Saturday, January 02, 2010

Will ‘the international community’ now create a civil war in Yemen as bad as the ones they’ve created in Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Afghanistan?

After the ‘underpants bomber’’s failed attempt to bomb a flight from Amsterdam to the US the Obama administration has said it will carry out ‘retaliatory strikes’ against Al Qa’ida leaders in Yemen. Yet the Bush and Obama administrations have been carrying out missile strikes on suspected Al Qa’ida leaders since 2002 and organising and training Saudi and Yemeni government forces for attacks on suspected Al Qa’ida leaders in Yemen since 2001. The SAS are also reported to have been deployed to Yemen from 2002 on and US Special Forces have almost certainly been operating too. The results have included a lot of civilian deaths in the strikes and an increase the support for extremist groups in the region.

When the editor of a Yemeni website reported on civilian deaths in a Yemeni military airstrike in September 2009 he was arrested by plain clothes intelligence officers and has not been heard of since.

A junior British foreign office Minister interviewed on BBC news recently said ‘security co-operation’ with the government of Yemen would be stepped up in parallel with development to reduce unemployment, lack of education and poverty.

Looking at the record of the same ‘coherent, integrated strategy’ in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan though the actual results are generally to create civil war and massively increase the number of terrorist attacks. In Afghanistan before the US invasion of 2001 suicide bombings were extremely rare, the most notorious targeted Ahmad Shah Massoud, a Mujahedin leader killed by Taliban suicide bombers in June 2001. Since the invasion suicide bombings have become common and civilian casualties from all causes have risen every year. Ditto for Iraq and Pakistan since big military offensives, air strikes and ‘counter insurgency’ to ‘root out extremists’.

Far from stabilising the countries involved ‘support’ from the US and it’s allies generally leads to massive destabilisation, which is used to justify military bases being set up in the country and troops being deployed to train or operate alongside the forces of the country. The only way you could interpret what’s happened in Pakistan or Iraq as ‘greater stability’ would be if you adopted Chomsky’s interpretation of the phrase – certain governments’ code-word for ‘greater influence for us’.

Afghanistan and Pakistan provide the majority of the pipeline route favoured by the US and EU for export of the post-Soviet republics oil and gas. Iraq has the second largest known oil reserves in the world, while Yemen, though having little oil or gas, is strategically important according to the US Energy Information Agency ‘because of its location on the Bab el-Mandab, one of the world's most strategic shipping lanes, through which an estimated 3.5 million barrels of oil passed daily in 2010. Disruption to shipping in the Bab el-Mandab could prevent tankers in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden from reaching the Suez Canal/Sumed pipeline complex, requiring a costly diversion around the southern tip of Africa to reach western markets.’ You can see on the map below how Somalia and Yemen guard either side of the Gulf of Aden – which would be the main alternative export route for Middle Eastern oil and gas if a conflict with Iran closed off the Straits of Hormuz between Iran and Oman.

map of the middle east showing how Yemen and Somalia guard each side of the Gulf of Aden and how the important Bab el-Mandab oil tanker export route follows Yemen's coast - this map is from infoplease

(Please note that this post originally mistakenly claimed Yemen had as high a share of proven global oil reserves as Kuwait. This was wrong and based on mis-reading a column in BP's Annual Statistical review and mistaking the United Arab Emirate's figures for Yemen's, which are only 0.3% of proven reserves globally.)

American oil giants Exxon-Mobil and Hunt Oil, the French Total Oil and British Gas have had oil and gas contracts in Yemen for many years.

The collapse of Somalia’s government in the late 1980s has led to little oil exploration, so no significant proven reserves, but what surveys have been undertaken suggest it may have large reserves in its territorial waters and several major oil companies, including Conoco, had oil exploration contracts with the dictatorship of Siad Barre before it’s overthrow and have argued that those contracts are still valid if the civil war ends.

Maybe many of the members of governments involved genuinely believe they are preventing rather than inciting terrorism – and maybe the overlap between oil and gas reserves and export routes and countries where the US intervenes against Al Qa’ida is just co-incidence, but it’s just as likely that Al Qa’ida and ‘WMDs’ have become the same worldwide excuse for intervention for other motives that ‘Soviet backed Communism’ was during the ‘Cold War’.

Could it be that more progress would be made in reducing terrorism by ending the raids and the air and missile strikes and the ‘counter-insurgency’ and instead simply defending against terrorist attacks with defensive security measures and providing a standard of living above subsistence level to most Yemenis, Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis?

