Life in a Barrel of Oil A Dirty and Murderous Business

[Mike Friedman <mikedf@xxxxxxxx>]

CounterPunch

February 27, 2003

Life in a Barrel of Oil
A Dirty and Murderous Business
by JOHN STANTON

The Grammy Award's selectors overlooked the American Petroleum Institute's
(API) hit children's recording titled Energy and Me by Bill B (Bill
Brennan). With its accompanying dance video, API describes the project as
one that "integrates music and dance with energy education" for the age
range 4-15. The CD features classics like Energy Y Yo and We Can Save
Energy. Energy and Me was manufactured by API partner Project Learning
Tree, the environmental education program of the American Forest Foundation
(AFF). A visit to AFF's website (<>) reveals that it is funded primarily by
energy, logging, paper and packaging corporations. Of the 151 listed as
donators-- API, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Tenneco Packaging among
them--approximately 13 percent are not corporations and include groups such
as the Mead Foundation and the National Hispanic Environmental Council.

Energy and Me is part of the oil and natural gas industry's Energy and
Society Education Program to enlighten K-8 educators and youngsters about
fossil fuels. Any teacher or student can visit the excellent API website
and, once there, be directed to the slick Energy & Society section which
features colorful happy-go-lucky images of K-8 aged children and a slew of
user-friendly interactive options, including quiz taking, for young and old
alike. Children can enter contests and have their parents or guardians
order Billy B's CD and video, or education kits. Energy and Me received the
third-place Parent's Choice "Recommended" Award which means it has some
redeeming value to the child listener or viewer. And guess who submitted
the production to Parent's Choice for review? API's partner Project
Learning Tree.

One of the most clever pitches in the energy education program is the
"There's a Lot of Life in a Barrel of OiI " sell which maintains "It's
amazing how many things get their start from a barrel of oil. Everyday
things like the gasoline you use to drive to the beach Comfy synthetic
fabrics you wear year-round. Medicines to make you feel better. Fertilizer
that helps your garden grow. Plus a bevy of fun toys. Discover how much
life there is in a barrel of oil. You'll discover how the oil and natural
gas industry keeps America going strong."

So now oil and natural gas companies are K-8 educators with a reach that
extends to American kindergartners or any child anywhere with access to an
Internet connection and a web browser. A whole generation of children will
come to learn that it's necessary to drill on wildlife refuges and
"voluntarily" submit to greenhouse reductions rather than comply with
international accords or domestic regulations. They will also learn that,
according to API, there's another 97 years before any climate change might
take place, so why worry? Let's suck up as much as we can now and let other
generations handle the impending disaster. According to API, "The severity
of a future problem is unclear. Also, if serious climate problems develop,
they may not occur until the end of the century or later. Finally, the
costs of reducing emissions-and therefore the impacts on the economy and
consumers-vary greatly depending on when and how green house gases
reductions are made."

API's educational website exudes comfort, tranquility, soft colors, and the
feeling that, yes, thanks to America's energy folks, they really do "Keep
America Going Strong". All's well in their hands.

Dirty & Murderous Business

Those K-8 youngsters will never learn that the energy business is a filthy
one in which US and European governments--and their militaries--must and
will resort to any tactic in any country to get the oil and natural gas
companies in a position to extract and deliver product. Nor will they learn
how some oil and natural gas companies have engaged in ruthless and,
allegedly, murderous actions against host country nationals. Moreover, they
will not realize that they themselves, their parents, their communities,
their economies, their governments, and their militaries are vile addicts
hooked on the bubbling crude. Without oil and natural gas, economies would
collapse and citizens would revolt. By the year 2030, both the US and
Europe will need to import close to 70 percent of their oil and natural
gas. The US already imports close to 15 million barrels of oil per day. All
that to drive alone--unsmiling and unhappy but smelling clean--a $40,000
four-passenger vehicle to and from work each day.

Stability of supply is critical and the only way to get it is to take over
the oil producing world. It really is that simple. And that is precisely
why the US and Europe--the latter being appalled at the thought of US
dominance of the world's oil and natural gas supply--are so keen on taking
out heads of state in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela (in other words,
reduce risk investment), and are anxious to have countries like Crotia,
Poland, Bulgaria and Slovenia in the NATO Pipeline alliance. The US has
entered Colombia's decades-old civil war against the FARC not because FARC
has anything to do with communism or drug running, but because FARC
operatives disrupt the flow of oil through Occidental's pipelines. And it's
laughable to listen to militant Republicans and Christians--and their
Democrat counterparts--moan on and on about China-as-threat,
China-as-human-rights abuser when, in fact, every red-blooded American
oilman and woman wants a piece of China's energy market, particularly if
they can get upstream equity in their projects.

The US Energy Division of the International Trade Mission announced
recently that in October 2003, it's running a trade show over in
Kazakhstan, one of America's newest and most trusted allies in the US War
Machine. "Kazakhstan's booming oil and gas sector presents numerous
opportunities for U.S. companies that provide oil and gas equipment and
services. International consortia operating major projects such as Tengiz,
Karachaganak, and Kashagan expect to invest billions of dollars over the
next few years. There are opportunities for U.S. companies in virtually
every subsector associated with oil extraction, processing, and
transportation..."

