Burma, Darfur and Democracy -- The Bush Betrayal

None other than Alan Greenspan, touting his recent book, said once again what we all know: the Iraq War – as the Iran War will be – is primarily about oil.

Forget the calculated White House "narrative" about freedom and democracy. Unless a nation favors the economic interests of the U.S., it is on the target list of the White House. And if you are a tyrant who is friendly to Western economic interests, you are on the "A" list of nations. Hey, that’s where Saddam was in the ‘80s (in large part, ironically, because he kept Iran in check.) And that’s why the most repressive military dictatorship -- after North Korea -- is on the White House "A" list. We’re talking about Burma, now called Myanmar.

If you’ve been hiding out in a remote cabin for a few days, the brutal troops in Burma bludgeoned a protest of 100,000 monks into submission over the past few days. All Bush did, as he has done for years, is give lip service at the U.N. to denouncing the latest crackdown in Myanmar, but he did little else.

Bush is only interested in using the "freedom" narrative to justify military dominance of the Middle East oil reserves and gas pipelines, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American and Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of dollars . He has brought no freedom to Iraq, only death and bloodshed that far exceeds what existed under Saddam Hussein. (As BuzzFlash noted this past week, the mainstream Canadian Maclean’s news weekly ran a cover story calling Bush the new Saddam. This is a publication that is the "Time" or "Newsweek" of Canada.)

Combined with Saudi Arabia as an "ally" (although they are the major cradle and financiers of Al-Qaeda terrorists), with control of the Iraq and Iran oil reserves, and Afghanistan for a gas/oil pipeline, the U.S. would control the primary oil reserves in the world. (The Bush Administration is particularly focused on Chavez, by the way, because Venezuela produces oil and has what many consider to be large untapped offshore reserves, which will be needed as the Middle Eastern lighter oil becomes depleted.)

Western interest in asserting "ownership" of the oil in the Middle East goes back to the early 1900s when the British militarily dominated Iraq and later wrested virtual ownership of the Iranian oil reserves. In fact, when a Democratically-elected and generally pro-Western government was elected in Iran, the U.S. overthrew it in 1953 because the charismatic head of state had the "radical idea" of declaring that the Persian oil fields belonged to Iran, not Britain. (This caused the chain of events, after the installation of the Shah, that has led to the current hardline Islamic government in Tehran.)

So it is no surprise that Burma – and Darfur for that matter – will receive little but lip service in "advocating" for freedom and the protection of innocent lives from Bush. George W. is not interested in spreading democracy; he is interested in bolstering the already flagging economic interests of the U.S., period.

You might ask then how Burma and Darfur figure into this?

It’s a little complicated, but it runs something like this.

Burma and Sudan do have some oil reserves and natural gas. In Burma, they are largely undeveloped (only about 0.3 percent of the world's total reserves). In large part China has laid claim to exploiting the industries in both countries (and is very far along in extracting oil from the Sudan). India also has a role in helping the military dictatorship in Burma develop its natural gas industry. In fact, Indian companies were in Burma to sign oil and gas development contracts just this past week, as peaceful monks were being bludgeoned, presumably tortured, and killed:

Just last Sunday — when marches led by Buddhist monks drew thousands in Myanmar's biggest cities — Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was in the country's capital for the signing of oil and gas exploration contracts between state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd. and Myanmar's military rulers.

The signing ceremony was an example of how important Myanmar's oil and gas resources have become in an energy-hungry world. Even as Myanmar's military junta intensifies its crackdown on pro-democracy protests, oil companies are jostling for access to the country's largely untapped natural gas and oil fields that activists say are funding a repressive regime.

China — Myanmar's staunchest diplomatic protector and largest trading partner — is particularly keen on investing in the country because of its strategic location for pipelines to feed the Chinese economy's growing thirst for oil and gas.

Companies from South Korea, Thailand and elsewhere also are looking to exploit the energy resources of the desperately poor Southeast Asian country.

But U.S. oil companies, including Secretary of State Rice’s beloved Chevron, are playing a minor role in developing the offshore oil and gas deposits in Burma, with the eager support of the military dictatorship for eventual cash:

Despite economic sanctions against Myanmar by the United States and the European Union, Total continues to operate the Yadana gas field, and Chevron Corp. has a 28 percent stake through its takeover of Unocal. Existing investments were exempt from the investment ban.

