WikiLeaks: Oil Motivates U.S. Policy More than Fighting Terrorists - Nafeez Ahmed

ꕤ Article SOURCE alternet | here Wikileaks' Cables Suggests that Oil Motivates U.S. Policy More than Fighting Terrorists Cables released by Wikileaks demonstrate that control of the world's strategic energy reserves has always been a key factor in the direction of the "War on Terror". By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed / Foreign Policy in Focus December 16, 2010 Among the batch of classified diplomatic cables recently released by the controversial whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, several have highlighted the vast extent of the financial infrastructure of Islamist terrorism sponsored by key U.S. allies in the ongoing "War on Terror." One cable by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December 2009 notes that “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” Despite this, “Riyadh has taken only limited action to disrupt fundraising for the UN 1267-listed Taliban and LeT [Lashkar e-Tayyiba] groups that are also aligned with al-Qaeda.” Clinton raises similar concerns about other states in the Gulf and Central Asia. Kuwait remains reluctant “to take action against Kuwait-based financiers and facilitators plotting attacks outside of Kuwait.” The United Arab Emirates is “vulnerable to abuse by terrorist financiers and facilitation networks” due to lack of regulatory oversight. Qatar’s cooperation with U.S. counter-terrorism is the “worst in the region,” and authorities are “hesitant to act against known terrorists.” Pakistani military intelligence officials “continue to maintain ties with a wide array of extremist organizations, in particular the Taliban [and the] LeT.” Despite such extensive knowledge of these terrorism financing activities, successive U.S. administrations have not only failed to exert military or economic pressure on these countries, but in fact have actively protected them, funneling billions of dollars of military and economic assistance. The reason is oil. It's the Hydrocarbons, Stupid Oil has always been an overwhelming Western interest in the region, beginning with Britain’s discovery of it in Persia in 1908. Britain controlled most Middle East oil until the end of World War II, after which the United States secured its sphere of influence in Saudi Arabia. After some pushback, Britain eventually accepted the United States as the lead player in the region. “US-UK agreement upon the broad, forward-looking pattern for the development and utilization of petroleum resources under the control of nationals of the two countries is of the highest strategic and commercial importance”, reads a 1945 memo from the chief of the State Department’s Petroleum Division. Anglo-U.S. geo-strategy exerted this control through alliances with the region’s most authoritarian regimes to ensure a cheap and stable supply of petroleum to Western markets. Recently declassified secret British Foreign Office files from the 1940s and 1950s confirm that the Gulf sheikhdoms were largely created to retain British influence in the Middle East. Britain pledged to protect them from external attack and to “counter hostile influence and propaganda within the countries themselves.” Police and military training would help in “maintaining internal security.” Similarly, in 1958 a U.S. State Department official noted that the Gulf sheikhdoms should be modernized without undermining “the fundamental authority of the ruling groups.” The protection of some of the world’s most virulent authoritarian regimes thus became integral to maintaining Anglo-U.S. geopolitical control of the world’s strategic hydrocarbon energy reserves. Our governments have willingly paid a high price for this access – the price of national security. Still Funding Radicalism One of al-Qaeda’s chief grievances against the West is what Osama bin Laden dubs the “Crusader-Jewish” presence in the lands of Islam, including support for repressive Arab regimes. Under U.S. direction and sponsorship, many of these allies played a central role in financing and supporting bin Laden’s mujahideen networks in Afghanistan to counter Soviet influence. It is perhaps less well understood that elements of the same regimes continued to support bin Laden’s networks long after the Cold War – and that they have frequently done so in collusion with U.S. intelligence services for short-sighted geopolitical interests. In fact, Afghanistan provides a rather revealing example. From 1994 to 2001, assisted by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the Clinton and Bush II administrations covertly sponsored, flirted and negotiated with the Taliban as a vehicle of regional influence. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, former White House Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan, also testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia about the “covert policy that has empowered the Taliban,” in the hopes of bringing sufficient stability to “permit the building of oil pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan.” The Great Game is still in full swing. “Since the U.S.