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Fossil Fuels & Rivalry: US Policymakers’ Addiction to “Great Game” Leads to Violence, Death

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

This video discusses US policymakers’ keen interest in using Georgia as a conduit for fossil fuel pipelines between Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, and Turkey. Although US policy and media makers erroneously paint a picture of Russia’s military action in Georgia in 2008 as a drama of good, innocent, freedom-loving people against evil, aggressive Russia, much like in Ukraine, the story of the reportedly US-supported 2003 in Georgia, which led to the 2008 conflict, is hushed up, much like US support for the 2014 coup in Ukraine.

During the Clinton and Bush administrations, a pipeline project in Georgia began in a major power grab in former Soviet territory. When Georgia’s President Shevardnadze made an agreement with Russia in 2003 to revitalize two Russian natural gas pipelines in Georgia, US policymakers, concerned about their own pipelines, sent Steven Mann as well as James Baker promptly over to Georgia to change Shevardnadze’s mind.

Shevardnadze was toppled in a coup a few months later. According to three sources, the coup was promoted by the US. NATO interests in militarizing Georgia and US policymakers’ interest in fossil fuels were significant factors behind this coup and behind US interest in cutting off Russia’s military, political, economic, and social cooperation with Georgia. The US government also hired the private military contractor, Blackwater, to protect the pipelines.

NATO, as Noam Chomsky remarks, now has the mission of protecting pipelines. Ironically, the BTC pipeline project has been pushed dictatorially upon the local people. It runs through more than a dozen earthquake zones and threatens to contaminate mineral springs water. Nonetheless, despite the undemocratic process of establishing the pipelines and expropriating people’s land, and despite the fact that there’s no popular, democratic control over NATO, NATO is advertised as protecting democracy.

Part 4O. Fossil Fuels & Rivalry: US Policymakers’ Addiction to “Great Game” Leads to Violence, Death via Kristin Christman

Articles by: Kristin Christman