This diary was hastily thrown together after I read several other diaries and their accompanying comments concerning the situation in Somalia. I think we are missing the forest for the trees and could benefit from sitting back for a spell and taking a good long look at certain "happenings" over the years. After the jump, I have thrown together some article "excerpts" that (hopefully) should guide people through the trees in the hopes we can see the whole forrest.
Even before the 11 September attacks, the Institute for National Strategic Studies, of the US Department of Defence's National Defence University, which is charged with policy research and analysis for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defence, among other gov't security and defence bodies provided the following strategic assessment:
According to the report, Strategic Assessment 1999, ... , "energy and resource issues will continue to shape international security".
Oil conflicts over production facilities and transport routes, particularly in the Persian Gulf and Caspian regions, are specifically envisaged.
Although the policy does not forecast imminent US military conflict, it vividly highlights how the highest levels of the US Defence community accepted the waging of an oil war as a legitimate military option.
Strategic Assessment also forecasts that if an oil "problem" arises, "US forces might be used to ensure adequate supplies".
Although Strategic Assessment 1999 predicts adequate US energy supplies, it also finds that supply shortages could "exacerbate regional political tensions, potentially causing regional conflicts".
The Bush Administration has stated that providing for US energy needs is a priority.
Courtesy of Juan Cole, I was led to a very informative piece about the proposed Iraq hydrocarbon law. The entire article bears a close reading (as well as the links that are cited therein). For the moment, however, I just want to highlight this:
...major Western oil companies are already having a big problem with reserve replacement that is going to get a lot worse in the years to come. Many have likely been fudging their books for years as Royal Dutch Shell was caught doing a few years ago. The market capitalization of the oil companies, which is critical to Wall Street, ultimately hinges on their ability to replace the oil that is being produced and sold to consumers with new reserves. They have been frustrated in being able to do this by the fact that they are for the most part frozen out of the best areas of the world by national oil companies, which dominate OPEC.
By now you should be catching my drift. I belong to the school of thought that says that control over energy resources (above all else) is the prime motor, the chief objective of US policy in the Middle Eastern region and beyond. If the US citizenry is in denial about this aim, the rest of the world certainly isn't. The rest of the world, and particularly the competing interests for those massive reserves of energy have been galvanized into action in order to counter Washington's moves in the energy-rich region. This occurred with the formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Translated into geostrategic terms, the S.C.O. arises from a confluence of interests among the major power centers of China and Russia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, with the exception of Turkmenistan, which pursues a foreign policy of studied neutrality and isolation.
The overall strategic aim of the alliance for Beijing and Moscow is curbing Washington's influence in Central Asia in order to establish a joint sphere of influence there. For Beijing, the most important goal is to get a lock on the considerable energy resources of the region, but it also seeks markets for its goods, outlets for investment and collaboration against Islamist movements. Moscow has leagued with Beijing in order to restore some of its influence over its "near abroad." The regimes of the Central Asian states want support for their survival against opposition movements, economic development assistance and increased trade and investment.
In short, we are amidst a mad rush for energy resources. This is no secret. A quick search of the internet will turn up thousands upon thousands of documents on the subject (just try doing a search of the term "oil wars" alone!). So as not to make this a long drawn out affair, I will highlight just one:
The quest for energy control has informed Washington's support for high-risk "color revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan in recent months. It lies behind US activity in West Africa, as well as in Sudan, source of 7% of China's oil imports. It lies behind US policy vis-a-vis President Hugo Chavez' Venezuela and President Evo Morales' Bolivia.
In recent months, however, this strategy of global energy dominance has shown signs of producing just the opposite: a kind of "coalition of the unwilling", states that increasingly see no other prospect, despite traditional animosities, but to cooperate to oppose what they see as a US push to control the future security of their energy.
If the trend of recent events continues, it won't be US-style democracy that is spreading, but rather Russian and Chinese influence over major oil and gas supplies.
Going back to the article on Iraq, which I highlighted courtesy of Juan Cole, it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to reach the conclusion that we are not going anywhere (ie. withdrawing from Iraq). And it has little if anything to do with the so-called terrorist threat or "terrorists" following us back home or anywhere else. It is OIL:
The hydrocarbon legislation is just the first step in implementing the US plan. The oil fields and pipelines will of course need "protection" from insurgents that is paid for out of Iraqi government funds to US/UK mercenary/security companies such as Blackwater. The Iraqi government will need "guidance" investing its oil revenues. Bechtel and Halliburton will be given billions of dollars of contracts to provide reconstruction from all of the damage caused by US bombing and years of sanctions in the 1990s. When all is said and done, billions of new Iraqi petrodollars be recycled back into the US and British economies in order to offset the loss of revenue from domestic oil production.
And this leads me full circle to the topic that prompted this rapidly thrown together diary in the first place. Are we bombing Somalia to thwart terrorists? Perhaps so, but the following seems to follow a well worn pattern. Don't you think?
Although most oil experts outside Somalia laugh at the suggestion that the nation ever could rank among the world's major oil producers -- and most maintain that the international aid mission is intended simply to feed Somalia's starving masses -- no one doubts that there is oil in Somalia. The only question: How much?
"It's there. There's no doubt there's oil there," said Thomas E. O'Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast.
"You don't know until you study a lot further just how much is there," O'Connor said. "But it has commercial potential. It's got high potential . . . once the Somalis get their act together."
O'Connor, a professional geologist, based his conclusion on the findings of some of the world's top petroleum geologists. In a 1991 World Bank-coordinated study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers.
(...)
Beginning in 1986, Conoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Phillips and, briefly, Shell all sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia from Siad Barre's government. Somalia was soon carved up into concessional blocs, with Conoco, Amoco and Chevron winning the right to explore and exploit the most promising ones.
The companies' interest in Somalia clearly predated the World Bank study. It was grounded in the findings of another, highly successful exploration effort by the Texas-based Hunt Oil Corp. across the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen, where geologists disclosed in the mid-1980s that the estimated 1 billion barrels of Yemeni oil reserves were part of a great underground rift, or valley, that arced into and across northern Somalia.
Interesting? I would say so. I am very skeptical about "global wars against terrorism", WMDs, fomenting "democratic birth pangs" and all other pretexts the powers that be can concoct to sway public opinion towards backing highly questionable military incursions and occupations. I would urge you to be skeptical as well.