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CounterPunch
February
27, 2003
Life in a Barrel of Oil
A Dirty and
Murderous Business
by JOHN STANTON
The Grammy Award's selectors overlooked the American
Petroleum Institute's (API) hit children's recording titled Energy
and Me by Bill B (Bill Brennan). With its accompanying dance
video, API describes the project as one that "integrates
music and dance with energy education" for the age range
4-15. The CD features classics like Energy Y Yo and We Can Save
Energy. Energy and Me was manufactured by API partner Project
Learning Tree, the environmental education program of the American
Forest Foundation (AFF). A visit to AFF's
website (<>) reveals that it is funded primarily by
energy, logging, paper and packaging corporations. Of the 151
listed as donators-- API, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Tenneco Packaging
among them--approximately 13 percent are not corporations and
include groups such as the Mead Foundation and the National Hispanic
Environmental Council.
Energy and Me is part of the oil and
natural gas industry's Energy and Society Education Program to
enlighten K-8 educators and youngsters about fossil fuels. Any
teacher or student can visit the excellent
API website and, once there, be directed to the slick Energy
& Society section which features colorful happy-go-lucky
images of K-8 aged children and a slew of user-friendly interactive
options, including quiz taking, for young and old alike. Children
can enter contests and have their parents or guardians order
Billy B's CD and video, or education kits. Energy and Me received
the third-place Parent's Choice "Recommended" Award
which means it has some redeeming value to the child listener
or viewer. And guess who submitted the production to Parent's
Choice for review? API's partner Project Learning Tree.
One of the most clever pitches in the
energy education program is the "There's a Lot of Life in
a Barrel of OiI " sell which maintains "It's amazing
how many things get their start from a barrel of oil. Everyday
things like the gasoline you use to drive to the beach Comfy
synthetic fabrics you wear year-round. Medicines to make you
feel better. Fertilizer that helps your garden grow. Plus a bevy
of fun toys. Discover how much life there is in a barrel of oil.
You'll discover how the oil and natural gas industry keeps America
going strong."
So now oil and natural gas companies
are K-8 educators with a reach that extends to American kindergartners
or any child anywhere with access to an Internet connection and
a web browser. A whole generation of children will come to learn
that it's necessary to drill on wildlife refuges and "voluntarily"
submit to greenhouse reductions rather than comply with international
accords or domestic regulations. They will also learn that, according
to API, there's another 97 years before any climate change might
take place, so why worry? Let's suck up as much as we can now
and let other generations handle the impending disaster. According
to API, "The severity of a future problem is unclear. Also,
if serious climate problems develop, they may not occur until
the end of the century or later. Finally, the costs of reducing
emissions-and therefore the impacts on the economy and consumers-vary
greatly depending on when and how green house gases reductions
are made."
API's educational website exudes comfort,
tranquility, soft colors, and the feeling that, yes, thanks to
America's energy folks, they really do "Keep America Going
Strong". All's well in their hands.
Dirty &
Murderous Business
Those K-8 youngsters will never learn
that the energy business is a filthy one in which US and European
governments--and their militaries--must and will resort to any
tactic in any country to get the oil and natural gas companies
in a position to extract and deliver product. Nor will they learn
how some oil and natural gas companies have engaged in ruthless
and, allegedly, murderous actions against host country nationals.
Moreover, they will not realize that they themselves, their parents,
their communities, their economies, their governments, and their
militaries are vile addicts hooked on the bubbling crude. Without
oil and natural gas, economies would collapse and citizens would
revolt. By the year 2030, both the US and Europe will need to
import close to 70 percent of their oil and natural gas. The
US already imports close to 15 million barrels of oil per day.
All that to drive alone--unsmiling and unhappy but smelling clean--a
$40,000 four-passenger vehicle to and from work each day.
Stability of supply is critical and the
only way to get it is to take over the oil producing world. It
really is that simple. And that is precisely why the US and Europe--the
latter being appalled at the thought of US dominance of the world's
oil and natural gas supply--are so keen on taking out heads of
state in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela (in other words, reduce
risk investment), and are anxious to have countries like Crotia,
Poland, Bulgaria and Slovenia in the NATO Pipeline alliance.
The US has entered Colombia's decades-old civil war against the
FARC not because FARC has anything to do with communism or drug
running, but because FARC operatives disrupt the flow of oil
through Occidental's pipelines. And it's laughable to listen
to militant Republicans and Christians--and their Democrat counterparts--moan
on and on about China-as-threat, China-as-human-rights abuser
when, in fact, every red-blooded American oilman and woman wants
a piece of China's energy market, particularly if they can get
upstream equity in their projects.
The US Energy Division of the International
Trade Mission announced recently that in October 2003, it's running
a trade show over in Kazakhstan, one of America's newest and
most trusted allies in the US War Machine. "Kazakhstan's
booming oil and gas sector presents numerous opportunities for
U.S. companies that provide oil and gas equipment and services.
