Gas, Oil and AfghanistanjonGas, Oil and Afghanistan By Jon Flanders In the sound and fury of media coverage following the World TradeCenter attack, I haveyet to see any serious examination of the economic forces workingbehind the scenes in theMiddle East and specifically South Asia and Afghanistan. This in theUnited States, whereevery up and down of the stock market makes headlines every day, and wehave TV channelsdevoted exclusively to economic activity. Most of us know that the Middle East is a center of activity forworld oil production.Some of us have heard about the CaspianSea, and the touted possibilities for great oil resources there.But few would thinkthat rocky, war torn Afghanistan might be part of this energyproduction picture.Yet itmost certainly is. And the information about Afghanistan's role isreadily available onthe World Wide Web to anyone who wants to investigate. Indeed, much ofthe informationcomes from US government sources like the Voice of America. Michael Klare, author of the book "ResourceWars", which has a major focus on the Caspian region, wasinterviewed by RadioFree Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.,http://www.rferl.org on May 28, 2001.Klare is theDirector of the FiveCollege Program in Peace and World Security Studies basedat HampshireCollege in Amherst, Massachusetts. In his book, Klare argues that it isnot only theUnited States that is preparing for resource conflicts. He contendsthat all regionalpowers are focusing increasingly on how to protect or enlarge theiraccess to vitalresources over the next generation. Klare tells RFE/RL that vast energy reserves in Central Asia and theCaucasus have madethe region a priority for the United States despite the area'sgenerally poor progress inpost-communist reforms. "I think in this case this is a national security considerationthat's driving allof this. The United States has to get that oil from that region [CentralAsia]and will make a deal with whatever governments are there in place thatare willing to workwith us [that is, the US], like the government[s] in Azerbaijan andKazakhstan andTurkmenistan that are far from ideal with respect to human rights anddemocraticprocedure. And I think that's a reflection of the view that I writeabout in my book -- we[the US] view oil as a security consideration and we have to protect itby any meansnecessary, regardless of other considerations, other values." Klare's view is seconded by AhmedRashid, Pakistanijournalist and author of "Taliban:MilitantIslam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia." In an interviewwith SteveCurwood published on the web site "LivingOn Earth" he says ".... in the last ten years, since thecollapse ofthe Soviet Union, there has been what I call a new great game betweenRussia, the UnitedStates, China, Iran, the European companies, for control of the new oiland gas resourcesthat have been discovered in the Caspian Sea and in the Caucuses andCentral Asia. Now,this, you know, it's a two-pronged game, basically, between trying tobuy up oil fieldsand gas fields and also, of course, deciding on what routes this energycan be exported.Because Central Asia is totally landlocked, distances are huge, and theU.S. strategy hasbeen essentially to keep, new oil pipelines should not be built throughRussia and theyshould not be built through Iran.I will argue that the current US government focus on Afghanistan ispart of the oilsecurity consideration. The following is my attempt to make sense ofthe Afghan energyconnection. The USgovernment EnergyInformation fact sheet on Afghanistan dated December 2000 saysthat.."Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems fromits geographicposition as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exportsfrom Central Asia tothe Arabian Sea. This potential includes proposed multi-billion dollaroil and gas exportpipelines through Afghanistan, although these plans have now beenthrown into seriousquestion........"  