Monday, June 13, 2005

America's Oil War



“Either You are With Us or With the Terrorists”

This is how President Bush conveniently put his war against terrorism. A statement that has changed the geopolitics of the world. A statement, which is threatening to divide the world into an axis of good fighting against the axis of evil. History repeats itself and on 9/11/2001, when a pearl harbour repeated itself horribly, America woke up from its slumber, bruised by its own misadventures in the middle east and blindly supporting Isreal, having made too many enemies for itself. At stake was American pride, a concept of secularism and free economy, and above all the reputation of a Republican President Bush, who at that time was the most controversially elected president in the history of USA. Coupled with these, were an ailing american economy, dwindling oil resources and a strengthening Euro. Where was the panacea? Any other President would have crumbled under pressure. But not President Bush. An one stop solution he knew was war, to wage a war. The defence industry will be re-invirgorated once for all for years to come. The billions of dollars stagnated in stockpiling its weapons will be liquidated with the tax payers money, who would be all the more eager to cough up more tax or atleast not raise a hue and cry for more allocation in the budget, in the name of patriotism.
The republicans weren’t sure whether they would win the war, but they were very sure, that they would win the elections for the second term, for, no American war time president had lost an election during a war. They weren’t wrong, as people brought them back to power, not because they were convinced about the war against terrorism but because they expressed solidarity as a nation in times of crisis, as they have shown always in their history. Above all, personally for Bush, it was a chance to complete the mission what his father dreamed in 1990, to control the oil fields of Middle East Asia.

After the cold war, for long, the American psyche was not boosted but ironically, it was challenged by the phenomenon of lack of a credible enemy. The billions of dollars invested in so much of research and development of weapons, stockpiled over the years were going waste. The defence industry had started to plunge into a recession. It desperately needed an enemy. Voila!! 9/11 happened. They found one, in the name of Osama Bin Laden, a ghost which the CIA had painstakingly created to fight the soviet juggernaut in Afghanistan.
Now, they decided to fight their own creation. A brilliant technique in an unipolar world. Create your enemy and then fight him. Four years since Op Anaconda in Afghanistan, Osama is nowhere to be found. Nevertheless, we can find an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, constructed in record time, ready to ship out oil, from the Baltic central Asian republics, where America so cleverly befriended, entered and stationed its troops in the name of a base for its fight against terrorism. Once this was achieved, it needed the security of this pipeline in west tribal areas of Pakistan, before it reached the sea ports. So, it awarded the status of Most Favoured Non NATO Ally to Pakistan. This meant more weapons and more money to a dictator run state! American hypocrisy personified. The fact that Pakistan is one of the major perpetrator of terrorism in the region for its sinister plans to keep its fight against India in Kashmir, the fact that it was the only country which recognized the Taliban government in Afganistan and used its territory for all the wrong reasons, were blissfully forgotten in one stroke of a pen inking the deal.
A careful look at President Bush’s speech after 9/11, I quote “ ….Nor will we forget the citizens of 80 other nations who died with our own: dozens of Pakistanis; more than 130 Israelis; more than 250 citizens of India; men and women from El Salvador, Iran, Mexico and Japan; and hundreds of British citizens. America has no truer friend than Great Britain. (Applause.)” will make his intentions very clear. Look at the order of the nations in his obituary, he has mentioned in this speech. A master stroke, to convey where he was going to mean business for seeking help for his fight against terrorism. Of course, India never budged any more than making peace with Pakistan, by declaring ceasefire along the LC, so that Pakistan can make available more troops along its western border to secure the area from fighting tribesmen and guarding the pipeline.

Now, coming to the Iraq conundrum. After two years of war, there are no signs of any peace and prosperity, and there is only chaos and mayhem, with death tolls mounting everyday. At the beginning of the war, the allied forces were too happy. It was a cake walk to Baghdad with no major opposition in any area. But the Iraqis were clever. They knew, they never stood a chance to fight the American war machine in a conventional way. So they chose, what any clear headed fighter would have choosen. To cause attrition to enemy in his weakest area and fight him where it hurts the most. They knew, they stood a better chance to fight a guerilla warfare in a built up area than any conventional fighting. So they let the allies in and are now making them fight in a place of their choosing and the result is increasing number of body bags transported back to US everyday to a screaming US public. Added to this, is a general feeling of despair and helplessness among the common Iraqis, leaving them wonder what the Americans are doing in their soil.