International consortia operating major projects such as Tengiz,
Karachaganak, and Kashagan expect to invest billions of dollars
over the next few years. There are opportunities for U.S. companies
in virtually every subsector associated with oil extraction,
processing, and transportation..."
Never mind the fact that Kazakhstan has
a brutal post-Soviet Union human rights record. Human Rights
Watch reported on an incident typical in that country under President
Nursultan Nazarbaev. " In 2002, Kazakh government repression
of independent media reached crisis proportions, as journalists
were attacked and beaten, threatened with death, and jailed.
Media outlets connected to [the President's] political rivals,
and journalists who attempted to expose official corruption,
were particular targets of the crackdown. In May, the twenty-five-year-old
daughter of independent journalist Lira Baiseitova disappeared
the day after the journalist published a controversial piece
in the newspaper SolDat (Let Me Speak) regarding personal Swiss
bank accounts allegedly held by the Nazarbaev family. In June,
police informed Baiseitova that her daughter, Leila, had been
arrested for heroin possession, but did not grant the two a visit.
Days later, Leila Baiseitova died in police custody; Lira Baiseitova
received conflicting reports about the cause of death, including
a police claim that her daughter had hanged herself in her cell.
Lira Baiseitova had herself been the victim of physical attacks
in 2000 and 2001."
Not to be outdone by a puny government
like Kazakhstan, ExxonMobil employs close to 5,500 Indonesian
security and paramilitary forces to protect its gas field in
Aceh. Each is paid $294 per month for protecting ExxonMobil's
operations there. In 2002, 2,700 people reportedly lost their
lives at the hands of ExxonMobil's security employees. It is
accused of complicity in the murder and sexual molestation of
locals by its paid security forces, along with the unjust imprisonment
of Acehnese Democratic Resistance Front leader Kautsar who was
released from prison late in 2002.
Shell Oil has played that game too. It
was accused of fomenting a killing spree in the early 1990's
in Ogoni, Nigeria according to Human Rights Watch. The Movement
for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by Ken Saro-Wiwa,
mobilized thousands of Ogonis, an ethnic group of 500,000 people
occupying a portion of the oil producing region, to protest the
policies of the federal government in relation to the oil wealth,
and at the human rights violations of Shell Oil--to include importing
weapons for its paid security forces. In 1993, Shell was forced
to close its production in Ogoni following mass protests though
active pipelines still cross the region. MOSOP's protests provoked
a violent and repressive response from the federal government,
for which any threat to oil production is a threat to the entire
existing political system.
Many Ogonis were detained or beaten by
the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, a military body
specifically created to suppress the protests organized by MOSOP,
and hundreds were summarily executed over a period of several
years. In 1994, Ken Saro-Wiwa and several others were arrested
in connection with the murder of four traditional leaders in
Ogoni. On November 10, 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other MOSOP
activists were hanged by the military government for those murders,
after a trial before a tribunal which blatantly violated international
standards of due process and produced no credible evidence that
he or the others were involved in the killings for which they
were convicted.
Stability
Operations
The Interstate Oil and Gas Transport
to Europe (INOGATE) provides an illuminating Perspectives
Map. The Perspectives Map matched with current and projected
US and European military movements puts an interesting light
on the destruction of the former Yugoslavia, the entry into NATO
of some unlikely members, the pounding of oil drums from Bush
and Blair, and the change in the Pentagon's view of peacekeeping.
Like varicose veins that mar the skin, bright red and dark green
lines indicating pipelines and energy flows are drawn over the
whole of Europe, Scandinavia, Central Asia, Northern Africa,
the Middle East and Persian Gulf--including Israel and Cyprus.
New NATO entrants Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have
key ports for shipping energy products. The Constanza-Omisalj
oil pipeline project involving Romania, Yugoslavia and Croatia
seems a nice, if coincidental, benefit of US and NATO action
back under the Clinton Administration.
Twenty-one countries have signed the
INOGATE Umbrella Agreement which simply means that they will
do whatever it takes to minimize risk to investors. What better
way to do that than have the US or NATO forces in-country (and
buy their weapons and products), or have a regime that brutally
suppresses dissent and ensures that the investor's risk is minimal.
And after a look at the Perspectives Map, it's clear why Bush
appointees in the Pentagon wiped-out the term "Peacekeeping
Operations" and opted for "Stability Operations".
A nice tip-of-the-hat to the oil, natural gas and banking and
investment communities.
Now, API members no longer need to hire
host nation security forces because they now have in their employ
the US Armed Services to handle pesky locals who complain about
low wages, poor living conditions, hunger, destruction of their
environment, and their own governments who--bought by the US
and Europeans-- sell off the wealth of their nations at ridiculously
low prices. Does that really make America stronger?
Oh, well, no matter. Just get your copy
of Billy B's Energy and Me from your child, stick it in your
vehicle's CD player, and merrily sing-along as you make your
way alone to and from work. And remember, there's lots of life
and a lot of fun in a barrel of oil.
John Stanton
is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security
matters. He can be reached at cioran123@yahoo.com
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February 22
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