-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.transnational.org/forum/power/1999/12oilcompanies.html
{{<Begin>}}
America's Push on the Caspian Pipeline is Not Good Sense for the Oil Companies
By JONATHAN POWER
Dec 2, 1999
LONDON- Rarely, if at all in the post Cold War world, has there been such a
stark case of high politics and doubtful economics. The oil company's director
of international affairs has been openly blunt about it: "The only way this is
going to work is to make the pipeline as affordable as possible for shippers to
put their oil down it. We are asking the U.S. government to attract as much oil
as possible and to attract as much financing as possible".
Thus BP Amoco, the world's third largest oil company, opens its begging bowl
for
a taxpayers' handout with the fulsome backing of the U.S. government. All in
the
cause of giving Russia, now supposedly no longer our enemy, a black eye. Left to
itself and the dictates of the competitive market, BP Amoco would not build a
new pipeline to carry Caspian Sea oil across Turkey, avoiding the old routes
through Russia. But if the U.S. government makes it worth its while, well that
is another story.
Not for nothing have the oil companies signed up high paid consultants the likes
of former U.S. Secretaries of State Al Haig and James Baker and former National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Insecure when it comes to political
decisions whose stakes are this high the oil companies have bought the best
advice money can buy. The truth is they've bought re-cycled Cold War warriors
whose primary loyalty is not to their current paymasters but to their long-held
convictions that the U.S. should first win the Cold War and then make sure that
Russia can never again mount a credible challenge to the West. To integrate
Russia with the West would be a mistake, they believe. Rather Russia should be
reduced in power and then isolated. This is the Treaty of Versailles by another
name and another method. Not reparations. Instead, no opportunities.
And political encirclement - an expanded Nato on its western flank and a line of
pro-western oil-rich client states- Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan and
Kazahstan - on its southern Asian flank. And, of course, if possible, a Western
orientated China on its east.
At the moment oil from the Caspian Sea goes from Azerbaijan across Georgia to
Russia or up through Chechnya. The Russians, naturally, would want to see these
routes, which are both the cheapest and the most direct, used to capacity. And,
if they become overused, build an additional pipeline for oil and gas underwater
to Turkey's Black Sea Coast.
The oil companies themselves have pushed for a new pipeline south via Iran with
an outlet on the Persian Gulf. But the U.S., despite some tentative moves
towards rapprochement with Iran, is not yet in the mood to consider ending its
long standing embargo. It remains convinced that Iran is still intent on
manufacturing nuclear weapons and targeting them on Israel.
The deal long in the making for the new Caspian pipeline across Georgia and then
Turkey was announced two weeks ago by President Bill Clinton in Istanbul and
immediately denounced in Moscow as one more piece of evidence that, although
Washington talks a lot of peace, its clear long term purpose is hard real
politik, a fundamental change in the whole strategic relationship between Russia
and the West.
For now the Yeltsin Administration has its own reasons for keeping the Russian
reaction in check. Yeltsin himself started the ball rolling by working to
dismember the Soviet Union as part of his own bid to displace from power Mikhail
Gorbachev - he needed to make his own position as the elected Russian premier
the one that counted. But once Yeltsin ends his term of office next year a new
man in the Kremlin - likely on the present line up to be more of a nationalist -
will draw on the widespread anti-American antipathy that exists not just among
those that follow such matters, but among a general populace that was startled
by the expansion of Nato and is distinctly uneasy about America's wish to
re-write the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The oil pipeline confirms the worst
suspicions of the Russian man and woman in the street who feel more by the day
that America is trying to do their country down.
Clinton Administration apologists have their arguments. Mr Clinton himself has
described the pipeline as "an insurance policy for the entire world because it
would route energy supplies through multiple routes and not a single choke
point".
The language of choke points dates back to Cold War days and the greatly
overdrawn fears that the Soviet armies would march across Afghanistan and
Pakistan and head down to the Persian Gulf and close it off for exiting oil
tankers by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz. Wildly exaggerated as a
scenario then, it received its coup de grace when, as a consequence of the Gulf
War, Iraq was stopped from shipping its oil out and the West, somewhat to its
surprise, found it could live without it. Besides, the last thing Russia wants
to do is to hoard its hard-currency-earning oil.
Another senior administration official told the New York Times last week that
the Russians "clearly see this as threatening. They see this as the next phase
of U.S.-Russian competition. They don't seem to understand that they would be
better off with a stable southern flank".
