Humanitarianism and Oil
On Monday, March 28th President Obama spoke to the nation explaining the reasons that the United States is engaged with NATO in implementing a NO-FLY zone over Libyan air space. In this speech he said that it was primarily for humanitarian purposes, to protect innocent civilians from Moammar Gaddafi’s forces. He also stated that our intervention was to protect strategic interests in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, to prevent mass evacuations of refugees from inundating two nations that have new and fragile interim governments.
That’s all well and good. But in the meantime our gas prices have risen by almost a dollar since this civil war in Libya started about a month ago. At the time the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Libyan exports, including oil. Although Libya supplies only 2% of the world’s oil, it is their biggest money-maker. (80% of the country is desert.)
Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP have all been granted licenses for off-shore oil drilling by Libya since 2005. All three companies complied with the UN sanctions and American ex-patriots were evacuated from the oil rigs. Exxon Chief Executive Rex Tillerson has said, “There is no supply shortage. We’ve had no problem replacing the Libyan crude we were lifting”, adding that Exxon does not produce crude in Libya but does process the oil at its Trecate refinery in Italy.[1] Tillerson also stated that Exxon Mobil has been able to replace Libyan crude with other sources at its Mediterranean refineries.[2]
So why are they raising the price of gas? Quite simply, because they can. We need it and they’re the only ones that supply it. Any crisis in the Middle East gives them a false excuse to raise the prices and thereby make huge profits while the rest of the country suffers. The price of everything automatically increases because transportation costs increase. And yet most Americans are not making a higher salary.
Most of our military actions of the 20th century have been about oil. We placed an oil embargo on Japan when they invaded China in the 1930’s and in turn they attacked our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor in order to keep us from enforcing it. We led a UN police action in Korea presumably to prevent Communist China from conquering all of Korea, when really it was to protect oil interests off the coast of Korea. Vietnam – we took over when France capitulated. Was it to prevent the spread of Communism? No, it was all about the oil off the coast.
Are we really to believe that this action in Libya is for humanitarian reasons? There are now several revolutions against dictators throughout the Middle East and Africa. Syria doesn’t supply us with any oil and we have no diplomatic relations with them. Jordan and Bahrain are two of our closest Middle East allies so we can’t back the rebels there although they too are being slaughtered in the streets. And Yemen is being overrun by Al Quada led rebels. In the Ivory Coast over one thousand people were slaughtered in one town in one day.
Oh, but there’s no oil there.
(Reuters.com, 2011)
(UPI.com, 2009)
(Journal, 2011)
Herring, George C., “America and Vietnam: The Unending War” (1992) Taking Sides – Clashing Views on Contraversial Issues in American History Vol. 2, Sixth Edition.
(Interpretations of American History - Patterns and Perspectives, 1992)
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