Re: this is about oil. It's always about oil

> Even apart from precise statistics, I find the argument that
> 'this is about
> oil' quite dubious.  While some capitalists in the US (the oil industry,
> industries especially dependent on cheap energy sources) may examine the
> situation in terms of ways to increase US control over world oil, I don't
> think it should be particularly controversial to say that it is in the
> interests of capitalists (along with a number of other classes) to try to
> prevent getting blown up when they go in to work tomorrow.

I would agree with you that the purpose of overthrowing the Taliban is not
entirely about Unocal getting a pipeline through Afghanistan, and Jones is
probably on track when he suggests that Rall's figures are inflated (though
he has provided no better evidence than Rall, both being based on various
geologists' estimates).

However, these responses seems to miss the point, which is that US
"troubles" (not to mention the troubles for the average person) within or
originating in the Middle East are fundamentally about oil and playing
regimes off one another as the slow burn, controlled chaos circumstances
dictate.   So, I see in Rall's contribution a legitimate point: that the
interests of major oil corporations with an eye on building a pipeline
through Afghanistan is probably a factor that plays into the US decision to
overthrow the Taliban.  I'm sure that there are many other geo-political
factors as well, including assurances to Pakistan that we will install a
regime in Afghanistan that is friendly to both their and "our" interests,
one that must be anti-Iran and anti-Iraq and one that we can better control
this time.

Recall that the US was arming both Iran (e.g. Iran -Contra) and Iraq during
the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).  The incident that brought the Iraq and US
military to work closely against Iran was when Iraq accidentally blew a huge
hole in the USS Stark in 1987 killing 37 with two French-made Exocet
anti-ship missiles while Iraqi forces hunted Iranian tankers.  It was among
six US military ship damaged in the area, including most recently the Cole.
It was OK for Iraq to sabotage Iranian tankers, but not for Iran to sabotage
Kuwaiti tankers (because that's "our" oil).

So we flagged and escorted the Kuwaiti tankers while helping Iraq build up
its military forces (with lots of dual-use technology, including missile
components and poison gas technology).  And then we coordinated an attack on
Iran in which in three days Iraq pushed further into Iran while US special
forces sunk one-half of Iran's navy (after having shot down an Iranian
airliner, which we lied about).  And it was OK for Saddam to gas the Kurds
and the Iranians (we looked the other way).  What was the price to be paid
for our cheap oil?  During this war of mutual attrition -- among the largest
and most destructive last century -- some 1 to 2 million Iranians and Iraq's
died and spent some $500 billion oil dollars, much of it on Western arms.
Extend analysis of US arms sales to the region and the US is making billions
of dollars and putting countries like Saudi Arabia, with a population of
only 20 million or so, into massive debt of some $200 billion.  And Iraq?
Well, you know the story.  We don't want him out, we never did.  They've got
to sell oil cheap.  What a mafioso racket!

Meanwhile, the US was arming the Afghan "freedom fighters" because our man
in Iran, the Shah, had been deposed.  It was he and the US, as now admitted
by US officials, who had initiated the overthrow of the Afghanistan
government in the late 1970s, causing the Soviet invasion in 1979.

So why have we been so involved in this region so heavily?

We might even go back a few more years.  In 1901, British financiers
obtained concession to exploit the oil fields of Iran. In 1909 the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) was formed
to get the oil.  All was going nice until WWI.  In November 1914, after the
Ottoman Empire entered the war, against Britain, a British army division
landed near Iraq's southern tip and took Al Basrah in order to defend the
Anglo-Persian Oil Company's oil fields and refineries nearby in Iran.
British forces pushed back the heavy Ottoman opposition and took control of
nearly all of Iraq.

> Let's say there was reason to suppose the terrorist attacks came
> out of some
> part of the world with minimal economic significance.  Do you
> really suppose
> nothing much would be done?

Again: why is it coming out of the Middle East?