DemocracyNow: Russia-Georgia conflict is about control of oil

[L. Coyote]

Run time: 10:48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43DQ9Af5Rhs   Posted on YouTube: August 16, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: August 16, 2008 By DU Member: L. Coyote Views on DU: 851

 
PART II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4pjnmEXJp4

Human Rights Watch has accused both Russian and Georgian forces of killing and injuring civilians through indiscriminate attacks over the past week of fighting. Professor and author Michael Klare joins us to talk about how the Russian-Georgian conflict is largely an energy war over who has access to the vast oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian region.

[kmac3]

1. Disgusting ......

SICKO ....... IS GREED AND THE DRIVE TO CONTROL ALL OF THE OIL GOING TO END UP DESTROYING THE ENTIRE WORLD?
Think how much could be accomplished if the same drive was applied for establishing national healthcare for all, infrastructure upgrade and affordable college education. What is wrong with us as a people?

[L. Coyote]

3. Imagine the military budget dedicated to alternative energy.

Count the wind farms!! Too many.

That would do more for global security than anything militaristic!

[slipslidingaway]

2. K&R....

Revolution, geopolitics and pipelines
By F William Engdahl

Jun 30, 2005

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GF30Dj01.html

"...Oil has become the central theme of world political and military operations planning, even when not always openly said.

Caspian pipeline opens a Pandora's box

In this situation, it is worth looking at the overall significance of the May opening of the Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, oil pipeline. This 1,762 kilometer long oil pipeline was completed some months ahead of plan.

The BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline was begun in 2002 after four years of intense international dispute. It cost about US$3.6 billion, making it one of the most expensive oil projects ever. The main backer was British Petroleum (BP), whose chairman, Lord Browne, is a close adviser to Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair. BP built the pipeline through a consortium including Unocal of the US, Turkish Petroleum Inc, and other partners...


Pipelines and US-Azeri ties

The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was originally proclaimed by BP and others as the project of the century. Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was a consultant to BP during the Bill Clinton era, urging Washington to back the project. In fact, it was Brzezinski who went to Baku in 1995, unofficially, on behalf of Clinton, to meet with then-Azeri president Haidar Aliyev, to negotiate new independent Baku pipeline routes, including what became the BTC pipeline..."

[Jack Rabbit]

4. No good guys or bad guys.

If you're looking for a good guy in a white hat and a bad guy in a black hat, don't look at a resource war. That kind of moral clarity only exists in the kind of bad B-westerns that attract the likes of Marvin Olasky, Leo Strauss and their followers.

Georgia was set up by the neoconservatives to be bullied by Russia. It's part theater and part historical reality, reliving the past of conquests in central Asia and eastern Europe. The big, bad Russian Empire attempts to reassert itself in the Caucasus by destroying the competition to Russia's home grown energy interests. The west would like to bypass Russia simply because of Russia's imperialist designs over its former subject states.

So Russia cannot have Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine joining forces with the west or building pipelines through their territory.

Ukraine is another potential hot spot in the region. Any attempt by Russia to reassert colonial dominance over Ukraine could ignite a major armed conflict at worst or at least a proxy war between the Russians and Ukrainian guerrillas armed by the west.

Another little conflict to which we pay little attention is between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There is a Russian-brokered cease fire in effect, but before it went into effect in 1994 Armenia got the best of the fighting and holds a strip of Azerbaijani territory. That may become something to watch.