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LA Times 2007-05-31 US Ranks As One Of World’s Least Peaceful Nations

The United States is among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran, according to an index of 121 countries.
According to the Global Peace Index, created by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Norway is the most peaceful nation and Iraq is the least, just after Russia, Israel and Sudan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/05/31/us-ranks-as-one-of-world_n_50130.html
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Toute la liste : http://www.visionofhumanity.com/rankings/

Cliquer sur un pays pour avoir des détails (tableau comparatif pratique)

SS-26 Iskander (et non Iks…) dans google on ne retrouve ainsi que les articles dedefensa.

La différence est (vraisemblablement) la capacité à envoyer des “véhicules de retour” multiples pour le RS-24.

Global Military Alliance: Encircling Russia and China
US sponsored military partnership in the Far East and the Pacific Rim

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, May 10, 2007
- 2005-10-05

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Although Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Japan are not formally members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), they are linked through military partnerships, affiliated government agreements, a network of partnerships, and bilateral military agreements with the United States and Britain.

The creation of a parallel NATO-like organization in the Far East and the Pacific Rim is part of the international brinkmanship of creating a unified global military alliance.  Ellen Bork, deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and Gary Schmitt, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, have advocated the creation of a military network in Asia similar to NATO in a paper on South Korea written in December of 2006. [1]  The PNAC is a U.S. think-tank whose members include Dick Cheney, George W. Bush Jr., Richard Perle, Lewis Libby, Karl Rove, Zalmay Khalilzhad, Richard Armitage, and Paul Wolfowitz.

The Militarization of Japan

“Japan and the NATO allies are facing the same threats.”  (Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary-General)

Japan has gradually been amalgamating and harmonizing its military policies with those of the U.S. and NATO. Japan is deeply linked bilaterally and multilaterally to the U.S. military. Japan was controlled by the U.S. military for several years after the Second World War. In 1951 the Japanese government signed the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. This arrangement was expanded on January 19, 1960 with another bilateral treaty between Japan and the U.S. government.

Japan and South Korea are also both part of a grand U.S. military project involving the global stationing of missile systems and rapid military forces, as envisioned during the Reagan Administration. The global military project has been endorsed in Asia as a means to counter the alleged threat of a North Korean missile attack. China has also been identified as a justification for the development of a broad military alliance, involving an integrated military network in the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim.

The Japanese government has also signed its second ever bilateral security treaty with Australia to deepen security and military links. [2] Australia, under the Howard Government, is also heavily involved in military projects in the Asia-Pacific region and more specifically, in the context of a policy of encirclement, in the militarization of China’s eastern borders.

In January 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a visit to NATO Headquarters in Brussels, and made subsequent visits, meeting with the leaders of Germany and Britain. In essence, this was a visit to NATO as a whole and to the two separate and defining core branches of NATO, the Franco-German entente largely represented by Germany and the Anglo-American alliance, represented by Britain and the US.  During the first trip by a Japanese leader to NATO Headquarters, the Japanese Prime Minister also pledged that Japan would work closely with NATO in Afghanistan. The continuation of an E.U. weapons embargo against China was also discussed. [3] Additionally, Japan already has military cooperation agreements with NATO.

In 1999, at a time of NATO enlargement and at the onslaught of NATO’s war against Yugoslavia, Japan and the U.S. launched the joint missile defense research program. [4] The Japanese government has also upgraded its Defence Agency into a full-fledged ministry constituting another breach of the Japanese Constitution. The Japanese government is also funding the deployment of the Patriot PAC-3 and the Aegis Standard Missile-3 (SM-3). Japan also allowed its territory to host U.S. military radar facilities linked to the global missile shield project. [5]

Japanese officials also want to revise the Japanese Constitution to allow Japan to formally join military alliances, such as NATO. The U.S., Australia, and NATO have been widely supportive of the Tokyo government’s resolve to militarize Japan.

The Japanese government is candidly in violation of Article 9 of the country’s Constitution, which stipulates that Japan cannot have a military force. In this regard, the Japanese government has initiated a process to amend the Japanese Constitution, which would pave the way for the formal formation of a military force in Japan. Japan has already started developing its military capabilities and armed forces. These legislative moves are designed merely as a step to legalize the underlying initiative.