Both Total and Chevron broadly defended their business in the nation.

"Far from solving Myanmar's problems, a forced withdrawal would only lead to our replacement by other operators probably less committed to the ethical principles guiding all our initiatives," Jean-Francois Lassalle, vice president of public affairs for Total Exploration & Production, said this week in a statement.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy urged Total this week to refrain from new investment in Myanmar; the French concern said it had not made any capital expenditure there since 1998.

Chevron's interest in the Yadana project is "a long-term commitment that helps meet the critical energy needs of millions in people in the region," said Nicole Hodgson, corporate media adviser for Asia.

Total and former partner Unocal Corp. were accused of cooperating with the military in human rights violations while a pipeline was being built across Myanmar to Thailand in the 1990s. Both companies have denied the accusations but Unocal settled a related lawsuit in the U.S. in 2005, prior to being acquired by Chevron.

In the Associated Press story above, there are a couple of quotations, which might speak well for the Bush Administration’s perspective:

India is not facing any diplomatic pressure to reduce investment in the country, said R.S. Sharma, chairman of the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp.

"There is a trade-off between the two: That is a moralistic position and these strategic interests," said Muchkund Dubey, president of the Council for Social Development, a New Delhi think tank, and the former top bureaucrat at India's Foreign Ministry.

Thailand's PTTEP, a partner in Total's Yadana and Petronas' Yetagun gas projects, said in a statement that production of natural gas is at the normal rate, and should not be affected by the unrest.

"It is business as usual," said Sidhichai Jayamt, the company's manager for external relations. "When we have a contract with the government, it doesn't really matter who the government is."

So don’t expect anyone to come to the assistance of the Burmese living under an Orwellian tyranny soon. The Bush Administration doesn’t want to tick off the Chinese or Indian governments, and figures that American oil companies will at least get some of the profit if the Burmese oil fields start yielding black gold.

As for Darfur, the Bush Administration is so far in bed with China economically, that it isn’t about to make a stink about the genocide in Darfur by leaning on Beijing to rein in the Khartoum government and its use of Arab militias to slaughter African residents by the tens of thousands who live in Sudan’s western province.

And, for that matter, has the U.S. ever lifted a finger to stop the destruction of Tibet and the forced dismantling of its Buddhist monasteries, not to mention the torture and murder of those Tibetans fighting for freedom?

No.

For Bush, freedom’s just another word for maintaining market control as we quickly slide into becoming the world’s largest debtor nation.

Recently, Mattel toys abjectly "apologized" to the government of China for the lead-tainted toys produced by that nation. It was a moment when American dignity and sovereignty turned on a dime into slavish humiliation.

The reason even the top 3 Democratic candidates for president are talking about a long presence in Iraq is that economically Iraq and Iran are about the only cards the U.S. has left to play in controlling the world’s major current natural resource.

Freedom is just another word for making Americans feel good about greed.

It’s got nothing to do with liberty and democracy at all.

Just ask the monks in Burma, or the survivors in Darfur, or the residents of Tibet, or dozens of other nations and peoples living under one form of tyranny or another.

Just ask the people of Iraq. The only thing that "freedom" has brought them is chaos and death.

Additional BuzzFlash Footnotes: Yes, we have had ineffective and largely cosmetic embargoes against Burma since the Clinton Administration. Chevron, for instance, is curiously grandfathered in. And the embargo can be easily evaded through third-party transfers or susidiary sales, as Dick Cheney and Halliburton did with Iran. It's also worthy of note that when it came to invading Iraq, Bush ditched the U.N. as useless. In regards to Burma, the White House is hiding behind the U.N. and touting the sending of a U.N. envoy there as a big political victory for Bush. Just call it hypocrisy.

The reality is that the Busheviks, China, and India would fear a democracy in Burma, because it is likely to go populist left after years of tyrannical rule tolerated by nations that could have ended the nightmare if they had wanted to. The Busheviks prefer a known iron first to an unknown process of democracy. Iron fists are much easier for them to deal with.

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