The war for the oil only

[Random Variable]

News gets filtered.

CNN and FOX News, probably; the AP and (especially) Reuters, no.

So, I'm wondering, can anyone offer anything that proves any of these points false rather than just calling it a conspiracy theory?

The burden falls upon the author of the editorial to prove that his points are true, not on me (or anyone else) to prove that they are false. You should know that.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

What is there to prove? If you there are any doubts about any specific points, then bring it up It seems to me like some people are just in denial about the fact that 2+2=4.

Cheney-Haliburton connection: Fact
Bush Sr-Carlysle Group connection: Fact
Rice-Chevron connection: Fact
Karzai-Unocal connection: Fact
Khalilzad (US special envoy to Afghanistan)-Unocal connection: Fact

The timeline of the Unocal project is just too convenient given the blatant invested interests. The rest are details.

 

[CaptainGoodnight]

I am too tired to disprove some of this... but might as well start with one.

Cheney-Haliburton connection: Fact: False
Cheney no longer owns any stock in Haliburton.

 

[HendrixFan]

Here are a couple facts.

Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia currently pump out 80% of the world's supply of oil.

Consruction has already begun on the Afghanistan Pipeline to the Caspian Sea.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

I think it's wrong to discard the post in total b/c some elements are clearly inaccurate.

As I said before Cheney's connection to Halliburton is not only factual he's proud. I don't want to believe his energy policy was quid pro quo . . . unfortunately his absolute claim to privacy gives me pause and the conspiracy theorists ammunition to misconstrue typical behavior (his parting booty from Halliburton) as nefarious. Cheney and his ilk want exploration and generation facilities consistent with their worldview . . . the Sierra Club is where they play golf.

I would like to see some proof that they've started on a pipeline.

 

[Balthazar]

Originally posted by: Zipp
If this so called new proposed pipeline really happens(which i doubt),the price of gas will probably drop to under a buck a gallon and I'll be able to fill up my SUV's gas tank for around twenty bucks. Isn't that great?

Some people really need to stop and consider the cost of what they think is so "great"....

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
I mentioned months ago that I heard a report that the bombing patterns in Afghanistan correspond to places where war lords were demanding bribe money for the pipeling going through areas of their control.

Yeah, ok, sure, care to dig up ANY kind of proof on that one?
Anything at all?

 

[etech]

The Russians got into their Vietnam right after we got out of ours? Isn't that strange?
No, It was stupid of the Russians to ignore history and the lessons that the US learned in VietNam. I fail to see what that has to do with anything here though.

We supported Bin Laden and the Taliban for years, and viewed them as freedom fighters against the Russians? Isn't that strange?

No, It?s a lie. We supported the Mujahideen in their fight against the USSR invasion of their country. The Taliban was not organized until late 1994. http://www.afghan-info.com/TALIBAN.HTM
Bin Laden was a minor figure in the Afghanistan war and it is a lie to say that the US supported him.

As late as 1998 the US was paying the salary of every single Taliban official in Afghanistan? Isn't that
strange?

No, it sounds like another lie but without knowing the reference it cannot be properly disposed of. Here is some interesting information showing how the US tried to help the people of Afghanisan while bypassing the Taliban.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/ May 17, 2001

The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban in an effort to pressure the militia to hand over Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is accused of bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa. Humanitarian aid is allowed.
Powell said the U.S. aid is administered by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, and bypasses the Taliban, "who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it."
The sum brings U.S. assistance to $124.2 million for this year, making the United States the largest Afghan donor for the second year in a row.

There is more oil and gas in the Caspian Sea area than in Saudi Arabia, but you need a pipeline through Afghanistan to get the oil out. Isn't that strange?

Another lie, there are other routes for a pipeline than through Afghanistan. There are reasons the US would prefer that route. I?ll cover that later.

UNOCAL, a giant American Oil conglomerate, wanted to build a 1000 mile long pipeline from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. Isn't that strange?

Damn, an oil company wanting to get involved in an energy project. I would consider it strange if Mattel, Microsoft, AMD or such was getting involved but Unocal, no that?s not strange.

UNOCAL spent $10,000,000,000 on geological surveys for pipeline construction, and very nicely courted the
Taliban for their support in allowing the construction to begin. Isn't that strange?

10 BILLION DOLLARS on geological surveys! Excuse me while I try to stop laughing. Basic facts are basic facts and this guy has them wrong. The cost to build the entire pipeline would only be around 2 billion.

All of the leading Taliban officials were in Texas negotiating with UNOCAL in 1998. Isn't that strange?
1998-1999 the Taliban changed its mind and threw UNOCAL out of the country and awarded the pipeline project to a company from Argentina. Isn't that strange?

A senior delegation of Taliban officials is NOT ?all of the leading Taliban?. No, it?s not strange and it was in 1997. Another basic fact wrong. Unocal and the Argentina company Bridas were in competition for the project.

