OIL POLITICS : NO TO ARMS RACE, NO TO WMD Bikash Sangraula KARACHI - The United States is selling the ghost of security threats in order to create a market for its arms, but activists say it is time to buck this trend.

Jeremy Corbyn, British MP

Libya has a population of five million. Its oil earnings amount to 35 billion U.S. dollars a year and its annual budget is 10 billion dollars. Yet, Libyan students have to go overseas to study medicine due to the lack of medical universities. On the other hand, Cuba, a country with very little money, has built the best health service in the world. It has been sending sizeable teams of medical professionals to countries struck with natural disasters.

The role of arms race in depriving people of what a country could otherwise easily make available to them is being raised pointedly at WSF in Karachi. Equally being discussed is the role of “the United States and its imperial allies”, in promoting a mad arms race.

While Sep. 11, 2001 was bad, what happened after that is worse, says UK Parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn. “Before the Afghanistan and Iraq invasion, an awful lot of things happened. More U.S. bases and more alliances were built in central Asia that ever in U.S. history,” he said.

There are U.S. bases in 121 countries – and there are 191 member states of the United Nations.

“The Iraq invasion was based on lies. It was a way to build a coalition strong enough to threaten the rest of the world. Now, Iran is under threat not because it has nuclear weapons, not because it is building nuclear weapons and not because it has violated nuclear non-proliferation accords. It is being threatened because it is trying to assert its right to build its own civil nuclear energy programme,” Corbyn said.

The invasion of Afghanistan, then of Iraq, and now the threat against Iran is a part of oil politics, speakers pointed out.

“Imperialism is not an old terminology,” said Waseem Sajjad Akhtar, Pakistani senator. It is the terminology of the day with oil playing a key part in imperialist ambitions acting on the globe, he adds. “Pakistan is important because it is a frontline state in the imperial war. Imperialist powers have propped up military rule in Pakistan. For twenty years, this has weakened progressive politics.”