Pipelineistan
Or, "Rocky and Bullwinkle continue the battle against Boris and Natasha."
Or, "Georgia on my mind, part MMIV."
The Asia Times has a fascinating article on the intrigue going on in the Caucuses (you know, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Georgia being recently replaced under extremely dubious circumstances, complete with visits from Rummy and Powell and Baker and other assorted criminals):
In May, during a solemn pipe-laying ceremony for the start of the Georgian stretch of the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC), Georgia oil executive Georgy Chantiurua said: "This was the start of the integration of Georgia into the NATO zone ... this pipeline will become an artery feeding energy to the US and European countries." The US$3.6 billion oilfield and pipeline development project involves a 1,767 kilometer pipeline, the world's longest, snaking from Baku through Georgia to a new terminal at Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
...
Ramzan issues a chilling warning: in 2004 "the war will seize the entire Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Apart from Ossetia and Ingushetia, this year another guerrilla war has already started in two areas of Dagestan bordering Chechnya. I swear by Allah, this is only the beginning."
Significantly, Ramzan suspects that "Western governments and their security services also secretly finance us through different Islamic funds and organizations. I am convinced that there are Western powers in whose interests it is to keep Russia permanently involved in such a slow-burning conflict as the war in the Caucasus."
...
And there is also little doubt that September 11 provided the ultimate excuse for the US to install its military bases in Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasus - a former Soviet sphere. So the "war on terror" is not about a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, and not even solely about "terrorism". The name of the game is basically Pipelineistan: monster oil corporate profits to be made by controlling Central Asia-Caspian Sea oil and gas, bypassing both Russia and Iran, and exerting extra pressure on China. As countless watchdogs have stressed, this is a ruthless "do or die" corporate war. As From the Wilderness puts it, it will be carried out "at any cost, no matter the suffering it may bring to human beings or the devastation it unleashes upon the environment. Such are the characteristics of today's imperialism, the source of war and terrorism."
...
So it comes as no surprise that the road map for what will happen in the next few years is Cheney's May 2001 energy report: the strategy is to to gain access, leverage and control of oil and gas from Colombia and Venezuela in South America to Iraq in the Middle East and the Caspian. Thus the American demonization of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the fight against FARC in Colombia, the war against Iraq, the push for BTC in the Caspian, the courtship of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, etc.
It takes an exceptional degree of naivete to believe that the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with liberation or democracy or weapons of mass destruction once you get a glimpse of what's really happening.
Or, "Rocky and Bullwinkle continue the battle against Boris and Natasha."
Or, "Georgia on my mind, part MMIV."
The Asia Times has a fascinating article on the intrigue going on in the Caucuses (you know, the leaders of Azerbaijan and Georgia being recently replaced under extremely dubious circumstances, complete with visits from Rummy and Powell and Baker and other assorted criminals):
In May, during a solemn pipe-laying ceremony for the start of the Georgian stretch of the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC), Georgia oil executive Georgy Chantiurua said: "This was the start of the integration of Georgia into the NATO zone ... this pipeline will become an artery feeding energy to the US and European countries." The US$3.6 billion oilfield and pipeline development project involves a 1,767 kilometer pipeline, the world's longest, snaking from Baku through Georgia to a new terminal at Ceyhan on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.
...
Ramzan issues a chilling warning: in 2004 "the war will seize the entire Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Apart from Ossetia and Ingushetia, this year another guerrilla war has already started in two areas of Dagestan bordering Chechnya. I swear by Allah, this is only the beginning."
Significantly, Ramzan suspects that "Western governments and their security services also secretly finance us through different Islamic funds and organizations. I am convinced that there are Western powers in whose interests it is to keep Russia permanently involved in such a slow-burning conflict as the war in the Caucasus."
...
And there is also little doubt that September 11 provided the ultimate excuse for the US to install its military bases in Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasus - a former Soviet sphere. So the "war on terror" is not about a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, and not even solely about "terrorism". The name of the game is basically Pipelineistan: monster oil corporate profits to be made by controlling Central Asia-Caspian Sea oil and gas, bypassing both Russia and Iran, and exerting extra pressure on China. As countless watchdogs have stressed, this is a ruthless "do or die" corporate war. As From the Wilderness puts it, it will be carried out "at any cost, no matter the suffering it may bring to human beings or the devastation it unleashes upon the environment. Such are the characteristics of today's imperialism, the source of war and terrorism."
...
So it comes as no surprise that the road map for what will happen in the next few years is Cheney's May 2001 energy report: the strategy is to to gain access, leverage and control of oil and gas from Colombia and Venezuela in South America to Iraq in the Middle East and the Caspian. Thus the American demonization of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the fight against FARC in Colombia, the war against Iraq, the push for BTC in the Caspian, the courtship of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, etc.
It takes an exceptional degree of naivete to believe that the invasion of Iraq had anything to do with liberation or democracy or weapons of mass destruction once you get a glimpse of what's really happening.
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