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06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable Health & Environment
06.29 Thinking about Climate 06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN 06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare 06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All 06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate 06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex 06.22 Thinking about Recoveries 06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo 06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform 06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers 06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care 06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations Media Watching
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform 06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage 06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right 06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess US Politics, Policy & Culture
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy 06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity 06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail 06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission? 06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership 06.25 America's "Bases of Empire" 06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town 06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins 06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program 06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black 06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix 06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran? 06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program? 06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory 06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed High Crimes?
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement" 07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure 06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq 06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release 06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War 06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future 06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record 06.14 Fear Rules Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America 06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control 06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney International
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean 06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New 06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise' 06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil 06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?” 06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran 06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections 06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters 06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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ANALYSIS:Hydrocarbon Law for DummiesOne hates to puncture the heartwarming, optimistic naiveté of the Iraqi Vice President, but the truth is that the U.S.-led coalition forces are not going anywhere, not for at least 30 years.
March 24, 2007—Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who was in Japan last week for a four-day official visit, says U.S.-led coalition forces should be able to withdraw from his country in a year and half at the latest, a Japanese newspaper reported on Saturday.“Personally, I think Iraqi security forces will complete reforms and training in a year or a year and a half. After that, the coalition troops will no longer be needed.” Hashemi was quoted as saying.
One hates to puncture the heartwarming, optimistic naiveté of the Iraqi Vice President, but the truth is that the U.S.-led coalition forces are not going anywhere, not for the next about 30 years at the minimum. How, pray, has the scribe arrived at this conclusion, one may ask. That, sirs, is a no-brainer. Read on. Invisible in the smoke screen of civil war in Iraq, the current U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad has been working feverishly on Iraq’s first post-invasion Hydrocarbon Law. The fancy name notwithstanding, the law is simply about Iraq’s 112 billion barrels of proven, close-to-the-surface and easily extractable oil reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia, along with roughly 220 billion barrels of other probable and possible resources. Add to this another fact of equal importance. Iraq’s true potential is said to be far greater than this, as the country has remained relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions. The above-mentioned two facts alone require an on-station presence of decades of some, if not all four, of the western oil giants i.e. Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP. Simple thus far, eh? Let us proceed onwards.
Under Iraq's new Hydrocarbon Law, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the U.S., would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil.
Khalilzad’s untiring efforts were rewarded recently by the passing of the proposed law by the puppet Iraqi government. The lolly in the law is hidden in some of its provisions that are said to be a “radical departure from the norm for developing countries." And that is that under the new law, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil, a kind of contract which other oil-producing countries do not want to touch by a mile-long pole.Zalmay Khalilzad is an interesting character. One recalls that Khalilzad was once an advisor to Unocal (Union Oil Company of California). A diehard Neocon, he keeps getting sent to places where the oil scent is in the air. He was appointed as a special envoy to Afghanistan immediately after the invasion and occupation of that country, along with another ex-employee of Unocal, Hamid Karzai. Karzai, though, made it to become President of that same country. Together they drew up a risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. Previously, too, Khalilzad had participated in similar talks between Unocal and Taliban officials—back in 1997. What is relatively unknown is that while that project remained a 'pipe dream,' Unocal quietly merged with Chevron Corporation on August 10, 2005, and became a wholly-owned subsidiary. So the gist of the story so far is that Iraq’s Hydrocarbon Law, passed recently by a weak Iraqi government, gives long-term concessions to Western oil giants, among them not just Khalilzad’s but many Neocons’ former employers. These oil giants, however, cannot operate on their own in Iraq and need protection from 'overzealous' national and regional forces that tend to unbalance the gravy train. That brings us to Anwaar’s First Universal Law of Hydrocarbon. It states, “Hydrocarbon at rest tends to stay at rest and Hydrocarbon in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction, unless acted upon by unbalancing forces.” Something clearly needed to be done regarding the unbalancing forces. Now here is a map of Iraq oil fields turned over by the Commerce Department, under a March 5, 2002 court order as a result of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force. (Click here for another map if the earlier link does not work). And here is an interactive map of the dozen or so permanent American military bases coming up in Iraq with billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money. As of mid-2005, the U.S. military had 106 forward operating bases in Iraq, including what the Pentagon calls 14 "enduring" bases (twelve of which are located on the map)—all of which are to be consolidated into four mega-bases.
Juxtapose Iraq’s oil map with that of the permanent American military bases in Iraq, and you'll see why any American forces aren't going anywhere any time soon.
Please juxtapose Iraq’s oil map with that of the upcoming permanent American military bases, keeping in mind the "30 years" provision of Iraq’s Hydrocarbon law. Tie it in with the other little fact of these bases being called 'enduring' military bases by Pentagon, and try calculating a time frame for the American forces’ withdrawal from Iraq.Still not there? Okay—here is one more modest piece of information that would surely lead the reader in the correct direction. And that is the little matter of the construction of the largest-ever embassy. Currently, America’s largest existing embassy, covering 10 acres and consisting of five buildings, is in the world’s most populous nation—China. Currently under construction is the U.S. embassy in Iraq, which will be the largest of its kind in the world, “the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.” With a population of around 25 million, Iraq’s headcount is just twice that of the state of Illinois. The designs aren’t publicly available, but the embassy is rumored to be a self-sufficient and “hardened” domain able to house a staff of 8,000 people, having its own water wells, electricity plant, and wastewater-treatment facility. It is reported to consist of 21 buildings, including two major diplomatic office buildings, homes for the ambassador and his deputy, apartment buildings for staff, a swimming pool, gym, commissary, food court and an American Club. The embassy’s 104-acre parcel, reports the Associated Press, is “six times larger than the United Nations’ compound in New York and two-thirds the acreage of the Mall in Washington. Protected by 15-foot thick walls, its security, overseen by U.S. Marines, will be extraordinary, with setbacks and perimeter no-go areas that will be especially deep structures reinforced to 2.5-times the standard, and five high-security entrances, plus an emergency entrance-exit.” Doesn’t look like the Americans are going anywhere any time too soon...not to this scribe, at least. The Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi needs to be reminded of Anwaar’s First Universal Law of Hydrocarbon. The invaders knew that all along, but chose not to inform the gullible Iraqi Veep. Thirty years are the minimum that are required to ensure that most of Iraq’s Hydrocarbon, if not to the last drop, stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction wherefrom came the invasion without being acted upon by unbalancing forces. The Barak Obamas, the Kucinichs, and the Nancy Pelosis of this world can climb the nearest trees, their public chest-beating on the issue notwithstanding. They all work for the same employers anyway. Anyone out there that thinks otherwise? Copyright 2007 by Anwaar Hussain. The writer, a former officer of the Pakistan Air Force, is now based in the United Arab Emirates. This story is reproduced courtesy of Truth Spring, Mr. Hussain's blog. Mr. Hussain may be reached by email at eagleeye@emirates.net.ae.
Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on March 29, 2007. |
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