"Stable southern flank?" Is that how Washington would look at it if the
Russians were engaged in a similar endeavour in Mexico and Guatemala? There can
be no stable southern flank if there is East/West competition. We already have
had a poisonous taste of that with the helping hand from Washington that put the
Taliban power in Afghanistan in an effort to keep pro Russian elements at bay. A
few years later the Taliban are succouring extreme Islamic militants far and
wide including the notorious Osama bin Laden. And, earlier this year, the chief
foreign affairs advisor to the president of Azerbaijan was reported as saying
that Azerbaijan wants a U.S. military base there, a viewpoint that Washington
has not sought to firmly rebuff. How "stable" can such provocation be?
BP Amoco has said that it won't make a final decision on going ahead with the
new pipeline until next October when it will be clear just how much financing
the U.S. has been able to raise. The oil companies should use the time to start
thinking for themselves. The British, American and Norwegian companies involved
already have contracts to prospect for and extract the oil and gas. The free
market has already made them winners whichever route is decided for. Isn't that
enough? Do they really need government aid to prosper? Do they really want to
end up as the lackeys of new-born Cold War warriors in Washington? If they pause
to ponder these questions they might be pleasantly surprised what answers they
get.
Copyright © 1999 By JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
{{<End>}}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From AntiWar.Com
http://www.antiwar.com/goldstein/g-col.html
{{<Begin>}}
December 8, 1999
James Bond and Big Oil. Here we go again.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
I am not by profession a film critic; in fact, I am singularly unsuited for this
noble form of parasitism. But the latest James Bond film The World is not
Enough, has me frothing at the mouth. I love the technological Gizmos, the
unthinking English arrogance, the political incorrectness and the sarcastic
humour. I do not mind the silly mistakes, like making the Azeris out as
Christians near the beginning of the film. What is annoying me is the unspoken,
and therefore unchallenged assumption that oil, and access to oil, is
everything.
SWISS WITCHES
Firstly, let me get one small gripe off my chest. In the opening scene the baddy
(clue for non-Bond fans – baddies have a foreign accent), a Swiss banker says,
"I’m only giving back what is not mine" to which our hero replies "unusual for a
Swiss banker." What cheek! This witch-hunt against the Swiss must stop. In the
holocaust, millions died many of them with liquid or moveable assets. Gold, bank
accounts, shares, paintings, insurance policies; six million people in a
developed economy are going to collectively have substantial amounts of wealth.
The holocaust meant that many of these assets were without owners. You may not
realize it from the media coverage, but it was not just the Swiss, or even
mainly the Swiss, who acted shabbily. German companies (many still trading) used
slave labour from the concentration camps, as in Schindler’s List. London
auction houses sold looted paintings. French and Italian insurance companies
refused to pay life insurance without death certificates, and banks all around
Europe made little effort to notify heirs of bank accounts. So why do the Swiss
attract more media and government attention than the rest of these scandals
combined? Perhaps it is the Swiss attachment to bank secrecy, and antipathy to
other aspects of the New World Order (Switzerland has never been a member of the
United Nations for example). If the principle of bank secrecy is broken for the
sake of auditing whether the banks’ have properly accounted for Nazi gold it
lets open a deliberately undefined loophole. What about the accounts of deposed
third world dictators, drug dealers, organized criminals, money launderers,
pimps, tax avoiders, rich divorcees, political dissidents, you, me? I pass on,
without comment, the information from the Economist that the chairman committee
to monitor the response of the Swiss banks, is Paul Volcker who until 1BG
(Before Greenspan) was the head of the Federal Reserve, America’s bank
regulator. It is a slippery slope, and enough material for another column, which
I wrote last week. Next time you hear the hue and cry about Swiss gold, ask if
the motives are 24 carat.
PIPELINE DREAMS
However, let me return to my main gripe, oil pipelines. The basic idea of the
plot is that the British secret services, in the gallant shape of Mr. Bond, are
trying to make sure that a pipeline is built that bypasses Russian control. As
Bond’s boss, M (played by Judi Dench) says "this pipeline will secure our
economic future for the next century." The pipeline builders are beset at all
times by terrorists, who aim to restrict the choice of pipelines and, by their
actions bring fantastic profits to the pipeline owners while bringing the
Western economy to its knees. I really cannot say much more on this, as cinema
experiences may be ruined.
ANOTHER REASON FOR EMPIRE
There are as many silly excuses for empire as there are silly imperial
apologists. One of the most common is the resources argument. It goes something
like this, "we are not self sufficient in [delete as appropriate]
oil/iron/food/bauxite/cashew nuts/Christmas decorations/anything else. If the
supply of this commodity dries, our economy will be forced to its knees. Country
X is an exporter of this commodity and has an unstable government. If we
stabilize/depose/restore the government then we will never need to worry about
shortage again." Therefore, we commence upon another high road to Empire.
