Eric Margolis: "Energy is more important than blood in our modern world."

[JohnyCanuck]

These wars are about oil, not democracy

by Eric Margolis

PARIS -- The ugly truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars finally has emerged.

Four major western oil companies, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Total are about to sign U.S.-brokered no-bid contracts to begin exploiting Iraq's oil fields. Saddam Hussein had kicked these firms out three decades ago when he nationalized Iraq's oil industry. The U.S.-installed Baghdad regime is welcoming them back.

Iraq is getting back the same oil companies that used to exploit it when it was a British colony.

As former fed chairman Alan Greenspan recently admitted, the Iraq war was all about oil. The invasion was about SUV's, not democracy.

Afghanistan just signed a major deal to launch a long-planned, 1,680-km pipeline project expected to cost $8 billion. If completed, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) will export gas and later oil from the Caspian basin to Pakistan's coast where tankers will transport it to the West.

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/06/22/5953041-sun.php

Tom Engelhardt says, "No blood for... er... um..."

No Blood for... er... um...
The Oil Majors Take a Little Sip of the Ol' Patrimony
By Tom Engelhardt

More than five years after the invasion of Iraq -- just in case you were still waiting -- the oil giants finally hit the front page…

Last Thursday, the New York Times led with this headline: "Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." (Subhead: "Rare No-bid Contracts, A Foothold for Western Companies Seeking Future Rewards.") And who were these four giants? ExxonMobil, Shell, the French company Total and BP (formerly British Petroleum). What these firms got were mere "service contracts" -- as in servicing Iraq's oil fields -- not the sort of "production sharing agreements" that President Bush's representatives in Baghdad once dreamed of, and that would have left them in charge of those fields. Still, it was clearly a start. The Times reporter, Andrew E. Kramer, added this little detail: " include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today's prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash." And here's the curious thing, exactly these four giants "lost their concessions in Iraq" back in 1972 when that country's oil was nationalized. Hmmm.

You'd think the Times might have slapped some kind of "we wuz wrong" label on the piece. I mean, remember when the mainstream media, the Times included, seconded the idea that Bush's invasion, whatever it was about -- weapons of mass destruction or terrorism or liberation or democracy or bad dictators or… well, no matter -- you could be sure of one thing: it wasn't about oil. "Oil" wasn't a word worth including in serious reporting on the invasion and its aftermath, not even after it turned out that American troops entering Baghdad guarded only the Oil and Interior Ministries, while the rest of the city was looted. Even then -- and ever after -- the idea that the Bush administration might have the slightest urge to control Iraqi oil (or the flow of Middle Eastern oil via a well-garrisoned Iraq) wasn't worth spending a few paragraphs of valuable newsprint on.

SNIP

After all, the only people who thought that oil might have something to do with the invasion of Iraq weren't on the Times staff. They weren't, in fact, in the mainstream at all. And, to put things into context, depending on your estimates, there were only somewhere between 11 million and 30 million of them marching around in the streets of cities and towns all over the planet before the invasion, carrying signs that said ludicrous, easily dismissible things like: "No Blood for Oil," "How did USA's oil get under Iraq's sand?" and "Don't trade lives for oil!"

Let's face it: Among those who counted, they -- with their simpleminded slogans on hand-lettered placards -- just didn't count at all. Not when everyone who was anyone knew that the world was a much, much, much subtler and much, much more complicated place. No blood for oil? Sure, it was short and snappy and easy enough to get on a sign, but also about as absurdly reductionist, as unsubtle, as uncomplicated as possible.

http://tomdispatch.com/post/174947/finally_the_oil_

And for those who might be nostalgic for the good old days before the neocons hijacked the government and US foreign policy, compare the above to the overthrow in 1953 of the democratically elected Iranian PM Dr. Mohammed Mussadiq. MI6, with the special approval of Winston Churchill, and the CIA conspired together in a plot to oust Mussadiq and turn Iran over to the tender mercies of their puppet the Shah and the torturers in Savak, his notorious secret police. This was all done in order to keep Mussadiq from going ahead with a plan to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. At the time a British company, the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (later to become British Petroleum), had a monopoly on the Iranian oil industry and was felt by many Iranians to be taking advantage of their monopoly to unduly enrich their shareholders (which included the British government) at the expense of Iran.

