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The Economic Motive for America’s Current Wars

by Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org


Russia has long been the chief seller of energy — mainly gas and oil — in the world’s largest energy-market: the EU, or Europe. This means that U.S.-based energy companies, such as Exxon and Halliburton, aren’t the ones who dominate in supplying oil, gas, pipelines, and other energy-supplying needs, to the consumers and businesses in the world’s largest energy-market: Europe.
Around half of Russia’s gas and oil into the EU is transported there via pipelines that traverse Ukraine, and this is a major reason why the Obama Administration (which was in service to the owners of the U.S.-based international corporations and even to the Koch brothers who heavily fund the Republican Party against Obama’s Democratic Party) started, by no later than 2011, its preparations for a coup in Ukraine, which occurred in February 2014, to overthrow the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who, as had been planned and expected by the U.S. government, turned down the EU’s offer of membership because the highly uneconomic arrangement that the EU was offering would have cost Ukraine an estimated $160 billion.
The U.S. government knew he’d turn it down, which is why, when he did say no, on 21 November 2013, the Obama regime had everything prepared to launch, that day, the ‘anti-corruption’ demonstrations on the Maidan Square in Kiev, starting the execution of the Obama Administration’s coup-plan. (Though it was an ‘anti-corruption’ and ‘pro-democracy’ ‘revolution’, to overthrow the democratically elected President of Ukraine, one of the key demands by the U.S. and the EU had been the release, from a Ukrainian prison, of America’s preferred leader of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, who had been convicted on corruption-charges — and this demand was, of course, a violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and taken by Ukraine’s government to be an insult, which was yet another reason why Yanukovych had to reject the deal.)
The EU nations weren’t eager to take that $160B burden onto themselves, it was laid entirely upon Ukraine, take-it-or-leave-it, and Ukraine rejected it — and so rejected the rest of the U.S. team’s offer. But Obama’s agent who handled Ukraine continued to run into resistance from the EU, because EU leaders weren’t as fascist as today’s U.S. leaders are. On 4 February 2014, in a phone call to the U.S. Ambassador in Kiev, Obama’s agent on Ukraine said “F—k the EU!” about Europe’s concerns, and to impose atop the post-coup government “Yats” or Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who would do what the U.S. government wanted and would ignore the needs of either Ukrainians or Europeans. “Yats” received the appointment 18 days later, and, immediately, accepted the EU’s uneconomic offer; so, Ukrainians were doomed. (And Crimea, which had voted 75% for Yanukovych, broke off from Ukraine, and so too did Donbass, which had voted 90% for Yanukovych.)
But those pipelines still ran through Ukraine, and the Ukrainian government received from Russia the transport-fees, and Ukraine already was $3 billion behind on its payments to Russia for its own gas-supplies from Russia. Russia, in any case, has been trying to rearrange its pipelines so as to supply Europe without depending so heavily upon Ukraine for transport.
NATO pretended that it had other reasons for seeking to bring Ukraine into the U.S. alliance, not missile-bases there against Russia, and mentioned the pipelines-issue as if it were only an aside and said that NATO wasn’t even an alliance against Russia.
However, Obama also had come into office in 2009 hoping to overthrow Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, because, ever since at least 1949, the U.S.-Saudi oil company Aramco was trying to be allowed to build through Syria pipelines for Saudi oil and Qatari gas into the EU so as to grab that energy-market away from Russia.
Consequently, “What’s Behind Lower Gas-Prices and the Bombings of Syria and of Southeastern Ukraine” is a U.S.-regime effort to grab market-share in the world’s largest energy-market.
The Sauds’ main boots-on-the-ground inside Syria to replace Assad with a fundamentalist-Sunni ruler like themselves has been Al Qaeda, which provides the leadership for numerous jihadist organizations — all of them likewise fundamentalist Sunnis — that are trying to overthrow Assad. And the U.S. regime has been protecting Al Qaeda there.

NOTE:
This news-report is being submitted for publication to all U.S. newsmedia that cover international news, including all of the major U.S. newsmedia, and will, presumably, be published by all of them that wish their audience to know the information that’s presented and documented (via the links) in this report, which is a news-report because the information that’s presented here is news to almost all Americans, even though what it reports is actually history, not merely today’s events.
Suppressed history is news until it is no longer suppressed; and the present article is not news-commentary; it’s only news, nothing but news, straight news-reporting, all based only upon extremely reliable sources, which the reader is furthermore here encouraged to click onto directly (and/or indirectly via links in the linked-to articles) to examine and evaluate for oneself.
The great advantage of reading an online news-report such as this, over obtaining one’s news via print or radio or TV, is that the reader can access the sources, via the links, and can therefore evaluate, on one’s own, their credibility (or lack thereof). One cannot do that with the traditional print and broadcast media; and, so, the traditional print and broadcast media are far less trustworthy than this, because they fail to supply the public with access to their sources.

