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http://www.geocities.com/brojongazette/frontpage/bj050701-2.html BLACK GOLD HOT GOLD The Rise of Fascism in the American Energy Business (Pre-publication online preview excerpt) (CHAPTER TWO) -- by Marshall Douglas Smith Following World War II, the British-Persian Oil Company still controlled the vast oil fields in Iran. The Persians had already shown they were aligned with Adolf Hitler's fascist "Aryan Race" movement and were fully expecting German General Rommel to come rushing across Africa and "free" them from the British. They showed this by even changing the name of their country from Persia to "Aryan," or "Iran" in the Farsi language. But the Germans failed to arrive. After the war, British control of the Persian oilfields was soon easily eliminated. In 1954 Kermit Roosevelt, nephew of Franklin, led an American CIA coup to wrest control of Iran and placed in power the American-backed Shah of Iran. The Shah drove out the British. Standard Oil now had control of the British-Persian petroleum fields. But what of the still vaster oil fields in southern Russia? Also in 1954, with negotiations made through Occidental Petroleum's Armand Hammer, a deal was made with Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. The arrangement was to buy his oil, actually steal it from the Russian people, and sell it on the world market at a much higher price than Stalin could get by selling it himself. Stalin was no oil marketer. Few countries would be willing to deal with or buy oil from Stalin, thus there was almost no market for the Russian oil. The simple but devious method was to build two large pipelines, which still exist today, going from the Russian oil fields down along both sides of the Caspian Sea and then terminate in the old British-Persian oil fields in Iran, which by then were controlled by Standard Oil. Was Russia selling oil to oil-rich Iran? Or Iran selling to oil-rich Russia? There would seem no logical reason for building those two huge pipe lines simply going from one oil field to another. For over 45 years, Russia has been sneaking its oil out through those pipe lines and selling its oil on the world market at the "West Texas Crude" price by calling it Iranian oil. Its what most Americans have been putting in their cars for almost 50 years. This is made evident by the fact that most large American oil refineries which produce gasoline from crude oil are located at large sea ports like San Francisco, Houston or Los Angeles, and not near any of the large American oil fields. Oil is mostly shipped in oil tankers, not explosive flammable gasoline, so those large American refinery-ports are only for the import of crude oil, not for the export of refined gasoline. Thus there is a simple one-way massive flow of oil from Russian fields, through Iran to large super oil tanker ships, to American refineries, and then into American cars. Many times, since 1973, whenever the price of gasoline skyrockets, American's are told its their own fault, since they are relying on using too much expensive foreign oil. When was the last time you went to the gas station to fill your tank and were given a choice of pumping either the American gas or the expensive foreign gas, and you decided, "Hmm, I think I'll buy the foreign gas." It turns out somebody else has already chosen for you. Guess who? Standard now had almost complete control of the world market for energy. To make this scheme work, both Stalin in Russia and the Shah in Iran had to be paid handsomely. But buying off the leaders of dictatorships is easy when money is no object. The problem is maintaining the dictators in power, especially when the local populace learns their natural resources are being stolen. In 1979, when the Standard Oil-backed Shah of Iran was thrown out by his own people as a harsh iron-fisted "profiteering" dictator and the nationalist Ayatollah took over, the flow of Russian oil through Iran suddenly stopped. Other pipelines were constructed through Iraq and Turkey. The Russian oil was now called OPEC Arabian-Middle Eastern oil and marketed at the even higher "spot market" price. This accounts for the gas shortages and the rise of the price of gasoline in 1979. On November 4, 1979 the Iranian “revolutionaries” captured and held hostage 65 Americans. The very next day Iran canceled all treaties with the US and USSR, which meant the oil flow had been stopped. In response, President Carter froze the Iranian “assets” in the US. Why would the US have nearly $8 billion in Iranian assets? Were those the regular payments which were to be made to the Shah for covering up the Russian oil transfer? Did the new Iranian government want the money which was due and payable or else they would expose the oil scheme? The lengthy Iran-Iraq war had just started and Iran needed the money. Most Americans and historians believe somehow the election of President Reagan was the reason for holding the remaining 