John Maresca VP of UNOCAL testified before Congress and said no pipeline until the Taliban was gone and a more friendly government was established. Isn't thatstrange?

Considering the tendency of unfriendly governments to nationalize and seize foreign projects I would have to agree with him. Also considering that a war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance(remember the Mujahideen the US backed) was still going on it was not a good place to be doing business.

1999-2000 The Taliban became the most evil people in the world. Isn't that strange?

?The Sunni Muslim terror groups, dominated by the ?Afghan alumni? continued to play a major role in the international arena. This phenomenon?epitomized by the Saudi millionaire Osama bin Ladin, himself, an Afghan alumnus?was institutionalized when Bin Ladin announced in February ?98 the creation of an Islamic coalition called ?The International Islamic front for Jihad against the Jews & the Crusaders.??
The Taliban were harboring bin Laden and his terrorist group. They allowed the terrorists to use Afghanistan for training camps. Do you remember the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania?. Do you remember the USS Cole? The people that perpetrated those crimes were based in Afghanistan.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Isn't that strange?

See above answer. We finally had a President that was willing to take serious action against terrorists and the people that harbored them

9/11 WTC disaster.

Bush goes to war against Afghanistan even though none of the hijackers came from Afghanistan. Isn't that strange?

bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda organzation were based in Afghanistan. The Taliban refused to give him up for trial.

Bush blamed Bin Laden but has never offered any proof saying it?s a "secret". Isn't that strange?

Events more recent such as bin Laden tacitly admitting to responsibility for the bombings make any answer unnecessary. I will add this though. Much of the information must come from humans on the ground. People in or close to those organizations. Revealing exactly what we know also gives those organizations clues as to who is leaking that intelligence. Having a compromised source would do two things. 1. The source of information would dry up. 2. In your worst nightmares you could not imagine the horrors that not only the informants but their families would be subjected to.

Taliban offered to negotiate to turn over Bin Laden if we showed them some proof. We refused; we bombed.
Isn't that strange?

They were stalling for time. The UN and the US had requested the extradition of bin Laden since at least 1999. They had no intention of ever giving up their brother to the Great Satan.

Bush said: "This is not about nation building. It'sabout getting the terrorists." Isn't that strange?

We are, with the help of our allies around the world, getting the terrorists.

We have a new government in Afghanistan. Isn't that strange?

You would prefer the Taliban still be in charge? The Taliban that harbored the terrorist organzation responsible for over 3000 innocent deaths? The Taliban that mistreated the women of their country and destroyed irreplacable religious artifacts.

The leader of that government formerly worked for UNOCAL. Isn't that strange?

Hamid Karzai, who is as comfortable discussing sitting on a carpet as in a Washington or London "salon", has a profound knowledge of the western world. After Kabul and India, where he has studied law, he completed his learnings in the USA, where he acted, for a while, as a consultant for the American oil company Unocal, at the time it was considering building a pipeline in Afghanistan.
He was a consultant to a company about the pipeline project in his country. It makes him aware of the benefits to Afghanistan of a pipeline project.

Bush appoints a special envoy to represent the US to deal with that new government, who formerly was the
"chief consultant to UNOCAL". Isn't that strange?

Considering that very few Americans are familiar with Afghanistan and the majority of those were those that were in the planning for the failed pipeline project, no it?s not strange.

The Bush family acquired their wealth through oil? Isn't that strange?
Prescott Bush was a banker

Bush's Secretary of Interior was the President of an oil company before going to Washington. Isn't that
strange?
Secretary GALE NORTON
Confirmed by voice vote in the Senate and sworn in as secretary of the interior January 30.
Government policy experience: Colorado attorney general and chair of the Environment Committee for the National Association of Attorneys General 1991-1999; associate solicitor at the Department of the Interior 1985-1990; assistant to the deputy secretary of agriculture, 1984-1985.
Other work experience: Environment Committee chair for the Republican National Lawyers Association (1999-2001).

George Bush Sr. now works with the "Carlysle Group" specializing in huge oil investments around the world.
Isn't that strange?

George Bush, Sr. works for The Carlyle Group. They invest in defense companies, medical laboratories, and the telecommunications industry.

Condoleezza Rice worked for Chevron before gong to Washington. Isn't that strange?
Chevron named one of its newest "supertankers" after Condoleezza. Isn't that strange?

Rice who is one of the brightest and most able politicians in Washington once served on the Chevron board of directors. They thought so highly of her and in accordance with past tradition named one of their tankers after her. I imagine that Chevron would rather still have this bright and capable women still on their board.

Dick Cheney worked for the giant oil conglomerate Haliburton before becoming VP. Isn't that strange?
Haliburton gave Cheney $34,000,000,000 as a farewell gift when he left Haliburton. Isn't that strange?
Haliburton is in the pipeline construction business. Isn't that strange?

