U.S. imperialism & Caspian oil

The U.S. media’s war reporting on Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia has echoed the kind of lies and misinformation that characterized the reporting on the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The war reports are little more than Pentagon propaganda pieces.

To understand what is happening and why, there’s no chance if your only source is the U.S. big-business-controlled media. Yet Georgia is at the center of U.S. imperialism’s moves to control the oil-rich Caspian Sea region. Georgia is the energy highway for Europe, with at least two major pipelines passing though it. These pipelines are emerging to rival the Russian oil pipelines that have been Europe’s primary source for natural gas and oil.

Until 2005, the only pipeline from the Caspian oil center of Baku in Azerbaijan was through Russia. In 2005, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline opened. Owned by British Petroleum and Unocal, this pipeline goes through Georgia to the Turkish port city of Ceyhan. The BP consortium also owns the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipline, which opened in 2007. Another pipeline, named Western Early, goes through Georgia passing the border of South Ossetia to the Georgia port city of Supsa.

Thus the oil that was once the most valuable resource of the former Soviet Union is now going to market through facilities controlled by U.S. imperialism and its allies.

With Iraq’s oil resources conquered, and Iran’s under threat of blockade or bombardment, the U.S. is determined to also control the Caspian oil fields.

By removing Russian control over these oil fields, the U.S. would deliver a major blow to the possible emergence of Russia as a capitalist power.

For all its flowery words of democracy and freedom, the U.S. ruling class has no intention of allowing Russia to become an imperialist rival, like Europe and Japan. The U.S. has been working covertly and overtly to break up Russia and the states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, concentrating on the states around the Caspian oil fields.

The Caspian Sea has two huge oil fields. One is east of Baku. The other is the Tengiz oilfield, on the Caspian’s northwest shore in Kazakhstan.

In addition there are massive reserves of natural gas throughout the Caspian region. It is the primary supplier of natural gas to Europe.

The known reserves of Caspian oil are larger than the oil fields of Nigeria or Libya, putting the Caspian oil fields in the same league as the fields of Iran or Kuwait.

Following the victory of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the oil-producing countries of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan became republics within the Soviet Union. Their oil was a key resource for the creation of the world’s first socialist economy.

With the overthrow of socialism, U.S. imperialism went into high gear targeting this oil-rich region.

A consortium of 11 major oil corporations set up outposts on the Caspian. Atlantic Richfield, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Pennzoil, Philips Petroleum, Texaco and BP Amoco spent billions of dollars buying up Soviet-era oil interests and drilling rights.

But the Caspian Sea is landlocked. The oil must be transported out of the region by pipeline. Whoever controls the pipelines will ultimately control the oil. South Ossetia and Abkhazian, both targets of the U.S.-trained and directed Georgian military’s invasion, are very much in this target zone. The people there are suffering at the hands of U.S. imperialism’s proxy army. All of humanity must demand: U.S. imperialism get out.