Never mind the fact that Kazakhstan has a brutal post-Soviet Union human
rights record. Human Rights Watch reported on an incident typical in that
country under President Nursultan Nazarbaev. " In 2002, Kazakh government
repression of independent media reached crisis proportions, as journalists
were attacked and beaten, threatened with death, and jailed. Media outlets
connected to [the President's] political rivals, and journalists who
attempted to expose official corruption, were particular targets of the
crackdown. In May, the twenty-five-year-old daughter of independent
journalist Lira Baiseitova disappeared the day after the journalist
published a controversial piece in the newspaper SolDat (Let Me Speak)
regarding personal Swiss bank accounts allegedly held by the Nazarbaev
family. In June, police informed Baiseitova that her daughter, Leila, had
been arrested for heroin possession, but did not grant the two a visit.
Days later, Leila Baiseitova died in police custody; Lira Baiseitova
received conflicting reports about the cause of death, including a police
claim that her daughter had hanged herself in her cell. Lira Baiseitova had
herself been the victim of physical attacks in 2000 and 2001."

Not to be outdone by a puny government like Kazakhstan, ExxonMobil employs
close to 5,500 Indonesian security and paramilitary forces to protect its
gas field in Aceh. Each is paid $294 per month for protecting ExxonMobil's
operations there. In 2002, 2,700 people reportedly lost their lives at the
hands of ExxonMobil's security employees. It is accused of complicity in
the murder and sexual molestation of locals by its paid security forces,
along with the unjust imprisonment of Acehnese Democratic Resistance Front
leader Kautsar who was released from prison late in 2002.

Shell Oil has played that game too. It was accused of fomenting a killing
spree in the early 1990's in Ogoni, Nigeria according to Human Rights
Watch. The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by
Ken Saro-Wiwa, mobilized thousands of Ogonis, an ethnic group of 500,000
people occupying a portion of the oil producing region, to protest the
policies of the federal government in relation to the oil wealth, and at
the human rights violations of Shell Oil--to include importing weapons for
its paid security forces. In 1993, Shell was forced to close its production
in Ogoni following mass protests though active pipelines still cross the
region. MOSOP's protests provoked a violent and repressive response from
the federal government, for which any threat to oil production is a threat
to the entire existing political system.

Many Ogonis were detained or beaten by the Rivers State Internal Security
Task Force, a military body specifically created to suppress the protests
organized by MOSOP, and hundreds were summarily executed over a period of
several years. In 1994, Ken Saro-Wiwa and several others were arrested in
connection with the murder of four traditional leaders in Ogoni. On
November 10, 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other MOSOP activists were hanged by
the military government for those murders, after a trial before a tribunal
which blatantly violated international standards of due process and
produced no credible evidence that he or the others were involved in the
killings for which they were convicted.

Stability Operations

The Interstate Oil and Gas Transport to Europe (INOGATE) provides an
illuminating Perspectives Map. The Perspectives Map matched with current
and projected US and European military movements puts an interesting light
on the destruction of the former Yugoslavia, the entry into NATO of some
unlikely members, the pounding of oil drums from Bush and Blair, and the
change in the Pentagon's view of peacekeeping. Like varicose veins that mar
the skin, bright red and dark green lines indicating pipelines and energy
flows are drawn over the whole of Europe, Scandinavia, Central Asia,
Northern Africa, the Middle East and Persian Gulf--including Israel and
Cyprus. New NATO entrants Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have key
ports for shipping energy products. The Constanza-Omisalj oil pipeline
project involving Romania, Yugoslavia and Croatia seems a nice, if
coincidental, benefit of US and NATO action back under the Clinton
Administration.

Twenty-one countries have signed the INOGATE Umbrella Agreement which
simply means that they will do whatever it takes to minimize risk to
investors. What better way to do that than have the US or NATO forces
in-country (and buy their weapons and products), or have a regime that
brutally suppresses dissent and ensures that the investor's risk is
minimal. And after a look at the Perspectives Map, it's clear why Bush
appointees in the Pentagon wiped-out the term "Peacekeeping Operations" and
opted for "Stability Operations". A nice tip-of-the-hat to the oil, natural
gas and banking and investment communities.

Now, API members no longer need to hire host nation security forces because
they now have in their employ the US Armed Services to handle pesky locals
who complain about low wages, poor living conditions, hunger, destruction
of their environment, and their own governments who--bought by the US and
Europeans-- sell off the wealth of their nations at ridiculously low
prices. Does that really make America stronger?

Oh, well, no matter. Just get your copy of Billy B's Energy and Me from
your child, stick it in your vehicle's CD player, and merrily sing-along as
you make your way alone to and from work. And remember, there's lots of
life and a lot of fun in a barrel of oil.

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security
matters. He can be reached at cioran123@xxxxxxxxx





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