This is old news, or should be by now. Even so, I found it posted today at www.pasadenastarnews.com. As oil becomes more of a priority, there will be more pressure by the West exerted on oil producing/Islamic countries, and you can bet we're going to see more conflict from those who already find the Western presence in the Middle East intolerable.
By Hannah Naiditch
IT is mind-boggling to watch the media take our latest mission to "spread democracy' seriously, while the issue of oil has mysteriously disappeared.
The history of oil started with John D. Rockefeller, who bought his first oil refinery in 1862. He recognized the important role oil would play in America's future. He used brutal methods to crush his competition and by the late 1800s his dream became reality. His company, known as Standard Oil, accounted for 90 percent of our oil export.
Oil was found in various parts of the United States, giving rise to Texaco Oil, Mobil Oil and Exxon Oil. Texaco Oil opted not to pump off the Louisiana coast in order to maximize profits. Exxon Oil and Mobil Oil made big profits while 3,000 small independent gas stations had to close shop.
Overproduction resulted in cheaper prices and smaller profits while cut in productions created higher prices and artificial shortages at will. Both methods were used by all competitors and are still used today.
During the 1950s the United States with only 6 percent of the world's population, accounted for one-third of the world's oil consumption. Oil was so cheap that some of the biggest oil producers banded together and in 1960 they formed OPEC.
10 of the 13 OPEC members are Islamic countries.
In the early 1970s OPEC used oil as a political weapon. By sharply reducing the amount of oil exported to the U.S., the price of oil greatly increased. It resulted in long lines for motorists to fill up, and it triggered a worldwide recession.
It was F. D. Roosevelt who made a deal with the Saudis. The United States would protect Saudi Arabia's monarchy from being overthrown, and in return the United States would get access and influence as far as their oil is concerned. Oil was one of the reasons why Milosevic became a target. He denied us a military base and an oil pipeline from the oil-rich Caucusus area on the Russian border.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was democratically elected by a landslide. Venezuela also has major oil reserves. It was not surprising that we were implicated in a recent attempted coup to get rid of him.
In 1958 Eisenhower sent the marines to Lebanon to make sure that the pro-American government stayed in power. Lebanon was of strategic importance in this oil-rich region.
Somalia was more than a humanitarian mission to save children from starvation. Four American oil companies owned the mineral rights which they had been granted by former dictator Barre, and which they had been unable to exploit because of political chaos. We moved against Aidid, the most powerful of the warlords, who was responsible for the overthrow of Barre. It all turned out to be a dismal failure when dead Americans were dragged through the streets and we had to withdraw.
In Sudan Western and Asian oil companies have taken sides in one of the longest and most destructive civil wars and they ruthlessly protect their interests.
U.S. firms are showing a new interest in Libya's oil wealth.
We attacked Afghanistan as part of the war on terrorism, but it must have occurred to former oilmen Bush and Cheney that Afghanistan offered a great opportunity to expand American geopolitical influence to South-Central Asia and the Caspian basin by building an oil pipeline through their strategically located land.
Since 9/11 our foreign policy has tried to link our global war on terrorism with our global effort to expand American access to foreign oil.
In Georgia we are conducting military training operations and we are deploying U.S. Special Forces advisers with the stated purpose to help the Georgian forces to fight terrorists. It is also evident that we are there to protect the pipelines that will carry the oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.
We built permanent military rases in that region. The Bush administration and private U.S. foundations have funded "pro- democracy' organizations to break the Russian monopoly in that region. But it is really democracy that we are concerned about, or is it our insatiable need for oil?
In Columbia our stated interest is to fight the war on drugs, but we are also aiding the military to protect the pipeline of Occidental Oil. And the list goes on.
Although 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and although Osama Bin Laden himself is Saudi and the Saudis are exporting an extremist philosophy, we chose to attack Iraq instead. But why Iraq? Did we go to war to stop a killer, a man worse than Hitler? Was it WMD and the threat of a mushroom cloud?
Iraq happens to sit on top of one of the largest oil reserves in the world. The oil is close to the surface and therefore cheap and easy to retrieve. It was the oil fields that we protected when we invaded Iraq, and it was and still is oil and dreams of empire that the war in Iraq is all about.
Blood for oil is not a good selling point, and young Americans would not be willing to risk their lives for it. The fact that Saddam Hussein nationalized the oil companies in 1972 did not help either. We went to war to establish a powerful military presence in the Middle East and to enable us to control the production and price of oil. As Chambers Johnston the author of Blowback said "There was never a plan to leave Iraq because there is no intention of leaving Iraq'.
Most of the world is aware of this agenda except the American people who have bought into the "spreading democracy' rhetoric. Democracy cannot be delivered by shock and awe bombing and it cannot be achieved and maintained under foreign occupation.
From:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/
Stories/0,1413,206~11851~2967012,00.html
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