>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Afghanistan/oil?
>Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 18:39:27 -0400
>
>Angelita Manzano wrote:
>
>>I have a question for you. Some of the things I've
>>read say that Afghanistan is one of most "mineral
>>rich" countries, others say that there's not much of
>>monetary value (besides opium) . . . and a some
>>activists say this all boils down to oil . . .
>
>Partisans of the oil angle, I have a question. The U.S. was attacked,
>and it's not implausible that it was planned by ObL, who is based in
>Afghanistan, and that his operatives were trained there. So it's not
>outlandish that any response be directed there, whatever it may be.
>So how's the oil angle fit into that? Did the CIA concoct the attack
>to justify a war on Afghanistan? Is it just a happy coincidence? Or
>are people just in the habit of invoking oil as the Real Secret
>Reason for everything that happens?
>
>Doug
Consider the following answer to the question asked in political economic crises--Qui Bono?
Political terrorism is a tactic in a well thought out, even if incorrect, strategy.
Twelve of the suicide terrorists were Saudi nationals and several were Egyptians. The recent release of 39 alleged terrorist backers includes many wealthy Saudi families. The strategy here is to overthrow the present governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. If others, such as Pakistan, Morocco, Indonesia, Nigeria, also fall, that would be a windfall profit. They would be replaced with fundamentalist regimes of varying radicalism, putting a lot of oil reserves in the hands of theocratic states, even if the less radical type that exists in Iran already. Add Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Japan and Europe are up for ransom. (Economically, if the cost of the circulating part of constant capital goes up, this hits the rate of profit hard, something neither Japan nor Europe can take at the present time, already having falling profits.)
This this strategy has to work "in the streets." That will take time to play out. But if strategy is about taking power, this is a stratgic plan for islamic fundamentalists to take power throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as North Africa, and Indonesia (which contains the largest Muslim populations of any single country.)
The problem of any strategy is tactics. What tactics will further the taking of power, overthrowing the disparate forms of government in the Middle East and Central Asia, and replacing them with theocracies. Enter the USA. As a tactic, provoke the US into terror bombing of Afganistan (which is a country that is useless to fundamentalists, except as a place of asyluum) and use the popular backlash against the real targets of the strategy, oil rich Muslim regimes. This week may tell whether this tactic, the terrorism in the USA is going to be effective, or if more tactical attacks on the US will be necessary.
A theocratic state is still a political state, just like a democracy, but based on different ideological foundations. The economic basis are different as well (agricultural, as against industrial). Thus the naivete of the Christian right to establish a theocracy in the US based on biblical law, when the US economy is not pastoral and patriarchal.
Even under the theocratic states the oil can still be pumped, as it is in Iran today. Setting the USA aside, which could be cut off, Japan gets 3/4 of its oil from this area, Europe, excluding Britain gets 1/2 of its oil from the Middle East. The proceeds of sales could be used to underwrite a new Caliphate or other federation of religious states.
Proof that oil is a major element in this struggle is shown by the fact that Blair can jump on the bombing bandwagon because he doesn't have that much at risk in oil supplies. The fact that Koizumi has volunteered to host the UN conference to hammer out a new Afghan state is another. The fact Schroder is using this to expand Germany's use of the military option in its foreign affairs policies is another.
It's a diabolical strategy, but it might work, given the lack of the Bush administration's understanding of the forces in play, and their being led around the by nose by the British. This tactic is not the work of a madman, or the "evil one", but a violent step to accomplish a well planned strategy.
I'm not sure that American governing elite, or perhaps the average American, can give up the vanity that the USA is at the center of these terrorist operations, when it is really just a knight being sacrificed to checkmate the King of Saudi Arabia in what the British have traditionally called "The Great Game," the control over the Middle East trade routes and mineral reserves.
Things get hairy if the US warriors start to see an unraveling of their client states. Do they go with full scale conventional assault, or bring out tactical nuclear weapons? How would this affect Pakistan, India, and Israel, all nuclear powers. How serious is intent to protect their Central Asian regimes. Forward to the past--nuclear winter again!
RS
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