Oil: The Weapon Generator

With news of the falling price of a barrel of oil, Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are experiencing spending hardships (3 Oil-Rich Countries Face a Reckoning). The United States seems to reap the benefit of a lower price at the pump, and the world seems to be a safer place, because oil is so cheap. Well, you would assume that is true, but it is not.

In the past the United States has gone to Saudi Arabia cutting a deal that if the Saudis could offer up its oil resources, we would promise plenty of military aid, and support, just in case, a country like Saudi Arabia, with a very weak military infrastructure, would not have to fret over foreign threats in their region of the world. What a nice deal that is! This is sort of an unspoken agreement that the United States has with Saudi Arabia, but is evident all together, when you consider that such a nationally insecure country like Saudi Arabia has never really faced any real threat of invasion or attack from another nation since World War Two. As long as the oil flows from the sandy desert nation to the always thirsty United States, the latter will always have the former's back.

In more recent history, the U.S. has held an eight year occupation of Iraq, and that has led to relentless fighting from insurgencies from all over the Middle East. America's response is "bring it on!" Now, keep in mind that the U.S. is fighting a war on terror, against a non-national entity, that most likely has a miniscule financial base, and no central organization, yet it has spent double the amount of years in Iraq and Afghanistan at war, than it had in in fighting the Axis powers of World War Two. These were enemies with huge governments, tremendous military powers, and geographical reaches that make Iraq's geographical threat seem as contained a threat as a box of matches in a rain storm. Both Iraq and Afghanistan surround Iran, and the occupations of these to nations could be interpreted as a containment strategy by the U.S., and not a war for freedom and democracy fro Iraqis. So, fighting the war on terror serves a dual purpose, but in all reality the occupations seem to fit policies of protecting America's prized energy resources.

If you think that it's not about that, then consider why the U.S.'s occupation contains a ratio of one to one, of military soldiers to private contractors (U.S.-Iraq Deal Could Mean Jail Time for Contractors). These contractors are not only there for security details but also to supply energy infrastructure construction for Iraq. Washington Group International, an Idaho based construction company was awarded a $500,000,000 government contract in May of 2004 for "electrical power distribution and transmission" in the northern region of Iraq. Teco Ocean Shipping, a part of Teco Energy, was granted a $7.2 million contract for what the government termed "emergency ocean freight." Now this may not have much to do with energy contracting, but when perusing the other contractors, it is worth mentioning that Stevedoring Services of America, based out of Seattle, was given a $14.3 million contract to not only operate and manage the Iraqi Port Authority, but would include such services such as handling cargo, and shipment tracking. Considering the accusations that Stevedoring was participating in "gross profiteering" drawn from humanitarian aid, there is an argument that arises, addressing the issue of why a company contracted to provide humanitarian aid to Iraq, would need to monitor both incoming and outgoing goods, if its main purpose is to provide incoming welfare goods. At the same time require $90 million in upgrades for the southern port of Umm Qasr, in order to effectively provide humanitarian aid. This sounds very much like energy infrastructure building for profit, and also enabling U.S. based energy relationships to put a energy exporting infrastructure in place. Next, in line, is Stanley Consultants. They say they provide multi-disciplinal engineering, management, but their main focus is on energy development, land/resource development, and infrastructure projects. They were in fact responsible for rebuilding Kuwait after the first Iraq war in 1991. Stanley won a $7 million contract from the U.S. Army for unknown services in Iraq.

The list is quite lengthy, and some companies aren't worth mentioning, like Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton), simply because so much has been said about its shady ties to the government, and shifty behavior with U.S. Army bids, that it is quite obvious that oil, energy, and war all go hand in hand when it comes to this company. As it is evident, on the surface a lot of the contracts served in Iraq or the Middle East are not telling, but the underlying structure wields much in the way of not nation rebuilding but major profits for private energy sector gained from war. If this war was about freeing Iraqis, and supplying humanitarian aid, why did it last four and a half years more, and why was Jay Garner, a humanitarian expert, replaced by Paul Bremmer, an incompetent puppet of the Bush administration? And, where did all the money go for humanitarian efforts? Where's the aid in ignoring "repeated appeals" from the emergency room in Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital, that was "still short of basic medicines and equipment. There were only twelve beds in the emergency room...the hospital pharmacy" was constantly "out of ointments, eyedrops, and medicine for children...and in the medical lab, there was antiquated equipment and just one microscope." (from Against Us by Jim Sciutto. Harmony Books. New York, pp. 112)

Oil can lead to many other devices. Several arguments can be made for why America wants a war in Iraq, but one very strong argument is that it wasn’t just for the oil. Jim Sciutto, a journalist with ABC News, asked a medical doctor about this. “More seriously, I asked Dr. Jamal what we could possibly achieve by bogging down the U.S. military for years and spending trillions of dollars in a losing battle.” Jamal responded without hesitating, “It’s not just for oil, but for selling weapons. Selling everything, soldiers need new tanks, new equipment, it’s about money, not just oil.” (from Against Us by Jim Sciutto. Harmony Books. New York, pp. 124)

On the same hand, Iran, a very oil rich nation, is now contained. The West at the current stage of the game can restrict Iran's international position as an energy supplier to any nation who does not play into the policies of the United States. It's not to say they despise America, but would rather have a more independent role in the international scene. Countries like Venezuela, for instance, praise Iran for its international sovereignty, and now even seek weapons trade or even military practices with Russia, another energy resource player, in exchange for Venezuelan petro-generated dollars.

Everyone across the globe is playing for money based on oil. It is a heavy price to pay, when innocent men and women are sent into war, strictly for the purpose of controlling the flow of that oil, but big business will have its way with government's politically elite, without regard for the benefit of mankind, but only the drive to get more cash.