Global Pax Americana

[Kozmos]

With several threads ending up veering onto "US imperialism", I felt the need to address this subject. The size of my post and the content of the second link in particular justifies a new thread. Well, I thought so

Right. Lets bring things into focus. There is somewhat of an issue in making any comparison to the old British imperialism here. You could say "Britain was imperialist" because everyone in that country knew what was going on at the time. Not so in the US today, so it is not accurate to say "America is imperialist". But the current US Administration most certainly is.

How many of you Americans are familiar with PNAC? Do a little research on the founding members and their links to the Bush family and many of those in key places in the current US administration. Take a look at this new article to give you some idea of the impact of PNAC on current affairs.

Look carefully at this statement in G W Bush's speech to the AEI (parent of PNAC) on the 26th Feb 2003:

"We meet here during a crucial period in the history of our nation and of the civilized world. Part of that history was written by others, the rest will be written by us." link

This could be seen as the subtext to this statement from his fathers speech on 6th March 1991:

"Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order." link

Taken alongside the aims of PNAC it becomes clear that the current US administration is forthrightly imperialistic in its language. So what about actions? Well, I may aswell continue to focus on current affairs. There has been no secret made of how US Army General Tommy Franks will rule over the military occupation of Iraq until the US sees it fit to install their own approved leader. See this article.

And who will that new leader be? Well, has anyone being paying attention to what's happened in Afghanistan post-US invasion. Is there any democracy there? No! And who is the new leader? Hamed Karzai: an ex-UnoCal (US oil giant) consultant who worked on the plans for a pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Pakistani coast to be built and run by a coalition of US oil companies. A great liberation for the Afghan people. See here. And see here for the UnoCal VP's testimony to congress regarding this matter.

You may notice something else of interest in the above article. Namely Zalmay Khalilzad. He is also one of Bush's old chums from his days at UnoCal and has now been moved from the post of Envoy to Afghanistan to "Envoy to free Iraqis". Coincidence of course! Oh dear, I seem to have veered onto the topic of oil so let's throw in this article too just to keep you up to date with what Bush & Co.s favourite candidate for new Iraqi leadership has been up to recently.

Someone else quoted this definition of imperialism in another thread, supposedly to point out that the US is NOT imperialist:

"The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition OR by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations."

Economic and political hegemony over other nations has been practiced by the US for decades. Territorial acquisition is expensive and only becomes necessary and worthwhile when the other methods fail. The installation of US military bases is tantamount to territorial acquisition in anycase. Control over territory and it's resources is provided by power and power is enforced by military might.

Anway, that's my take on the matter.

 

[Speedkill]

And who will that new leader be? Well, has anyone being paying attention to what's happened in Afghanistan post-US invasion. Is there any democracy there? No! And who is the new leader? Hamed Karzai: an ex-UnoCal (US oil giant) consultant who worked on the plans for a pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Pakistani coast to be built and run by a coalition of US oil companies. A great liberation for the Afghan people. See here. And see here for the UnoCal VP's testimony to congress regarding this matter.
You may notice something else of interest in the above article. Namely Zalmay Khalilzad. He is also one of Bush's old chums from his days at UnoCal and has now been moved from the post of Envoy to Afghanistan to "Envoy to free Iraqis". Coincidence of course! Oh dear, I seem to have veered onto the topic of oil so let's throw in this article too just to keep you up to date with what Bush & Co.s favourite candidate for new Iraqi leadership has been up to recently.

I agree with you for the most part. Just a few things I wanted to point out.

The pipeline that was supposedly going to be built through Afghanistan was a gas pipeline and was nixed by UnoCal and the U.S. in 1998 when the Taliban couldn't consolidate control of the country. There are no current plans to build one. It was used as incentive for the Taliban to gain control over the country, so the U.S. would have control over Afghanistan.

Khalilzad has been involved in U.S. policy for almost 20 years. Defining him by his involvement in UnoCal trivializes his importance. http://emperors-clothes.com/archive/khalilzad-facts.htm is a good article on Khalilzad's history.

 

[Kozmos]

The article you linked to raises some interesting points but I don't think it represents the history of Afghanistan and the US (specifically CIA) involvement in that country very well.

It's a pity that the House Of Representatives link I posted has gone dead. I'll try and find that somewhere else. The testimony to congress by UnoCal's own VP is quite clear in outlining the objectives - and this was submitted years ago. The original plan was for a gas line but there was always going to be oil line as well and it was made quite clear that the only route was via Afghanistan.

The reason why the US supported the Taliban in Afghanistan was because they believed that they would provide the stability in that country required for the pipeline. That didn't happen and the Taliban did not respond to the normal US pressure so they had to be removed.

