Put a Tyrant in Your Tank
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Of course, the ills of nationalized oil extend well beyond U.S. energy policy. That much was apparent during a walk through the streets of Mandalay last spring. Burma's second-largest city felt tranquil at first glance. Crimson-robed monks padded through side alleys at dawn, begging for rice, while vendors stirred massive vats of bubbling oil and water to make thin rice noodles. But as the world recently witnessed, pent-up fury at Burma's military regime percolates just under the surface. "This government, it's nothing for us," one middle-aged resident told me. "We have nothing."
Those frustrations erupted last summer and fall after the government halted fuel subsidies, leading to a spike in food prices. Across the nation, monks swarmed into the streets to assail the policies of the ruling junta, which responded to the unrest with a violent crackdown. Subsequent sanctions imposed by the United States, the EU, and other democracies didn't seem to trouble Burma's leaders—they have "no major concerns," one head of Burma's national oil company told a trade publication in November, "as there are a lot of Indian, Chinese, Thai, and Malaysian companies operating in exploration and production."
The country has discovered some of Southeast Asia's largest natural gas deposits in recent years. Even as riot police beat and arrested protesters, India's oil minister was on hand to witness the signing of a $150 million contract for further gas exploration. A new pipeline is planned to carry Burma's gas to the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, raising the specter of brutality. "Areas of Burma that are subject to major development projects experience some of the most pervasive abuses," Human Rights Watch reported last year. The planned pipeline likely "will involve the use of forced labor, and result in illegal land confiscation, forced displacement, and unnecessary use of force against villagers," the group warned, and the sales windfall will further entrench the military regime.
But don't expect any action from the United Nations. In January 2007, China vetoed a Security Council resolution pressuring the Burmese junta to release political prisoners and ease its repression. Mere days after the veto, Burma granted China resource-exploration rights to three areas off its coast.
Burma is not an isolated example: Governments in Venezuela, Russia, and many other oil-rich countries have become increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. The D.C.-based monitoring group Freedom House cited a trend of international "freedom stagnation" in its 2007 "Freedom in the World" report and has deemed energy-rich countries "among the world's poorest performers in governance and democratic process." Russia, by the group's annual analyses, has declined from "partly free" in 2002 to "not free" last year. The Kremlin has become less responsive to American concerns, and it blocked Western election observers from monitoring Russia's parliamentary vote this past December.
The Dirty Dozen: U.S. Oil Imports 2007
Total: 10,010,000 barrels per day
Source: Energy Information Administration
Look Who's Got It: World Oil Reserves, January 2007
Total: 1,317 billion barrels
Source: Oil & Gas Journal
Freedom House ratings:
=free, =partly free, =not free
For its part, oil-rich Kazakhstan, once considered a leading democratic light in Central Asia, has devolved into a thugocracy where a prominent opposition leader was brutally murdered and longtime president Nursultan Nazarbayev, along with his oil minister, was accused of accepting $78 million in bribes in exchange for oil deals.
In Venezuela, which ranks near the bottom of Transparency International's annual index of perceived corruption, Chávez uses his state oil company as a private purse to fund pet projects. Some, such as literacy programs, promote social improvement and allow Chávez to appear the good guy, while others, like oil-funded purchases of arms and helicopters, help consolidate his power domestically.
Chávez also wields his nation's oil for regional influence. He has spread subsidized petroleum to his allies, bought up billions' worth of Argentine bonds, and helped other countries build up their own national oil firms, thereby gaining the loyalties of leaders from Argentina to Cuba. He has even used it to gain public sympathy while thumbing his nose at the Bush administration: Since 2005, Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state petroleum company, has doled out tens of millions of gallons of heavily discounted heating oil to low-income Americans, touting the giveaways—and the recipients' gratitude—in splashy print and television ads.
Where Chávez has used the carrot, Russia has wielded the stick. In late 2005, a year after Ukraine's Orange Revolution swept a more democratic government into power, Gazprom jacked up the price of natural gas to its neighbor. During the dispute that followed, Gazprom briefly cut off gas supplies midwinter, forcing Ukraine to pay more. The following winter, the firm used the same strategy against Georgia, another neighbor that had elected pro-Western leaders. This February, Russia and Ukraine reached a settlement after Gazprom again threatened to cut off gas to Ukraine, where average winter temperatures in the capital are below freezing.
On the environmental front, state-run oil companies make Shell and ExxonMobil look like Greenpeace.
Illustration: Sean Mccabe
Read with an understanding of the history of modern warfare, it is also easy to see why some historians believe that oil access has played a fundamental role in every conflict of the 20th century.
