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When the Carter Administation and its foreign policy chiefs State Department Secretary Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski bought off Mohammed Siad Barre in 1978, access to Horn of Africa fossil fuels was a a key consideration. As were weaning Somalia away from the Non-Aligned Movement and the Soviet Union, turning Barre against Ethiopia, Djibouti and then South Yemen - who were openly proposing a joint Horn union - and establishing Carter's Rapid Deployment Force in Somalia and Egypt. All objectives were accomplished, with the bloody Ogaden Desert War as the first result and all the resultant bloodshed over the past quarter century to ensue. The strategically vital Horn of Africa/Red Sea/Persian Gulf area then became an American sphere of control. As for current Western interests in Somali oil and natural gas, they should be seen in the context of the tactical considerations of the moment. Given the revived campaign to "lessen dependence on Arab oil" - and Somalia, though not ethnically Arab, is Arabically-speaking and a member of the Arab League - they may be on the back burner for a while. The above campaign, dutifully echoed in much of the nominally left press since Septembet 11, is largely the result of - we have to be honest - the Israel Lobby, which is why many of its major spokesmen, including Wolfowitz, Joseph Lieberman and Richard Perle, are so vocal on the issue. The focus then, if 'Arab oil interests' are to be sidelined, is on the Caspian Sea Basin, Central Asia and South America. Practically, this means construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan overland pipeline from the Caspian to the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean; the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan-Adriatic pipeline into the Balkans; a Vietnam-style war in Colombia and a Chile-style destabilization/coup effort in Venezuela to gain control of South American petroleum. Somali energy reserves may be second tier at this point, though never off the drawing board. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
