Giant Caspian oil pipeline opens

[bunk]

Oil is set to flow from the Caspian Sea direct to the Mediterranean for the first time after a $3.6bn (£2bn) pipeline opened on Wednesday.
Starting in Azerbaijan, the 1,600km (1,000 mile) pipeline will pass through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The project has taken more than 10 years to finish and will unlock one of the world's biggest energy reserves.

It has not been without controversy, however, and there have been protests about the impact on the environment.

Some demonstrators were beaten and arrested last Saturday, with Azeri authorities saying that they acted because the protest was too close to the pipeline.
Up to a million barrels a day will eventually be heading directly west, gushing underneath miles of rugged terrain.

The pipeline cuts right through areas of importance to locals but i'm guessing it doesn't matter to the US as they have largely funded a lot of this project.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The locals don't seem to mind either as I've heard nothing from them.

[flyby]

if you want to understand how this oil pipeline is part of a huge U.S. powergrab for (frankly) the control of huge parts of the world..... then check out this article which blew my mind:

Pipeline of Greed: U.S. Imperialism and the "Great Game" for Caspian Oil (http://rwor.org/a/v21/1030-039/1035/caspian.htm)

"It is not just another oil and gas deal, and this is not just another pipeline. It is a strategic framework that advances America's national security interests. It is a strategic vision for the future of the Caspian region."

Bill Richardson, U.S. Energy Secretary, November 18, 1999

"Steal an apple, they call you a thief.
Steal a country, they call you an emperor."

old saying

"Note to schoolteachers: Find the Caspian on the map, draw a circle around it, and show it to the children. Twenty years from now, or perhaps even 10, some of them may find themselves deployed there."

Paul Starobin, "The New Great Game," National Journal,
Washington magazine for U.S. policymakers

On November 18, 1999 President Clinton was in Istanbul, Turkey--as four countries signed a major new "intergovernmental declaration of intent." The grins on imperialist faces showed that this was a major step in U.S. plans to seize the oil fields of the Caspian Sea.

After years of U.S. pressure, intrigue and bribery, the regimes of Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan agreed to build a major new 1,200-mile pipeline from the Caspian Sea oil center of Baku to the ship-loading oil terminals of Ceyhan in southern Turkey. If this pipeline project goes ahead, oil that was once the most valuable resource of the former Soviet empire will reach the world through facilities controlled by U.S. imperialism and its allies.

In the 1992 Gulf War, the U.S. tightened its control over Persian Gulf oil. Now the U.S. is determined that any major new oil fields being opened to the world market will also be controlled by the U.S.

The U.S. is not interested in Caspian oil to supply its own internal industry. The U.S. is grabbing for control of the Caspian oil fields because other countries need this oil--and because the U.S. wants to control them. Other imperialist rivals--including Germany and Japan--are "energy poor" and need access to oilfields outside their borders. Most Third World countries are heavily dependent on imported oil.

Opening the Caspian Sea oil up, under U.S. control, will also give the U.S. more power over the Persian Gulf and Arab states in world affairs. It will have more power to play oil-producing countries off against each other.

In addition, by depriving Russia of control over these oil fields, the U.S. would be delivering a major blow to plans of the Russian ruling class--to re-emerge as a world class imperialist power. Cheap Caspian oil was crucial for operating the military bloc that the Soviet ruling class built after restoring capitalism in 1956. Losing that strategic oil would threaten today's Russian imperialists with a permanent demotion--one they will not tolerate without a fight.

The intense bombing of Chechen villages is only one of several operations being carried out by Russian imperialism to keep its hand in the Caspian region.

The U.S. move into the Caspian is a power move that threatens and provokes other big powers. And at the same time, it is a sinister threat to the masses of people throughout the world.

This is a power grab by an oppressor who is determined to enthrone itself as the "single global superpower" well into the next century. It is an imperialist move to control the lives, resources, labor and future of hundreds of millions of people.

for the rest of the article (http://rwor.org/a/v21/1030-039/1035/caspian.htm)






and also this piece: Afghanistan: The Oil Behind the War (http://rwor.org/a/v23/1120-29/1125/oil_afghanistan.htm)