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NASRINE R. KARIM British General Michael Jackson, the commander in Macedonia during the NATO bombing of Serbia, explained in April 1999 to the Italian paper Sole 24 Ore, "Today, the circumstances which we have created here have changed. Today, it is absolutely necessary to guarantee the stability of Macedonia and its entry into NATO. But we will certainly remain here a long time so that we can also guarantee the security of the energy corridors which traverse this country." The newspaper added, "It is clear that Jackson is referring to the 8th corridor, the East-West axis which ought to be combined to the pipeline bringing energy resources from Central Asia to terminals in the Black Sea and in the Adriatic, connecting Europe with Central Asia. That explains why the great and medium sized powers, and first of all Russia, don't want to be excluded from the settling of scores that will take place over the next few months in the Balkans." However last week's ceremony in the Central Asian republic of Azerbaijan to open the long awaited Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which took a decade to construct, received scant coverage in the international press. This pipeline will inevitably accelerate the scramble for oil and gas in the Caspian Basin region and heighten the already existing tensions for conflict among rival major powers. The 1,770 km US-backed pipeline, known as BTC, is one of the world's longest and the most expensive. It cost $4 billion to build. It snakes its way from the Sangachal oil and gas terminal south of the Azeri, capital of Baku on the Caspian Sea through neighbouring Georgia and some of the most mountainous regions of the Caucasus to finally reach the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. The chief consideration, it would seem, in constructing this tortuous path, was to undercut the existing pipeline system in Russia and to avoid Iran, which offers the shortest and cheapest pipeline route from landlocked Central Asia to a coastline. The US has maintained an economic blockade of Iran since 1979. The pipeline route through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey not only created engineering problems but produced a decade of political intrigue as the White House, first under Clinton then Bush, sought to strengthen the US position in each of these countries. In 2003, the Bush administration backed the so-called Rose Revolution that ousted former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and installed openly pro-US Mikhael Saakashvili in his place. The US openly supported the questionable regimes of pere et fils in Azerbaijan. The BTC's significance was underscored by the presence at the inauguration ceremony of no less the US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who read out a letter from US President Bush. He was among the Presidents of the tripartite participants and the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbeyev of Kazakhstan signed a declaration committing his country to transport some of its huge oil reserves through the pipeline-a move that may create tension with Moscow. Georgian President Saakashvili highlighted the strategic rivalry involved in the BTC's construction when he referred to its completion as "a geopolitical victory" for the Caspian Basin nations. (Victory against whom, one may question, if not Moscow). Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev commented: "The realisation of this project would not have been possible without constant political support from the US." American backing for the pipeline to pass through Georgia has assisted Azerbaijan in isolating its rival Armenia-also another potential route for a pipeline to Turkey. In April, the US signed an agreement to provide a further $110 million in aid to Georgia. Earlier this month, Bush included Georgia on his European tour, hailing the "Rose Revolution" and declaring Saakashvili as "a freedom fighter". Lord Browne, chief executive of British Petroleum (BP), was also present. BP with a 30.1 percent in the pipeline is the leading partner in the controlling consortium, which also includes the Azerbaijani state oil company SOCAR (25 percent), Unocal (US, 8.9 percent), Statoil (Norway, 8.71 percent) and Turkish Petroleum (6.53 percent) as well as French, Italian, Japanese and other US corporations. BP has invested at least $15 billion in Azerbaijan. An article on the Asia Times website commented: "According to Baku's street wisdom, the man who really rules Azerbaijan is David Woodward, BP's Chairman, known as 'the viceroy', a walking oil atlas with more than three decades working for the company from Scotland to Abu Dhabi and from Alaska to Siberia. Woodward and BP mercilessly spin that BTC is the cleanest and safest pipeline ever built. Georgian peasants and English non-governmental organisations beg to differ." The pipeline will take six months to fill and reach the projected flow of one million barrels a day by 2008. Once fully operational Azerbaijan is expected to accrue $29 billion a year in oil revenues and Georgia and Turkey $600 million and $1.5 billion in annual transit fees respectively. The BTC is considered a lever for the US to extend its political influence and to buttress its military presence in Central Asia The Bush administration has already used its "war on terrorism" to establish military bases for the first time in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Now the US is using "pipeline security" as the pretext for forging closer military ties with Georgia and Azerbaijan Speculation that the US is seeking to base troops in Azerbaijan was heightened by last month's visit to Baku by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In congressional testimony earlier this year, US commander in Europe General James Jones declared that the US was interested in creating a special "Caspian guard" to protect the BTC. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that the US plans to spend $100 million on such a force, including the establishment of a command centre in Baku. Concerned over Russian opposition, Azerbaijan has to date been reluctant to commit itself. Mikhail Margelov, head of the international affairs committee of Russia's parliamentary upper house, spelled out their hostility to Washington's growing intrusion into Central Asia. "Russia's attitude to proposals made by some politicians that this task (pipeline security) should actually be delegated to the United States is firmly negative. Russia will always oppose the presence of any foreign military contingents within the countries of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)," he commented. The completion of the pipeline will certainly be sharpening rivalry in Central Asia for control of the region's largely untapped resources. The Caspian Sea basin is currently estimated to contain eight percent of the world's oil reserves as well as having huge natural gas reserves. A gas pipeline following the same route is due to be completed next year. An agreement was signed in March 2005 between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to build a pipeline across the Caspian Sea connecting the Kashagan offshore oil field in Kazakhstan to Baku and thus the BTC. Konstantin Kosachyov, Russia's State Duma parliamentarian, pointed to Washington's geopolitical ambitions, stating: "It is absolutely obvious that this project was born for political rather than economic reasons in order to create a stable alternative for transferring Caspian energy resources to the West bypassing Russia and some other states, such as Iran." Russian President Vladimir Putin's special representative for international energy cooperation, Igor Yusufov, was due to attend the BTC opening ceremony but excused himself at the last minute on the grounds of illness. The scale of US oil corporations investment in the exploitation of Caspian oil fields and the US government demand for the economy to be less dependent on imported oil, particularly from the Middle-East, demands a long term solution to the transportation of oil to European and US markets. The US Trade & Development Agency (TDA) has financed initial feasibility studies, with large grants, and advanced technical studies for the New York based AMBO (Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria Oil) Trans-Balkan pipeline. Announcing a grant for an advanced technical study in 1999 for the AMBO oil pipeline through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania, TDA director J. Joseph Grandmaison had declared, "The competition is fierce to tap energy resources in the Caspian region.... Over the last year (1999), TDA has been actively promoting the development of multiple pipelines to connect these vast resources with Western markets. This grant represents a significant step forward for this policy and for US business interests in the Caspian region." Shortly after the Yoguslavian war, Camp Bondsteel, the biggest foreign US military base since the Vietnam War was created. It is in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. It is located close to vital oil pipelines and energy corridors such as the US sponsored Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. The main defence contractors are Halliburton Oil subsidiary Brown & Root Services. In June 1999, in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of Yugoslavia, US forces acquired 1,000 acres of farmland in southeast Kosovo at Uresevic, near the Macedonian border, and began the construction of a camp. There are 25 kilometres of roads and over 300 buildings at Camp Bondsteel, surrounded by 14 kilometres of earth and concrete barriers, 84 kilometres of concertina wire and 11 watch towers. It is so big that it has downtown, midtown and uptown districts, retail outlets; 24-hour sports halls, a chapel, library and the best-equipped hospital anywhere in Europe. At present there are 55 Black Hawk and Apache helicopters based at Bondsteel and although it has no aircraft landing strip the location was chosen for its capacity to expand. There are suggestions that it could replace the US airforce base at Aviano in Italy. According to Colonel Robert L. McClure, writing in the engineers professional Bulletin, "Engineer planning for operations in Kosovo began months before the first bomb was droppedÂ…." McClure declared, "At the height of the effort, about 1,000 former US military personnel, hired by Brown & Root, along with more than 7,000 Albanian local nationals, joined the 1,700 military engineers. From early July and into October (1999), construction at both camps continued 24 hours a day, seven days a week." Brown & Root Services provides all the support services to Camp Bondsteel. The contract to service Camp Bondsteel is the latest in a string of military contracts awarded to Brown & Root Services. Its fortunes have grown as US militarism has escalated. The company is part of the Halliburton Corporation (US Vice President Dick Cheney's former employers), the largest supplier of products and services to the oil industry. According to experts, the Caspian region is one of the largest remaining potential resources of undeveloped oil and gas in the world, and has the capacity to produce as much as 6 million barrels of oil per day by 2020. The oil industry is expected to invest $300-$500 billion in the interim to exploit the reserves. The US Department of Energy estimates that 163 billion barrels of oil and up to 337 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are to be found. If the estimates are correct, the region will become a petroleum producer comparable in scope to Iran or Iraq. Each of the major capitalist countries, and a number of developing regional powers, have their sights set on these resources. Western analysts also expect the Caspian region to become a major world gold producer. Kazakhstan, with 10,000 tons, has the second largest reserves in the world. Mining companies from the US, Japan, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Israel are already operating in the region. Since then Camp Bondsteel has continued to grow, as it spearheads the first phase in a realignment of US military bases in Europe and eastward. The Bondsteel template is now being applied in Afghanistan and the new bases in the former Soviet Republics. Some now believe that the US used the bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp Bondsteel. Before the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Washington Post insisted, "With the Middle-East increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly over rights in the Balkans to protect Caspian Sea oil." *************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest". YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
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