I have long believed that the U.S. will always need an arch-nemesis to justify its defense spending always being millions of dollars higher than any other world power — a country, or "axis" of (evil) countries portrayed as an enemy and a real threat to all that is American. My first example: communism and the cold war.
As I will explain below U.S. policies during the cold war gave birth to the most recent nemesis (Iraq) and the current one (Islamic radicalism).
I had always thought that these were unintended consequences, but as all the news now indicates that the world powers are squaring up to fight for the world's remaining resources, the Iraq and Islamic threat being used as justification to take control of massive oil-reserves there, and the latter potentially giving the U.S. free license for other operations and invasions where most of these remaining resources lie, I ask myself: were they accidents, or has it all been planned from the start?
During the cold war, Afghanistan's government became allied with and controlled by the U.S.S.R. The big oil corporations had noted potential in Afghanistan for a major money-spinning pipeline between the major oil reserves in the Caucasus and financially-rich, resource-poor Asia. Mujahideen groups began fighting the Soviet allied government. And Reagan began covertly funding the extremist of extreme Mujahideen groups, pressuring Saudi Arabia to match the level of funding, and arming the anti-Soviet Afghans with the best weaponry — all via Pakistani intelligence.
The U.S. wanted to draw the Soviet army into invading Afghanistan, seeing the opportunity for "giving to the USSR its Vietnam war", meaning to bog the U.S.S.R down causing a major drain on their resources and weakening the Soviet empire.
It worked, but in the course of it, the pressure applied to Saudi Arabia's King Fahd led to his intelligence chief Turki al-Faisal hiring Osama Bin Laden to recruit fighters and secure funds from rich Arabs for the Afghan Jihad, and having the U.K.'s Special Air Service give the Mujahideen explosives training — including how to improvise Soviet explosives captured in ambushes and recovered mines. Bin Laden kept a database of fighters recruited for the struggle — Al Qaeda is base in Arabic. How much did the C.I.A know about, or have to do with that appointment?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Your history here is good, and there's no question that oil is what sets this part of the world apart and makes it the focus of so much attention, but I don't see anything here but pure speculation to support your conspiracy theory.
For the conspiracy to be real it would require multiple US administrations from both parties to have participated, and with all the changes in our policy towards the middle east through the period you're talking about that just doesn't make any sense. It seems much more rational to assume that US policy has had much smaller objectives and quite a number of unintended consequences.
There also remains a large factor which you and others who are looking for secret meaning behind these wars often overlook. The way the oil industry is structured, there is NO advantage to the US government controlling the oil over having that oil in the hands of any stable government. There's also no real disadvantage to having middle east oil funneled directly to China because (say it with me) oil is a fungible resource. The way the oil industry works, if the oil gets pumped the oil companies will eventually get their hands on it and make their money, and the US consumer will inevitably get their share. In fact, the only thing which interferes with this inevitable process is war, which takes oil off the market. Even if the oil is pumped by Jihadist lunatics in Iran and sold to baby killing communists in China, the oil doesn't care, and the main result is that China buys less oil somewhere else and that oil becomes available to us instead (thank you Mr. Chavez).
Dave
2 - moonraven
Pure Nalle nonsense, as usual.
Everything since the early 70s in US foreign policy has been about grabbing and controlling resources--especially petroleum and gas.
There are few governments on the planet more stable than that of Venezuela (Chavez has been elected president 4 times now, with landslide victories, and the Venezuelan people beat back the US-sponsored coup d'etat of April 2002 in 47 hours), so there is CLEARLY a difference to the US to control the resources versus having them in the hands of a stable government.
Kepp of dreaming, Nalle. But learn to do it better. [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
3 - moonraven
Keep on....
4 - Dave Nalle
Pure drivel as usual, MR. The US isn't making any efforts to stage coups in venezuela and our prior involvement there was to protect existing interests, not to seize the oil resources. That should be obvious fact even to you.
After all, as you point out, Venezuela is stable. They sell us their oil. I bought some the other day at my local Citgo. We don't need anything else from them.
The only reason to be concerned about the country at all is over the slow slide they are making into dictatorship, and that's just important to a few soft hearted folks like Clavos and I.
Dave
5 - moonraven
The US is a dictatorsjip, and that doesn't bother your fat ass one bit.
The US is spending hundreds of millions of YOUR tax dollars (not mine) trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela. That's what the Office of Transition in Caracas is all about.
Duh.
What were those "existing interests"--if they were not oil and gas?
Chavez will cut off petroleum to the US any time he feels like it. Those huge supertankers he is building jointly with China are all about that.
The Bush Gang overplayed its hand in Venezuela, and still is on its racist donkey believing that a person of color cannot outwit and outplay them.
Shit, Chavez' IQ must be at least double that of GW Bush.
6 - troll
so...you've got these two companies...one of them cracks oil out of shale and the other pumps it from shallow middle eastern wells
who is getting a better return on investment - ?
the war is about privatization (in all but name) -
fungible smungible
7 - Deano
Interesting post but I think that you underestimate the smug sense of apathy that permeated US dealing with the region in the wake of the Soviet withdraw.
Once the Cold War collapsed, US funding and attention to Central Asia had pretty much dissipated, as evidenced by the short shrift the US gave Mashood and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan during the simmering civil war against the Taliban after the Russian's fled. The US failed to make any effort to curtail the Taliban or rein-in Pakistan's overt funding and support of them. Indeed it pretty much passed on multiple opportunities to limit their influence and turned a blind eye to their activities to an extent because of the Taliban's surpression of the drug trade which was seen as a burgeoning problem.
