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America’s War on Terror a Cover for Big Oil? Is America’s war on terror a cover for who will control the natural resources in the Caspian region? Exclusive to American Free Press By Edward W. Miller As more details surface, it becomes obvious that this savage incursion into Afghan territory has less to do with accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and more to do with Wash ington’s plans for oil and political hegemony in the Caspian region. In addition to the plutocratic dream of an oil pipeline stretching westward through Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia into Turkey and to the West, thus skirting both Russia and Iran, is another scenario: As reported in the Oct. 12 issue of Mideast Inter na tional, by Bill Hayton, with the Russian economy in sham bles, the Central Asian Republics have all joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. Hayton notes: From 1996 onwards, the United States has trained and molded a combined Central Asian Bat tal ion, made up of troops from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. In 1997, in a high-profile demonstration of U.S. capabilities, part of the 82nd Airborne Division flew 8,000 miles non-stop from its base in South Carolina to parachute directly into Kazakhstan, reports Hayton. After watching the troops land, Hayton wrote, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Katherine Kelle her said: “The U.S. interest in Central Asia has much to do with the vast oil and natural gas fields that, by 2010, will make the region the world’s third largest producer of petroleum products.” In 1998, troops from the U.S. Mountain Division undertook similar exercises in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. Since oil fields in Central Asia are a long way from Europe, and South and East Asia including a modernizing China will be the next big customers for petroleum products, a pipeline running south from the Turkmen istan oilfields through Afghanistan to Gwadar, a seaport on the Arabian Sea, would seem the route to an eastern market. Bill Hayton reports that Union Oil of California (UNOCAL) and Saudi Arabia’s Delta Oil backed the Afghan istan route, hoping that with the ongoing support from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, plus UN aid organizations, the Taliban would stabilize their country. After Aug. 7, 1998, when U.S. embassies were bombed in Africa, and Bill Clinton fired missiles into Afghanistan and then into Sudan, the “appetite for UN O CAL’s investment in the pipeline disappeared.” The company later announced it would only reconsider its investment “when and if Afghanistan achieves the peace and stability necessary to obtain financing from international lending agencies . . . and an established government is recognized by the United Nations and the United States.” Afghanistan has a long and tragic experience with European military violence. In a recent book by Sven Lindqvist, The Race to Bomb, the author notes that the first time airplanes were used in bombing missions, Europeans were bombing Arabs. “Between 1915 and 1920 the British bombed Arab towns in Egypt, Transjordan, Iran, Iraq and Afghan istan,” Lindqvist writes. “In reality, it meant that where in the past soldiers died to protect women and children, now women and children would die to protect soldiers.” Afghanis experienced nine years of bombing under the Soviet occupation which delivered them almost back to the Stone Age. Establishing a stable and cooperative government in Afghanistan using military violence again, no matter what the excuse, may not be an effective endgame. The centuries-old tribal nature of the country’s inhabitants, their multicultural, multireligious and multilingual differences, and their strong ties to the regime in neighboring Pakistan, which is fighting India for Kashmir, will complicate any future political settlement. H |