In order for the U.S. regime to make its public accept the burdens of empire, paying the taxes and shedding some blood and organizing others — such as jihadists in the Middle East, and nazis or racist-fascists in Ukraine — to serve as the boots-on-the-ground to carry out such operations, the propaganda-line is that the U.S. government wants those foreign governments to be more democratic and less corrupt, and wants to protect their populations from being subjected to barrel bombs and sarin gas attacks, etc., as if the U.S. itself doesn’t do even worse to the populations in foreign countries it invades.
(Furthermore, the Assad government is doing — whatever it’s doing — to jihadist gangs inside its own country, gangs that are supported by the U.S. and other foreign governments trying to conquer Syria; whereas, the U.S. is strictly a foreign invader there and elsewhere; so, any analogy between Assad’s methods, and the methods that are employed by the U.S. government, would be fundamentally false, inapplicable.)
However, of course, any online newsmedium that fails to link through to its source on each and every challengeable point, is, on that point, no better than the traditional ones are. Only the online newsmedia that are punctilious about supplying the public with clickable access to their sources, are different from the print and broadcast media in this crucial regard. Presumably, the online newsmedia that publish the present news-report will be the ones whose owners want their audience to have access to the information that’s contained and linked-to herein.
Those will reasonably be considered the trustworthy newsmedia, because the media that don’t publish it have received it but are continuing to hide this information from the public. A reader can web-search this article’s headline in order to find which newsmedia are honest. This is a method to determine which newsmedia are honest, and which are not. Very few newsmedia in the U.S. have published any of the facts that are documented here. The reason isn’t that these facts are less well-established than others; it’s that these facts are too damning and contradict the standard storyline.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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galien8
galien8
Jul 6, 2017 5:42 AM

Stupid, get rid of the fossils once and for all, and the whole corrupt business model collapses, while whole world uses solar, wind, biogas and geothermal energy, no more wars 🙂

wardropper
wardropper
Jul 5, 2017 1:14 PM

O.G. and its comments section are such a breath of fresh air in our money-and-corruption-thickened atmosphere.
As is often the case, this article talks a lot of sense, but also leaves out a lot of sense.
I suppose an article cannot cover as much ground as a book in any case, but the 900-pound gorilla mentioned by Greg does need a mention.
If only the Christianity so often set up as the antithesis of Zionism could remember that Christ, Himself, was a Jew, and if only Zionists could remember that Christ and “Christians” are all-too often two quite different things…
We should at least know exactly whom it is that we are criticizing.

BigB
BigB
Jul 4, 2017 8:51 PM

Excellent and apposite article, Eric: especially with the G20 starting later this week in Hamburg. Gas is the new oil; and the Imperial control of it could be the new cassus belli.
There is already a diplomatic and economic war about to erupt: if the US decides to impose sanctions on Germany and Austria if they go ahead with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Which they seem to favour over the more expensive US shale gas being offered. I can’t imagine why?
Ukraine could go ‘hot’: the greater part of their business model is ransoming Russian/EU gas. That, and Poroshenko’s chocolate factory. Now they are to be bypassed and lose $2bn transit fees. NATO is meeting this week to talk about “Transforming Ukraine” – by regime change? Or into a warzone?
The Turkish Stream pipeline is underway: and Turkey is the only NATO country pivoting East – setting itself up as a regional gas transit hub: and allying with Russia, Iran, and Qatar in the process.
There is the unresolved ‘flashpoint’ of Syria: or part of ‘Pipelineistan’; as Pepe Escobar refers to it. With Qatar favouring to exploit its South Pars gasfield with Iran (and get paid gold standard Yuan?) There is the equally unresolved rights of the giant proven gas reserves in the Levant Basin; off Latakia – that Israel and the US/UK Imperium have designs on. The Golan heights? No gas, but plenty of oil (and nearly as importantly, water) – all for Israel? They are not paying for Daesh/AQ, and flying air cover for them to give it back. They want a confederated post-Assad Syria they can exploit.
If the plan was to isolate Russia and Iran; it is not going very well. The opposite is occurring, they are breaking out. As Mackinder or Spykman would say: the Russian Heartland is integrating with a large part of the Eurasian Rimland; to consolidate the ‘World Island’ – and no American strategic planner could ever allow that to happen. Ever. (The upcoming NATO pivot to Afghanistan is a countering move, IMO.)
In short, the American Imperium could find itself as the ‘Periphery Island’: not the dominant hegemon. No one wants their overpriced LNG shale – not if they can have cheap natural gas on tap. Or their regime change diplomacy. Or their economic world taxation via the petro-Dollar. Or the ‘democracy’ of violence. And fuck the Pax Americana.
Russia is becoming the preferred supplier of hydrocarbons: and if South Pars/North Dome and part of the Levant Basin come within its sphere of cooperation – the collapsing petro-Dollar could potentially see the ‘ignition’ of a Gas World War??? It certainly will make for an interesting G20.

