Tragédias colaterais

«On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria invaded Israel, igniting what became known as the Yom Kippur War. Contrary to popular impression, the 'yom Kippur' War was not the simple result of miscalculation, blunder or an Arab decition to launch a military strike against the state of Israel. The entire constellation of events surrounding the outbreak of the October War was secretly orchestrated by Washington and London, using the powerful secret diplomatic channels developed by Nixon's national security adviser, henry Kissinger. Kissinger effectively controlled the Israeli policy response through his intimate relation with Israel's Washington ambassador, Sincha Dinitz. In addition, Kissinger cultivated channels to the Egyptian and Syrian side. His method was simply to misrepresent to each party the critical elements of the other, ensuring the war and the subsequent Arab oil embargo.

US Intelligence reports, including intercepted communications from Arab officials confirming the buildup for war, were firmly supressed by Kissinger, who was by then Nixon's intelligence 'czar'. The war and its aftermath, Kissinger infamous "shutle diplomacy", were scripted in Washington along the precise lines of the Bilderberg deliberations in Saltsjöbaden the previous May, come six months before the outbreak of the war. Arab oil-producing nations were to be the scape-goats for the coming rage of the world, while the Anglo-American interests responsible stood quietly in the background.

(...) One enormous consequence of the ensuing 400 per cent rise in OPEC oil prices was that investments of hundreds of millions of dollars by British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and other Anglo-American petroleum concerns in the risky North Sea could produce oil at a profit. It is a curious fact of the time that the profitability of these new North Sea oilfields was not at all secure until after the OPEC price rises. Of course, this might only have been a fortuitous coincidence.

By October 16, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, following a meeting on oil prices in Vienna, had raised their price by a staggering 70 per cent, $3.01 to $5.11 per barrel. (...)

Significantly, the oil crisis hit full force in late 1973, just as the president of the United States was becoming personally embroled in what come to be called the "watergate affair", leaving Henry Kissinger as de facto president, running U.S. policy during the crisis.(...)

The U.S. Treasury, under Jack Bennett, the man who had helped steer Nixon's fateful August 1971 dollar policy, had established a secret accord with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, SAMA, finalized in a February 1975 memo from U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Jack F. Bennett to Secretary os State Kissinger. Under the terms of the agreement, a sizeable part of the huge new Saudi oil revenue windfall was to be invested in financing the U.S. Government deficits. A young Wall Street investment banker with the leading London-based Eurobond firm of White Weld & Co., David Mulford, was sent to Saudi Arabia to become the principal "investment adviser" to SAMA; he was to guide the Saudi petrodollar investments to the correct banks, naturally in London and New York. The Bilderberg scheme was operating just as planned.

Kissinger, as Nixon all-powerful national security adviser already firmly on control of all U.S. intelligence estimates, secured control of U.S. foreign policy as well, persuading Nixon to name him Secretary of State in the weeks just prior to the outbreak of the October Yom Kippur War. Indicative of his central role in events, Kissinger retained both titles, as head of the White House National Security Council and as Secretary of State, something no other individual has ever done, before or since. No other single person during the last months of the Nixon Presidency wielded as much power as did henry Kissinger. To add insult to injury, Kissinger was given the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize.

Following a meeting in Teheran on january 1, 1974, a second price of more than 100 per cent brought OPEC benchmark oil prices to §11.65. This was done on the surprising demand of the Shah of Iran, who had been secretly put up to it by Henry Kissinger. Only months earlier, the Shah had opposed the OPEC increase to $3.01 for fear that this would force Western exporters to charge more for the industrial equiupment the Shah sought to import for Irabn's ambitious industrialization.

From 1949 until the end of 1970, Midle East crude oil prices had averaged aproximately $1.90 per barrel. They had risen top $3.01 in early 1973, at the time of the fateful Saltsjöbaden meeting of the Bilderberg group, whitch discussed an imminent 400 per cent future rise in OPOC's price. By January 1974, that 400 per cent increase was a fait accompli.

(...)

The socialimpact of the oil embargo on the United States in late 1973 coul be described as panic. (...)
In Wester Europe, the shock of the oil price rise and the embargo of suplies was equally dramatic. From Britain to the Continent, country after country felt the effects of the worst economic crisis since the 1930's. Bankruptcies and unemployment across Europe rose to alarming levels.(...)
But for the less developed economies of the world, the impact of an overnight price increase of 400 per cent in their primary energy source was staggering. The vast majority of the world's less developed economies, without significant domestic oil resources, were suddenly confronted with an unexpected and unpayable 400 per cent increase in the cost of energy imports, to say nothing of the cost of chemicals and fertilizers derived from petroleum. (...)
India in 1973 had a positive balance of trade, a healthy situation for a developing economy. But by 1974, India had total foreign exchange reserves of $629 milions with which to pay -in dollars - an annual oil import bill of almost double that, or $1.241 million. (...)
But while Kissinger 1973 oil shock had a devastating impact on world industrial growth, it had an enormous benefit for certain established interests - the major new York and London banks, and the Seven Sisters oil multinationals of the United States and Britain. By 1974, Exxon had overtaken General Motors as the larges American corporation in gross revenues. Her sisters, including Mobil, Texaco, Chevron and Gulf, were not far behind.

The bulk of the OPEC dollar revenues, Kissinger's "recycled petrodollars", was deposited with the leading bank of London and New York, the banks which dealt in dollars as well as international oil trade.»

- William Engdahl, "A Century of War"


Em Abril de 1974, catalisado pelo choque petrolífero em epígrafe (que eu próprio testemunhei, não estou a falar de cor), Portugal engrenou numa estranha negociata: para comprar uma rifa da democracia de pacotilha, penhorou, senão entregou mesmo numa bandeja, a independência nacional.
E o resto é conversa para boi dormir. Agarrado à chucha da ideologia (e não estou apenas a falar da garotada de esquerda).

Entretanto, nos gloriosos tempos que correm, contabilizem o preço do petróleo em 2002, antes da invasão do Iraque e o preço em que ele flana agora, após a "invasão do Líbano" e o que mais virá. Quanto às fantasias, florilégios e hooliganismos psicopolíticos, poupem-me. Já sei que a vossa matilha é a melhor do mundo e a vossa claque a campeã vitalícia.