These pipelines would begin in the former Soviet Republic ofTurkemenistan, which mayhave one of the largest gas deposits in the world. The Washington Postreported in a 1998article that "In August 1997, in a bold move that conjured up memoriesof19th-century Turkmen khans staving off would-be Russian conquerors,President(ofTurkemenistan) Saparmurad Niyazov halted gas deliveries to theRussian-controlled pipelinesystem that was built during the Soviet era." The Post goes on to say that " Turkmenistan's potential wasenormous. Just inlandfrom the Caspian shore were some of the world's oldest oil fields, andSoviet-erageological surveys indicated that the prospect for offshore finds wasgood. In thetrackless Garagum Desert, away from a thin line of irrigated valleys,geologists haddiscovered one gas field after another beginning in the 1960s. By 1990,Dauletabad and theadjoining Sovietabad field were producing 1.6 trillion cubic feet ayear, rivaling thegigantic gas fields of Siberia. Almost all of this gas was pumped north across Uzbekistanand Kazakhstaninto a Russian pipelineand on to markets in Europe and the former Soviet republics. Niyazov said he "smelled old Soviet ambitions" in Russia's use ofitspipeline monopoly to keep Turkmenistan's gas from competing withRussian gas in Europeanmarkets." Advising Niayzov during the early nineties? None other than formerNATO commander andUS Secretary of State Alexander Haig. In 1993 Haig actually formed aconsortium to build apipeline from Turkmenistan through Iran. Haig's project did not involveU.S. companies;Haig's pipeline enterprise was registered in the British Virgin Islands. The idea foundered on the oppositionof the Clintonadministration. But the idea of new routes for the Turkemenistan oiland gas did not endwith the Haig plan. In an article dated 11/25/97, Voice of America reporter JoanBeecher writes thattop government officials and oil company executives from the UnitedStates, Turkey, GreatBritain, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia met to discuss an issueof great mutualconcern: Pipeline routes for Caspian oil and gas. The Washington Post in 1998 reported that "The initial enthusiastfor the Afghanroute was not an American, however, but Carlos Bulgheroni, the short,workaholic chairmanof the Bridas Group, an Argentine company. In 1993, a Bridas jointventure withTurkmenistan had begun laying more than 2,000 miles of seismic lines tomap the geology ofa potential gas field in eastern Turkmenistan. Two test wells confirmeda huge gas deposit150 miles from the Afghan border. In the spring of 1995, Turkmenistan and Pakistan commissionedBulgheroni's company tostudy the Afghan route. (It should becarefully noted thataccording to the PakistanMinistry ofPetroleum Pakistan is one of the most gas dependent economies inthe world.)But that summer, a rival entered the game. John Imle, president ofCalifornia-based UnocalCorp., wooed Niyazov and Benazir Bhutto, then prime minister ofPakistan, throughout Julywith a vision of a Unocal pipeline following roughly the same route asthe one proposed byBridas." Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections reported in Dec. 8, 1997 that threeTaliban ministers went toTexas to hear what Unocal had to offer if they agreed to leta gas pipeline bebuilt from Turkmenistan through Afghan territory to Pakistan. "They are just going to Texas to talk. They are not supposed to signany agreementson the gas pipeline,'' Mutta Wakil, a Taliban spokesman said from theTaliban headquartersin southern Kandahar. "If any agreements are reached they will besigned inAfghanistan.'' By early 1998 a Unocal led consortium had made a deal with theTaliban to construct anAfghanistan pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. The Bridas Groupcried foul andlaunched legalaction againstUnocal, to no avail.On the question of the Afghanistan route VOA's Beecher saysthat........ "the most obvious drawback of a proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan,throughAfghanistan, to Pakistan and down to the Arabian Sea is that there isstill a civil wargoing on in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, all factions in the civil war have signed agreementssupporting theproposed pipeline, according to Bob Todor, executive vice president ofUnocal, the companythat is leading an international consortium to construct the centralAsian pipelinethrough Afghanistan. Speaking to the international conference, Mr. Todor argued that thebasic problem withthe existing and proposed western routes, across northern Russia, or toports on the BlackSea, or under the Caspian and down to Turkey, is that they all lead toEuropean markets: "Western Europe is a tough market. It is characterized by highprices for oilproducts, an aging population, and increasing competition from naturalgas. Furthermore,the region is fiercely competitive. It is now being serviced by fieldsof course in theMiddle East, the North Sea, Scandinavia, and Russia... Although thereis room for CentralAsia's oil, on the whole, it [western Europe] is not a very attractivemarket, becausesubstantial infrastructure will have to be developed to bring that oilfrom the Caspian tothe Western European market, and