The Japanese government has pushed forward its militarization agenda despite the fact that the majority of Japanese citizens are opposed to the militarization of their country. Legislation is now being passed through the Japanese Parliament that will allow the Japanese government to rewrite the Japanese Constitution. According to the Japanese Prime Minister this will allow Japan to “remove its limits on collective self-defence and on helping allies under attack.” [6]

Australia and the tightening of the Military Alliance in the Asia-Pacific Perimeter

Australia and Japan have established close military cooperation ties since the Cold War. Australian troops have integrated military operations and missions in Anglo-American occupied Iraq, together with Japanese troops, categorized as “non-combatant personnel.”

Australia and its government, led by Prime Minister John Howard, are members of the Anglo-American alliance and full party to their global military project. From the beginning, the Australian government has been in step with the Anglo-American alliance in the military roadmap unfolding under the banner of the “Global War on Terror.” Australian troops are deployed in the Balkans, Anglo-American occupied Iraq, and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

The military forces of Singapore train in Australia. Australian special forces also actively operate in Southeast Asia and the Australian Navy has ships positioned from the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and Pacific Ocean. Since December 2003, Australia has been a participant in the occupation of Iraq, is a partner in the international U.S. missile shield project, and has been a military research partner of the United States. [7]

Australia also has a role to play in crafting a military challenge to China. Australia has finalized a pact with Japan that is stronger than any of Japan’s defence ties with any country, aside from the United States. At the same time, Australia has entrenched itself further into the Anglo-American camp with the building of a new U.S. military base in Geraldton. Geraldton is in Western Australia, located underneath Indonesia and Malaysia, and faces East Africa and the Middle East from a distance. The new facility in Geraldton is on the Australian shores of the Indian Ocean. This military base follows three years of secret negotiations between the U.S. government and the Australian government. The military base is reported to provide an important link for a new network of international military satellites that will be used by the United States and its allies to fight wars in the Middle East and Asia. [8]

“I think the agreement is really looking at a realignment of security in East Asia, particularly with the ever-present rise of China,” said the head of the Asia security programme at the Royal United Services Institute in London. [9] The Indian Ocean is going to become militarized because of Chinese attempts to ensure the continuous flow and security of African and Middle Eastern energy supplies to China.

North Korea, China, and Russia are being demonized to justify the deepening military integration of Australia, Japan and several other Asia-Pacific nations with the United States and NATO. Isabel Reynolds an international correspondent in Japan reveals in an article for Reuters that the tightening security and military atmosphere in Japan and Australia is aimed at China and Russia;

“Whether or not there is an overt threat, Japan and the so-called ‘littoral allies’ [meaning countries such as the Philippines, Taiwan, and Singapore] in the region have got to address that,” he [military analyst Alex Neil] added.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests last year are a source of worry, and China’s shooting down of one of its own satellites with a ballistic missile in January [2007] aroused concern in many capitals.

“We are no longer in an age when either Japan or Australia can rely solely on the United States as an ally,” said military analyst Tetsuya Ozeki, who says both China and Russia are set to become equally influential in the region.” [10]

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, dismissed concerns that the depending alliance between Australia and Japan would harm ties with China. [11]

There are aggressive steps being undertaken by NATO and the U.S. to encircle Russia and China. What the agreement between Australia and Japan (along with the move by the Tokyo government to amend the Japanese Constitution) amounts to, is the formation of an Eastern flank against Russia and China and a parallel sister-alliance to NATO.

NOTES

    [1] Ellen Bork & Gary Schmitt, A NATO for Asia: Helping South Korea despite itself, The Weekly Standard, December 11, 2006.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/asia-20061211.htm

    [2] Australia in Japan security deal, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), March 13, 2007.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6444207.stm
    [3] Judy Dempsey, Japanese signal new era in ties with NATO: Abe tells alliance it seeks security role, International Herald Tribune, January 12, 2007.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/12/news/nato.php

    [4] Japan’s Cabinet approves joint missile project with US, Xinhua News Agency, December 24,, 2005.

http://english.people.com.cn/200512/24/eng20051224_230550.html
    [5] John C. Rood, International Missile Defence: Challenges for Europe (Remarks to the 8th Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Missile Defense Conference, London, U.K., February 27, 2007).

http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/81242.htm

    [6] Japan moves to loosen army’s role, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), April 13, 2007.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6553231.stm
    [7] Rood, Remarks to the 8th RUSI, Op cit.

http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/81242.htm

    [8] Brendan Nicholson, US gets military base in Western Australia, The Age, February 15, 2007.

