Two articles relevant to Bush-Blair's War. We are beginning to see the real story behind Bush's attack on Afghanistan: OIL. And this should come as no surprise, given Bush is an oil-man himself, and was elected by petro-dollars. Indeed, oil-man Al Gore would be proud of his former adversary's performance. Nor should we forget that the last Gulf war was fought for the same reason: to protect US oil interests, especially in Kuwait.
It's clear that Bush's primary goal is not to capture bin Laden (after all, that might reveal that bin Laden was not the mastermind behind the Sept 11 attacks - many commentators have noted that al Qaeda doesn't have the capacity to have organised such a complex operation), but to remove the Taliban. Bush isn't doing this to crush terrorism, though this would still be a secondary goal, since the economic effect of consumer nervousness threatens profits. No: the USA is attacking the Taliban and supporting the murderous Northern Alliance so that a more compliant, business-friendly government can be installed, with a view to ensuring that UNOCAL's oil pipeline goes ahead. The following two articles explain the oil connection in more detail. Both were originally posted to the Greens-Global mail list by "Paul" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Disclaimer: The articles are provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owners for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." Apologies for x-posting. Chris Chaplin Spokesperson for Trade, Immigration and Housing The Greens (Victoria) T: +61 3 9484 0802 M: 0400 886 876 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] W: www.vic.greens.org.au --------------------- >From Asia Times, Hong Kong Oct 6 http://www.atimes.com/global-econ/CJ06Dj01.html The oil behind Bush and Son's campaigns By Ranjit Devraj NEW DELHI - Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was all about oil, the new conflict in South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region's abundant petroleum resources, according to Indian analysts. "US influence and military presence in Afghanistan and the Central Asian states, not unlike that over the oil-rich Gulf states, would be a major strategic gain," said V R Raghavan, a strategic analyst and former general in the Indian army. Raghavan believes that the prospect of a western military presence in a region extending from Turkey to Tajikistan could not have escaped strategists who are now readying a military campaign aimed at changing the political order in Afghanistan, accused by the United States of harboring Osama bin Laden. Where the "great game" in Afghanistan was once about czars and commissars seeking access to the warm water ports of the Persian Gulf, today it is about laying oil and gas pipelines to the untapped petroleum reserves of Central Asia. According to testimony before the US House of Representatives in March 1999 by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan together have 15 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The same countries also have proven gas deposits totaling not less than nine trillion cubic meters. Another study by the Institute for Afghan Studies placed the total worth of oil and gas reserves in the Central Asian republics at around US $3 trillion at last year's prices. Not only can Afghanistan play a role in hosting pipelines connecting Central Asia to international markets, but the country itself has significant oil and gas deposits. During the Soviets' decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s. But sabotage by anti-Soviet mujahideen (freedom fighters) and by rival groups in the civil war that followed Soviet withdrawal in 1989 virtually closed down gas production and ended deals for the supply of gas to several European countries. Major Afghan natural gas fields awaiting exploitation include Jorqaduq, Khowaja, Gogerdak, and Yatimtaq, all of which are located within 9 kilometers of the town of Sheberghan in northrern Jowzjan province. Natural gas production and distribution under Afghanistan's Taliban rulers is the responsibility of the Afghan Gas Enterprise which, in 1999, began repair of a pipeline to Mazar-i-Sharif city. Afghanistan's proven and probable oil and condensate reserves were placed at 95 million barrels by the Soviets. So far, attempts to exploit Afghanistan's petroleum reserves or take advantage of its unique geographical location as a crossroads to markets in Europe and South Asia have been thwarted by the continuing civil strife. In 1998, the California-based UNOCAL, which held 46.5 percent stakes in Central Asia Gas (CentGas), a consortium that planned an ambitious gas pipeline across Afghanistan, withdrew in frustration after several fruitless years. The pipeline was to stretch 1,271km from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad fields to Multan in Pakistan at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. An additional $600 million would have brought the pipeline to energy-hungry India. Energy experts in India, such as R K Pachauri, who heads the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), have long been urging the country's planners to ensure access to petroleum