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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (103500)	3/29/2007 11:13:18 PM
From: illyia	Respond to of 361333

powershift oil, money & war ™ PART 2: EYES WIDE SHUT The Politics of Energy by James J. Puplava Series Archive March 29, 2007 On a cold December afternoon in 2001, a black U.S. Air Force C-17 made its descent over the central plains of Kyrgyzstan. On board was U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Christopher Kelly. The mission: to set up an American airbase in Kyrgyzstan.[1] The new base would be one of many U.S. and British military bases placed strategically throughout the region. Kyrgyzstan, like many other nations throughout the area, occupies strategic space on a political chessboard in what has become known as “The New Great Game.” Immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his turn-of-the-century novel Kim, “the Great Game” described a struggle between the British and tsarist Russian empires over land supremacy in Central Asia. In the 21st century, “the Great Game” has returned; once again great empires are repositioning themselves in an effort to control the Eurasian landmass. At stake are the vast energy reserves of the Middle East and the Caspian Sea, which contain nearly 75% of the world’s oil reserves. The Great Powers involved—the U.S., China, and Russia—now have troops and personnel based in the region. In Georgia, Russia keeps over sixteen thousand troops with more on the way. As the linchpin country for the export of Caspian oil and gas to Western markets, Georgia has become a mission-critical location for the Russians. If Russia is to profit from the emerging region’s oil boom, it needs to control the strategic ground underneath the pipelines which run through Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Georgia. Chechnya sits on top of considerable oil reserves. Its capital, Grozny, is second in importance to Baku as a one of the biggest oil towns in the former Russian empire. The U.S. also keeps a military presence in Georgia. Like Russia, those troops are there to protect the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The BTC pipeline transports crude petroleum over a distance of 1,776 km from Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The new pipeline competes with the Russian-controlled pipeline that originates from the Russian’s Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. While there remains an uneasy truce between Russian and U. S. forces, there are other battlegrounds for conflict. Up until a few years ago Kazakhstan was considered to be a backward country. That was until it discovered oil. The Kashagan oil field discovered in 2000 represents one of the biggest oil discoveries of the decade. The Kashagan field covers an area 47 miles by 22 miles and is located in the North Caspian Sea, approximately 50 miles offshore from Atyrau. The Kashagan field could hold anywhere from 10-30 billion barrels of crude oil. The oil field faces immense technical difficulties of extracting oil in a harsh climate. It also faces political and geopolitical challenges from competing political powers. Because of these difficulties, oil production, once predicted to begin in 2005, has now been pushed back to 2008 or possibly 2009.[2] [Read it] financialsense.com