    [9] Isabel Reynolds, Defence pact in focus as Australian PM visits Japan, Reuters, March 10, 2007.

    [10] Ibid.

    [11] Howard backs Japan security deal, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), March 10, 2007.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6437169.stm

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization specializing in geopolitical and strategic issues.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Bonjour, je vous signale simplement que l’agence RIA Novosti propose une édition totalement en français de son site à l’adresse suivante:

http://fr.rian.ru

Pourquoi dès lors toujours citer RIA Novosti en anglais? Je trouverais plus juste de faire honneur à cette attention de l’agence envers le public francophone en se servant de cette édition. Et puis pour ceux de vos lecteurs qui ne savent pas l’anglais…

Une analyse de Stratfor:

NATO, U.S.: Ballistic Missile Defense and a Display of Unity
May 24, 2007

Summary

NATO is considering building a new ballistic missile defense site in southeastern Europe to protect its exposed flank. The announcement is a huge development in NATO-U.S. relations, which have been tense because the United States has been acting on its own for the past few years. Though not all the details of the system have been decided on or are even known, a move to cover this last Eastern European flank is a clear signal to Russia that Europe is theoretically protected under the U.S.-led NATO umbrella.

Analysis

NATO is considering building a new ballistic missile defense (BMD) site as an addition to the Greenland-U.K. radar system and the BMD system to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic. The new system will expand Europe’s BMD shield, giving it greater relevance and covering short- to long-range threats to Europe’s southern flank—Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, the southern Balkans and southern Italy.

The idea of such a defense system has been circulating since 2002 but was not seriously considered until 2006. After a year of negotiations, the plan seems to be progressing; NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer met with U.S. President George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas, on May 21-22 to finalize plans for a June meeting of NATO foreign ministers on the topic in Oslo, Norway.

But why is this plan moving forward now—especially since BMD has not yet been proven effective? The plan shows how NATO is thinking about the future; not only is it putting defense systems in place to guard against a threat from the Middle East (specifically, Iran), but NATO also is making Russia very aware there is a BMD system next door. Besides that, this is a very significant step in showing a strategic reintegration of NATO and the United States instead of the United States taking international defense matters into its own hands.

From a technical standpoint, a BMD system in southeastern Europe makes perfect sense. Though the United States has satellites designed to detect Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles’ launch plumes, and those satellites can also spot missile launches elsewhere—such as in Iran—ground-based radars or specially modified Aegis warships must track the missiles’ flight paths to make intercepts possible. Essentially, the sooner the system can see the target, the more time it has to intercept it, and the more accurately that intercept can be plotted. A BMD system in southeastern Europe would expand the European missile shield’s field of vision.

In his press conference with Bush, Scheffer said negotiations for the new BMD site should involve NATO as a whole, unlike U.S. negotiations for the sites in the Czech Republic and Poland. Washington did not wait for Europe to get on board with those talks, negotiating instead with the two European states themselves. While most of Europe is not against BMD per se, it did object to defense negotiations of this scale being conducted bilaterally instead of with NATO’s European members as a whole.

This leads to another important fact about Europe’s BMD shield. The interceptors to be based in Poland do not really protect Poland; they are designed for high-altitude intercepts outside the atmosphere (such as intercepts on a ballistic flight path toward the continental United States). In most cases, BMD systems are pushed beyond national borders and positioned much closer to the launch site; this is why the United States is basing missile interceptors in Alaska and Poland to protect the mainland United States. Anyway, Poland and the Czech Republic are far more interested in the protection a U.S. military base on their soil will bring than in the protection of a BMD shield.

Thus, a NATO BMD system in southeastern Europe becomes even more significant in that it will, theoretically, be in a position to protect Europe. Japan’s position is a parallel to the BMD positioning requirements in Europe. Japan and the United States share a goal of protecting against a North Korean missile strike. However, their very different proximity to North Korea requires different foci. Interceptors to protect the United States can be stationed in Alaska; interceptors to protect Japan must be in Japan itself (and that might not even be close enough).

NATO’s proposed BMD system will be a mutually beneficial arrangement with the United States: The southeastern Europe system will give the United States better coverage for its ground-based midcourse interceptors based in Poland and the Czech Republic, and Europe will have a layered missile shield for its own protection in its southeastern periphery. Plus, Washington holds pretty much all the cards in Western BMD research (even the Israeli Arrow system was a joint project), so NATO will not be doing much without U.S. consent and support in this department.

