Now that the Afghanistan portion of the "war on terrorism" is concluded--with
permanent U.S. military bases in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan in place--where
next will the Standard Oil-influenced U.S. government look to gain further
control over oil in the world? Coincidentally,
most of those places are in countries which have been branded as harborers of terrorists: Iraq, Syria, Iran, and South America, among others. Bush Sr.'s Gulf War in 1991 resulted in securing access to the huge Rumaila oil field of southern Iraq by expanding the boundaries of Kuwait after the war. This allows Kuwait, controlled by Standard Oil, to double its prewar oil output. Iraq, which recently discovered an oil field in its western desert, is widely regarded as having more oil than Saudi Arabia once its deposits are developed. Iraq is producing 3 million barrels a day, funneling most of it to world markets through a United Nations-monitored program that directs the proceeds to food and medicine for the Iraqi people. But Saddam Hussein is still exporting his oil to Syria, which is glad to resell Iraqi oil as if it were Syrian. The United States is one of Syria's biggest customers, because it likes the low sulfur content of Iraqi oil, says Nimrod Raphaeli, publisher of the Middle East Economic News, a Washington-based newsletter. Iraq earns $1.5 billion a year from oil smuggling and oil sales outside UN controls, through Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, as well as by ship down the Gulf. Since 9/11/01, the Bush regime has threatened to include Iraq in its "war on terrorism." But any incursion into Iraq will have to deal with the reality that American companies, such as Cheney's Halliburton and G.E. are making billions in Iraq by selling them goods and services. Also, the eradication of Saddam would seriously compromise America's establishment of bases on the Arabian peninsula on the pretext of protecting poor Arab sheikhs against the Iraqi Evil Monster. Iraq is desperately trying to ingratiate itself with the Gulf Arab Cooperation
Council (GCC) members: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and
the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to gain support for the lifting of the U.N.
sanctions against it. Russia, Iraq's closest U.N. Security Council ally
and a major beneficiary of contracts to purchase Iraqi oil and to sell
Iraq humanitarian supplies, is demanding "a comprehensive settlement" of
the sanctions issue, including steps leading to lifting the military embargo
against Iraq. On January 24, 2002, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
made a formal statement that Moscow was opposed to any U.S. military operation
against Iraq.
Also to be considered in any plans to extend the Standard Oil/Bush oil
imperialism is China's growing interest in supporting Middle-East nations
in their struggle against the U.S. During Jordanian King Abdallah II's
January, 2002 visit to China, Chinese President Jiang Zemin said that China
wants stronger ties with Arab countries to help promote peace between Israel
and the Palestinians. Yeah, sure, that's the reason China wants to put
its foot into the Middle East, to promote peace. China has supplied military
weaponry to Pakistan and is ready to intervene in the Middle East if the
Standard Oil/Bush imperialists attempt to attack Iraq as Bush senior did
in 1991.
U.S. soldiers will soon be guarding the north-south pipeline as it's built in Afghanistan. In the meantime, the hypocrisy of Bush's "war on terrorism" is apparent for all to see in Colombia where Bush proposes to spend $98 million to protect Occidental Petroleum's 480-mile-long pipeline which runs from Colombia's second-largest oil field to the Caribbean coast. The $98 million will follow the $1.3 billion the U.S. has already given to Colombia, ostensibly to fight the "drug terrorists." In 2001, the Cano Limon pipeline was closed for 266 days, due to holes blasted in it. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels have blown holes in the pipeline for the past fifteen years, resulting in 2.5 million barrels of spilled oil oozing into Colombia's rivers and streams, about ten times the amount of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
A drug terrorist, like a Carlos Lehder, a Pablo Escobar, an Amado Fuentes, a Matta Ballesteros or a Hank Rohn, constantly has something like ten billion dollars of useless illegal money that he has to put in a cooperative bank or business venture that will launder it for him. The drug lord is then more than happy to loan the laundered money at five percent interest to underwrite the large corporations and crooked politicians throughout the world. Wall Street and the Bush administration depend on the South American drug barons for hundreds of millions of dollars for corporate income and election campaign finances. For every million dollars of increased sales or increased revenues that a company like Enron realizes from a buyout, the stock equity of the one per cent who control Wall Street, increases twenty to thirty times. In June, 1999, Colombia's president Andres Pastrana arranged for Richard Grasso, head of the New York Stock Exchange, to meet with Raúl Reyes, the head of FARC finances, in the cocaine-producing DMZ of Colombia. The two were caught in an infamous embrace that saw very little exposure in the media. Grasso, however, wasn't the only American big-money representative to cozy up to Colombian drug terrorists. Several months after Grasso's visit, two wealthy members of the American Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) captured world headlines by flying to a FARC redoubt in the Colombian jungles to palaver with the terrorists' founder, 70-year-old Manuel Marulanda. After meeting with the communist drug terrorist, James Kimsey, co-founder and chairman emeritus of America Online Inc., and Joseph Robert, head of J.E. Robert Company, a global real estate empire, flew to Bogota to consult with Colombian president Pastrana. On returning to Washington, the CFR representatives said they were convinced that Marulanda and FARC are sincere in their claims of wanting peace and economic reform. It may seem hard to believe that U.S. banks and corporations would be involved in laundering drug money from South American terrorists. Even the supine media have had to report some of this criminal behavior. A 1983 ABC News "Close up" on drugs and money laundering fingered Citibank, Marine Midland, Chase Manhattan, and most of the 250 banks and branches in Miami. When Ramon Milian Rodriguez, a top accountant and money launderer for the Medellin Cartel, testified before a Senate subcommittee in 1988, he implicated a veritable Who's Who" in U.S. finance:
"In every instance," said Rodriguez, "the banks knew who they were dealing with...." The evidence indicates that Rodriguez is right; the banks often play dumb, but they know what they're doing. A 1998 investigation of Citibank by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) revealed that Citibank had secretly transferred between $90 million and $100 million of alleged drug money for a Mexican client, using many creative methods to camouflage the movement of the assets. Oil imperialism rests on our continued dependence on oil, which not only threatens the future of humanity through prolonged and bloody conflict, but through another even more insidious threat--climate change and ecological collapse. "The oil industry has destroyed Colombia's forests, as well as the culture and subsistence of its Indigenous Peoples. A major part of the country's territory has been affected by oil-related activities, including colonization. Some Indigenous Peoples, such as the Yariguies, have been exterminated. Others, like the Motilones, the Cofanes and the Guahibos, have been decimated. Nowadays, the U'wa people find their ancestral lands threatened by oil exploitation that could destroy their forests, their lives and their culture. "The process of territorial occupation by oil companies has been stimulated by Colombian legislation, which has provided large incentives for oil projects. Oil companies are allowed to occupy the five-kilometer area surrounding an oil well, thus displacing Indigenous and farmers' communities and destroying biodiversity-rich forest zones. "Currently, seven million hectares of Colombian land are occupied by oil operations, and ten million more have been awarded to oil companies over recent years. Thus, 17 million hectares of forested land is currently at the disposition of transnational oil companies." - Friends of the Earth - Les Amis de la Terre - Amigos de la Tierra Oil imperialism flourishes when a supine press cheers and a groveling congress grants unconstitutional authority to the oil-saturated Bush dynasty. Despite our grief and rage over terrorist atrocities, a "war on terrorism" cannot be fought with bombs and missiles alone. Citizens throughout the world must awaken to this new U.S.-British imperialism and reclaim their governments. Once democracy is re-established, we can start a war on homelessness, poverty, and economic and political inequalities, and begin work to achieve ecological sustainability for our planet. Updated: 12/21/02 -- original article: 10/29/01 |
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