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.

Why Corporate America is Unpatriotic

Just got through an article in the New York Times today investigating the firing of an Army financial overseer, who was let go because he refused to approve a $1 billion payment on poorly documented invoices produced by KBR a Houston based military contractor (Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stir, New York Times). What struck a chord with me on this story is that the Pentagon argued that the overseer was not released from his duties because of the refusal, yet after letting him go, they reversed his decision to not follow through with payment. Their explanation for this decision was that they felt if they failed to make good on their payments to KBR, the company would limit it's services to the government. KBR even stated this off the record to the New York Times, stating that "if it was not paid, it would reduce payments to subcontractors, which in turn would cut back on services."
First off, why is the Pentagon so dependent on infrastructure support given by an independent private entity, which apparently has no common interests with the American people, because if it did, wouldn't they make an effort to adjust their reception of payments from the U.S. government? A government who symbolizes disagreement of the Iraq war as dissent, and a metaphor for being unpatriotic, yet this same government, cowers at the threat of a private corporation that holds the withdrawal of dependable military support over our heads, if we don't make good on our million dollar payments. Who's unpatriotic, here? Who in fact seems to be not our troops.
Now, setting the question of patriotism aside, KBR not only has the inability to effectively invoice their services, so the Pentagon doesn't have to second guess itself, but they've also have been involved in tax evasion back in March of 2008. The Boston Globe reported, that the U.S. Defense Department knew that KBR was avoiding taxes, by "declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies" (Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore, Boston Globe). The DOD justified this tax evasion by stating that by KBR not having to pay taxes to Social Security and Medicare, this would lower the cost of their services to the American government. This is absolutely outrageous, and is a slap in the face to the American taxpayer, who currently has no equity in their Social Security system, which is failing, and as President Bush has been quoted to say, "will be bankrupt by 2042" (Partisan Social Security Claims Questioned, Washington Post). So not only is KBR draining out tax dollars, and the Pentagon, through dodgy accounting, but also has decided that it's fair not to contribute to the welfare of American citizens, by dodging its responsibility to pay employment taxes. That's not their money, and so they have no right to decide whether they should pay it or not. Especially when they hold $16 billion dollars worth of military contracts.
Adding more salt to the taxpayers' wounds, KBR has continued this game of beating the system, and draining our defense department of money in more ways than one, yet the Bush administration, and the Pentagon refused to acknowledge this corporate wrong-doing.
Research this matter for yourself, and you'll see an ever-present pattern of our governement pouring billions of dollars in to private contracts without pressing the contractors to be fiscally responsible with reporting their costs, and closing the loops in the tax evasion practices of these companies. It's very unpatriotic to steal money from a country you "support", and continue to take more and more, when our troops can barely arm themselves, and cannot practically benefit from a hearty paycheck at the end of the day. You call this war patriotic?

Can You Guess the Target?

Thought this was an interesting view. I downloaded a KML from Google Earth's bulletin board, that contained all the military installations of the U.S. in the Middle East. Just worth noting, that's all ()=)