Of course the issue is wider than control over oil. The broader objectives are made quite clear by PNAC. However, oil is extremely important to modern technological civilisation. I surely don't need to explain why. Control of oil is therefore extremely important to whoever wishes to posses power in today's world. Kazakhstan probably has the largest untouched oil reserves anywhere on earth.

The Bush family is inexorably linked to the oil industry. One only has to do a little research on them and the Rockefeller family and join the dots..... well, that leads to some very disturbing history but that's another story all together.

The reality is (and ok, i'm simplifying things here) that there are two sides to a coalition in Washington right now: The NeoCon PNAC members and their friends in the Pentagon and the Bush Administration itself which is mostly a collection of ex-oil bosses. The strategic objectives of those in the Pentagon coincide rather well with the personal interests of the Administration.

 

[Speedkill]

The article you linked to raises some interesting points but I don't think it represents the history of Afghanistan and the US (specifically CIA) involvement in that country very well.

Why not?

The reason why the US supported the Taliban in Afghanistan was because they believed that they would provide the stability in that country required for the pipeline. That didn't happen and the Taliban did not respond to the normal US pressure so they had to be removed.

That's what I said.

I'm not saying that oil is not a reason that we're in Central Asia, but I don't think it's the defining one. The quote at the end of the article by Khalilzad shows that he wanted to remove Russian influence from Afghanistan; the Taliban were doing so bad it was going the other way. The source of the fact that Khalilzad worked for UnoCal is mentioned in passing in one newspaper, and isn't documented at all. He even mentions in the article that UnoCal said Khalilzad never worked for them. I think this guy is interested in something bigger than oil.

 

[Kozmos]

OK. It seems like we're saying similar things about Afghanistan and Central Asia. I must have misunderstood your comments about the Taliban.

The reason why UnoCal can make easy statements that Khalilzad and Karzai did not work for them is because they didn't: they worked for consultancy firms to which UnoCal outsource such work. That's normal practice.

All I have time for at the moment. I'll look up the details of that tomorrow/later - and answer your other question.

 

[Speedkill]

We're kinda saying the same thing. You say the pipeline was why we wanted them to consolidate control, I say the pipeline was used as incentive for them to gain control.

 

[Kozmos]

I found a page that contains the text of the UnoCal VP's testimony to which I referred. The original source link was working about a week ago.

http://idaho.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/510.php

This makes clear the importance of the Afghan route for Kazakh resources to the Asian market.

I don't see the Taliban as being anything more than someone that the US Administration once felt they could "do business with" to ensure this project went ahead. I don't see how this is simply something that provided an incentive to the Taliban - its importance to the US oil industry is far too great for that to make sense. So, I remain unconvinced that the pipeline was not the reason for consolidating control.

Also worthy of note is that this plan has been revived since Karzai has been put in power (post -Taliban). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2017044.stm

As for the consultancy to UnoCal. Karzai, I seem to remember worked for a UK company and Khalilzad may have been working for Wood Mackenzie. Can't find that at the moment - in any case the work was for UnoCal and the Centgas consortium.

 

[Speedkill]

Look at who's trying to revive the pipeline. Central Asian governments. Not an oil company. If we attacked Afghanistan to make it secure for a pipeline, why aren't any oil companies interested? I'd say because it has nowhere to go. http://emperors-clothes.com/news/aus-gaz.htm#casualty there are two articles (not commentaries by the guy who runs the site) here on the pipeline. They want to run it through Pakistan to get to India, it is even said that the viability of the pipeline depends on India as a customer. But they'd never agree to anything that goes through Pakistan. They're in a nuclear standoff!

And take a look at this quote by Khalilzad:

"As I said before, the war [between Northern Alliance and Taliban] goes on, the polarization that I talked about before continues, with the northern alliance being supported by Iran, Russia, India, and the Central Asian republics. The question is, in addition to terrorism, in addition to the violation of rights of the Afghans, the role of Pakistan, what other challenges does Afghanistan pose? I will highlight three others. One is that Afghanistan now has become the world's number one producer of opium. The narcotics production and trafficking is a main source of revenue throughout the world. Two, Afghanistan is impacting the stability of and the prospects for the newly independent Central Asian states. Afghanistan was and is a possible corridor for the export of oil and gas from the Central Asian states down to Pakistan and to the world. A California company called Unocal was interested in exploring that option, but because of the war in Afghanistan, because of the instability that's there, those options, or that option at least, has not materialized. The absence of alternative options for the Central Asian states, and the fear that the Central Asians have of the potential spread of Islamic extremism -- as exemplified by the Taliban and the fact that I mentioned before that Afghanistan has become a central place for the training and spread of such movements-- Central Asia has become an arena where Russia is reasserting increasingly its influence and role. In addition, there is the danger that the Taliban is going to increase and spread to reach out of Afghanistan and spread to places like Pakistan."

It doesn't look like his main objective is oil.