-led offensive that ousted the Taliban from power, the project has been revived and drawn strong U.S. support” reported the Associated Press in 2005. “The pipeline would allow formerly Soviet Central Asian nations to export rich energy resources without relying on Russian routes. The project’s main sponsor is the Asian Development Bank” – in which the United States is the largest shareholder alongside Japan. It so happens that the southern section of the proposed pipeline runs through territory still under de facto Taliban control, where NATO war efforts are focused. Other evidence demonstrates that control of the world’s strategic energy reserves has always been a key factor in the direction of the "War on Terror". For instance, the April 2001 study commissioned by then-Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed official fears of an impending global oil supply crunch, energy shortages, and “the need for military intervention” in the Middle East to maintain stability. Energy and Iran Other diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show clearly that oil now remains central to U.S. policy toward Iran, depicting an administration desperate to “wean the world” off Iran’s oil supply, according to the London Telegraph. With world conventional oil production most likely having peaked around 2006, Iran is one of few major suppliers that can potentially boost oil output by another 3 million barrels, and natural gas output by even more.  The nuclear question is not the real issue, but provides ample pretext for isolating Iran. But the U.S. anti-Iran stance has been highly counterproductive. In a series of dispatches for the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh cited U.S. government and intelligence officials confirming that the CIA and the Pentagon have funneled millions of dollars via Saudi Arabia to al-Qaeda-affiliated Sunni extremist groups across the Middle East and Central Asia. The policy – officially confirmed by a U.S. Presidential Finding in early 2008 – began in 2003 and has spilled over into regions like Iraq and Lebanon, fuelling Sunni-Shi’ite sectarian conflict. Not only did no Democratic members of the House ever contest the policy but President Obama reappointed the architect of the policy – Robert Gates – as his defence secretary. As former National Security Council staffers Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett observe, Obama’s decision earlier this year to step up covert military operations in North Africa and the Middle East marked an “intensification of America’s covert war against Iran.” This anti-Iran directive, which extends covert U.S. support for anti-Shi’ite Islamist militant networks linked to al-Qaeda, hardly fits neatly into the stated objectives of the "War on Terror." Unless we recognize that controlling access to energy, not fighting terror, is the primary motive. Beyond Dependency While classified covert operations continue to bolster terrorist activity, the Obama administration struggles vainly to deal with the geopolitical fall-out. Getting out of this impasse requires, first, recognition of our over-dependence on hydrocarbon energy sources to the detriment of real national security. Beholden to the industry lobbyists and the geopolitical dominance that control of oil provides, Western governments have supported dictatorial regimes that fuel widespread resentment in the Muslim world. Worse, the West has tolerated and until recently colluded in the sponsorship of al-Qaeda terrorist activity by these regimes precisely to maintain the existing global energy system. Given the convergence of peak oil and climate change, it is imperative to transition to a new, renewable energy system.  Such a transition will mitigate the impact of hydrocarbon energy depletion, help prevent the worst effects of anthropogenic global warming, and contribute to economic stability through infrastructure development and job creation. By weaning us off our reliance on dubious foreign regimes, a shift to renewables and away from supporting oil dictatorships will also make us safer. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development in London and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. His latest book is A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010). He blogs at The Cutting Edge. SOURCE alternet | here ---------------------- ꕤ  ---------------------- COMMENT Another great article. I'm hopeless at taking everything in at once.  Will have to do some really brief notes for myself. So when the West isn't actively sponsoring Middle Eastern terrorism, the West overlooks sponsorship of terrorism by British-installed sheikdoms, favourably disposed to US and allied interests that keep them propped up in power? The US has muscled in on Britain's Middle Eastern turf post-WWII, and Britain plays second banana to the US in the region, while the US is BFF with Saudi Arabia, until the oil runs out. The key regional Western-propped dictator (Western-puppet ... or is that partner?) regimes, sponsoring terrorism and sectarian kill-fests (to maintain their self-serving and exploitative power grip on the region), are: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. Surprised that Pakistan is there, although I know Pakistan's terrorist central.  