Right from 1990, the area of interest for the Americans in Iraq has been Kurdistan, because it is where maximum oil reserves are found, that can be safely shipped out. But, giving in to the demands of kurds and creating an independent Kurdistan is being heavily opposed by Turkey and Iran, who have their own Kurdish regions bordering the Iraqi Kurdistan and they fear an uprising for a demand of unification into a greater Kurdistan. Hence this was not an immediate solution and an easier way was found by appointing a Kurdish president after the elections in Iraq. But this has only resulted in increased attacks against the Govt machinery and the allied troops, by the sunny Muslims, who are minority but nevertheless, fighting tooth and nail.
Amidst all this confusion, not a single WMD has been found, which was supposedly, the cause of starting this whole war. Giving Iraqis, freedom from Sadam Hussain, a Sunny himself and his Baath Party was a secondary aim of this war. Americans have declared that their troops will stay as long as the elected Iraqi Government wants them to stay. But it’s a child’s guess that this puppet govt machinery, put in place by the Americans themselves would never want them out of Iraq at least in the near future. Now, say there is some peace in the near future, what will happen to the oil resources of Iraq? There wont be any credible Iraqi oil company which would be left to run the industry. The Govt, a puppet under the Americans, to sustain the Iraqi economy, would award all the contracts to extract, refine and export the oil to the major oil companies of the world and that pie would go undoubtedly to all the troop contributing nations. With this money, Iraq has to be rebuilt. So, who will rebuild this war torn nation? Again, it’s the allies. That’s going to a cool multi billion dollar pie. A classic case of neocolonialism, reinvented. Use Iraqi oil, boost your industry by awarding contracts to build roads, buildings, set up subsidiaries back in Iraq . Excellent.

Now, America has begun its rhetoric against Iran. I was watching the American undersecretary of state, in a Hard Talk program in BBC. His contention is that, America believes in personal freedom of each and every human being and is commited to spread democracy and promote free world. In Iran, out of some 1046 candidates for presidential elections, 1020 have been disqualified and there has been complete denial of freedom to people. Also, the american contention is that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and is aiding terrorists all over the world, by clandestinely financing terrorist organizations. I ask, if spreading democracy is the aim, then why zero in on Iran alone? There are fifty other states, where there is no freedom to people, which are ruled by autocrats. And, after the present war in Iraq and all the rhetoric of WMD present in Iraq, today, no one can believe American claims of a nuclear armed Iran. Obviously, who would want to spread democracy in a country void of any resource?! In any case, its not too difficult to see that Iran is one of the states with maximum oil reserves.

Once you construct the overall picture from the mosaic, it clearly emerges that in this 21st century, in a truly globalised world, it’s the economic imperialism that’s here to stay. To fuel your economy, you need oil. Anyone who controls oil resources will control the world economy and precisely, this is what America is doing. Its next target is Darfur, a brand new oil rich area, in Sudan. That’s where the future oil war is going to be. The stage is set. A crisis is already being created. And someone would come to solve the issue. And we know who!

Last but not the least, all depends on this ongoing crisis in Iraq. I personally predict an American defeat in the long run and that too a nasty one, because no force, least of all American, in the history of the world has contained or defeated an enemy fighting guerilla warfare, with out local support, wherein the local population truly wanted the conflict to end. In Iraq, there is minimal public support and in the event of this unabated fight against the occupation forces, should the so called terrorists outwit and outlast the allies, like what we have witnessed in Vietnam, then Uncle Sam’s state is going to be in real jeopardy. Until then, its oil all the way.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

karthik,edhunachum comedy-a ezhthupa...eppo paaru disaster,war...bore adikardhu

Anonymous said...

Good work, kartik ... I was planning to post my own view on this topic pretty soon, but am not going to, coz u just said it all ... instead i'll just copy-paste the whole thing and give u due credit .. dont worry, i dont plagiarize ..

The Ignoramus said...

have u seen the video 911-in-plane-site by William Lewis? You would wonder if 911 itself was orchestrated by none other than the US itself....

The Soul Doctor said...

i havent seen it but have always suspected that. Do u know that, it was US that told saddam to invade kuwait in the first place, so that they can come in kuwait in the pretext of saving it?!! most of my baltic/arab colleaugues say this!! my croatioan friend tells me that US was hand in glove with slobadan milosevic of former yoguslovia and now it is US again gunning for him in the ICJ in hague!! big politics....