The Black-Gold'n Horde  

An interesting follow up to the "disappearing lake(s)" in Russia story.

This is what the current undeclared war is all about. What drives Brzezinski, what drives the support of regime change on Russia's borders, and within its borders, isn't just Old School Russophobia. It's oilophilia. The Caspian Sea basin holds the world's biggest untapped fossil fuel resources. Estimates range from 85 to 190 billion barrels of oil, worth up to $5 trillion. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan alone might hold over 130 billion barrels, more than three times the US reserves. As Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech in 1998, when he was CEO of Halliburton, "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." In 2001, Cheney, who sat on the Kazakhstan's Oil Advisory Board, advised President Bush to "deepen [our] commercial dialogue with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and other Caspian states."

While Cheney was working Kazakhstan, Brzezinski was one of just seven men who sat on the board of the USACC: The United States Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce, considered the key power center in the region for years now. The other six board members were, again, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu and Lloyd Bensten. Richard Perle sat on USACC's board of trustees. Richard Armitage served as the USACC's Board President until 2001, while Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, left Armitage Associates around the same time in order to take the post as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs for regional economic issues. Cheney's wife, Lynne, sat on the board of Lockheed Martin, which funded space launches in Kazakhstan's Baikhonur space port.