Finally, the financial numbers, attitudes and personalities described in this article provide support for one of my main theories about the power behind the anti-nuclear movement. Since nuclear power is the only new source of energy that actually has succeeded in taking market share from fossil fuel, I believe that purveyors of coal, oil and gas have provided some of the financial support used by the anti-nuclear activists to slow down the growth of the industry. The competition would reduce their money and grip on power.
The idea that CEOs of companies that receive billions in revenue would grovel before dictators just shows me that most of them have no sense of morals at all and are willing to sell their souls for a bit of coin. Incredible.
"American corporate tyrants are *nicer* & *better* than foreign corporate tyrants"
*sigh* okay... I'll bite.
Tell a resident of 'The Other Americas' about the *benevolence* of American corporations...
...or an African...
...or a Asian...
... or the PEOPLE WHO GET SHOT BY AMERICAN CORPORATIONS who are trying to prevent privatization, resource exploitation or unionization
Its called REGIME CHANGE, WHINSEC & private contractors.
You just didn't THINK it was Americans... "just those 'brown' or 'yellow' peoples who seem to be always fighting or throwing rocks at one another", right?
ITS BEEN GOING ON, its just that the residents of the United States didn't have to stare it in the face every day. Meanwhile, they made the armaments & consumed the benefits.
Why do you *think* everybody BUT the US had such high oil prices for decades? *duh* You aren't even CLOSE to the prices of petroleum paid by non-US residents for decades.
excepting that the oil is being bought by military might, & will be subject to compound interest & international courts of settlement.
all nicely sanitized by "*The* American" mass media.
you know, the mass media that stomps local culture & information into obscurity...
~~~
Spread Love...
BlueBerry Pick'n
ThisCanadian com
~~~
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
~~~
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
"Do no harm"
Funny Fact: In Denmark the price of gasoline is 50% higher than the price of organic milk.
Tyrants do not allow elections OR accept the results of elections that go against their will.
Therefore: Chavez is not a tyrant and the USA is for cancelling or challenging elections in Central America, Vietnam, Korea, and lately in Iraq because they did not like the results.
Tyrants do not give a "flip" about the poor and only pay attention to them in the form of "bread and circus" handouts.
Therefore: Chavez is not a tyrant because he has done more against poverty in his country than anyone before him and the USA is a tyrant because the poor people of America, of which there are many, receive very little from the government other than lip service.
So much for identifying the tyrants.
Mother Jones was a brave and tireless advocate of justice but she must be spinning like a top right now due to MJ magazines' bs articles like this one.
On the other hand, the nationalist oil giants are just responding to the example that multinationals and their supportive governments have done prior to the rise of nationalist oil interests.
Your article speaks from the perspective that the past is not that relevant. I beg to differ. And so does the truth.
rm
This Bush administration made it inevitable that tyrants in the oil-producing countries have got an upper hand (habeas corpus? tortures? secret courts?) Those who have arranged the disastrous Bush epoch were sitting tightly at the source of oily money.
A lot of blood-covered money...
Who’s to blame for this change? The wealthy-powerful few who control policy. They’ve sold our future for short-term profit. Greed and corruption by disgustingly wealth individuals have led to this change. That’s individuals, not a whole country, corporations or governments.
What to do? Embrace the change. Change is good. Lets get gas to $10/gallon or higher. That’ll push us all to make the right change and get off our oil diet. So, thank you wealthy one-percenters for this change.
One World, under the sun.
Peace.
I would however, not include Venezuela in the mix as Rick Little points out. They do have a democratically elected leader who has done much to improve the lot of his country's poor.
With China & India quickly becoming big oil consumers and the supplies dwindling, I would say $10.00 a gallon is on the horizon.
Shall we continue to use our military to keep our hand on Iraq's oil spigot just so Americans can continue drive Expeditions and Hummers? Can we really blame the corporations when we so eagerly lap up their product?
This time, However, I am of the opinion that homework was done, and someone looked into all aspects, and found just what it says.
kudos to you, and sorrow to us.....
Cyborg (Mike Sartor Sr)
Go this way and you will sure get a job in the George W. White House...It is only a couple of months to go, but you can still get rich..
After reading most of the comments to this article I guess is all said.
