Posted on 06/04/2004 8:13:14 PM PDT by ambrose
US navy plans 'show of force' off oil-rich West Africa
LAGOS (AFP) Jun 04, 2004
A US navy battlegroup is to make a "show of force" in the oil-rich waters of the Gulf of Guinea, off west Africa, diplomats said Friday, as Washington hones plans to escape its dependence on unstable Middle Eastern supplies by securing more African crude.
The foray by a heavily armed carrier group into the waters off Nigeria, Sao Tome, Equatorial Guinea and other African oil producers, comes at a time when fuel prices are topping the US political agenda and security crises in the Gulf region are pushing demands for greater diversification in energy supplies.
An Abuja-based US diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity that the Gulf of Guinea was "a place where there is not normally an American presence" and described the operation as "a show of force."
"Operation Summer Pulse '04 aims to demonstrate the capabilities of the US navy; before we only had two or three operations involving aircraft carriers at any one time," he said, adding that seven carrier groups are to be deployed in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Guinea.
"The navy wants, through this exercise, to demonstrate to the world that, even with all its current responsibilities, it can still position half-a-dozen aircraft carriers with all the neccessary support ships in the four corners of the world, at the same time," he said.
A statement posted on the Pentagon website from Washington, said: "Beginning this week and continuing through August, the Navy will exercise the full range of skills involved in simultaneously deploying and employing carrier strike groups around the world.
"Summer Pulse '04 will include scheduled deployments, surge operations, joint and international exercises, and other advanced training and port visits," it added. The Nigerian military, however, told AFP that it had no knowledge of any upcoming joint programmes in the Gulf of Guinea.
"Honestly, I don't think Nigeria is involved in the operation. I cannot confirm our involvement because I don't have any information on it," said Nigerian defence headquarters spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Ganiyu Adewale.
The US diplomatic source explained that future joint US-Nigerian military exercises were under consideration, but that the planned visit to Nigeria of a US navy admiral had been postponed "until August or September".
With crude prices -- and hence the pump price for US fuel consumers -- near all-time highs, and with violence and sabotage threatening to disrupt oil exports from Saudi Arabia and US-occupied Iraq, US policy makers are increasingly looking to west Africa for secure crude supplies.
Washington has already supplied Nigeria with a small fleet of refurbished World War II vintage patrol ships to help it secure its increasingly important offshore interests and the waterways of the unruly oil-producing region of the Niger Delta.
But unrest continues -- two US oil workers subcontracting for Texas-based giant ChevronTexaco were killed on April 23 in the delta by river pirates -- and recent attempted coups in nearby Sao Tome and Equatorial Guinea have increased fears that African oil is no safer than that in the Middle East.
Some Washington lobbyists have long argued for a US military presence in the region, with some urging the construction deepwater port on the island nation of Sao Tome and a permanent carrier presence in the gulf.
Others have argued for greater co-operation with local security forces, despite their sometimes shaky human rights records.
"We need to revive, and we will revive, the old African Coastal Security Program, which helps African security forces protect their shores as well as their marine resources," Charles Snyder, the US Deputy Secretary of State for African affairs, said in a speech on April 13.
"A lot of this new oil is actually offshore. There is no one to protect it unless we build up African coastal fleets.
"The United States has real interests in Africa. We ignore the continent at our peril. Africa will provide up to 30 percent of US oil in the next ten years," he added.
The diplomat said the deployment of the carrier group was not intended as a means of directly protecting privately operated oil facilities, but that US forces would seek greater cooperation with Nigerian and other African forces.
In particular, he said, planners hoped to secure Africa's coast to prevent an influx of Islamic extremists driven out of the Middle East and seeking sanctuary in areas like Nigeria's mainly-Muslim north.
..
"A lot of this new oil is actually offshore. There is no one to protect it unless we build up African coastal fleets.What African coastal fleets? If they ever had any coast fleets the local elites and their militias and irregulars probably scuttled them to prevent a freedom flotilla of their nations' best and brightest heading for the open seas and freedom. And then they went back to peacefully hacking each other to pieces with machetes or spamming the world with scam email.
Thats really cool, especially since China is going to same places procuring oil for themselves...
No I dont have links to them, but if I really have to find them I'll go look for them...
Premise of the story was that where US may have a moral dilema of working with the regime, China has no such scruples, they get the oil from whomever no matter what human rights abuses are at the local level...
anywho
The article mentions "oil" 11 times and "crude" 3 times. Okay, I think we got the point.
But all the carrier operations? Message to China - don't go screwing with Taiwan.
The French control some major oil in Nigeria, no ?
This is one of the smartest things to do ... I have been pushing this for 2 years now ...
I'd rather be working with the Fr~gs than the Ch~nks ..
The timing of the article could't be better.
Yes, because Nigeria is so stable...jeez...
Are there people running around Lagos who won't fully grasp the fact that we could kick their butts unless we conduct naval exercises off the coast of Nigeria?
The report is mostly mischief making, but the purpose of the mischief escapes me. Best guess is that Agent-France Presse wants the world to see us as imperialist warmongers, always preparing to crash into sovereign nations with guns ablazing.
Has it REALLY become our national policy to demand access to oil by threat of military force?
Cripes almighty, this is making me ill.
What article were you reading?
NOTHING in the article speaks to demanding access to oil by threat of military force...
First -- recognize that this article is from the freaking FRENCH press and their headlines and slant is ALWAYS biased to slap at America...
Second --- the fact that some sleepy Nigerian officers don't know anything about a joint operation is not surprising...
Most Nigerians are too busy sending out letters offering their western partners MILLIONS in exchange for their bank account number, or raping young children while on U.N. "missions"...
You seem too eager to find something to charge and complain about.......have you gone off your meds?
Semper Fi
I don't think so. It never has in the past. We get access the old fashioned way, by buying it. Typically, US companies put up all cost of a development, pay the host government a share of the proceeds, and at the end of the contract the project belongs to the host who bids it out again or operates it themselves.
No one steals anything from anyone.
But the Gulf of Guinea is going to be the focus of development for a while. Exxon just put a pipeline in that puts Chad on the oil map, giving them a source of income for the first time ever. But the really big deposits are around Equatorial Guinea, I believe. The problem there is that the government there is so bad that no one wants anything to do with it. There was recently an attempted coup there that failed, financed from Spain evidently (Spain has interests there, or did, and thats where the exiles go).
Al Qaeda is gravitating into the region as well, so things are going to be getting interesting. I have seen reports here that we are deploying spec ops trainers into Africa to go after the Al Qaeda types, and this is probably a good time for the fleet to start getting acquainted with the geography.
I think the message is not to China, but to the Saudis; reminding them that long term we don't need them.
If I were the commander of the Biafran Navy, I'd issue orders for everyone to stay in port.
See here.
;-)
Well it seems to me that we oughta have some old WWII vintage Coast Guard cutters or something we can pull out of mothballs and sell 'em to the oil companies dirt cheap. Let 'em staff 'em with their own private security force to protect their oil platforms/tankers etc. That'd probably be more firepower than anything Nigeria or Guinea or Chad or other African nation can muster up. No reason for us to muscle in with a carrier fleet for cripes sake. I don't like the way that looks. Too much like a bully, even if that's not what's intended.
The one that is about how the U.S. Navy is planning a "show of force" off the coast of some dipwad little African nations who can barely float a ferry without having it capsize and drowning a couple hundred people along with their cattle and chickens. It's kind of like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer, don't ya think?
Black gold.
Gotta keep them SUVs filled up.
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