal. In fact, these talks were initiated under the Clinton Administration a fact you omit, and were dropped in 1998 another fact omitted. The only role Bush ever had in the oil pipeline talks were to suggest a pipeline being built from Pakistan that avoided going through Afghan territory.

Ok, Mr. O'Really:

There is no falsehood here.  This is all well-documented.  The only falsehood is in your subjective view of reality.  

You are wrong that I omitted the fact that this was begun durring the Clinton Administration.  The dates are clearly laid out.  And I am not pointing fingers or being partisan here.  I profess to hate the Dems almost as much as the Republicofascistos.  They are both equally corrupt.  Bush is hell of annoying though.  He flaunts his irony, ya know?  Like having a dyslexic President isn't ironical enough already.

freedomburns

Your premise is that the war on terror is about an oil pipeline, and the implication is that Bush is fighting all these wars to secure that pipeline.  The fact that negotiations for said pipeline both started and ended during the Clinton administration, and that there is no such pipeline planned, kind of makes your point not have a point, wouldn't you say?

Wrong again.  If you read at all about this, you would know that the "negotiations" went on right up until July 2001, well into the Bush Administration.

The pipeline is being surveyed and "built" right now.  And the American military bases have been constructed exactly to conform to it's route.  Kind of makes your rebuttal look like you don't know what you're talking about, don't you think?

freedomburns

[TeePee4Prez]

Halliburton and Unocal were making negotiations during the Clinton Administration, but it was not Clitnon's doing.  Clinton wanted to go after the Taliban, but the GOP Congress told him no.  That was because Bush, Cheney, and Co. were in bed with the Taliban up until 2001.  The Bushies did everything they could to keep the Taliban in power so they could secure a pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan.  I'm willing to wager Bush does indeed have Osama, but in a posh palace.  The "war on terror" is partially true, but partially a political PR scheme to help Bush.  Yes, lives were lost on 9/11 and I'm sorry they went, but we need to punish the Taliban and investigate Bush's dealings with them.

[Lunar]

Is there any possibility that oil could be merely a subset of the rational?

[freedomburns]

Is there any possibility that oil could be merely a subset of the rational?

Of course.  Certainly.  I will grant you that the rationale is multifold and more complex than we are told.  It is not just the so called “war on terror” and the oil that led us there, but a confluence of forces and events that allowed an extremist agenda of global resource appropriation and exploitation to go forward as US policy.  

The Bush agenda is anther way of saying the extremist, right wing neo-con agenda.  We are killing people and getting American soldiers killed in Najaf, Fallujah and Sadr City for absolutely no reason at all.  These people, the people in these cities, had nothing to do with 9/11, nothing to do with supporting Saddam Hussein or UBL, and nothing to do with supporting terrorism.  Why are we killing them?  They weren’t doing anything to us.

They are just pissed now that we have occupied their country.  Their strongest wish as a people is for us to leave.  They don’t want freedom as we define it.  We need to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.  We need to give up the military bases we have built and bail.  All hell is breaking loose over there.

freedomburns

[A18]

Man, I feel sorry for you people. Who assasinated JFK, freedomburns?

[mddem2004]

Not to step into the conspiracy/non-conspiracy bit......this does point out some glaring FACTS we are and will continue to face for the next 30+ years.

Our dependence on foreign oil will only increase no matter how much we drill domestically. New domestic oil production won't even keep pace with new demand for oil in our economy.

We will continue to have our economy held by the Balls by foreigners until we diversify our energy sources. And i'm not talking about the geographic sources of our energy needs, but the types of sources.

Historic Note: Japan launched into WWII because their economy and war fighting ability was held hostage by the Oil Embargo of 1941 we imposed. We should not assume we would not be faced with the same dilema as Japan in the future if we do not DIVERSIFY NOW.

[A18]

I think we will be able to replace oil in the next 50 years. There's already things like hydrogen cars and biodiesel. Plus battery hybirds.

I wish one day we'd discover tons of oil in Alaska just so we could screw the middle east, and rip off the Europeans for a slightly lower price.

[freedomburns]

Not to step into the conspiracy/non-conspiracy bit......this does point out some glaring FACTS we are and will continue to face for the next 30+ years.

Our dependence on foreign oil will only increase no matter how much we drill domestically. New domestic oil production won't even keep pace with new demand for oil in our economy.

We will continue to have our economy held by the Balls by foreigners until we diversify our energy sources. And i'm not talking about the geographic sources of our energy needs, but the types of sources.

Historic Note: Japan launched into WWII because their economy and war fighting ability was held hostage by the Oil Embargo of 1941 we imposed. We should not assume we would not be faced with the same dilema as Japan in the future if we do not DIVERSIFY NOW.

mddem, your posting is exactly correct.  We are in deep doo doo, and we will see this happen in our lifetimes.  $50 for a barrell of oil will happen this year.  It's already hit $48 twice recently.

and phillip, you are beneathy pity.  I do not feel sorry for someone who allows himself to be willingly duped.

freedomburns

[A18]

You have to live life with some faith.

[freedomburns]

You have to live life with some faith.

I have faith in myself.  I believe in the religion of personal responsibility.

[A18]

Yet you failed to prevent 9/11, higher gas prices, the Iraqi war, or Bush's reelection. The belief in the religion of personal responsibility is the belief that you are the only person that ever was.

[freedomburns]

Yet you failed to prevent 9/11, higher gas prices, the Iraqi war, or Bush's reelection. The belief in the religion of personal responsibility is the belief that you are the only person that ever was.

Are you twelve years old, or did your dad throw you up in the air and forget to catch you when you were younger?

[A18]

He forgot to catch me. Guess you're responsible for that to.