LET THE PRICE FLY
It is amazing that the most ardent proponents of this doctrine style themselves
Conservatives (or Neo-Cons) and profess profound admiration for the workings of
the market. It seems that they have spent so long admiring the market that they
have failed to take the time to understand it. So what if the pipelines are cut
or Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, what is the worse that will happen to the
economies of the West? The price of oil will go up. The price will act as a
signal to other suppliers, suppliers of alternate sources and consumers. Oil
traders, those shady people that Bond sneers at in Casinos, will find different
ways of selling the same oil to us, as they did the last couple of times OPEC
raised the price. Other oil producers will produce more. Marginal oil
production, such as many of Britain’s North Sea fields, will be bought back on
line and it will become more profitable to prospect for new oil fields. Other
sources of energy such as coal, wind turbines and nuclear energy will be
harnessed. Cars that use lots of petrol will be avoided in favour of more
efficient models and goods that take a lot of energy to produce will become more
expensive and will be produced less. There will be dislocations here, but
nothing like going off on needless wars to defend the right to wear a tee shirt
in the house in the middle of winter. In the end we will survive, and by letting
the market rip, be far stronger in the long term. One does not tell an addict to
keep on heroin because going cold turkey is a bad experience.
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN OIL
Consider the alternative. We are engaged in a genocidal war against the Iraqi
people for the simple reason that their (non-elected) leader made a particularly
ill advised and bloody grab for higher oil market share ten years ago. There is
a moral price, half a million mostly innocent lives, that I am simply unwilling
to pay. Playing the Great Game also puts our tax bills up to pay for otherwise
unnecessary weaponry and foreign aid. It also puts one of the few political
achievements of the late twentieth century, an end to military conscription, at
risk. War is the health of the State, and a bloated state is far less healthy
for a modern economy than a short-term jump in oil prices.
THE OPEN DOOR, FORCED AJAR
The fact is that this forcible appropriation of other countries’ oil is the
conclusion of the open door policy, where we force other countries to let their
markets open to the West. In that we do not let other countries decide just how
they are going to sell us their natural resources, or decide how they are to go
through their countries, we are pillaging weaker and poorer states. As an aside,
the policy of protection is going to logically lead to the same sort of economic
imperialism, probably in the same ill-fitting humanitarian dress, as the present
policy of managed trade. Those who sincerely call for the American government to
look after America first by raising tariff barriers should remember that no
country can get self-sufficiency in all things. Eventually a protectionist
policy will make the republic seek an empire to get the resources that the
republic just cannot get on its own. Free trade is the only logical policy that
a non-interventionist can advocate. Trust me, as a Brit I know we lost you guys
when we tried to force you into a systematic trading bloc. What do you think the
Boston Tea Party was all about?
THE GREAT GAME IS FOR LITTLE BOYS
The attractions of oil pipelines are strong for certain types of armchair
generals, like me. The Italian fascist (sorry, post-fascist) party, the
National Alliance, claim that the Kosovo war is an American plot to strangle the
economy a United Europe, by bombing a certain pipeline route. More plausibly,
Stratfor.com points out the massive investment that states will have to make, as
most of the companies lobbying for a Trans-Caucasian pipeline will not foot the
bill. And to bring the Bond analogy home, the excellent George Szamuely points
out that we will gradually be drawn into a needless conflict with Russia, which
unlike BP-Amoco controls nuclear bombs.
A LESSON NOT LEARNED
The 1990s have been an orgy of self-congratulation on how we have learned the
economic lessons of the 1980s. As Mr. Bond and our political class show, this
ain’t necessarily so.
Emmanuel Goldstein is the pseudonym of a political drifter on the fringes of
English classical liberal and Euro-sceptic activity. He is a former member of
the Labour Party, who knows Blair and some of his closest buddies better than
they realise, yet. He has a challenging job in the real world, working for a
profit-making private company and not sponging off the taxpayer in politics,
journalism or the civil service. "Airstrip One," appears Wednesdays at
Antiwar.com. Archived Columns James Bond and Big Oil. Here we go again 12/8/99
Because we do: A plea for Reaction 12/1/99 The Last Noble Cause: Euroscepticism
and the Battle for Britain 11/24/99 Tony Blair: The Future’s Blight 11/17/99 Why
the Second World War will always be popular in Britain 11/10/99 A Peace of Paper
11/3/99 The Old Fight of New Labour 10/21/99
Please Support Antiwar.com
A contribution of $20 or more gets you a copy of Justin Raimondo's Into the
Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against US Intervention in the Balkans, a 60-page
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contributions to Antiwar.com 520 S. Murphy Avenue, #202 Sunnyvale, CA 94086
{{<End>}}
>From NEWSMAX.COM
{{<Begin>}}
The Oily Tracks Running Through Kosovo
Michael Savage
November 30, 1999
Kosovo was about oil and nothing but oil, with maybe some uranium thrown in and
a dash of "wag-the-dog." And you thought it was to save the poor Kosovar
Albanians.