products from the Central Asian republics, with which New Delhi has traditionally maintained good relations. Other partners in CentGas included the Saudi Arabian Delta Oil Company, the Government of Turkmenistan, Indonesia Petroleum (INPEX), the Japanese ITOCHU, Korean Hyundai and Pakistan's Crescent Group. According to observers, one problem is the uncertainty over who the beneficiaries in Afghanistan would be - the opposition Northern Alliance, the Taliban, the Afghan people or indeed, whether any of these would benefit at all. But the immediate reason for UNOCAL's withdrawal was undoubtedly the US cruise missile attacks on Osama bin Laden's terrorism training camps in Afghanistan in August 1998, done in retaliation for the bombing of its embassies in Africa. UNOCAL then stated that the project would have to wait until Afghanistan achieved the "peace and stability necessary to obtain financing from international agencies and a government that is recognized by the United States and the United Nations". The "coalition against terrorism" that US President George W Bush is building now is the first opportunity that has any chance of making UNOCAL's wish come true. If the coalition succeeds, Raghavan said, it has the potential of "reconfiguring substantially the energy scenarios for the 21st century". (Inter Press Service) *** Cheney Made Millions Off Oil Deals With Hussein by, Martin A. Lee San Francisco Bay Guardian http://www.sfbg.com/reality/04.html (Martin Lee wrote the book Acid Dreams and LSD & the CIA.) Here's a whopper of a story you may have missed amid the cacophony of campaign ads and stump speeches in the run-up to the elections. During former defense secretary Richard Cheney's five-year tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Inc., his oil services firm raked in big bucks from dubious commercial dealings with Iraq. Cheney left Halliburton with a $34 million retirement package last July when he became the GOP's vice-presidential candidate. Of course, U.S. firms aren't generally supposed to do business with Saddam Hussein. But thanks to legal loopholes large enough to steer an oil tanker through, Halliburton profited big-time from deals with the Iraqi dictatorship. Conducted discreetly through several Halliburton subsidiaries in Europe, these greasy transactions helped Saddam Hussein retain his grip on power while lining the pockets of Cheney and company. According to the Financial Times of London, between September 1988 and last winter, Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, oversaw $23.8 million of business contracts for the sale of oil-industry equipment and services to Iraq through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, which helped rebuild Iraq's war-damaged petroleum-production infrastructure. The combined value of these contracts exceeded those of any other U.S. company doing business with Baghdad. Halliburton was among more than a dozen American firms that supplied Iraq's petroleum industry with spare parts and retooled its oil rigs when U.N. sanctions were eased in 1998. Cheney's company utilized subsidiaries in France, Italy, Germany, and Austria so as not to draw undue attention to controversial business arrangements that might embarrass Washington and jeopardize lucrative ties to Iraq, which will pump $24 billion of petrol under the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program this year. Assisted by Halliburton, Hussein's government will earn another $1 billion by illegally exporting oil through black-market channels. With Cheney at the helm since 1995, Halliburton quickly grew into America's number-one oil-services company, the fifth-largest military contractor, and the biggest nonunion employer in the nation. Although Cheney claimed that the U.S. government "had absolutely nothing to do" with his firm's meteoric financial success, State Department documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicate that U.S. officials helped Halliburton secure major contracts in Asia and Africa. Halliburton now does business in 130 countries and employs more than 100,000 workers worldwide. Its 1999 income was a cool $15 billion. In addition to Iraq, Halliburton counts among its business partners several brutal dictatorships that have committed egregious human rights abuses, including the hated military regime in Burma (Myanmar). EarthRights, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights watchdog, condemned Halliburton for two energy-pipeline projects in Burma that led to the forced relocation of villages, rape, murder, indentured labor, and other crimes against humanity. A full report (this is a 45 page pdf file - there is also a brief summary) on the Burma connection, "Halliburton's Destructive Engagement," can be accessed on EarthRights' Web site: http://www.earthrights.org Human rights activists have also criticized Cheney's company for its questionable role in Algeria, Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia, Indonesia, and other volatile trouble spots. In Russia, Halliburton's partner, Tyumen Oil, has been accused of committing massive fraud to gain control of a Siberian oil field. And in oil-rich Nigeria, Halliburton worked with Shell and Chevron, which were implicated in gross human rights violations and environmental calamities in that country. Indeed, Cheney's firm increased its involvement in the Niger Delta after the military government executed several ecology activists and crushed popular protests against the oil industry. Halliburton also had business dealings in Iran and Libya, which remain on the State Department's list of terrorist states. Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, was fined $3.8 million for reexporting U.S. goods to Libya in violation of U.S. sanctions. But in terms of sheer hypocrisy, Halliburton's relationship with Saddam Hussein is hard to top. What's more, Cheney lied about his company's activities in Iraq when journalists fleetingly raised the issue during the campaign. Questioned by Sam Donaldson on ABC's This Week program in August, Cheney bluntly asserted that Halliburton had no dealings with the Iraqi regime while he was on board. Donaldson: I'm told, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Halliburton, through subsidiaries, was actually trying to do business in Iraq? Cheney: No. No. I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq - even arrangements that were supposedly legal. And that was it! ABC News and the other U.S. networks dropped the issue like a hot potato. As damning information about Halliburton surfaced in the European press, American reporters stuck to old routines and took their cues on how to cover the campaign from the two main political parties, both of which had very little to say about official U.S. support for abusive corporate policies at home and abroad. But why, in this instance, didn't the Democrats stomp and scream about Cheney's Iraq connection? The Gore campaign undoubtedly knew of Halliburton's smarmy business dealings from the get-go. Gore and Lieberman could have made hay about how the wannabe GOP veep had been in cahoots with Saddam. Such explosive revelations may well have swayed voters and boosted Gore's chances in what was shaping up to be a close electoral contest. The Democratic standard-bearers dropped the ball in part because Halliburton's conduct was generally in accordance with the foreign policy of the Clinton administration. Cheney is certainly not the only Washington mover and shaker to have been affiliated with a company trading in Iraq. Former CIA Director John Deutsch, who served in a Democratic administration, is a member of the board of directors of Schlumberger, the second-largest U.S. oil-services company, which also does business through subsidiaries in Iraq. Despite occasional rhetorical skirmishes, a bipartisan foreign-policy consensus prevails on Capital Hill, where the commitment to human rights, with a few notable exceptions, is about as deep as an oil slick. Truth be told, trading with the enemy is a time-honored American corporate practice - or perhaps "malpractice" would be a more appropriate description of big-business ties to repressive regimes. Given that Saddam Hussein, the pariah du jour, has often been compared to Hitler, it's worth pointing out that several blue-chip U.S. firms profited from extensive commercial dealings with Nazi Germany. Shockingly, some American companies - including Standard Oil, Ford, ITT, GM, and General Electric - secretly kept trading with the Nazi enemy while American soldiers fought and died during World War II. Today General Electric is among the companies that are back in business with Saddam Hussein, even as American jets and battleships attack Iraq on a weekly basis using weapons made by G.E. But the United Nations sanctions committee, dominated by U.S. officials, has routinely blocked medicines and other essential items from being delivered to Iraq through the oil-for-food program, claiming they have a potential military "dual use." These sanctions have taken a terrible toll on ordinary Iraqis, and on children in particular, while the likes of Halliburton and G.E. continue to lubricate their coffers. Martin A. Lee is author of The Beast Reawakens, a book about resurgent fascism. His column, Reality Bites, appears every Monday on http://www.sfbg.com Source: www.sfbg.com/reality/04.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ " The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology. " -- Michael Parenti, political scientist and author " U.S. Ieaders commit war crimes as a matter of institutional necessity, as their imperial role calls for keeping subordinate peoples in their proper place and assuring a "favorable climate of investment" everywhere. They do this by using their economic power, but also ... by supporting Diem, Mobutu, Pinochet, Suharto, Savimbi, Marcos, Fujimori, Salinas, and scores of similar leaders. War crimes also come easily because U.S. Ieaders consider themselves to be the vehicles of a higher morality and truth and can operate in violation of law without cost. It is also immensely helpful that their mainstream media agree that their country is above the law and will support and rationalize each and every venture and the commission of war crimes. " -- Edward Herman, political economist and author "Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