It will be interesting to find out whether the new BMD site was a European initiative or a U.S. initiative. If the Europeans pushed the plan forward, most of the key EU players would have had to agree on it. Furthermore, if the initiative came from the Europeans, it is not only a reaction to the growing Russian and Iranian threats, but also an indication that Europe does not want to be left out of U.S. security plans. (A wave has swept through Europe recently, giving it the most Washington-friendly atmosphere it has had in decades.) If Europe’s major powers agreed to this new system, Russia will have almost no chance of playing Europe off the United States on defense issues as it has before.

If this is a U.S. initiative—which seems more likely—Russia could have an easier time turning certain European states against the U.S. plan, but it also means Washington has made a very clear choice for a military buildup to counter Russia. The United States already has shown that it is shifting its military sector from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, expanding its capabilities eastward and surrounding certain threats (Russia) with a military presence. This, along with the BMD bases, is a sign Washington is serious about expanding its reach and defensive capabilities.

Either way, Russia has made some recent and loud statements about military rejuvenation as it pulls out of various defense treaties, such as the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty and, later on, the -Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. But the United States—possibly with Europe on board—has countered by moving in on Russia’s western flank with BMD technology which, if it works as it is designed to, will seal off (in a very real way) Russian attempts to threaten the United States and Europe.

Copyright 2007 Strategic Forecasting Inc. All rights reserved.

Les Romains ont bien érigés des arcs monumentaux à la gloire de leurs batailles (conquètes victorieuse) il y a des siècles, et leurs temples ne sont plus que des ruines mais ils sont entrés dans l’histoire…Ne serait-ce pas ici un exemple de la folie d’un empire avec un empereur narcissique qui veut laisser une trace indélébile dans le nouveau millénaire?
Chacun sait comment ils ont finis…empoisonnés ou poignardés par leurs généraux ou mème un membre de leur famille!!!
C’est à l’image du dirigant sur le déclin…grotesque, vaniteu, et surement aussi laid que le national muséum de Whashington D.C…
Un monument à la gloire et l’infortune d’une défaite annoncé des plus mauvais généraux bureaucrate que les livres de classe des universités américaines auront a se souvenir…
Le Titre: Bildeberg, Illuminati, Skulls & Bones, le Retour du Jihad. Sous-titre: Comment le peuple veule & crédule ont avalé la pastille du Patriot Act.
Chapitre I: La mascarade des Twin Towers.
Chapitre II:Le congrès américains déclare l’ingérence mondiale sans demander à l’ONU.
Chapitre III:Sous le feux des insurgés Terroristes barbus & méchant (Ils ont une mauvaise haleine).
Chapitre IV:300 milliards de US$ plus tard…
Chapitre V: Le président-Empereur sioniste érige un mémorium en l’honneur du dieu Bush aux cotés de ses apotres près de la plus grande ambassade du monde a Badgad, Irak.
Chapitre VI:A la gloire du plus grand artchitecte de l’univers libéral perdu.
Chapitre VII: La fuite de l’empereur.
Des Témoins rapportent avoir vu trois navettes spatiale décoller le 11 septembre 2031. Le chargé de mission au sol a déclaré que la destination était top secrète, mais soupsonne la colonisation de la planète Mars…

... Je vais prendre tout ce qu’il me reste et rentrer chez moi. Je vais jouer mon rôle de mère auprès des enfants qu’il me reste et tenter de retrouver un peu de ce que j’ai perdu.

... Adieu, Amérique. Tu n’es pas le pays que j’aime et j’ai fini par comprendre que j’aurai beau me sacrifier je ne pourrai pas faire de toi ce pays-là si tu ne le veux pas. A vous de jouer maintenant.

Cindy Sheehan ( http://www.dailykos.com/user/CindySheehan/diary )

( la mère de soldat symbole de la lutte contre la guerre en Irak, explique dans son blog pourquoi elle a décidé d’arrêter le combat… quatre jours après le vote par le Congrès américain de la loi sur le financement de la guerre. Extraits de son texte par http://www.courrierinternational.com/article.asp?obj_id=74444 )

Jusqu’au plus haut niveau de l’Etat, la théorie - très politique - du refroidissement de la planète a ses partisans.

« Les émissions de dioxyde de carbone n’ont aucun effet sur le climat » ... Devant 200 experts internationaux, Sergueï Mironov (deuxième personnage de l’État russe) a remis en cause le réchauffement global et a défendu la thèse de certains chercheurs russes qui estiment que la planète se refroidit…
La Russie a ratifié le protocole de Kyoto en 2004 mais ne s’est guère engagée dans son application.