rehmat1
rehmat1
Jul 4, 2017 3:23 PM

Most of Russian oil/gas reserves are inside Chechnya – a Muslim-majority state occupied by the Russian Bear for more than three centuries. According to latest oil/gas report – Chechen oil/gas reserves are as huge as those of Saudi Arabia.
Eric Zuesse is a Zionist shill. He white-washes Israeli involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and blame them on Saudi Arabia – a close ally of both the US and Israel against Iran.
Eric Zuesse is author of 2001 book, Why The Holocaust Happened: Its Religious Cause and Scholarly Cover-up. Zuesse, like Abraham Foxman, blames the Christian Bible’s (NT) teachings for the hate and murder of Jews during WWII. Contrary to that Rabbi Marvin Antelman in 1974 book, To Eliminate The Opiate claimed that the Crypto-Jew followers of Shabbetai Tzvi/Jacob Frank, known as Frankist Jews were responsible for the WW II and the Holocaust.
https://rehmat1.com/2017/04/01/911-eric-zuesse-exonerates-israel/

Greg Bacon
Greg Bacon
Jul 4, 2017 2:58 PM

Nice try, but without talking about the 900 pound gorilla in the room, Israel, Zuesse’s article lacks substance and legitimacy.
He forgot to mention that Israeli pipeline that will send NG to Europe, using natural gas stolen from Egyptian, Palestinian and Lebanese fields.
He also forgets to mention that this ME madness is a direct result of the decades old Zionist plan by the Zionist Oded Yinon, to bust up the ME, turning those states into mini-states, filled with anarchy, so Israel would be the ONLY power in that area.
There’s also the paper written in 1996, mostly by Zionists and American Jews, that also put forth Yinon’s master plan of butchery, with a few of the writers also singing off on the PNAC doctrine that said American can be the one and only world power, but first we need something like a new Pearl Harbor, which conveniently came on 9/11.
“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1438.htm
Oded Yinon’s “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zionist%20Plan%20for%20the%20Middle%20East.pdf

summitflyer
summitflyer
Jul 4, 2017 2:10 PM

Very much to the point Eric. You are definitely on my list of credible journalists. I hope this factual information reaches the reading audience far and wide.

Greg Bacon
Greg Bacon
Jul 4, 2017 7:12 PM
Reply to  summitflyer

Nice try, but without talking about the 900 pound gorilla in the room, Israel, Zuesse’s article lacks substance and legitimacy.
He forgot to mention that Israeli pipeline that will send NG to Europe, using natural gas stolen from Egyptian, Palestinian and Lebanese fields.
He also forgets to mention that this ME madness is a direct result of the decades old Zionist plan by the Zionist Oded Yinon, to bust up the ME, turning those states into mini-states, filled with anarchy, so Israel would be the ONLY power in that area.
There’s also the paper written in 1996, mostly by Zionists and American Jews, that also put forth Yinon’s master plan of butchery, with a few of the writers also singing off on the PNAC doctrine that said American can be the one and only world power, but first we need something like a new Pearl Harbor, which conveniently came on 9/11.
“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1438.htm
Oded Yinon’s “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/The%20Zionist%20Plan%20for%20the%20Middle%20East.pdf

Schlüter
Schlüter
Jul 4, 2017 1:37 PM

„Geo-Politics: The Core of Crisis and Chaos and the Nightmares of the US Power Elite“ https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/geo-politics-the-core-of-crisis-and-chaos-the-nightmares-of-the-us-power-elite/
Regards

Brutally Remastered
Brutally Remastered
Jul 4, 2017 1:34 PM

Great stuff – a nice summing up of a handful of geo-political situations that should be required reading for students, especially, and old farts like me who get lost in the mire of contemporary Imperial detail.

Dead World Walking
Dead World Walking
Jul 4, 2017 1:29 PM

Oil and gas.
One lubricates the world down the slippery slope of self destruction.
The other fuels the fires of impending hell.
Appropriate that.