I view the events that subsequently unfolded as less by wicked devious design and more as the inevitable byproduct of short-term, reactive politics, hypocrisy and strategic blindness.
Blowback?- definitely; controlled explosion? - not so much, more akin to Wile E. Coyote sighing and sitting on the detonator....
8 - Clavos
"Chavez will cut off petroleum to the US any time he feels like it."
Once again, you're not paying attention and talking out of your ass, mr.
To whom El Chango sells his oil doesn't matter. We will be able to buy it from whomever does buy it from him; and if not them, then from whomever they sell it to.
One more time, mr:
OIL IS A FUNGIBLE RESOURCE.
9 - moonraven
And you are some kind of fungus.
While Chavez, bless his big heart, is GOD.
10 - moonraven
Please TRY to remember, clavos, that I am NEVER wrong.
Nor, for that matter, is Chavez.
He said oil would be selling for 80 bucks a barrel before October.
Ignorant fuckheads like you said he was talking out his ass.
Maybe it's just his ass that's GOD....
11 - Dr Dreadful
I am NEVER wrong.
But what if you're wrong about that...?
12 - Clavos
"But what if you're wrong about that...?"
She is.
13 - moonraven
Never.
And I never will be wrong.
Somrthing hard for a cromagnon like clavos--who has never been RIGHT--to grasp.
It's all about power.
14 - Clavos
Whistling past the graveyard....
15 - Baronius
The problem with this article is that any of the countries' names could be changed and it would still hold true. Foriegn policy is about juggling priorities: multiple conflicting national interests and (one hopes) national principles. The US isn't unique in having policies come back and bite them, and it doesn't mean that the original policies were wrong.
Let's take France, Turkey, China, and Venezuela. I just chose those because they have no obvious connections. Every one of them has national/cultural values, and has had leadership toggling between several of those values. They've had national interests, which sometimes have led to former allies becoming enemies. They've been aggressors and isolationists. They've had policy changes over time, and sudden regime changes.
It's silly to single out the US as the only country who has changed foriegn policy. We can be proud that our policies have generally coincided with our principles. But at times we have to choose the lesser of two evils. Which evil is lesser will change over time, both in our perception and in reality.
16 - Dee
Liam - You are one of the "awake" ones who really has been able to see what America has become. Read "Dark Ages America" and it gets more into this exact subject. America does always need an enemy, its easy, its the only way to justify the money that is expended on our military. And of course it is the easiest way to control the stupid ones of the population. Put them in a constant state of fear and war. America has become an imperial power, wake up donkeys. This country needs a slap in the face and a wake up call. We can't just invade any country with oil, people in power are not that stupid, the motives cannot be that obvious. There are other countries out there watching us. This country is going to get what's coming to it unless we change our actions and leaders soon.
17 - Lumpy
Dee is how u pronounce the first letter in deluded. But good point in the universality of the problems any nation deals with, baronius.
18 - dfctomm
This is not a war for dwindling resources. Why the hell do people dance around this subject. The problem is population, we are breeding like rats and its soon going to force us into killing each other, and yet you never hear that mentioned.
19 - Clavos
"...we are breeding like rats and its soon going to force us into killing each other, and yet you never hear that mentioned."
Maybe because birth rates in most of the world, especially the developed countries, are actually going down?
Were it not for immigration, the USA's population would actually be decreasing, and Europe's IS decreasing.
Even China's birth rate is slowing rapidly.
20 - dee
clavas [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] dude believe whatever you want to believe but overall the TOTAL population is increasing every year... that's a fact... tis true that some countries are decreasing in population but the human species population is getting larger every year... [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
21 - Clavos
Read a book titled "The Population Bomb", dee; you can find it in your library.
Read it, then try to learn how to reason (as opposed to name-calling), if you succeed, we can debate then.
22 - troll
500,000,000 or bust - !
23 - dfctomm
Clavos,
You are correct certain segments of the world population are flat or even in decline. The Western nations is in decline and China's population is in flattening out, but overall population is increasing. There are some theories that population globally will begin to level off, but until it happens it will remain a theory.
Russia just had a "fertility day" where workers got the day off to go home and make a good little Russian. I suspect you're going to see more of this from the declining populations. While this make help to reverse the trend of declining populations in Western nations it will add to the congestion.
You mentioned China's decline, but there decline may come with a down side with much darker results than the good they hope to achieve by reducing their population. A generation of boys with no females are going to be very unhappy. What form that unhappiness takes is yet to be seen.
My point however, was not the increase in population. In the article dwindling resources are a large part of his argument, however the obvious flip side to that coin is population which he didn't mention. Why was it left unspoken? Is it because the population boom is coming from third world minority nations, and to note it, would be considered racist? How can we confront a problem that we feel we can't even discuss in polite conversation.
24 - Nancy
Those breeding prolifically are as always those least qualified to breed: the stupid, the ignorant, the uneducated, the slackers, the lowest classes - because they're too ignorant & stupid to appreciate why they should keep their pants on & have fewer offspring. The educated & intelligentsia have always opted for fewer offspring & limited breeding, knowing that concentrating resources on fewer children increases the chances of those kids growing up to have not just lives, but QUALITY lives, of their own. Ironically, they then proceed to non-breed themselves into an endangered state, while the 'rats' breed on: regardless of race etc. it's always the lowest classes that spawn like cockroaches. It's an educational level thing. Once educated, most populations tend to slow their incessant & mindless breeding.
25 - moonraven
Sounds pretty damn racist to me, Nancy.
How would you like it if all fat people were declared lumpen?