that market is very competitive." Much the same is true of Eastern Europe and the countries of theformer Soviet Union,according to Mr. Todor. But Asia is a completely different story. Manyspeakers, not justMr. Todor, argued that Asia will be the fastest growing market forCaspian oil, even ifthe region's present financial crisis should lead to a prolongedeconomic slowdown. Threeroutes to Asian markets have been proposed: Through China, throughIran, and throughAfghanistan to Pakistan. In Mr. Todor's view, the proposed China routeis too long, andwill probably prove to be prohibitively expensive. The major argumentagainst the Iranroute is, quite simply, that the US government opposes it. Among the many advantages of the Afghanistan route, according to Mr.Todor, is that itwould terminate in the Arabian Sea, which is much closer than thePersian Gulf or northernChina to key Asian markets: "There is tremendous international and regional political willbehind thepipeline. The pipeline is beneficial to Central Asian countries becauseit would allowthem to sell their oil in expanding and highly prospective Asianmarkets. The pipeline isbeneficial to Afghanistan, which would receive revenues from transporttariffs.... On aregional level, the pipeline will promote stability and encourage tradeand economicdevelopment between South Asia and Central Asia. Finally, because ofthe combination ofshort pipeline distance and the relatively low cost of tankerage, thissouthern route willresult in the most competitive export route to the Asia/ Pacificmarket." Yet construction of this promising route can only begin if and whenan internationallyrecognized government is formed in Afghanistan......." Todor's arguement for the Afghanistan pipeline was also made beforethe USCongress in 1998, by John J. Maresca, Vice President,International Relations of theUnocal Corporation in testimony to the House Subcommittee on Asia andthe Pacific,February 12, 1998. Maresca concluded his Congressional testimony with this peroration."Developingcost-effective, profitable and efficient export routes for Central Asiaresources is aformidable, but not impossible, task. It has been accomplished before.A commercialcorridor, a "new" Silk Road, can link the Central Asia supply with thedemand --once again making Central Asia the crossroads between Europe and Asia."The Unocal led Centgas consortium consisted of the followingcompanies. Unocal Corporation (US), 46.5 percent Delta Oil Company Limited (Saudi Arabia), 15 percent The Government of Turkmenistan, 7 percent Indonesia Petroleum, LTD. (INPEX) (Japan), 6.5 percent ITOCHU Oil Exploration Co., Ltd. (CIECO) (Japan), 6.5 percent Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd. (Korea), 5 percent The Crescent Group (Pakistan), 3.5 percentThe 48-inch diameter pipeline was to extend 790 miles (1,271kilometers) from theAfghanistan-Turkmenistan border, generally follow the Herat-to-KandaharRoad throughAfghanistan, cross the Pakistan border in the vicinity of Quetta, andterminate in Multan,Pakistan, where it would tie into an existing pipeline system.Turkmenistan was toconstruct a pipeline that will link with the CentGas line at the borderand stretchapproximately 105 miles (169 kilometers) to the Dauletabad Field. Apotential 400-mile(644-kilometer) extension from Multan to New Delhi also was underconsideration. (source,Hazara.net) TheUnocal-led initiativefoundered in 1998, after the US cruise missile retaliation againstBin Laden's Afghancamps for the bombings of its African embassies. Brown University's WilliamO.Beeman wrote in 1998 that ... " From the US standpoint, the onlyway to deny Iraneverything is for the anti-Iranian Taliban to win in Afghanistan and toagree to thepipeline through their territory. The Pakistanis, who would alsobenefit from thisarrangement, are willing to defy the Iranians for a share of the pot." Beeman continues, "Enter Osama bin Laden, a sworn enemy of theUnited Statesliving in Afghanistan. His forces could see that the Taliban wouldeventually end up inthe American camp if things proceeded as they had been. His(Bin Laden)bombing of USembassies in East Africa (since there were none in Afghanistan) wasaccompanied by amessage for Americans to get out of ``Islamic countries.'' By this, hemeant specificallyAfghanistan.The American response was to bomb bin Laden's outpostswhile carefully notingthat his forces were ``not supported by any state.'' This latterstatement was an attemptto rescue the Taliban relationship, while at the same time giving theTaliban leaders themessage that they must ditch bin Laden. For good measure, Americanmissiles also took outa factory in Sudan - a smokescreen for the real target of theiraction...."