I have followed the situation in Syria a little bit and maybe I am supposed to think of it as a country peopled with Muslim extremist, brainwashed, violent little people who don't count for much globally, but I have seen and heard and read of suffering there that I can't begin to comprehend. The soldiers fighting on both sides of the present civil war probably believe they are fighting for autonomy, freedom, political reform or religious reasons but in light of the recent threat of heightened action there by the U.S. I thought I should find out if this was indeed just one nation helping another to fight an oppressive government that uses torture and even chemical weapons on innocents. Are the FSA, (Free Syria Army) and other rebels heroically fighting for their freedom or are they unwittingly fighting to see which major multinational corporation will eventually own them and their country? Many of the victims of the brutality have been children. I saw some ghastly pics of what they called the Houla Massacre which took place on May 25th, 2012. They are still out there but I will not repost them here. If you are twice bitten three times shy after the last two wars the American government blatantly lied their way into, you will probably do just that to find out exactly what the truth might be that we will find out in a year or so after the fact. I was prepared to support the American "punishment" of the Assad government because, by God, things like this ought not be allowed anywhere in the world! I said, "Well it's about time!" after first hearing about the plans to attack the Assad government troops. But having been battered by the world into the eternal pessimist that I am, I was not surprised to find that this is just as much, probably more, about money than human rights violations.
I was a bit surprised that it was only a little about oil. It's mostly about natural gas. It's complicated but that's what it comes down to. You see Israel and Cyprus have recently had huge deposits of natural gas discovered off their shores. The deposits have been named Tamar and Leviathan. Both discovered by Houston-based "Noble" Energy and their Israeli partners Delek. According to Delek Group CEO Asaf Bartfield with the 38 trillion cubic feet of gas Israel will supply the European market and the far East. In fact in May of 2010, the US Geological Service affirmed that the Levant Basin Province located between Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus has 122 tcf, (trillion cubic feet), of natural gas and 1.7 billion barrels of oil. Shortly thereafter this civil war began to materialize. Methinks this is more than just coincidence.
Both Leviathan and Tamar are in Israeli waters. But in order to pipe all that natural gas to Europe, Delek and Noble plan to go through Syria and Turkey. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright once said that Turkey is, "sitting in a geographically amazing place, in terms of various connections of pipelines, and discoveries of new fossil fuel." It's a land bridge between the gas deposits and Europe. In May 2010, (after finding out the JACKPOT they had in the Mediterranean), 9 Turkish citizens died in an Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship to blockaded Gaza. Turkey demanded an appology from Israel, aid to the families of the deceased and a lift of the Gaza blockade. One week before Tamar came online and started cranking out the natural gas Barack Obama was in Israel with Secretary of State John Kerry pushing for Israel and Turkey to mend ties. They got a sort of backhanded appology out of Israel, and payment to families was negotiated but the Gaza blockade was not discussed.
I reckon it will be soon though. The Turkish mega-conglomerate Zorlu has plans to build a pipeline from the Israeli gas fields to Turkey. They also want to build a refinery to turn that natural gas into LNG, (liquid natural gas), which is more easily transported for longer distances, not to mention more expensive. This with an eye toward tanker transport to Asia. So Israeli/Turkish ties are going to need to be mended. Billions and billions of dollars worth of gas and oil just might have that effect.
What has the U.S. been up to in the area? Well you already know about "Noble" Energy. If ever there were a misnamed... Let's find out some more about Noble Energy, shall we? They are heavy proponents of fracking in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale region. They were the first company allowed to resume drilling after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. You remember the BP spill where we saw day after day, (87 days), live footage of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and nobody could stop it. When was that? APRIL of 2010. It is rumoured that they bought the rights to the Tamar concession from British Gas in 2006 for $1.00! So they do some slick dealing. Indeed they have upped their political contributions, (mostly to congressmen in various gas/oil states and mostly republicans), from $4500 in 2004 to $317,000 in 2012. And they spend over a million a year lobbying congress in the capitol. Money well spent! In 2010, Israel raised their energy tax. Because of Noble's political clout Bill Clinton himself went over to have speaks with Benjamin Netanyahu and told him, "Your country can't just tax a U.S. business retroactively because they feel like it."
