Similarly, a major goal of the latest (2003-begun) phase of war on Iraq has been a dream of reopening a Kirkuk to Haifa Pipeline, a goal supported by Israel and by intended Iraqi dictator Ahmed Chalabi.
The endless war in Syria is infinitely complex, even in comparison to other wars, but a principle factor is the conflict between proponents of an Iran-Iraq-Syria Pipeline and backers of a Qatar-Turkey Pipeline.
The U.S. is not the only major military acting on pipeline interests abroad. Russian-backed (as well as U.S.-backed) coups and violence in Azerbaijan and Georgia have been largely over the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan Pipeline. And a possible explanation for the bizarre importance that U.S. elites place on the people of Crimea having voted to rejoin Russia is the gas lying under the Crimean portion of the Black Sea, and the pipelines running under that sea to bring gas to markets.
More fossil fuels with which to destroy the earth lie under the Mediterranean driving Israeli violence in Lebanon and Gaza. The U.S.- and Gulf states-backed Saudi war on Yemen is a war for a Saudi Trans-Yemen Pipeline, as well as for Yemeni oil, and for the usual other rational and irrational drives.
Reading through this chronicle of pipeline politics, an odd thought occurs to me. If not for so much fighting among nations, even more oil and gas might have been accessed and extracted from the earth. But then it also seems likely that such additional poisons might not have been burned, because a major consumer of them is the wars which in actual history have been fought and are being fought over them.
Where I live in Virginia, we have signs and shirts that say simply "No Pipeline," counting on people to understand which one we mean. I'm inclined to add an "s." What if we were all for "No Pipelines" everywhere? The climate of the planet would collapse more slowly. The wars would need a different motivation. Calls like that of the United Nations Secretary General this week to suspend all wars in order to address serious problems facing humanity might have a better chance of being heeded.
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