(WilliamO. Beeman is a BrownUniversity anthropologist specializing in the Middle East. Thepiece first ran in TheProvidence Journal and was distributed by Knight Ridder/TribuneInformation Services.Aug 1998.) At the same time Unocal came under fire from international women'sorganizations forits courting of the Taliban, despite their notorious repression ofwomen's rights. Thewomen's rights issue, more than the embassy bombings, were used as anexcuse to end theUnocal led consortium's deal with the Taliban. UNOCAL had entered a onemillion dollarcontract with the University of Nebraska to train workers inAfghanistan specifically forpipeline construction. Women's organizations focused on thisarrangement for protests. Unocal's defection did not end pipeline plans. According to theVOA's Sarah Horner"But the pipeline dreams have surfaced again. In May 2000 there werereports ofdiscussions of the issue involving Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iranand Turkmenistan.And the Taliban newspaper, the Kabul Times, recently reported that themine and industriesminister, Mullah Mohammed Isa Akhond, met representatives of theCentral Asia-based UScompany, Central Asia Oil and Gas Industry. The newspaper quotedcompany representative,Rafiq Yadgar as saying: "Central Asia Oil and Gas Industry is ready toinvest inAfghanistan in the field of oil and gas extraction and meanwhile iswilling to build angas and oil refinery in Afghanistan." He added that Turkmen authoritiesare ready tocooperate with his company." But any plans still ran afoul of the civil war in Afghanistan.According to Horner,"Should any pipeline actually get off the ground it will be a primetarget forsabotage the United Front whose leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, excels atguerrillatactics." A few days before the WTC attack, Massoud was killed bysuicide bombersposing as journalists. So as matters stood before the "election" of George W. Bush, plansforAfghanistan's role in world energy production were at an impasse. As most of us know, the Bush-Cheney team that took control of the USGovernment inJanuary, 2001, was heavily influenced by the oil industry. Bush himselfis a veteran of anumber of mostly failed oil enterprises. Condolezza Rice, Bush'sassistant to the president for national security affairs, was on theboard of Chevron.Vice President Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, a major playerin the downstream oil industry. Cheney described Halliburton's role in a 1998 speech at the aptlynamed"Collateral Damage Conference" of the Cato Institute, a conservativeWashingtonthink tank. According to Cato "This all-day conference explored thecurrent andpotential conflicts between US foreign policy and the liberty andwell-being of Americancitizens. The conference focused on the ways that US foreign policyinfringes on thefreedom of Americans to trade, invest and communicate with the rest ofthe world." Cheney said in his speech that "Halliburton was founded some 70years ago inDuncan, Oklahoma, by one man and a truck, cementing oil wells andcasings inside oilwells. Over the years we developed the capacity to do everythingdownhole that isnecessary to produce oil and gas: we drill wells, we do completions onwells, we cement,we stimulate, and we undertake a host of other activities involved inthe production ofoil and gas. We also own Brown & Root Engineering, a company thatbegan about 70 yearsago with two brothers with a road grader in Austin, Texas. Brown &Root is in thebusiness of building off-shore platforms, undersea pipelines,refineries, and otherdown-stream facilities. Brown & Root is also heavily involved inthe operations andmaintenance business. They currently have the logistics contract forthe U.S. Army inBosnia under which they build and operate all the camps for the US Armydeployed there. Asa measure of the company's diversity, I should also mention that we arebuilding the newbaseball stadium in Houston. Halliburton employs about 70,000 people. We are currently a Fortune200 company, butare in the process of merging with Dresser Industries. Once we do that,part of Haliburtonwill not only include Brown & Root, but also M. W. Kellogg, one ofthe world'spremiere engineering and design companies. In addition, Dresser also isheavily involvedin manufacturing pumps, compressors, and all kinds of complexmechanical equipment thatservices the energy industry. Overall, once we complete the merger, wewill have about100,000 