American military is being converted into "global oil-protection service"

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

More headlines in my Journal

1//The Daily Star, Lebanon Monday, May 08, 2006

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=24224



POORLY PROTECTED OIL FACILITIES LEAVE WEST VULNERABLE

Experts warn of hair-trigger market

By Michel Moutot, Agence France Presse ( AFP)

PARIS: With oil prices already stretched to record highs, a terrorist attack targeting vital oil installations would have immediate global consequences, experts say. Wells, pipelines, refineries and tankers have all been targeted in recent years by Al-Qaeda-linked groups, or by local armed militants such as in the Niger Delta - and many of the facilities remain poorly protected against potential attacks.



On February 24, Saudi security forces foiled an attack on oil installations in Abqaiq, which account for 70 percent of the country's output, and 10 percent of the world's, sending jitters through the oil sector.



According to Gal Luft, head of the U.S.-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), the attack - had it succeeded - would have cut four to six million barrels per day out of an already tight oil market.



"It would have exceeded all of the oil taken off the market by the OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) during the 1973 Arab oil embargo," he said.



For Michael Klare, head of the Peace and World Security program at the University of Massachusetts and author of the study "Resource Wars," oil markets are vulnerable because of a serious lack of spare capacity.



"Without Iraq, there is very little spare oil in the world: Every bit of oil is in use," Klare said. "Even a small interruption in the supply of oil would push prices up.



"That's why the American military is increasingly being converted into a global oil-protection service."

MORE

[Erika]

1. The U.S. Military protecting corporate world globalists

and being hidden from our view as they die. Republican/corporatism on display.

[AngryAmish]

2. It has been that service since the NAvy went to oil in the early 20th cen.

[Gloria]

4. Kevin Phillips has a great summary chapter in his latest book

American Theocracy that covers just this idea, how far back our oil thing goes....

[AngryAmish]

6. Do tell

I haven't read the book.

[Gloria]

9. He starts with Whale Oil!!!! and continues with the oil finds

in Pennsylvania and how the economy switched to depending on oil. Britain, left behind with coal and small industrial outfits, while America developed huge oil companies....

[Coastie for Truth]

8. Oil has been the driving force for over a century

This is very well documented and described in A Century Of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order by F. William Engdahl - especially how oil for the fleet drove the Post World War 1 carving up of the Ottoman Empire, with the creation of small, almost tribal, and almost constantly warring, mini-states by the . Engdahl posits that this was deliberated - in order to keep a strong power from developing and challenging either British-French hegemony over the oil fields or British-French control of the Suez Canal (which in turn guaranteed British control of its African and Asian Empire).

[Roland99]

3. Nice acronym for the GOP: Global Oil Protectors

[lovuian]

5. Yep!!!

its become a National Defense issue...
Why???
because without fuel there is no army

The german tanks ran out of fuel in WWII

[nolabels]

7. It all depends on who is telling the story

Try this headline "World corporations forced to capitulate to host countries laws". Like eff them already, they have proved all to often how worthless their smellen corporate carcasses are. Beside that how many wars will they be able to carry out before they get to diminishing returns?