A 'great venture':
overthrowing the government of Iran

by Mark Curtis

This is a slightly abridged version of part of chapter four of Mark Curtis's book The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (Zed Press, 1995).
* * *

In August 1953 a coup overthrew Iran's nationalist government of Mohammed Musaddiq and installed the Shah in power. The Shah subsequently used widespread repression and torture in a dictatorship that lasted until the 1979 Islamic revolution. The 1953 coup is conventionally regarded primarily as a CIA operation, yet the planning record reveals not only that Britain was the prime mover in the initial project to overthrow the government but also that British resources contributed significantly to the eventual success of the operation. Two first-hand accounts of the Anglo-American sponsorship of the coup - by the MI6 and CIA officers primarily responsible for it - are useful in reconstructing events. (1) Many of the secret planning documents that reveal the British role have been removed from public access and some of them remain closed until the next century - for reasons of 'national security'. Nevertheless, a fairly clear picture still emerges. Churchill later told the CIA officer responsible for the operation that he 'would have loved nothing better than to have served under your command in this great venture'. (2)

In the 1950s the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) - later renamed British Petroleum - which was managed from London and owned by the British government and British private citizens, controlled Iran's main source of income: oil. According to one British official, the AIOC 'has become in effect an imperium in imperio in Persia'. Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC not only made revenues from Iranian oil 'greatly in excess of the revenues of the Persian government but dominates the whole economic life of Persia, and therefore impairs her independence'. (3) The AIOC was recognised as 'a great foreign organisation controlling Persia's economic life and destiny'. The British oil business fared well from this state of affairs; the AIOC made £170 million in profits in 1950 alone. (4)

Iranians could also point to AIOC's effectively autonomous rule in the parts of the country where the oilfields lay, its low wage rates and the fact that the Iranian government was being paid royalties of 10% or 12% of the company's net proceeds, whilst the British government received as much as 30% of these in taxes alone. (5) Shown the overcrowded housing afforded to some of the AIOC workers, a British official commented: 'Well, this is just the way all Iranians live'. (6)

SNIP

When the coup scenario finally began, huge demonstrations proceeded in the streets of Tehran, funded by CIA and MI6 money, $1 million dollars of which was in a safe in the US embassy (57) and £1.5 million which had been delivered by Britain to its agents in Iran, according to the MI6 officer responsible for delivering it. (58)

According to then CIA officer Richard Cottam, 'that mob that came into north Tehran and was decisive in the overthrow was a mercenary mob. It had no ideology. That mob was paid for by American dollars.' (59) One key aspect of the plot was to portray the demonstrating mobs as supporters of the Communist Party - Tudeh - in order to provide a suitable pretext for the coup and the assumption of control by the Shah. Cottam observes that agents working on behalf of the British 'saw the opportunity and sent the people we had under our control into the streets to act as if they were Tudeh. They were more than just provocateurs, they were shock troops, who acted as if they were Tudeh people throwing rocks at mosques and priests'. (60) 'The purpose', Brian Lapping explains, 'was to frighten the majority of Iranians into believing that a victory for Mussadeq would be a victory for the Tudeh, the Soviet Union and irreligion'. (61)

The head of the CIA operation also sent envoys to the commanders of some provincial armies, encouraging them to move on to Tehran. (62) In the fighting in the capital, 300 people were killed before Musaddiq's supporters were defeated by the Shah's forces. AUS general later testified that 'the guns they had in their hands, the trucks they rode in, the armoured cars that they drove through the streets, and the radio communications that permitted their control, were all furnished through the military defence assistance program'. (63)

http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l30iran.htm

Note the cynical use of a "false flag" attack technique by the CIA/MI6 coup plotters. Through propaganda and spin they managed to successfully (and falsely) portray the mercenary thugs instigating the violence and mayhem as being supporters of Mossadeq and members of Tudeh, the Iranian Communist party. This was in order to scare the Iranians into believing that if Mossadeq were to remain as PM, Iran was in danger of being taken over by the communists.

It's interesting that twenty or so years later they used the same technique in Operation Gladio to fool many Europeans that violent and murderous acts of terrorism being carried out in Europe were the work of leftist radicals and communists, whereas the attacks were really the work of far right fanatics and ex-Nazis. These right wing thugs had found a home in the NATO/CIA/MI6 undercover, "stay behind" armies, formed in most European countries ostensibly to provide an underground resistance to a Soviet invasion of Europe but which in many cases had a dual purpose as an instigator of terrorism. This terrorism was blamed on the left by media and governments in order to discredit leftist and communist politicians. More about Operation Gladio here: http://nafeez.blogspot.com/2007/05/strategy-of-tension.html

[pansypoo53219]

1. have we tried blood as feul?

be a shame to be wasting it the way we are.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. kick n/t