employees. Our sales in 1999 should put us among the top 100companies in Americain terms of revenue. We'll be the largest private employer in Texas andoperate in over130 countries all over the globe. About 70 to 75 percent of ourbusiness is energyrelated, serving customers like Unocal, Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and manyother major oilcompanies around the world. As a result, we oftentimes find ourselvesoperating in somevery difficult places. The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gasonly where thereare democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States.Occasionally we have tooperate in places where, all things considered, one would not normallychoose to go. But,we go where the business is." Where the business is, indeed. In an article by Kenny Brunoand Jim Valette in MultinationalMonitor magazine, dated May2001 the authors report that "...During Cheney's tenure, Halliburtoncreated orcontinued partnerships with some of the world's most notoriousgovernments-in countriessuch as Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria. In order to do business with dictators and despots,Halliburton has skirtedUS sanctions and made considerable efforts to eliminate thosesanctions. Halliburton'spattern of doing business with US enemies and dictators started beforeDick Cheney joinedthe company, and may well continue after his tenure as CEO. Halliburton's dealings in six countries -Azerbaijan,Indonesia, Iran, Iraq,Libya and Nigeria-show that the company's willingness to do businesswhere human rightsare not respected is a pattern that goes beyond its involvement inBurma: * Azerbaijan. Dick Cheney lobbied to remove Congressionalsanctions againstaid to Azerbaijan, sanctions imposed because of concerns about ethniccleansing. Cheneysaid the sanctions were the result only of groundless campaigning bythe Armenian-Americanlobby. In 1997, Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root bid on a majorCaspian projectfrom the Azerbaijan International Operating Company. * Indonesia. Halliburton had extensive investments andcontracts in Suharto'sIndonesia. One of its contracts was canceled by the post-Suhartogovernment during apurging of corruptly awarded contracts. Indonesia Corruption Watchnamed Kellogg Brown& Root (Halliburton's engineering division) among 59 companiesusing collusive,corruptive and nepotistic practices in deals involving former PresidentSuharto's family.* Iran. Dick Cheney has lobbied against the Iran-LibyaSanctions Act. Evenwith the Act in place, Halliburton has continued to operate in Iran. Itsettled with theDepartment of Commerce in 1997, before Cheney became CEO, overallegations relating toIran for $15,000, without admitting any wrongdoing. * Iraq. Dick Cheney cites multilateral sanctions againstIraq as an exampleof sanctions he supports. Yet since the war, Halliburton-relatedcompanies helped toreconstruct Iraq's oil industry. In July 2000, the International HeraldTribune reported,"Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump Co., joint ventures thatHalliburton hassold within the past year, have done work in Iraq on contracts for thereconstruction ofIraq's oil industry, under the United Nations' Oil for Food Program." AHalliburtonspokesman acknowledged to the Tribune that the Dresser subsidiaries didsell oil-pumpingequipment to Iraq via European agents. * Libya. Before Cheney's arrival, Halliburton was deeplyinvolved in Libya,earning $44.7 million there in 1993. After sanctions on Libya wereimposed, earningsdropped to $12.4 million in 1994. Halliburton continued doing businessin Libya throughoutCheney's tenure. One Member of Congress accused the company "ofundermining Americanforeign policy to the full extent allowed by law." * Nigeria. Local villagers have accused Halliburton ofcomplicity in theshooting of a protester by Nigeria's Mobile Police Unit, playing asimilar role to Shelland Chevron in the mobilization of this 'kill and go" unit to protectcompanyproperty. Dick Cheney has been a strong advocate for preventing oreliminating federallaws that place limits on Halliburton's ability to do business in thesecountries."The current hot spot for "where the business is" happens to be theCaspian.In a column dated Thursday, August 10, 2000 in the Chicago Tribune ,Marjorie Cohn, aprofessor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego writes..... "Because of the instability in the Persian Gulf, Cheney and hisfellow oilmen havezeroed in on the world's other major source of oil--the Caspian Sea.Its rich oil and gasresources are estimated at $4 