Once upon a time, before dear ol' gasoline, there was another way of generating the old electromechanical forces. It was called 'steam'. You heat water past 212F, doesn't really matter how, the water doesn't really have any special preferences to take into consideration, no boutique fuels that it likes better than the others, anyway, 212+F and the water wants to Go Away, somewhere cooler, kind of like when people in Texas head north for summer vacation or something. Only, water wants to leave NOW. Think Robert Fulton, think 1800's choo-choo, think Stanley Steamer, where there's a will, there's a way, and if the Stanley Steamer could do a buck and a quarter on a sandy beach a hundred years ago, imagine what they might be able to do these days if Detroit et. al. really put their minds to it. Lots of things can be burned to give off heat, and done a lot more efficiently than in an 'otto' engine, and if people work on this stuff at home, then other folks who might try to monopolize the technology or twist the law in their favor in an anti-competitive way will be out twisting in the wind as millions of people drive to work in SPITE of them. But, maybe instead, the petro-peeps might decide to have a little change of heart, there, and see about dropping those prices a notch. Either that, or sell the land they've got their gas stations built on...decisions, decisions...where there's a will, there's a way.
The sooner we get whiped off the face of this earth the better.
But as reported in the November/December 2006 issue of Mother Jones, (It's Not Easy Being Green by Paul Roberts) as "BP put $500 million into solar power between 2000 and 2005, it spent $8.4 billion exploring and producing petroleum in 2004 alone." It also at one time lobbied hard to get ANWR open to drilling.
Rex Tillerson, head of ExxonMobil was quoted as saying "At a time when we should open doors to trade, resource nationalism closes them." I, and I'm sure many others, don't take this quote to heart since it comes from a huge corporation that has not only helped lead our country down the road of imperialism, but has also exploited other nation‚s oil like Iran & Venezuela for their own personal gain and said to hell with any mutual benefit.
The underlying feeling I get from the article is jealousy. Mr.
Kurlantzick creates a mood that is angry that the US no longer has the power it used to have over these countries and is now the beggar rather than the master. He attacks Chavez for supposedly consolidating his power by purchasing arms and helicopters despite the fact that he was democratically elected and refused to force his constitutional changes on the population when he lost the referendum.
How come we jsut don't make Venezuela our 51st state..? We should have knocked off that lame-ass dictator a long time ago. Since the prohabition aginst assassination of him is now LEGAL, maybe we should hook up with the "Freedom Fighters" in his country and make that country our 51st state..?
Oil forever, right..?
Bill
Clearly, one is baffled at the unfeeling minds that rule these individuals, for they cannot be human, perhaps they are subhuman, or are automatons created by the "Reptilian Grey Aliens". Ask yourselves why was the EV1, a carbon free car, designed by General Motors, taken out of production, back in 1996? This car could have slowed down global warming, pollution, and averted the Iraqui war. Ask yourselves why is it that there is so many billions of dollars available for the war machine, but not much trickling down to the poor, and improving their health, and education? Ask yourselves why is it that nuclear power is being forced upon the world when we know the lethal dangers of radioactivity to all life? These "Aliens" care not about this planet, and prefer to see it destroyed than to relinquish their power. Do you not smell evil here? Is it not time for the public at large to open their eyes, and stop this manipulation by these extremely selfish, greedy top management that hold so much power over the world just to satisfy their own self-interests, and self-importance, which is ruinning the lives of the majority of the world's people? Ask yourselves why the Media is owned by the Corporate Cartels? To control the masses, and keep them ignorant of the crimes they consistently, and pathologically persist in destroying precious natural ecosystems, without which Mother Earth will not be able to continue to harbour life. Only twenty percent of the world's forests remain, and are being coveted by these "reptilian minds", and the water in the lakes, rivers and Oceans are becoming "titanic containers" of heavy metals, and ill conceived products, such as plastic, tin foil, and styrofoam. In the Pacific Ocean alone a trail as large as five hundred thousand nautical miles of plastic debris - the so called plastic soup - is poisoning marine life, birds, and our food chain. Demand from your Government that all products be designed with the environment in mind. Anything that is not natural is harmful to the health of humans, for we too are part of Nature. The top executives of these multinationals do not care about the wellbeing of the planet, and its people; all they care about is money and power. They are copycats of "King Midas". One has to ask are they human? For one notices that they are incapable of feeling, of discerning that they are, literally, destroying this beautiful planet that took billions of years to create, and in less than a hundred years they have managed to pollute the water, air and land without any scruples or forethought. Again, one has to ask: Are they human? They physically resemble humans, but are not endowed with the thoughtful, caring minds of well balanced human beings. Otherwise, if they were originally from planet Earth, they would try to save it, and not destroy it. Why are we allowing "empty shells",[or perhaps they are extraterrestrials] rule our beloved planet? Once they destroy the Earth, we do not have another one nearby that we could escape to. Our planet deserves our respect and appreciation, for it has given us a "Paradise" to live in, full of life and an array of food sources, but it is our responsibility to take care of it, and treat it with dignity.