52 American hostages until the very day when Reagan was inaugurated. Most people are not aware the hostages were actually released only moments after the year-long negotiations and the complex electronic transfer was completed of 7.9 billion dollars from US accounts to the Iranian accounts on January 20, 1981. Carter had announced the day before on January 19th that the arrangements had been made, but the news media paid little attention. It was Standard Oil, not the United States, which was being “blackmailed” by the Iranians. President Carter had “frozen” the Iranian accounts, but that was not US money. It was oil money, and Ronald Reagan was not a player in that game. Also in 1979 an attempt to secure an alternate short safe oil pipeline route from Russia through neighboring Afghanistan only resulted in a prolonged war and that project was dropped. Sometimes you can fool some of the people, but not always. Another, safer and more profitable oil route was desperately needed which would not be open to revolution and warfare. Both of which could affect the flow of oil. For over 25 years, it appears the new method has been to transfer oil through the long Trans-Siberian pipeline stretching from the southern Russian oilfields to the Arctic Sea in eastern Siberia. Then the Russian oil is brought down through the Alaska Pipe line and marketed as North Slope American oil. All during this time something called the “anti-communist” Cold War was occurring, but in the larger Empire of Energy, such things do not exist. In early 1990, the USSR announced through the TASS news service that the Trans-Siberian Pipeline would need extended maintenance and for about a year would be reducing their oil output by 25%. Four days later the Alaska Pipeline company, announced they would be doing extended maintenance and for about a year would be reducing their oil output by 25%. Coincidence? Those two stories were both reported by the Associated Press several days apart in 1990, but nobody seems to have put them together. The Arctic Sea is a navigational "no-mans" land and only "military" ships are allowed there, so any transfer is easily hidden. OPEC itself is another Standard Oil scheme which, by arbitrarily withholding supplies of oil, can drive up the price. This is reminiscent of the old Union Tanker Car Company method of getting the customer to start the oil flow going, then arbitrarily cutting off the supply in order to "corner" the market, drive out competitors, and raise the prices. OPEC should not really have any affect on the world price of oil since it controls only about 10 percent of the total world supply, unless one wants to believe all American oil comes from Arabia. Which it doesn't, since most world oil comes from the vastly larger oil fields in Russia. And it is Standard and its spin-offs which control most of the Russian and Arabian oil. You probably think most of what I said here doesn't make sense. How could Rockefeller's Standard Oil be doing all that? You probably think, wait a minute, where is Standard Oil? I never even hear about them anymore. Does it still exist? Yes. In the Wednesday January 27, 1988, Wall Street Journal, in a full two-page double-truck ad, it was announced that little Standard Oil was merging with big brother British Petroleum. Could this be true? British Petroleum then had very few productive holdings compared to Standard Oil which controlled much of the world market. The scheme was, when they announced the merger, actually finally a Standard Oil buyout of British Petroleum, the name of the new merged company was BP-America. In other words, BP is Standard Oil. Standard Oil simply took over the assets and the name of British Petroleum. The name was chosen to hide that fact. Seemingly, all fears and worries about the world-wide predatory marketing practices of Standard Oil have now been allayed and put to rest -- since the name Standard Oil is never mentioned again. In the last 12 years, during a period of many large companies merging, such as AOL-Time-Warner, etc., BP-America has also merged again and again and changed its name. It is now known as BP-AMOCO but it has in fact bought up, merged with, or controls all of the old Standard Oil "mini-companies" which came from the original breakup by the US government way back in 1911. Thus, John D. Rockefeller's vow of recombining his original Standard Oil Company has been accomplished, even though it was done by his grandsons and their progeny. BP-AMOCO recently took over control of the Alaska Pipeline. There may appear to be several companies like Texaco or Mobil all drilling on the north slope of Alaska, but it's John D's offspring who now control the price at the spigot in Valdez Harbor. And of course, it's that spigot which is at the end of a very long pipeline stretching all the way to the world's largest oil source in southern Russia. The Empire of Energy now seemed to only have one obstacle left in its way. (End of Chapter Two) |