trillion by US News and World Report. TheWashington-basedAmerican Petroleum Institute, voice of the major US oil companies,called the Caspianregion, "the area of greatest resource potential outside of the MiddleEast."Cheney told a gaggle of oil industry executives in 1998, "I can't thinkof a timewhen we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategicallysignificant as theCaspian." ..." Halliburton's Caspian investments include Turkmenistan. On October 27, 1997, the same time period in which the Unocalpipeline plan was in theworks, a Halliburton press release announced that "Halliburton hasreceived a Letterof Intent from Petronas Carigali (Turkmenistan) SDN. BHD. to provideintegrated drillingservices for an exploration and appraisal program in the Caspian Seabeginning in late1997. Halliburton, in conjunction with alliance partners, DresserIndustries and WesternAtlas, will provide a combination of 10 services. Halliburton will bethe lead contractorand project manager in addition to providing technical services. Thevalue of the award isestimated to be U.S. $30 million for the total project. "This major newaward willexpand and solidify the HES presence in the Eastern Caspian andposition the company wellfor both upstream and downstream projects which are rapidly developingin this emergingmarket," said Zeke Zeringue, president, Halliburton Energy Services.HalliburtonEnergy Services has been providing a variety of services inTurkmenistan for the past fiveyears." After the breakdown of the Unocal plan, Turkmenistan resumed arelationship with theRussians. Niazarov also carried out discussions with the Chinese. InJuly of 2000,Turkmenistan agreed to conduct a feasibility study on the constructionof a natural gaspipeline linking Turkmenistan with China. Indeed, with the assumption of the Russian Presidency by VladimirPutin, the Russiangovernment went on a sustained diplomatic, economic and militaryoffensive in the Caspianand CentralAsian region. This offensive seriously threatened US and WesternEuropean interests inthe region, as Russia courted Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and theother oil and gasstates in the area. P.V. Vivekanand, chief editor of The Gulf Today in theUnited Arab Emirates sumsup the pipeline picture in the Caspian/Central Asia region in thisway..."There aredozens of oil and gas pipeline projects in Central Asia, some estimatedto cost billionsof dollars and almost all sparking transborder disputes andcontroversies. Most of theprojects have been discussed for decades as the oil giants wait for theright politicalconditions to move in. Because pipelines are the best method totransport oil and gas overland, the efficiency of such a delivery system is too tempting forenergy exporters andimporters to let go of plans in a hurry. And for many potentialexporters and pipelinehosts, the realization of such projects can mean economic survival." A note on the importance of gas. Newspaper headlines always focus onoil, and oilprices. But the world demand for gas is increasing exponentially. According to www.naturalgas.org"Natural gas, withinrecent years, has become an international commodity. Current worldreserves of naturalgas, depicted in Figure 10, are estimated at about 4,900 trillion cubicfeet, theequivalent of about 47% of total world petroleum energy reserves.Roughly 40% of thesereserves are located in the remote regions of the former U.S.S.R., nowthe Commonwealth ofIndependent States (CIS) and about 37% in the Arabian Gulf countries ofthe middle East(Figure 10). The location of these reserves, far from the major populations ofconsuming countries,suggests that the world natural gas industry is in a stage ofdevelopment very similar tothat of the U.S. in the late 1930's. Natural gas consumption, shown inFigure 11, isincreasing dramatically, and promises continued aggressive growth inthe immediate future.World gas processing, of course, mirrors the growth of natural gasproduction andconsumption. Current world-wide production of natural gas liquids(Figure 12) is about 4.9million barrels per day, or about 8% of total world production ofliquid petroleum.Combined, the gaseous fuels natural gas and natural gas liquidscurrently provide about42% of total world petroleum energy production."The Business Recorder of Pakistan reported in March, 2000, thatUnocal had once againresumed talks with the Taliban on the Afghanistan route. According tothe BR, "Thelong term economic attractions have been so strong of these gaspipeline projects that nomultinational can help taking risks, an observer said. On the