War for Oil Profits!

by Deirdre Griswold

Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit

When Bush or Quayle or, for that matter, Clinton get around to talking about the Middle East and why they are for a dominant U.S. military presence there, they of course profess to be defending human rights, democracy, self-determination and all the things that are in such short supply in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, their great allies.

But then comes the clincher. Of course, say these capitalist politicians, we must protect our vital interests in the region and make sure that the oil that powers our homes, cars and economy can never be shut off.

Now, this is what everyone understands the struggle to be really about, no matter the fancy human rights talk. That is why in opposing U.S. imperialist aggression against Iraq or Iran, or perhaps at some future time Venezuela or Nigeria or Mongolia, it isn't sufficient to merely say "No blood for oil." Until there's some other energy source readily available, many people will consider blood for oil a necessary tradeoff (particularly if it's not their blood but the blood of a "volunteer" army of youths escaping poverty).

Twofold character of oil

What the progressive, working class movement has to make crystal clear is that the U.S. government's policy on oil really has little to do with the need for oil as a useful product. That is in abundance in the world, particularly right here in the United States. It is oil as a source of surplus value, of profit, that drives the terrible engines of war.

Anyone who doubts this should have seen the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour on PBS on Aug. 19. A bunch of independent oil producers were complaining about the Bush administration's handling of the issue dearest to their hearts: oil policy. These were not the Seven Sisters crowd, the monstrous oil billionaires who sit astride the world and make or break whole countries. These were just millionaires, who can't run to Kuwait or Indonesia with their capital because it's tied up in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

They were saying that $20 billion worth of oil drilling equipment, offshore rigs and other capital purchases are lying idle in this area, not because there isn't oil in the ground but because Middle East oil is so cheap they can't compete with it. And they more or less accused the Reagan-Bush leaders of colluding with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to keep things that way.

It should be remembered that before Iraq invaded, Kuwait was exceeding its OPEC quota in oil production. This lowered the world price of oil and undercut the development programs of countries like Iraq that have less money and many more people than the little oil-rich emirates and principalities.

The $20 billion in rusting rigs in the Texas-Oklahoma-Louisiana area has meant the loss of countless thousands of jobs and a depression in these three states affecting not just the oil industry but everything from real estate to public jobs dependent on tax revenues. In Louisiana, the economic collapse fueled the rise of the fascist David Duke.

From Titusville to the Middle East

As recently as the 1930s, 60 percent of the world's petroleum was pumped out of the ground right here in the U.S. The modern petroleum industry got its start in Titusville, Pa., in 1859. By 1901 the world's first real "gusher" was drilled at Spindletop in Texas.

But the giant oil corporations that were already spreading their tentacles into banking and other industries soon found they could make even bigger profits elsewhere. In 1912 Standard Oil put enough muscle on Holland to get a subsidiary licensed in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). By the time of World War II, the Pacific and the oil-rich Middle East were top on the list of regions the giant monopolies wanted under their control.

After the war, giant oilfields were developed in areas of the Middle East that had previously been British and French colonies but were now falling increasingly under the economic domination of the U.S. By 1979, the OPEC countries produced 66 percent of the world's petroleum--but the refining, transporting and marketing of the oil has always been under the control of the Seven Sisters: five U.S. petroleum giants plus Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum.

Who gained from Gulf war?

The Gulf war put the U.S. firmly in control of Kuwait's vast oil wealth. Moreover, the continued Pentagon intervention in Iraq that goes on to this day and threatens a renewal of the war at any time is directed against those areas in the north and south of the country that have the biggest oil fields--all under the guise of protecting the rights of the Kurds and the Shiites, respectively.

As should be painfully clear by now, the war won nothing as far as workers' jobs in the U.S. are concerned. It didn't turn around the stagnant capitalist economy, and it even deepened the depression in the domestic oil industry.

What it did do was secure even greater profits for the biggest billionaire corporations. They are the ones who hold the world hostage and threaten to choke off the vital life lines of all who oppose them.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World,46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010; "[email protected]".)

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