Why?  Pakistan seems like odd man out. The Brits made a deal that should be void:  ie protecting the puppet monarchs from *internal* challenges ... which effectively means taking part in enslaving these populations under the control of these Western propped monarchies or other dictatorships, because it precludes the rise of anything remotely close to 'proper democracy' (if that's actually possible ... anywhere), I would think. British pledges to protect don't mean much, unless there's something in it for the British (I think it was Persia that they slimed out of protecting some time around the turn of last century or perhaps just before that): "... when Britain failed to defend Persia in the Russo-Persian War of 1826-28-a course of inaction which Britain was fully justified in taking because Persia had started the war and the 1814 mutual defense agreement obligated Britain to defend Persia only against aggression-the Shah concluded that Britain was an unreliable ally, and in effect he went over to the Russian side." [here] Wow, that was way earlier than I thought.  It was the early 1800s.  The Shah concluded correctly, in my opinion. lol  Stick with the Russians, Persia. Bin Laden wasn't happy about the Western support for repressive regimes in the region; but it also sounds like there's maybe a religious and cultural element to OBL's objection, judging by the terminology used:  'Crusader-Jewish'?  Or maybe I'm reading too much into that? Looks like OBL had forgotten that Islam itself was spread in the region through conquest of people and territories.  Not that the West is planning on spreading any ideology ... it's only profits for the wealthy that matter. Asian Development Bank, Japan and USA have a stake in a pipeline project that is intended to run through Taliban controlled territory and this is where NATO concentrated its aggression.  So, wherever NATO is, profit is?  With Obama's blessing, Robert Gates was the mastermind of a policy backing Sunni extremist vs the Shia side in the region (against Iran's interests),  while US GOVERNMENT, US INTELLIGENCE, the PENTAGON and CIA funnelled dollars for this project, via Saudi Arabia, who, in turn, flicked the dollars to al-Qaeda.  It's thanks to Gates' policy that there's a spread of sectarian violence in the Middle East, including Iraq and Lebanon.  The funnelling of money that reached al-Qaeda is confirmed (presidential finding, 2008).  So this isn't speculation. So, I take it there's no organised Islamic 'war on terror' 'death cult' about to attack anyone in here in the West, and there's only the random crazy head-chopping incident associated with the consequences of mass displacement and mass immigration, to sidestep when out and about, say, doing a spot of furniture shopping? That Robert Gates struck me as shifty and creepy looking when I saw him in this video, filmed on the day of Julian Assange's arrest in Britain, almost 5 years ago: ROBERT GATES US Defence Secretary in Afghanistan 7 Dec 2010 Associated Press https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g9g9F6_TC4 If I hadn't got interested in Ukraine and then curious about Assange and WikiLeaks, I'd probably never have paid this creepy old man any attention.  And look what fun I'd have missed out on.  lol Imagine this guy knows where all the bodies are buried. So, Gates, the architect of Hell (ie the policy of funnelling American money to Sunni al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists, in the Middle East) has been free the last 5 years, while Australian journalist, Julian Assange, has been a political prisoner in Britain (Britain, which is America's Middle Eastern second banana partner in oil and crime) -- held without charge, for exposing US and allied war crimes, those same 5 years that Architect of Hell, Robert Gates, has been free. Ehem.  Western values?  Where's those Western values plate-face, Dave Cameron's been preaching, then?  Eh? How can this be permitted to happen in democracies, among free men? Can somebody please help Assange: Julian Assange Australian Journalist FAQ & Support https://justice4assange.com/ Assange Transnational Security Elite, Carving Up the World Using Your Tax Money London  OCT8 Antiwar Mass Assembly (2011) Link  |  here ----------- PS I'm hoping I'll remember some of this.  Terrible recall of facts.  lol But I've discovered that information has a mysterious way of seeping in without being aware that it has.  A couple of times I've written things I thought were original ideas ... until I remembered where I'd read whatever it was that I'd laboured over ... for ages. It was rather upsetting to find out I'm not at all an original thinker.  lol ꕤ