conditionof anonymity, hesaid that in the coming years it would be of 'decisive importance, ifan infrastructurelink-up is established in the form of a network between South EastAsia, South Asia andCentral Asia. In this connection a key role is to be played by Pakistanas railroads, oiland gas pipelines to India and to ports of the Arabian Sea (Karachi andGwadar), must passthrough its territory. At the same time, this is a big and perhaps the'only' chance ofdevelopment for Pakistan, he remarked."BusinessRecorder (www.brecorder.com) In an article by Franz Schurmann entitled "ConflictBuildingUp in Oil-Rich Caspian,dated September 6, 2001,(NCM Online), Schurmann says"The Caspian is a body of water that could either becalled a "great lake" or an "inland sea." According to internationallaw if it is a lake then none of the littoral countries has sovereignrights over thewaters. That means they cannot carve out an "economic zone" forthemselves. Ifthat's the case then the only way they can lift oil from the waters isby cooperating witheach other. (Editor: China and Taiwan have just agreed to jointly liftoil in the SpratleyIslands because they claim identical sovereignty rights.) But if someor all the countriescall it a sea then they can carve out national economic zones. And thatcould lead to warsbetween them. There are growing signs that the clashing semantics iscreating tensions inthe Caspian that could lead to big disputes or worse." Only a month after the date of Schurmann's article, war has brokenout in Central Asia.In WWS Case Study dated 1/99, entitled "Pipeline Diplomacy: TheClintonAdministration's Fight for Baku-Ceyhan" by Jofi Joseph, he makes thefollowingcriticism of the Clinton team's approach toward Caspian energy policy."Whileunderstandable from a perspective of political feasibility,Washington's firm refusal toconsider any direct U.S. assistance to reduce the costs of theBaku-Ceyhan route stronglyundermined its prospects for success. Amoco, Mobil, and British Oilhold no concern forU.S. geopolitical interests or the Western orientation of Central Asianrepublics; theironly priority lies in their bottom line." We need fear no such scruplesconcerningaid for big oil companies by the G.W. Bush administration. It has notbeen in office ayear, and the bombs are falling on Afghanistan, while troops maneuverfor position inCentral Asia. Let's remember Unocal's Maresca's statement to the US Congress in1998. "From theoutset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we haveproposed acrossAfghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in placethat has theconfidence of governments, lenders, and our company." Within a week ofthecommencement of war with the Taliban, the Bush adminstration discussedthe shape of apost-war Afghan government. So where are we in the post WTC disaster period? The Bush-Cheneyadministration hastaken full advantage of the shock and horror aroused in the US populaceby this disastrousattack. On every front they are moving to implement a draconianconservative agenda.Whether passing anti-democratic domestic laws in the name of fightingterrorism, or tomobilizing the military to fight "terrorism" abroad, they move fullspeed aheadwith their political program. The focus on Afghanistan compels our notice. After all, the MiddleEast is full ofpeople and governments that have no love for the US. The WTC hijackershailedpredominately from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Afghan citizens were notincluded. The rightwingers of William Buckley's National Review fulminate for war to thefinish againstIraq's Saddam Hussein. Others mention Iran. But OsmaBin Laden and theTaliban get the scapegoat's tail. Is this based on a real case, withhard evidence? Or isit simply because Bin Laden et al open the way for the full militarymight of the US armedforces to be committed to make the Caspian and Central Asian regionsafe for the US ledoil and gas pipelines? I think the evidence is overwhelming. The Bushadministration plansto use the WTC attack as an opportunity to use the US military aspipeline police, withthe current goal of splitting the government of Pakistan and theTaliban from the Islamicmilitants led by Bin Laden. If they can accomplish this, and this is abig if, theway might be cleared for the Afghanistan pipeline project, and thebasis for furtherpenetration into the oil rich former Soviet republics established, aspart of a generalrollback of Russian influence in the Caspian and Central Asia.Send comments to jonathan.flanders(nospam)@verizon.net  |
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