Inside the Death Star — Also Known as Exxon

[steve2470]

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2113546,00.html?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

*snip*

The book also captures a 2001 exchange between then President George W. Bush and then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Worried that Exxon was delaying a deal with India's largest state-owned oil company, Vajpayee asked Bush: "Why don't you just tell them what to do?" The President's response was telling: "Nobody tells those guys what to do."

Much of Coll's best reporting takes place in Africa, South America and Asia, on the new frontiers of the oil world where Exxon is king. That exalted status is a consequence of decades-old changes in the oil industry that saw international companies like Exxon tossed out of the crude-rich Middle East as nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia seized national control of their resources. The oil majors thus struck out into the oil fields of the developing world, where their ability to extract oil was able to buy them access to the deposits — and, of course, a generous share of the profits that would flow from them. Those deals often put Exxon in a position of powerful influence; the U.S. government, Coll notes, gives Chad only a few millions dollars a year in aid, while Exxon's taxes and royalties can be worth as much as $500 million.

Such influence can get murky. Coll describes how Exxon was drawn into the 2000 war of independence being waged in the Indonesian region of Aceh. Exxon paid off Indonesian military forces to fight rebels from the Free Aceh Movement — known by its Indonesian initials GAM — around the company's highly profitable natural-gas field. GAM attacked Exxon employees, viewing the company as essentially in league with the Indonesian government. Exxon lobbied its contacts in the U.S. government, and got the Bush Administration to threaten to designate GAM as a terrorist organization if it did not stop attacking Exxon. Then U.S. ambassador to Indonesia Robert Gelbard put it bluntly to GAM officials in a 2001 visit: "Do you really want us for an enemy?" The U.S. and Exxon were indistinguishable.

Though Exxon was unusually close with the Bush Administration — and especially former Vice President Dick Cheney — it was also independent. "I'm not a U.S. company, and I don't make decisions based on what's good for the U.S.," Raymond, Exxon's former CEO, told Coll. Exxon views itself as pragmatic — it does what's needed to get the oil that runs the global economy, and if that leads the company to gray territory in some parts of the world, so be it.

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Fascism anyone ?