Riding Shotgun on a Pipeline

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=716&e=26&u=/latimests/20040516/ts_latimes/ridingshotgunonapipeline

Last fall, the United States and Colombia launched an extraordinary military operation that sent thousands of troops into Arauca, a remote region of this South American country plagued by warring rebel factions and the cocaine trade.


By outward appearances, Operation Red Moon opened a new front in the two countries' long war on drugs.


This time, however, the fight also was over oil.


U.S.-trained Colombian troops, backed by U.S. intelligence and private contractors, unleashed the offensive to stop rebel attacks on a pipeline that Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. depends on to transport oil. They also had another goal, company officials said: secure an area deep in the heart of rebel territory so Occidental could explore a new field believed to hold 20 million barrels of oil.

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[MichaelUK]

1. Doesn't surprise me

With China suddenly taking all the oil it can for it's burgoning car industry, Bush is going to need all the oil he can get to keep the prices low so the people don't get pissed with him so he can win the election (deep breath) so he can go on for another 4 years so he can ruin your economy and the world's environment more and more so he can malke lots of money for his family so there.

[Catt03]

2. High oil prices will stay

according to

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/business/16OIL.html?hp

[bemildred]

3. "extraordinary military operation" my ass.

Sounds like the same old shit to me, they haven't learned
a thing in one hundred years.

You have to wonder how much of this is cover for supporting
the Colombian paramilitaries they've been infiltrating into
Veneuela.