George W Bush promised
the American nation tax cuts in his pre-election addresses.; Until as recent as
the week before the World Trade Centre (WTC) attack, he was considering further
Capital Gains Tax cuts to offset the flagging economy. (Washington Post, Sept
9, 2001)
In domestic terms,
the US economy has stuck at zero for the last two quarters, so not quite in technical
recession of two consecutive negative figures, but as any accountant will tell
you zero growth equals a negative sum, because of the effects of inflation, and
that together with recent news demonstrating further flagging economy means real
domestic problems for Bush.
As a Texan with close
ties to the Oil industry, Bush would have been fully aware of the strategic importance
of the Trans Caspian oil pipeline running from Azerbaijan to Georgia (the former
Russian satellite), indeed it was US foreign policy to support the building of
the pipeline in order to "bypass Russia and Iran" (F.T. 23-11-99).
The pipeline, run by BP Amoco and costing $600 Million first opened in 1999, to
compete with the Russian pipeline run by Gazprom which supplies one quarter of
the worlds gas supplies, through the Black sea. (www.oil.com) (F.T.23-11-99) The
Trans Caspian pipeline also takes gas from Turkmenistan; via a huge pipeline.
One of the biggest
risks documented by oil pipelines is one of civil disorder, indeed in Colombia
where a civil war has raged for 30 years, the local economy is decimated by the
continual attacks on the pipelines there, in a country estimated to shortly overtake
Venezuela, as Latin America`s largest oil producer (Harding 1996). Clinton
supplied a $1.3billion aid package to Colombia in August 2000 (FT 24-8-01) for
"counter narcotics" but of course the real prize was to have an oil producer ...
producing.
The Taliban blew up
the immense Buddhist sculpture at Bamiyan which led Burgess to comment;
"Surely, every time
a culture confronts another one that it doesn't understand, part of its initial
instincts are to obliterate the other completely. It's kind of a human instinct
that goes back into the dimness of time," said Lowry Burgess, Professor of art
at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. (Dunham W, 20 Sept 2001)
In conclusion, we have
a US President in first year of tenure, without the fiscal means of pursuing his
election agenda, unless he dips into the Social Security budget `surplus.` The
one get out of jail free card Bush has is a war (Peacock and Wiseman 1968). P&W
1968`s studies demonstrated that huge state expenditure increases during WW1 an
WW2, were found to be acceptable by public opinion for the "greater good" of fighting
the enemy, and accepted the rises in taxation, regulation of the economy and "state
intervention in areas of social life" (Dunleavy and O`Leary 1987), all were found
to be acceptable in order to accommodate the ultimate objective of beating Nazism.
The rise in tensions
within the Middle East from Israel / Palestine has led to the US doing a risk
assessment of their own prime concern, oil supplies, in any crisis which may arise.
Iraq has been decimated by sanctions since the end of the Gulf War. and is further
subverted by the Turkish (Ilusu) dams threatening to take away the Tigris and
Euphrates, leading to a potential oil for water and food program of sanctions
in future (BBC Online / Europe / Turkey / Dam). Iran has a largely Shi`ite Muslim
population who despise the predominant Suni Muslims of Afghanistan, even more
than they despise America, and are therefore not seen to risk any attempt to join
with Afghanistan.
If you acknowledge
that the US sought to subvert the ruling Taliban regime in Afghanistan (Steele
et al; 22-9-01, The Guardian) in order to prevent the kind of terrorist attacks
on oil pipelines in the region from receiving the same kind of treatment as the
great Buddhist monolith, then it is equally obvious to the Taliban too, and would
explain why the US was expecting an attack but did not know where. Further the
likelihood of an attack could never have been expected to have been on such a
scale, but was a serious under estimation of a man with an estimated fortune running
into $100`s of millions. The Marxists would argue this as a valid argument for
the redistribution of wealth to prevent individuals having the capacity to decimate
society, whist the revitalisation of New Right policies in the US through Reagan's
former right hand man seeks to "destroy terrorism" by various means, of known
terrorists.
Of course this will
fail, since tomorrows terrorists may not yet have been born, and guarantees the
log-rolling presidency of Bush and the rent seeking future of security services
in the US for the time being.
Copyright Stephen Coleman
2001 all rights reserved