SO? He has proven his ability in both the public and the private sector. That?s better than a career politician any day. Pres. Bush has worked in the oil sector. The people he knows and trusts will be in that sector. As above, better good businessmen and women than career politicians.

There is $6 Trillion dollars worth of oil in the Caspian Sea area. Isn't that strange?

Ask who put it there

The US government quietly announces Jan 31, 2002 we will support the construction of the Trans-Afghanistan
pipeline. Isn't that strange?

On May 30, 2002, heads of Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan signed a tripartite accord in Islamabad to revive the pipeline and formed a high-level managing committee to oversee the progress of phase one of the project.


President Musharref (Pakistan), and Karrzai, (Afghanistan -Unocal) announce agreement to build
proposed gas pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan. (Irish Times 02

Good for them


First, this is a NATURAL GAS pipeline project. It is not an oil pipeline. There is oil and natural gas in Turkmenistan. It is a poor country. Afghanistan is a poor country in desperate need of cash. Afghanistan is being deforested as trees are used for fuel. Afghanistan needs the jobs and training that the pipeline would bring. Afghanistan is the most logical route for a pipeline considering the next major alternative is Iran. The same Iran that has a history of nationalizing projects in their country. Pakistan and India are both markets for the GAS that would be shipped through the pipeline. Why build it? They all need the money and improvements it would make for their countries.
Now what I have not seen is one iota of evidence of any wrong doing by any of the above mentioned parties. I see a tangled web of lies and innuendo but no facts that support the allegation that the US went to war in Afghanistan to build this pipeline.
I consider the allegation as such a horrendous insult to the dead, the dead of the two embassies bombed by al Qaeda , the dead sailors of the USS Cole bombed by al Qaeda and the dead innocent civilians killed in the attacks of 9/11. All of those attacks planned by al Qaeda which had bases and training camps based in Afghanistan under the protection and auspices of the illegal Taliban government.

I cannot begin to express the deep disgust and revulsion I have for the people that spread lies such as this.

Moonbeam, you are included in that disgust. I consider your actions to be on par with Quisling or Benedict Arnold. I don't think you are stupid, your pseudo-intellectual posts that you amuse the kiddies with in the AOL chatties show you have some comprehension. You must therefore know that by spreading lies and misinformation that you are aiding and abetting the enemy. I consider your actions to be treasonous.

To be a good citizen we must keep a watchful eye on the government. I support and abide by that contention. That though does not include the spreading of lies that could be harmful. We must be responsible patriots. Moonbeam, I don't know if you don't care about your actions, if you have let your partisanship blind you to your responsibility or if you are an enemy agent working for al Qaeda. You are spreading their propaganda that is all that I can confirm.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