Another key player for the Yankees is David Wurmser, a neoconservative advisor to both the government of the U.S. and Israel. He was the co-author of the "Clean Break" study in 1996 advocating that Israel, "shape its strategic environment in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." Wurmser's manipulated evidence and bureacratic process figured largely in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Then from '03-'07 he was Dick Cheney's top Middle East advisor. He's also the founder of Delphi, a company that, since 2010, has been selling its advice on the Levant Basin gas prospects.
Israel created a naval task force to patrol their gas fields and the covert assistance the U.S. has been giving to the forces combatting the Assad government since, (what do you wanna bet May of 2010?), has now become overt military aid. Bombing runs have been flown over Damascus. And now the Americans militarizing the area in earnest. In the words of Evan Taylor, who wrote a great article online where I got a lot of this info, "It appears that Damascus will soon finally feel the full impact of the Western fist. Turkey and Israel will be key partners in this effort. Gas may be the reason why..." He wrote that two months ago too, shmarty pants!
You see, they need Syria! It is a key part of the proposed pipeline. And they DON'T have the government right now. This is why you often hear of the Assad government's body count of 100,000, torture and now chemical warfare. I am not saying that stuff didn't happen. I am saying that Assad is the bad guy so this is why we can easily find out about this stuff and see graphic pics on facebook.
But who is the enemy behind Assad? Our old and cold war opponents the Russians. Did you know that Russia and Iran are the two largest proprietors of natural gas in the world? Right now Europe is utterly dependant upon Russian natural gas. This gas, mostly from Siberia, is delivered by Gazprom. Ever heard of it? Until this year it was the world's most profitable company. But this threat to its natural gaz monopoly in Israel has cost the company money. Nobody knows that better than Vladimir Putin. He has used Gazprom well to exert political influence. It is believed that he owns 4.5% of Gazprom, about 4 billion dollars worth. That should give you an idea of the massive wealth and power Gazprom has. This conflict of interest is what allows Putin to support the butcher Assad. Also in May of this year, Assad gave Russia and Putin and Gazprom control of Syria's gas resources in exchange for Russia's continued support in resisting the FSA and other rebels. He also brokered a deal to let China rebuild damaged infrastructure in Syria if Assad defeats the insurgency.
Putin is doing okay this year. He, (or rather Gazprom), actually signed a 20-year deal this year to be the exclusive seller of Tamar gas. They also want to gain the rights to the even larger Leviathan field. And then, through the Greeks, gain the rights to Cyprus' gas. Finally by keeping Assad in power in Syria, where Russia's only Mediterranean ports are, (Tartus and Latakia), he will have a good chance to secure Syrian and Lebanese gaz for Gazprom. You can bet Putin beefed up the military presence at those two ports. A deal in, you guessed it, 2010, by Iran, Iraq, Syria and Southern Lebanon was struck to build a pipeline through those countries by 2016. This proposed, "Islamic Pipeline" will cut out Turkey and the U.S. so both of those countries support the rebels in Syria. It will connect to Pakistan and eventually be a source of oil for energy-hungry China. You didn't think they were rebuilding the infrastructure in Syria for FREE didja? The Chinese? By the way, this is one of the reasons behind the U.S. trying to neutralize the Chinese plans for this gas pipeline by contributing to Pakistan's internal tension and ethnic division.
Syria, and more specifically the ports of Latakia and Tarsus, will be the sites of refineries - well fortified refineries - in which natural gas can be converted into LNG and transported more easily and sold more expensively to China. Also the LNG from Latakia and Tarsus is planned to be shipped to Europe, in more expensive liquid form, via the Mediterranean.
SO... The U.S. forces are moving into Syria where they already have considerable presence and have been backing the rebels for some time. Israel is also digging in.
Russia and China are supporting the Assad government and fortifying their positions in Syria to support the government and defeat the rebel forces.
And in "Pipeline-istan" the region of the Middle East with corridors west to Europe and East to Asia, they are all planning different natural gas pipelines and racing to see who can build them first. Syria, being so close to the gas deposits, is a key component in virtually ALL the proposed pipelines.
And in the next little while we will probably be hearing EVERYBODY mealy mouthing about freedom fighting, human rights, attrocities, terrorist acts, evil, enemies etc...etc...etc... when really it's 99% about MONEY!
The depressing and scary part is that the second a Russian kills an American or vice versa, this could very well spark a more intense conflict involving more extensive allied assistance. But before you go signing up for this one, you should probably know the facts. It's a bunch of fucking greedy asshats playing Risk with real human beings and making billions and billions more dollars to throw in their mountains of money.
Least, that's how I see it.
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