You've heard about the pipeline, right, 5th?
<http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/06/22/pf-5953041.html>
June 22, 2008
These wars are about oil, not democracy
By ERIC MARGOLIS
PARIS -- The ugly truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars finally has
emerged.
Four major western oil companies, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Total are about
to sign U.S.-brokered no-bid contracts to begin exploiting Iraq's oil
fields. Saddam Hussein had kicked these firms out three decades ago when he
nationalized Iraq's oil industry. The U.S.- installed Baghdad regime is
welcoming them back.
Iraq is getting back the same oil companies that used to exploit it when it
was a British colony.
As former fed chairman Alan Greenspan recently admitted, the Iraq war was
all about oil. The invasion was about SUV's, not democracy.
Afghanistan just signed a major deal to launch a long-planned, 1,680- km
pipeline project expected to cost $8 billion. If completed, the
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) will export gas and
later oil from the Caspian basin to Pakistan's coast where tankers will
transport it to the West.
The Caspian basin located under the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Kazakkstan, holds an estimated 300 trillion cubic feet of gas
and 100-200 billion barrels of oil. Securing the world's last remaining
known energy El Dorado is a strategic priority for the western powers.
But there are only two practical ways to get gas and oil out of land- locked
Central Asia to the sea: Through Iran, or through Afghanistan to Pakistan.
Iran is taboo for Washington. That leaves Pakistan, but to get there, the
planned pipeline must cross western Afghanistan, including the cities of
Herat and Kandahar.
PIPELINE DEAL
In 1998, the Afghan anti-Communist movement Taliban and a western oil
consortium led by the U.S. firm Unocal signed a major pipeline deal. Unocal
lavished money and attention on the Taliban, flew a senior delegation to
Texas, and hired a minor Afghan official, Hamid Karzai.
Enter Osama bin Laden. He advised the unworldly Taliban leaders to reject
the U.S. deal and got them to accept a better offer from an Argentine
consortium. Washington was furious and, according to some accounts,
threatened the Taliban with war.
In early 2001, six or seven months before 9/11, Washington made the decision
to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and install a client regime
that would build the energy pipelines. But Washington still kept sending
money to the Taliban until four months before 9/11 in an effort to keep it
"on side" for possible use in a war against China.
The 9/11 attacks, about which the Taliban knew nothing, supplied the pretext
to invade Afghanistan. The initial U.S. operation had the legitimate
objective of wiping out Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida. But after its 300
members fled to Pakistan, the U.S. stayed on, built bases -- which just
happened to be adjacent to the planned pipeline route -- and installed
former Unocal "consultant" Hamid Karzai as leader.
Washington disguised its energy geopolitics by claiming the Afghan
occupation was to fight "Islamic terrorism," liberate women, build schools
and promote democracy. Ironically, the Soviets made exactly the same claims
when they occupied Afghanistan from 1979-1989. The Iraq cover story was
weapons of mass destruction and democracy.
Work will begin on the TAPI once Taliban forces are cleared from the
pipeline route by U.S., Canadian and NATO forces. As American analyst Kevin
Phillips writes, the U.S. military and its allies have become an "energy
protection force."
ADDED BENEFIT
From Washington's viewpoint, the TAPI deal has the added benefit of
scuttling another proposed pipeline project that would have delivered
Iranian gas and oil to Pakistan and India.
India's energy needs are expected to triple over the next decade. Delhi,
which has its own designs on Afghanistan, is cock-a-hoop over the new
pipeline plan.
Russia, by contrast, is grumpy, having hoped to monopolize Central Asian
energy exports.
Energy is more important than blood in our modern world. The U.S. is a great
power with massive energy needs. Domination of oil is a pillar of America's
world power. Let's be realistic. Afghanistan and Iraq are about oil, nothing
else.
