Central Command's basic mission was originally enunciated in the Carter Doctrine of January 23, 1980, which designated the secure flow of Persian Gulf oil as a "vital interest" of the United States. Claiming that this key interest was threatened by the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (which had begun in December 1979) and the near-simultaneous rise of a radical Islamic regime in Iran, President Jimmy Carter told Congress that Washington would use "any means necessary, including military force," to keep the Oil flowing....In order to back up his proclamation, Carter established the Rapid Deployment joint Task Force (RDJTF) at MacDill Air Force Base and gave it responsibility for combat operations in the Gulf. Three years later, on January 1, 1983, President Ronald Reagan elevated the RDJTF, naming it the Central Command (because it encompasses the "central region" between Europe and Asia) and putting it on an equal footing with the other regional commands.
Centcom's critical role in protecting the nation's and its allies' oil supply finds blunt expression in the testimony its commanders in chief regularly deliver to Congress. "America's vital interests in the Central Region are long-standing" General J. H. Binford Peay III told a House subcommittee in 1997. "With over 65 percent of the world's oil reserves located in the Gulf states of the region -- from which the United States imports nearly 20 percent of its needs; Western Europe, 43 percent; and Japan, 68 percent -- the international community must have free and unfettered access to the region's resources." Any disruption in this flow, he warned, "would intensify the volatility of the world oil market [and] precipitate economic calamity for developed and developing nations alike." All of Peay's successors have echoed this judgment.
...Centcom's forces got their first taste of combat in 1987, when President Reagan ordered US. warships to escort Kuwaiti tankers -- hastily re-flagged with the American ensign -- while traversing the Persian Gulf and to protect them from attack by Iran and Iraq, then in the final throes of their bloody eight-year war. Such action was essential, Reagan declared, to demonstrate the "U.S. commitment to the flow of oil through the Gulf." Three years later, in August 1990, President George H. W. Bush used similar language to justify the deployment of Centcom forces in Saudi Arabia, to deter a possible attack by the Iraqi forces then encamped in Kuwait. "Our nation now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he said in a nationally televised address on August 8. Hence, "the sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States."
...Moreover, soldiers from the other regional commands are increasingly being committed to oil-related operations of this sort. Already troops from the Southern Command (Southcom) are helping to d fend Colombia's Cano Limón pipeline, a vital link between oil fields in the interior and refineries on the coast, which has been under recurring attack from leftist guerrillas. Likewise, soldiers from the European Command (Eurcom) are training local forces to protect the newly constructed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Georgia. Eurcom also oversees all U.S. forces deployed in Africa (except in the Horn, which falls under Centcom's jurisdiction) and has begun seeking bases from which to support future operations to defend the region's oil facilities. Finally, the ships and planes of the US. Pacific Command (Pacom) are patrolling vital tanker routes in the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the western Pacific.
...Slowly but surely, the US. military is being converted into a global oil-protection service.
American Empire Project articleCentcom's critical role in protecting the nation's and its allies' oil supply finds blunt expression in the testimony its commanders in chief regularly deliver to Congress. "America's vital interests in the Central Region are long-standing" General J. H. Binford Peay III told a House subcommittee in 1997. "With over 65 percent of the world's oil reserves located in the Gulf states of the region -- from which the United States imports nearly 20 percent of its needs; Western Europe, 43 percent; and Japan, 68 percent -- the international community must have free and unfettered access to the region's resources." Any disruption in this flow, he warned, "would intensify the volatility of the world oil market [and] precipitate economic calamity for developed and developing nations alike." All of Peay's successors have echoed this judgment.
...Centcom's forces got their first taste of combat in 1987, when President Reagan ordered US. warships to escort Kuwaiti tankers -- hastily re-flagged with the American ensign -- while traversing the Persian Gulf and to protect them from attack by Iran and Iraq, then in the final throes of their bloody eight-year war. Such action was essential, Reagan declared, to demonstrate the "U.S. commitment to the flow of oil through the Gulf." Three years later, in August 1990, President George H. W. Bush used similar language to justify the deployment of Centcom forces in Saudi Arabia, to deter a possible attack by the Iraqi forces then encamped in Kuwait. "Our nation now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he said in a nationally televised address on August 8. Hence, "the sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States."
...Moreover, soldiers from the other regional commands are increasingly being committed to oil-related operations of this sort. Already troops from the Southern Command (Southcom) are helping to d fend Colombia's Cano Limón pipeline, a vital link between oil fields in the interior and refineries on the coast, which has been under recurring attack from leftist guerrillas. Likewise, soldiers from the European Command (Eurcom) are training local forces to protect the newly constructed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Georgia. Eurcom also oversees all U.S. forces deployed in Africa (except in the Horn, which falls under Centcom's jurisdiction) and has begun seeking bases from which to support future operations to defend the region's oil facilities. Finally, the ships and planes of the US. Pacific Command (Pacom) are patrolling vital tanker routes in the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the western Pacific.
...Slowly but surely, the US. military is being converted into a global oil-protection service.
Yes, it is about the oil.
And in case you missed it....
Yes, that's an actual snapshot of a page off U.S. Senator Jim (Kentucky) Bunning's website from March 21, 2003. The original name for the invasion was Operation Iraqi Liberation - OIL. And, while most references quickly changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Ole Jimbo isn't ashamed to leave it.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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