Of all the ethnically "cleansed" peoples around the world, some numbering in
the millions, the beneficent powers of NATO decided to draw the line with the
Kosovar Albanians. About 2,000 of the ethnic Albanians had been reportedly
killed by Serbs in the last several years, so it was time for the humanitarian
guard to take action.
No matter that about as many Serbs had been killed by the Albanians, and that
Kosovo is a part of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, and that this conflict
had been ongoing for centuries. Big Oil required a pipeline through Kosovo and
the poor Serbs just happened to own the wrong real estate at the wrong time.
How do I know that the Kosovo action was about oil or, to be exact, about
establishing a safe haven for an oil pipeline? Just recently Bill Clinton
signed an historic agreement with Azerbaijan on this very matter. Azerbaijan is
one of the former Soviet republics that became a separate country with the
breakup of the USSR. Formerly, Caspian oil would have come into the world
market as a Soviet export but not anymore. It now comes under the flag of this
newly independent nation via Turkey where it is transshipped by way of Turkish
seaports. And Russia has been deftly unlinked from the world oil market.
Now, keen interest in Azerbaijani oil is nothing new. The Germans have had a
compelling interest in this oil going back to 1905 and extending through the
two world wars up to and including the present. One of Hitler’s primary goals
in his push to the east was to capture the Azerbaijani oil fields. But where
the Kaiser and Nazi Germany failed, it seems the New World Order — featuring
Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and other socialists — is going to succeed. The plan
is now to route the oil in a way that will fulfill Germany’s long-sought-after
objective.
Here is how the oil is going to run. It starts from the oil fields of Baku,
Azerbaijan’s capital on the Caspian Sea. It is piped from there across
Azerbaijan and Georgia through Turkey. But the plan of Clinton, and the rest of
the present-day Neue Ordnung, is now to have it piped from Turkey directly
through Bulgaria. In this way it can reach the Danube and the Adriatic Sea —
the Danube being a direct route to Germany and the Adriatic bringing it much
closer to Western Europe. And Russia is expected to look on, while it’s being
aced out of this highly lucrative action.
But before reaching the Danube and the Adriatic, as you’ve probably guessed,
the pipeline must first go from Bulgaria through Yugoslavia and Kosovo!
Slobodan Milosevich, however, has had other plans for oil shipment through his
country that are more to his liking (and Russia’s) and was unwilling to
cooperate with this scenario. The NATO socialists were attacking Russia, by
proxy, in stealing Kosovo from Serbia.
Now it begins to make sense, doesn’t it? The reason becomes clear why, of all
the ethnic and religious oppression in the world, NATO chose this area tucked
away in the Balkans for its ground-leveling "humanitarian" aid. And why the One
World media places Slobodan Milosevich, a small-time local tyrant, alongside
Hitler and Stalin.
During the shameful and cowardly NATO bombing of the historic bridges across
the Danube River, the mouthpieces of the Government-Media complex ceaselessly
propagandized. Jamie Shea, the English soccer thug; James Rubin, Mad Half-
Bright’s Stooge; Solana, the Spanish socialist; an unnamed Luftwaffe general;
and others continued the Big Lie. They were bombing Serbian civilians
(hospitals, schools, trains, powerplants, apartments, orphanages) to save
Albanians!
They were also destroying Kosovo to save it. These international war criminals
were led by General Wesley Clark (a Rhodes Scholar from Arkansaw) who clicked
his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton (another Rhodes
Scholar from Arkansaw).
But the greatest shame must fall upon the tendentious media hacks. ABC, CBS,
NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and most columnists of the neo-right all fell in line:
"The criminal bombing was just. It was to save the innocent ‘ethnic’ Albanians
from the evil [non-ethnic] Serbs." Have you now heard one of these hacks
apologize or admit they were duped? Used by Big Oil to apologize for, no, to
justify, NATO war crimes?
Even their "reportage" on the recent demonstrations of more than 25,000 Greek
citizens was biased. Both by under-reporting the number ("hundreds," blared the
San Francisco Examiner) and by ascribing the legitimate protests against
Clinton’s war crimes to "communists" and anti-American sentiment going back to
the 1970s!
With the NATO presence in Kosovo, the way is now clear for the pipeline — and
for the ethnic Albanians to ethnically cleanse the province of the remaining,
helpless Kosovar Serbs, Gypsies, and Jews. To make the world safe for Big Oil’s
trans-Kosovo pipeline.
Read More Articles by Michael Savage
http://216.46.238.34/articles/?a=1999/10/12/133107
Michael Savage Joins NewsMax.com as Columnist
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