Clin d’oeil de la météo, Moscou subit des températures printanières records, avec 33 °C à l’ombre hier.

( Figaro 2007-05-30 Nouvelle douche froide de la Russie contre le réchauffement, F.N.-L. à Moscou,
http://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/20070530.FIG000000012_nouvelle_douche_froide_de_la_russie_contre_le_rechauffement.html )

Devant la douleur de ce père,le devoir de respect est évidentet pourrait inciter au silence.

cependant par ailleurs considérant la dimension civilisationnelle et planétaire de la tragédie il y à aussi le devoir de réfléchir et s’interroger
Aussi j’extrais pour le commenter ce passage :

“This is not some great conspiracy. It’s the way our system works.”

” IT’S THE WAY OUR SYSTEM WORKS ” lisons bien cela !

j’aurais envie de le lire donc non pas comme négation d’une possible conspiration ponctuelle, mais comme au contraire le constat d’un état permanent et “consubstantiel” au système .“Money buys access and influence”. “Money greases the process”,money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil” etc… etc..

Le système “est” la conspiration même ! c’est ainsi qu’il fonctionne,en continu .
De par son fonctionnement même il sécrète la négation de la démocratie ,sa perversion ,sa dénaturation.Il l’entraîne dans des folies guerrières, il a perdu ainsi le contact avec la réalité,avec la vie, en particulier avec celle de ses fils.

Alors pour moi si cette nature profonde(du système )si l’intérêt de l’Argent le conduit à organiser une conspiration (au sens précis cette fois du terme le 11 septembre ) je n’y vois aucune contradition bien au contraire une logique. Un système de nature, intrinsèquement perverti, ne peut que quand son besoin l’exige faire ce qu’il faut pour maintenir et renforcer ledit système .

Ce faisant nous savons nous lecteurs de dedéfensa que ce sytème coure à sa confusion.
il a perdu ainsi le contact avec la réalité,avec la vie, en particulier avec celle de ses fils, disais-je.
N’est-ce pas le dieu Moloch qui en mésopotamie justement, exigeait le sacrifice des enfants 1er nés par leur père, qu’on jetait au feu dans la gueule du monstre.

Mais par respect pour la douleur de ce père je terminerai en méditant sur sa dernière phrase

“En fait tandis qu’il était donnant tout, j’étais -ne faisant rien- “. De cette manière j’ai failli envers lui !

Europe’s emissions trading scheme has been a success, in spite of the widely publicised problems in its first years of operation, a group of prominent environmental economists has concluded. The verdict was given in the journal Review of Environmental Economics and Policy…

The EU accounts for about 20 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the scheme covers about half of the EU’s emissions…

But the scheme fell into chaos last spring when it was revealed that member states had issued more emissions allowances than were required…

But the economists said the persistently high price of carbon in the first year of the scheme was evidence that emissions were being reduced by companies. They estimated that companies had cut their emissions by about 7 per cent as a result.

( Support for EU carbon scheme By Fiona Harvey, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8d96e53e-0d36-11dc-937a-000b5df10621.html )

(article paru dans Asian Times - atimes.com)

Darfur: Forget genocide, there’s oil

By F. William Engdahl

To paraphrase the famous quip during the 1992 US presidential debates, when an unknown William Jefferson Clinton told then-president George Herbert Walker Bush, “It’s the economy, stupid,” the present concern of the current Washington administration over Darfur in southern Sudan is not, if we look closely, genuine concern over genocide against the peoples in that poorest of poor part of a forsaken section of Africa.

No. “It’s the oil, stupid.”

The case of Darfur, a forbidding piece of sun-parched real estate in the southern part of Sudan, illustrates the new Cold War over oil, where the dramatic rise in China’s oil demand to fuel its booming growth has led Beijing to embark on an aggressive policy of - ironically - dollar diplomacy. With its more than US$1.2 trillion in mainly US dollar reserves at the Peoples’ National Bank of China, Beijing is engaging in active petroleum geopolitics. Africa is a major focus, and in Africa, the central region between Sudan and Chad is a priority.

This is defining a major new front in what, since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, is a new Cold War between Washington and Beijing over control of major oil sources. So far Beijing has played its cards a bit more cleverly than Washington. Darfur is a major battleground in this high-stakes contest for oil control.

