Bush Travels!
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Sat Feb 22 21:56:48 CET 2003
Possibly slightly ashamed by being heckled in mainstream press for not
traveling abroad, George Bush arrived to Spain. Good choice. Spain is
both member of NATO and UN Security Council. It seems that there is
less opposition in Spain to their government supporting Bush’s war
against Iraq, than let’s say in Italy. And there he can also train his
Spanish, with additional benefit of getting understood in two more
Spanish speaking UN Security Council members that are likely to support
his war (Chile and Mexico).
This, however, has no influence on the vote of Angola, Guinea,
Cameroon, Bulgaria, Syria and Pakistan. Of course, he is very determined,
headstrong person (audacious, as he had been called by The New York
Times...), so, it is not completely misplaced to speculate that he may
travel to all those countries and personally try to persuade local leaders
into supporting his position. This is better than abandoning UN Security
Council and starting a war on his own.
France, Germany and Russia can also dispatch highest level visits to
those nine countries, trying to sway their opinion against the war. I think
that the diplomatic drama is more acceptable than human tragedy that
can result from inconsiderate bombing of Iraq. And it also gives the
public a benefit of understanding what is really going on. Because this
war is not about Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, and
terrorism.
It is about creation of new post-cold-war power alliances and delineating
their spheres of influence. The U.S. Big Oil is hungry for Iraqi oil
reserves. But the U.S. kept Iraq under sanctions for a decade, so Iraqis
signed their reserves to French Big Oil and to Russian Big Oil. Now, the
U.S. Big Oil is angry, and would like to take those assets by force.
Naturally, French Big Oil and Russian Big Oil are against the war that is
designed to hurt their interests.
This conflict needs to be settled through arbitration, not war. There is no
moral justification in killing Iraqi people over the conflict between the
U.S. and French/Russian Big Oil. The U.S. Big Oil profits from the result
of the war, anyway, not from the war itself. Except for oil drilling
equipment manufacturers (Cheney’s Haliburton) and the U.S. defense
industry, there is nobody else who would make any profit from the war.
Therefore, the world is presented with the unique opportunity to settle
this dispute peacefully. The U.S. Big Oil can achieve share of Iraqi oil
reserves faster and with less expenses that way. There is Cheney and the
defense lobby, that may still be pro-war in the U.S., but as this debate
progresses there may be discovered that even the majority among the
U.S. ruling elite would be perfectly content by achieving their goals with
Iraq peacefully.
On the other hand, just about every country has its Big Oil. Oil is the
most important strategic asset of today’s industrialized world. It is also
the most significant pollutant of environment. And the world is running
out of it. In this century humans must come up with something else to
run their industry on, because there will be no oil left in the next century.
As dinosaurs became extinct at one point, their remains (oil) will become
extinct at one point, too.
Instead of developing new technologies, Big Oil reacts immaturely and
desperately, fighting over outdated, poisonous, and evaporating
resources. This holds true for practically ANY country, not only ‘great
powers’ like the U.S., France, and Russia. Big Oil is always the last
resource to get privatized in the post-communist Eastern European
‘emerging markets’. Croatia’s government practically sold their
underwear to foreign investors, but they still keep ownership over their
Big Oil, INA, their *precious*.
Where there is oil, there is conflict. Big Oil is always and everywhere
involved in back-room shadowy deals, environmentally disastrous
policies, wars, anti-labor measures, and just about everything else that’s
evil and unclean. Croatia’s Big Oil purchased oil fields in Western Siberia
in November 1999 (White Nights) that increased their reserves for 75%.
They also received a grant from the US Trade & Development Agency in
December 2001.
In January 2002 they decided to block passage of Slovenian Big Oil to
Bosnia through Croatia, trying to secure Bosnian market solely for
themselves. Slovenia is now suing Croatia at WTO for that. Bosnia
responded more aggressively - banning entry to Croatian Big Oil except
for one border crossing. Slovenia now ships oil to Bosnia by-passing
Croatia - over Hungary and Serbia. This eventually just resulted in a loss
of revenue for Croatia’s Big Oil. Interestingly, Croatia justified its
decision on environmentalist grounds.
Now they established Adria Project Society. Its new ‘environmentally
friendly’ idea is to provide U.S. access to Russian oil via the existing
pipelines that end up at Croatian coast. U.S. supertankers will receive the
oil at the oil terminal in Omisalj at the island of Krk in the bay of Kvarner,
at the North end of the tranquil Adriatic sea. The U.S. Big Oil will pay
about $50 million a year for that service to Croatian Big Oil. Croatian
government is apparently not swayed by the potential disaster that can
create for the environment and the income from tourism.
Croatia earns about $4 billion a year in tourism revenue, and about 40%
of that is earned in the region where the oil-terminal is. In case of an
accident of the Exxon-Valdez proportions, Croatia risks 32 times greater
yearly loss, than the yearly earnings from this project will be. But tourism
creates just indirect income for the government - through taxation - Adria
Project Society puts cash directly in their pockets - hence the incentive.
Of course, this decision, shows that Croatia’s Big Oil harbors the same
disregard for environment as their U.S. counterpart does.
Adriatic Sea is a small, closed-end sea. The stream on Croatian (Eastern)
side goes from South (open-end) to North. Eventual oil spill would end
up stranded on the coast of Kvarner bay, and Norther at the top of
Adriatic sea between Trieste and Venice for about as long as it would be
needed for human efforts to clean it up. Venice, being literally build on
the sea level of calm Northern Adriatic, might be damaged forever. The
risks of that project far outflank the benefits. But Croatia’s Big Oil is
proceeding with the project anyway.
Big Oil will always put its own selfish bottom line before anything else -
be that environment, economy, or very human life. And Big Oil has the
monetary muscle to get its will done. On a regional scale like in the
example of the Balkans, or on the global scale like in the example of Iraq.
That’s the sad ending of the story of the human race.
Ivo
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