The History Of BP

Beyond Petroleum, Beyond Pollution, Beyond Politics
A Short History of BP

By M. KAMIAR

British Petroleum is the UK’s largest corporation. It is among the largest private-sector energy corporations in the world. It is a vertically integrated cartel that operates oil and natural-gas exploration, marketing, and distribution all over the globe.

BP, however, goes beyond petroleum, indeed, beyond business. The mess we have today in the Gulf of Mexico is not the first time BP has committed crimes against the environment and against people. This is a proverbial drop in the bucket for BP. This outfit has been cheating humanity since its inception...READ MORE

BP's Other Gifts to America and the to the World

Iran, BP and the CIA

By LAWRENCE S. WITTNER

The offshore oil drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico brought to us by BP has overshadowed its central role over the past century in fostering some other disastrous events.

BP originated in 1908 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company—a British corporation whose name was changed to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company two decades later. With exclusive rights to extract, refine, export, and sell Iran's rich oil resources, the company reaped enormous profits. Meanwhile, it shared only a tiny fraction of the proceeds with the Iranian government. Similarly, although the company's British personnel lived in great luxury, its Iranian laborers endured lives of squalor and privation.

Many people do not know that BP was born, named after, and committed many crimes against the people of Iran. For nearly 80 years, it seized the wealth of that nation, interfered in its politics, and destroyed its future.