China oil diplomacy

In recent months, Beijing has embarked on a series of initiatives designed to secure long-term raw materials sources in one of the planet’s most endowed regions - Sub-Saharan Africa. No raw material has higher priority in Beijing at present than oil.

Today China draws an estimated 30% of its crude oil from Africa. That explains an extraordinary series of diplomatic initiatives which have left Washington furious. China is using no-strings-attached dollar credits to gain access to Africa’s vast raw material wealth, leaving Washington’s typical control game via the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) out in the cold. Who needs the painful medicine of the IMF when China gives easy terms and builds roads and schools to boot?

In November last year Beijing hosted an extraordinary summit of 40 African heads of state. They literally rolled out the red carpet for the leaders of, among others, Algeria, Nigeria, Mali, Angola, Central African Republic, Zambia and South Africa.

China has just done an oil deal that links it with two of the continent’s largest nations, Nigeria and South Africa. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) will lift oil in Nigeria, via a consortium that also includes South African Petroleum Co, giving China access to what could be 175,000 barrels a day by 2008. It’s a $2.27 billion deal that gives state-controlled CNOOC a 45% stake in a large off-shore oil field in Nigeria. Previously, Nigeria had been considered in Washington to be an asset of the Anglo-American oil majors, ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron.

China has been generous in dispensing its soft loans, with no interest or as outright grants, to some of the poorest debtor states of Africa. The loans have gone into infrastructure, including highways, hospitals, and schools, a stark contrast to the brutal austerity demands of the IMF and World Bank. In 2006 China committed more than $8 billion to Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique, versus $2.3 billion to all sub-Saharan Africa from the World Bank. Ghana is negotiating a $1.2 billion Chinese electrification loan. Unlike the World Bank, a de facto arm of US foreign economic policy, China shrewdly attaches no strings to its loans.

This oil-related Chinese diplomacy has led to the bizarre accusation from Washington that Beijing is trying to “secure oil at the sources”, something Washington foreign policy has itself been preoccupied with for at least a century. No source of oil has been more the focus of China-US oil conflict of late than Sudan, home of Darfur.

Sudan’s oil riches

Beijing’s China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) is Sudan’s largest foreign investor, with some $5 billion in oil field development. Since 1999 China has invested at least $15 billion in Sudan. It owns 50% of an oil refinery near Khartoum with the Sudan government. The oil fields are concentrated in the south, site of a long-simmering civil war, partly financed covertly by the United States to break the south from the Islamic Khartoum-centered north.

CNPC built an oil pipeline from southern Sudan to a new terminal at Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where the oil is loaded on tankers bound for China. Eight percent of China’s oil now comes from southern Sudan. China takes 65-80% of Sudan’s 500,000 barrels/day production. Sudan last year was China’s fourth-largest foreign oil source.

In 2006 China passed Japan to become the world’s second-largest importer of oil after the United States, importing 6.5 million barrels a day of the black gold. With its oil demand growing by an estimated 30% a year, China will pass the US in oil import demand in a few years. That reality is the motor driving Beijing foreign policy in Africa.

A look at the southern Sudan oil concessions shows that China’s CNPC holds rights to bloc 6, which straddles Darfur, near the border with Chad and the Central African Republic. In April 2005, Sudan’s government announced that it had found oil in Southern Darfur, which is estimated to be able to pump 500,000 barrels per day when developed. The world press forgot to report that vital fact in discussing the Darfur conflict.

Move to militarize Sudan’s oil region

Genocide was the preferred theme, and Washington was the orchestra conductor. Curiously, while all observers acknowledge that Darfur has seen a large human displacement and human misery, with tens of thousands or even as many as 300,000 deaths in the last several years, only Washington and the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) close to it use the charged term “genocide” to describe Darfur. If they are able to get popular acceptance of the charge of genocide, it opens the possibility of drastic “regime change” intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - read Washington - in Sudan’s sovereign affairs.

The genocide theme is being used, with full-scale Hollywood backing from the likes of stars like George Clooney, to orchestrate the case for de facto NATO occupation of the region. So far the Sudan government has vehemently refused, not surprisingly.

The US government repeatedly uses “genocide” to refer to Darfur. It is the only government to do so. US Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey, head of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said during a USINFO online interview last November 17, “The ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan - a gross violation of human rights - is among the top international issues of concern to the United States.” The Bush administration keeps insisting that genocide has been going on in Darfur since 2003, despite the fact that a five-person UN mission led by Italian Judge Antonio Cassese reported in 2004 that genocide had not been committed in Darfur but grave human rights abuses were committed. They called for war crime trials.

