U.S. eyes security in oil-rich West Africa

An interesting news article from today shows that U.S. military/Government now has a new financial interest in an increasingly strategic part of the world. West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, where the article claims an oil boom could outpace Persian Gulf exports to America within a decade. The US claims there is great concern that this region is vulnerable to piracy, political instability and terrorism. And now the US coast guard is helping secure this area.

Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Trott, a strategy specialist for U.S. Naval Forces Europe, whose area of responsibility includes most of Africa. “And where there’s a lack of security, there’s an opportunity for bad actors to show up.”

There is much more in the above linked full article.. a good read!

Protecting oil interests from political instability and terrorism.

Sound familiar?

What this means that our government is using military means to protect private oil investments?

I thought American oil base companies have enough money to finance their own guerrillas to protect their investments in foreing land.

Oh, I forgot we are doing the same in Iraq, our soldiers are protecting the private investments of American companies in Iraq.

I guess that for now on we should always tag US "military intervention with private interest"

After all Is not such thing as "Government interest" but we should add Goverment backed " Private Interest"

[edit on 7-8-2005 by marg6043]

Marg, Before reading this article and looking into this, I had no idea that US oil companies have billions of dollars in U.S. investment in West Africa.

I find it a bit odd that they claim exports of oil from this region will out-measure those from the Persian Gulf in some 10 years.

You are right, U.S. tax dollars, hard at work protecting "billions" in private oil investments.

I guess we know for sure what is really important to the current administration.

I am going to be honest with you I knew about the Texaco, Chevron investments in the Niger Valley and I don't know if you knew about the paid mercenaries that they use to protect their oil fields against the citizens of the area for protesting the pollution of their lands, they opened fire on the men and the women took over with their children and go the human rights involve, back in the nineties, the funny thing is that Condi was sitting at the time in the board of one of them in behave of the Bush family.

The incident went to court, but it was made public the way that these companies used force when protecting their investments in foreign lands even if it has to pay the countries government to get protection. Occurs they denied that it was under their command that the paid soldiers open fire on the people.

Now with the way Mr. Bush seems to favor big companies, I guess is not surprise that he may used the military to protect them and their investment.

But it has been common knowledge that the African coast has vast oil resources.

Funny that the people is dying of hunger.

In the 90s oil was important and considered an important commodity. We knew the supply was not endless and some efforts wer made to look for alternatives and promote conservation. The administration then considered the population to be a National treasure remember messages like "It takes a village" HRC. We had a problem then that still exists today. The big corporations now run a global show that extends beyond borders and whomever can claim the largest stakes in less developed countries wins it's resources. The disgusting montra has gone full tilt since 2000 and is progressing further. Was Iraq a distraction to keep the media busy while big oil moved west for more pillaging? It's all about big money on Wallstreet and other exchanges around the world. The general population is of little interest to these giants and long as we keep feeding the machine. Back in the 70's we dreamed of a golden age at the turn of the century. Now it looks like the golden glow we saw was from oil fires and bomb.