Sources

BBC News 25 Jan 2002 ‘CIA 'killed al-Qaeda suspects' in Yemen’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2402479.stm

BBC News Online 17 November, 2002, 14:49 GMT ‘SAS 'hunting Bin Laden in Yemen'’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/middle_east/2485043.stm

Reuters 23 Sep 2009 ‘Yemen media protest arrest of third journalist’,
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLM252909

Observer 29 Jan 2006 ‘Revealed: UK's role in deadly CIA drone’,

guardian.co.uk 04 Jun 2007 ‘Briton 'killed in US missile attack in Somalia'’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/04/politics.foreignpolicy

ABC News ‘Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists’,
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236&page=1

BBC News 13 Nov 2009 ‘Saudis 'renew Yemen bombing'’,

Guardian 14 Dec 2009 ‘Air strike 'kills 70 civilians' in Yemen’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8411726.stm

Los Angeles Times 13 Jan 1993 ‘The Oil Factor in Somalia’, http://articles.latimes.com/1993-01-18/news/mn-1337_1_oil-reserves
; for full version see http://www.somaliawatch.org/archivejuly/000922601.htm

B.P. Statistical Review of World Energy 2009, http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2009_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2009.pdf

Arabian Business.com ‘Company Profile : Exxon-Mobil Chemical’,
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_companylist&view=list&companyid=16826

BBC News 21 Dec 2009 ‘Houthi rebels say 54 killed in north Yemen air strike’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8425069.stm

BBC News 24 Dec 2009 ‘Dozens killed in Yemen air strike on al-Qaeda suspects’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8429370.stm (US gave Yemeni government $70mn in military aid in 2009)

Committee to Protect Journalists 25 Sep 2009 ‘In Yemen, critical journalist disappears’,
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4b25fc0123.html

AP 24 Dec 2009 ‘Al-Qaida fighters killed in Yemen air strikes’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/24/yemen-strike-al-qaida

Guardian 28 Dec 2009 ‘Al-Qaida: US support for Yemen crackdown led to attack’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/28/al-qaida-us-yemen-attack

Energy Business Review 15 Oct 2009 ‘Total's Yemen LNG Plant Starts Production’,
http://oilgaspipelines.energy-business-review.com/news/totals_yemen_lng_plant_starts_production_091015/

4 comments:

seamus macniel said...

You are, of course, completely correct in your seeing Yemeni and Somali oil reserves as a major motivating factor in Washington's interest both the Yemen and Somalia. Furthermore, your geopolitical analysise of the region as a whole is spot on. Therefore, your use of academic caution, or indeed, supposition, in the last two paragraphs is slightly misplaced.
There are neither coincidences here, nor is Washington particlarly interested in "providing a standard of living above subsistence level to most Yemenis, Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis." Unless, of course, providing that standard of living helps to facilitate America's geopolitical goals.
My own post on the same topic was written on December 31st: http://thediplomatabroad.blogspot.com/2009/12/full-spectrum-dominance-moves-out-into.html. Engdahl is a good read; http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/index.html and his interview, where he discusses full spectrum dominance,on real news is worth looking at.

calgacus said...

Hi again James. I'm sure you're right. I just prefer putting in a 'maybe' sometimes in the hope i'll not seem too dogmatic. I also try to suggest an alternative to the current policy, even if the most powerful governments are unlikely to take it up at the moment, in the hope it'll encourage people and not just depress them.

I've read Engdahl's 'A Century of War' but not his other books or his website, so thanks for the link - looks interesting.

Srebrenica Genocide said...

I don't think oil has anything to do with American action in the Middle East. All that stuff and conspiracy theories, I mean, let's put an end to this. The problem is extremism, period. And the extremism cannot be fought with wars, it has to be fought with education. Those who follow Al Qaeda are dead wrong. They need to change their ways and see partner in the United States. Majority of Muslims reject terrorism.

calgacus said...

Sorry but i have to disagree. Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world. Iran has the third largest. A pipeline from Afghanistan to the ports of Pakistan has been suggested by oil company executives and US Department of Energy reports as their favoured route for the export of former Soviet republics' oil and gas (avoiding Russia and Iran) since the 1990s.

The Washington Post on 15th September 2002 reported that "A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition...."It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them." But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.""

Al Qa'ida are certainly fanatics and most Muslims want nothing to do with them, but you don't invade entire countries and overthrow their governments or bomb them if your aim is to defeat small numbers of terrorists. Saddam Hussein, brutal as he was, was an enemy of Al Qa'ida and did not allow them to operate in the parts of Iraq he controlled. Nor do the Iranian Shia government. The only logical reason for them being targets along with Afghanistan is the one common link - oil and gas reserves and export routes.

The 'conspiracy theories' here are the ones propagated by the US government - that Saddam and the Iranian government were conspiring with Al Qa'ida.