Merchants of death

The United States, acting through surrogate allies in Chad and neighboring states has trained and armed the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army, headed until his death in July 2005 by John Garang, trained at the US Special Forces school at Fort Benning, Georgia.

By pouring arms into first southeastern Sudan and since discovery of oil in Darfur into that region as well, Washington fueled the conflict that led to tens of thousands dying and several million driven to flee their homes. Eritrea hosts and supports the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the umbrella NDA opposition group, and the Eastern Front and Darfur rebels.

There are two rebel groups fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region against the Khartoum central government of President Omar al-Bashir - the Justice for Equality Movement and the larger Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).

In February 2003, the SLA launched attacks on Sudan government positions in the Darfur region. SLA secretary-general Minni Arkou Minnawi called for armed struggle, accusing the government of ignoring Darfur. “The objective of the SLA is to create a united democratic Sudan.” In other words, regime change in Sudan.

The US Senate adopted a resolution in February 2006 that requested NATO troops in Darfur, as well as a stronger UN peacekeeping force with a robust mandate. A month later, President George W Bush also called for additional NATO forces in Darfur. Genocide? Or oil?

The Pentagon has been busy training African military officers in the US, much as it has trained Latin American officers for decades. Its International Military Education and Training program has provided training to military officers from Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic.

Much of the arms that have fueled the killing in Darfur and the south have been brought in via murky, protected private “merchants of death” such as the notorious former KGB operative, now with offices in the US, Victor Bout, who has been cited repeatedly in recent years for selling weapons across Africa. US government officials strangely leave his operations in Texas and Florida untouched despite the fact he is on the Interpol wanted list for money laundering.

US development aid for all Sub-Saharan Africa, including Chad, has been cut sharply in recent years while its military aid has risen. Oil and the scramble for strategic raw materials is the clear reason. The region of southern Sudan from the Upper Nile to the Chad border is rich in oil. Washington knew that long before the Sudanese government.

Chevron’s 1974 oil project

US oil majors have known about Sudan’s oil wealth since the early 1970s. In 1979, Jafaar Nimeiry, Sudan’s head of state, broke with the Soviets and invited Chevron to develop the country’s oil industry. That was perhaps a fatal mistake. UN Ambassador George H W Bush had personally told Nimeiry of satellite photos indicating oil in Sudan. Nimeiry took the bait. Wars over oil have been the consequence ever since.

Chevron found big oil reserves in southern Sudan. It spent $1.2 billion finding and testing them. That oil triggered what is called Sudan’s second civil war in 1983. Chevron was the target of repeated attacks and killings and it suspended the project in 1984. In 1992, it sold its Sudanese oil concessions. Then China began to develop the abandoned Chevron fields in 1999 with notable results.

But Chevron is not far from Darfur today.

Chad oil and pipeline politics

Condoleezza Rice’s Chevron is in neighboring Chad, together with the other US oil giant, ExxonMobil. They’ve just built a $3.7 billion oil pipeline carrying 160,000 barrels per day from Doba in central Chad, near Darfur, via Cameroon to Kribi on the Atlantic Ocean, destined for US refineries.

To do it, they worked with Chad “President for life” Idriss Deby, a corrupt despot who has been accused of feeding US-supplied arms to the Darfur rebels. Deby joined Washington’s Pan Sahel Initiative run by the Pentagon’s US-European Command, to train his troops to fight “Islamic terrorism”.

Supplied with US military aid, training and weapons, in 2004, Deby launched the initial strike that set off the conflict in Darfur. He used members of his elite Presidential Guard, who come from the province, providing them with all-terrain vehicles, arms and anti-aircraft guns to aid Darfur rebels fighting the Khartoum government in southwestern Sudan. The US military support to Deby in fact had been the trigger for the Darfur bloodbath. Khartoum reacted and the ensuing debacle was unleashed in full, tragic force.

Washington-backed NGOs and the US government claim unproven genocide as a pretext to ultimately bring UN/NATO troops into the oil fields of Darfur and southern Sudan. Oil, not human misery, is behind Washington’s new interest in Darfur.

The “Darfur genocide” campaign began in 2003, the same time the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline began to flow. The US now had a base in Chad to go after Darfur oil and, potentially, co-opt China’s new oil sources.

