Afghanistan, Colombia, Vietnam: The Deep Politics of Drugs and Oil

[Joanne98]

Since World War Two, the United States has had in effect two conflicting styles of conducting foreign policy, one for other developed states, and a quite different style for regions of little economic interest apart from their mineral resources " above all oil and natural gas.


As a general rule, the US has worked through the established governments of developed states. But in Third World areas and regions with oil or other minerals, the US has done whatever it thought necessary to secure access when it wished to do so. As Michael Tanzer observed some years ago, a number of CIA-engineered coups in the 1950s and 1960s, starting with Iran in 1953, can be related to the intentions of those countries to nationalize their oil companies.


The US has also embarked on at least three major military campaigns " in Vietnam, Colombia, and now Afghanistan, where oil has been one of the factors in the US commitment, and oil lobbies among the groups urging engagement. Other campaigns which seemed unrelated to this concern " notably Kosovo " have also been interpreted by strategic realists as important to America's oil "needs."


Whether by coincidence or not, these three major campaigns (as well as others) have all aligned the US on the same side as powerful local drug traffickers. Partly this has been from realpolitik " in recognition of the local power realities represented by the drug traffic. Partly it has been from the need to escape domestic political restraints: the traffickers have supplied additional financial resources needed because of US budgetary limitations, and they have also provided assets not bound (as the US is) by the rules of war. And partly (I believe) it has been from a concern to manage the drug traffic itself, and ensure that it will never fall under the control of another hostile power.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Afghanistan-Colombia-Vie-by-Peter-Dale-Scott-110101-89.html