Therefore take action, and submit letters to your Government demanding a stop on corruption, fear, greed, egoism, which are what allows for ENRON type characters to flourish, and make a mockery of your economic, political system. Perhaps they too are extraterrestrial.
Chavez will reap the fruits of his massive errors. The people already are.
@ Maria Daaz (org: June 6, 2008 10:06:32 AM)
Wow, very well written!
Based on my research, though, the Greys themselves are a sub-race to the Reptilians.
Some more notes:
Many past civilizations were subjected to Alien interference. Some were able to build pyramids to astronomical precisions. Would the same people write nonsense into their history?
Can you image if free energy was released?
You could heat as much as you wanted and not worry about cost. This alone would probably save lives in some countries.
You could grow your own vegetables all year long. Because you could heat as much as you wanted and have power for lamps. That means you could rely on your own healthy meals, grown organically and naturally without dangerous pesticides and a massive food price inflation.
I you had a piece of land with a modest house that is paid off, you would not have to work or rather slave for one of those corporations that in the end destroy us.
Ahh...
People are so blind and aphatetic that humanity is being repressed on a global scale.
There are many unbelievably evil people in power today. We are so apathetic and brainwashed that we believe their stories.
Ask yourself, if you knew that your distant neighbour tortured someone, would you go to a ping-pong party to his house?
Let us hope that we experience true freedom in our life times.
Whether freedom is repressed on the outside or not we first have to learn to cultivate it in our hearts.
Infinity is here and now. It is wrapped inside each atom. However, they are not separate infinities. Each atom is a tiny expression of the Infinity from which it all comes from. We are all centers of Infinity, yet we are all ONE.
This is not some esoterical BS. Look at latest science. They are talking about dimensions folded within tiny strings of energy which "create" the atomic particles.
They also conducted a specific experiment, thousand of times, and each time the same thing was revealed. An atomic "particle" only comes to a specific point and time (and even that is never 100%) when something "looks" at it. When you don't look at it, it is only a wave. A wave of what? It cannot be something physical, since this wave can stretch the entire universe. What are we and the entire universe all made of again?
Can sound a bit overwhelming but in the end it is quite simple. I mean as someone beautifully put it "IT is as natural as going to the toilet".
:-)
Not the "corrupt" nations. Some of these are currently in the crosshairs of US military force and covert operations, even covert-sponsored terrorism or "rebellion".
That MJ would try to pass off a CIA-puff-piece as "progressive", that's awful. (CIA has been sponsoring Left media since the 1960's, exposed by Ramparts and others.)
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Putin defending his nation -- and attempting to defend bi-lateral trade agreements from US covert political interference, such as election fraud --- that's bad on Russia?
I do not know how free or unfree Russia is internally. I've not read about any gulags recently. Given the growth of prosperity and shopping, I'd say they're probably more free than most US-backed dictatorships.
However, Dan seems to NOT know what the rest of the world knows -- that the USA and Israel armed and funded Georgia, that the USA and Israel placed armed forces on the ground as "advisors", and that we *pushed* Georgia into attacking Russian-based citizens in the South Ossetia province of Georgia.
We sponsored a massive bombing campaign by Georgia that killed upwards of 1400 civilians. This was the initiating event. Then we complained when Russia responded militarily to that attack on it's people, which caused 61 or so deaths among the Georgian aggressors, plus some damage.
South Ossetia is legally within the boundaries of Georgia, but has been operating as independent for years, and is mostly aligned with Russia. So I've read.
Paul Craig Roberts is a cabinet-level Reaganite who deplores how America has gone from solidly conservative to mindlessly insane, and he blames the Neo-cons for that. Roberts has clarified this noise about Russia's alleged invasion and alleged meddling. In this case, they are legitimately defending their regional interests, and without force, except when force is initiated.
To think that a Reagan Revolution cabinet member would be farther to the Left than MJ ("Left" in terms of a dissident viewpoint and not kow-towing to US political militarism, refuting CIA propaganda), that's pretty astonishing.
Bush's "bold response" was a PR event -- worse a PR event designed to further provoke Russia into conflict. It's called "The Grand Chessboard", you might read it some time. (used, library, or torrent search)
In this example of rolling back Russian CAPITALISM in the East (having already rolled back communism), now figures like Brzezinski, Soros, Woolsey, Bush, Cheney, Rice, are all working together. Unfortunately, that must include Obama, as well.