BP Was There

[Joanne98]

From the 1953 CIA Overthrow of Iran Democracy, to the Iraq War, to the Criminal Gulf Disaster and Deaths, BP Was There


If you were to draw an oily line from the first exploitation of oil in the Middle East by the British in 1901 (they were in the process of converting their then world dominating naval fleet from coal to oil and were in desperate need of it) to the overthrow of the secular democratic leader in Iran,Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953, to the Iraq War, to the criminal environmental catastrophe in the Gulf, BP would have been there.

But the fourth largest company in the world wasn't always called BP. It used to be owned by the British Government (remember the navy armada in need of oil). It was named the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company when the CIA teamed up with the British because the Western style Iranian leader Mossadeq wanted to nationalize Britain's 100% owned and run giant oil concession in Iran, and the West would have none of that. So Eisenhower authorized "Operation Ajax," and the Shah of Iran was placed in power -- ruling with an iron fist and the dreaded SAVAK, all the time fully backed by the U.S. -- leading to the radical theocratic revolution that we still confront today. All the time BP, which formally adopted its current name in 1954, was there.

BP was there throughout the de facto colonization of the Middle East to provide oil to the West, the British and the U.S. remaining strong partners in keeping any recalcitrant nations in line. Which leads to the Iraq War and why many Americans and Brits were puzzled by Tony Blair's eagerness to go along with Cheney's secret oil committee plan to seize Iraq oil fields and Bush's belief that the war was Biblically justified. BP is the largest corporation in the UK and the third largest energy company. Do you have any more questions?

BP and its American counterparts are part of the corporate oligarchy that run governments when it comes to energy policy. They don't take orders from sovereign nations; they give them. They are unelected, but because of their hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and profit, they run the show when it comes to oil policy, and profit comes first: forget about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/From-the-1953-CIA-Overthro-by-Mark-Karlin-100530-244.html

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Joanne.

[HughMoran]

2. Once in the last 24 hours wasn't enough?

[inna]

3. Huh??

:wtf:

[Karenina]

5. Those who forget history...

[starroute]

4. Here's some more of the history

In a very real sense, the history of the 20th century was the history of oil. I've even seen World War II described as primarily a war over access to oil. In the quotes below, I've focused on the complicated intrigues behind the origins of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, but the larger story is far broader and no less twisty.


http://www.sott.net/articles/show/124997-John-F-Kennedy-Oil-and-the-War-on-Terror

Standard Oil was founded in 1860, and for nearly half a century the oil industry and the life story of John D. Rockefeller were one. During 51 years Standard eliminated its competitors by every means at its disposal, corrupting public officials and violating or getting around the laws, until it was dissolved in 1911.

Around 1890, its world monopoly began to slip. The Russo-Swedish Nobel group inaugurated operations in the Caucasus, and between 1891 and 1901 Russian production actually exceeded that of the United States. The British Rothschilds, realizing the future possibilities of oil, in particular with regard to modern shipping, aided the Royal Dutch Company to escape the control of Standard and conquer some of Rockefeller's markets in the Far East. ... Contrary to Standard, which had patterned its commercial policies after the isolationist principles of Theodore Roosevelt and Taft and sought only markets abroad, Royal Dutch Shell carried out explorations and extended its operations throughout the world. In 1912 it began operating in the United States and soon controlled half of American production. ...

In the Middle East, where oil reserves are at least 100 times greater than those of the United States, a British adventurer, William Knox d'Arcy , obtained a concession from the Shah of Persia in 1901 covering five-sixth of his lands. In 1908 the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and later still British Petroleum or BP) was founded. The British Navy had just switched to oil-burning ships, and Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, persuaded His Majesty's government to purchase a majority share in the new company. At that very moment, America and Europe discovered the automobile. In 1908 Henry Ford began producing his famous Model T. The rush was on. In 1911 there were 619,000 automobiles. By 1914 there were 2 million, and by 1924 there were 18 million cars on the road, 16 million of them in the United States. That year the United States alone consumed more oil than Europe consumed in 1960.

The war revealed the strategic importance of oil. Not only did it contribute heavily to the allied victory, but it became part of the stakes of the game.


http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3424600769.html

William Knox D'Arcy (1849–1917) was a successful British entrepreneur who in 1901 obtained from the government of Iran a sixty-year concession to search for and produce petroleum in an area of central and southern Iran covering 480,000 square miles. In return, the Iranian government received 20,000 British pounds in cash, paid-up shares of an equal value, and a promise of 16 percent of the annual net profits. In 1905, after failing to find oil and having spent most of his capital, D'Arcy assigned his concession rights to Burma Oil, in return for 170,000 barrels of petroleum. Oil was discovered in commercial quantity at Masjed-e Soleyman in 1908, and Burma was reincorporated the following year as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC, later, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, then British Petroleum). In 1914, the British navy decided to convert its ships from the use of coal to oil as fuel, and in tandem the British government became a majority shareholder in APOC. The concession subsequently proved highly profitable for Great Britain. Up to Iran's nationalization of the concession in 1951, APOC paid nearly $600 million in profits and $700 million in corporate taxes to the British government; the Iranian government received a total of $310 million in royalties.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Reilly#D.27Arcy_affair

In 1904, the Board of the Admiralty projected that petroleum would supplant coal as the primary source of fuel for the Royal Navy. During their investigation, the British Admiralty learned that William Knox D'Arcy - who later founded the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) in April 1909 - had obtained a valuable concession from the Persian government regarding the oil rights in southern Persia and that D'Arcy was negotiating a similar concession from the Turkish Government for oil rights in Mesopotamia. The British Admiralty purportedly initiated efforts to entice D'Arcy to sell his newly acquired oil rights to the British Government rather than to the French de Rothschilds.