US military objectives in Darfur - and the Horn of Africa more widely - are being served at present by US and NATO backing for African Union (AU) troops in Darfur. There NATO provides ground and air support for AU troops who are categorized as “neutral” and “peacekeepers”. Sudan is at war on three fronts, against Uganda, Chad, and Ethiopia, each with a significant US military presence and ongoing US military programs. The war in Sudan involves both US covert operations and US trained “rebel” factions coming in from south Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Chad’s Deby looks to China too

The completion of the US and World Bank-financed oil pipeline from Chad to the Cameroon coast was designed as one part of a far grander Washington scheme to control the oil riches of Central Africa from Sudan to the entire Gulf of Guinea.

But Washington’s erstwhile pal, Chad’s Deby, began to get unhappy with his small share of the US-controlled oil profits. When he and the Chad parliament decided in early 2006 to take more of the oil revenues to finance military operations and beef up its army, the new World Bank president - and Iraq war architect - Paul Wolfowitz moved to suspend loans to the country. Then that August, after Deby had won re-election, he created Chad’s own oil company, SHT, and threatened to expel Chevron and Malaysia’s Petronas for not paying taxes owed, and demanded a 60% share of the Chad oil pipeline. In the end he came to terms with the oil companies, but winds of change were blowing.

Deby also faces growing internal opposition from a Chad rebel group, United Front for Change, known under its French name as FUC, which he claims is being covertly funded by Sudan. The FUC has based itself in Darfur.

Into this unstable situation, Beijing has shown up in Chad with a full coffer of aid money in hand. In late January, Chinese President Hu Jintao made a state visit to Sudan and Cameroon among other African states. In 2008, China’s leaders visited no less than 48 African states. In August 2006, Beijing hosted Chad’s foreign minister for talks and resumption of formal diplomatic ties cut in 1997. China has begun to import oil from Chad as well as Sudan. Not that much oil, but if Beijing has its way, that will soon change.
This April, Chad’s foreign minister announced that talks with China over greater China participation in Chad’s oil development were “progressing well”. He referred to the terms the Chinese seek for oil development, calling them “much more equal partnerships than those we are used to having”.

The Chinese economic presence in Chad, ironically, may be more effective in calming the fighting and displacement in Darfur than any AU or UN troop presence ever could. That would not be welcome for some people in Washington and at Chevron headquarters, as they would not secure the oil.

Chad and Darfur are but part of the vast China effort to secure “oil at the source” across Africa. Oil is also the prime factor in US Africa policy today. George W Bush’s interest in Africa includes a new US base in Sao Tome/Principe, 124 miles off the Gulf of Guinea, from which it can control Gulf of Guinea oil fields from Angola in the south to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Nigeria. That just happens to be the very same areas where recent Chinese diplomatic and investment activity has focused.

“West Africa’s oil has become of national strategic interest to us,” stated US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner back in 2002. Darfur and Chad are but an extension of the US Iraq policy “with other means” - control of oil everywhere. China is challenging that control “everywhere”, especially in Africa. It amounts to a new undeclared Cold War over oil.

F William Engdahl is author of the book, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics, Pluto Press Ltd. His next book, Seeds of Destruction: The Dark Side of Genetic engineering (Global Research Publishing) will be released this June. He may be contacted via his website, http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

j’ai oublié de rappeler son site web
http://www.house.gov/paul/index.shtml

Ce message pour vous signaler la création d’un blog en Français sur Ron Paul (http://www.ronpaulfr.blogspot.com). Le sujet d’aujourd’hui est la reprise de vos 3 derniers articles sur ce candidat. Merci pour vos analyses!

Bien à vous,
Emmanuel

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul () is far and away the most popular on the Internet. Yet, despite his massive online lead, the mainstream media has barely managed to cover him at all.

On 5/14 and 5/15, Ron Paul was the #1 most-searched-for term on blog search engine Technorati. On post-debate polls on ABC.com and MSNBC.com, Ron Paul was voted the winner of the debate by a wide margin. In the past week, Ron Paul’s website received more traffic than those of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), and John Edwards (Obama only recently took the lead by a hair). His videos are among the most-viewed on YouTube and popular social news site Digg.com is literally choked with Ron Paul-themed articles and comments.

So what’s going on here? Why is there such a disconnect between the Internet and the mainstream media ?

Suite : Mark Jeffrey: Ron Paul: Internet Celeb ? http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/uploads/ci-109-3.pdf )