Romancing the Taliban
As the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in early 1989, American policymakers celebrated with champagne, while the country itself collapsed into virtual anarchy. Almost a quarter of the population was living in refugee camps and most of the country was in ruins. Different factions of the mujahideen struggled for power in the countryside, while the government of Muhammed Najibullah, the last Soviet-installed president controlled Kabul. Eventually, in April 1992, Kabul fell to some of the mujahideen factions and Burhannudin Rabbani was de dared president, but civil war continued unabated. Hekmatyar in particular was dissatisfied with the new distribution 0 power. With his huge stock of U.S.-supplied weapons, h began an artillery and rocket assault on Kabul that lasted for almost three years, even after he was appointed prime minister in 1993. "The barrage...killed more than 10,000 Afghans [drove] hundreds of thousands into squalid refugee camps, created political chaos, and blocked millions of exiles from returning." The rest of the country disintegrated into isolated fiefdoms dominated by local warlords.
In 1994, a new group, the Taliban (Pashtun for "students"), emerged on the scene. Its members came from madrassas set up by the Pakistani government along the border and funded by the U.S., Britain, and the Saudis, where they had received theological indoctrination and military training. Thousands of young men-refugees and orphans from the war in Afghanistan-became the foot soldiers of this movement:
These boys were from a generation who had never seen their country at peace-an Afghanistan not at war with invaders and itself. They had no memories of their tribes, their elders, their neighbors nor the complex ethnic mix of peoples that made up their villages and their homeland. These boys were what the war had thrown up like the sea's surrender on the beach of history ...
They were literally the orphans of war, the rootless and restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self-knowledge. They admired war because it was the only occupation they could possibly adapt to. Their simple belief in a messianic, puritan Islam which had been drummed into them by simple village mullahs was the only prop they could hold on to and which gave their lives some meaning. Untrained for anything, even the traditional occupations of their forefathers such as farming, herding or the making of handicrafts, they were what Karl Marx would have termed Afghanistan's lumpen proletariat.
With the aid of the Pakistani army, the Taliban swept across most of the exhausted country promising a restoration of order and finally capturing Kabul in September 1996. The Taliban imposed an ultra-sectarian version of Islam, closely related to Wahhabism, the ruling creed in Saudi Arabia. Women have been denied education, health care, and the right to work. They must cover themselves completely when in public. Minorities have been brutally repressed. Even singing and dancing in public are forbidden.
The Taliban's brand of extreme Islam had no historical roots in Afghanistan. The roots of the Taliban's success lay in 20 years of "jihad" against the Russians and further devastation wrought by years of internal fighting between the warlord factions. Initially, villagers-especially the majority Pashtuns in the south who shared the Taliban's ethnicity-welcomed them as a force that might end the warfare and bring some order and peace to Afghanistan. Their lack of a social base within Afghanistan made them appear untainted by the factional warfare, and their moral purism made them appear above compromise. Before launching their war to conquer power, they first won some public support by appearing as the avenger against the warlords' raping of women and boys. Of course, they could not have risen so far and so fast without the financial and military backing of Pakistan.
The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997.
The reference to oil and pipelines explains everything. Since the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, U.S. oil companies and their friends in the State Department have been salivating at the prospect of gaining access to the huge oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea and in Central Asia. These have been estimated as worth $4 trillion. The American Petroleum Institute calls the Caspian region "the area of greatest resource potential outside of the Middle East." And while he was still CEO of Halliburton, the world's biggest oil services company, Vice President Dick Cheney told other industry executives, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." The struggle to control these stupendous resources has given rise to what Rashid has dubbed the "new Great Game," pitting shifting alliances of governments and oil and gas consortia against one another.
Afghanistan itself has no known oil or gas reserves, but it is an attractive route for pipelines leading to Pakistan, India, and the Arabian Sea. In the mid-1990s, a consortium led by the California-based Unocal Corporation proposed a $4.5 billion oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. But this would require a stable central government in Afghanistan itself. Thus began several years in which U.S. policy in the region centered on "romancing the Taliban." According to one report,
In the months before the Taliban took power, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asia Robin Raphel waged an intense round of shuttle diplomacy between the powers with possible stakes in the [Unocal] project.
"Robin Raphel was the face of the Unocal pipeline," said an official of the former Afghan government who was present at some of de meetings with her....
In addition to tapping new sources of energy, de [project] also suited a major U.S. strategic aim in the region: isolating its nemesis Iran and stifling a frequently mooted rival pipeline project backed by Teheran, experts said.
But Washington's initial enthusiasm for the Taliban's seizure of power provoked a hostile reaction from human rights and women's organizations in the United States. The Clinton administration quickly decided to take a more cautious public approach. Plans to send the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan on a visit to Kabul were canceled, and the State Department decided not to recognize the new regime immediately. Nevertheless, Unocal executive vice president Chris Taggart continued to maintain, "If the Taliban leads to stability and international recognition then it's positive."
Tacit U.S. support for the Taliban continued until 1998, when Washington blamed Osama bin Laden for the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and retaliated by launching cruise missiles at bin Laden's alleged training camps in Afghanistan. The Taliban's refusal to extradite bin Laden- not its atrocious human rights record-led to UN-imposed sanctions on the regime the following year. "Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright used to say that she cared about the women suffering under the Taliban, but after the Taliban took over the U.S. accepted very few refugees," points out journalist Laura Flanders. "In '96 and '97 no Afghan refugees were admitted to the United States; in '98, only 88, in '99, some 360."
Whatever the U.S. government's current rhetoric about the repressive nature of the Taliban regime, its long history of intervention in the region has been motivated not by concern for democracy or human rights, but by the narrow economic and political interests of the U.S. ruling class. It has been prepared to aid and support the most retrograde elements if it thought a temporary advantage would be the result. Now Washington has launched a war against its former allies based on a strategic calculation that the Taliban can no longer be relied upon to provide a stable, U.S.-friendly government that can serve its strategic interests. No matter what the outcome, the war is certain to lay the grounds for more "blowback" in the future.

Lies...no kidding. This is all very consistent with human nature. Show me a point in history when we didn't see behavior that exhibits the corrupting nature of power among the ruling classes.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

paragraphs please . . . and turn off the damn italics . . .

 

[Dhruv]

Originally posted by: JellyBaby

What's to stop these so-called "terrorists" from attacking this pipeline, should it be built?

Permanent miltary bases in, oh say, Iraq and surrounding regions will keep the neighborhood in order.

we only get 14%, yes 14% of our oil from the middle east

Even if that figure is accurate you fail to understand the dollar amounts in just a fraction of our oil thrist are staggering. Also, it's not the "US is in it for oil" since this involves a relatively small number of people and corporations.

This all reminds me of a bad episode of Dallas. J.R. Ewing could not have envisioned a "better" world. :disgust:

we've already set up a base in Pakistan

 

[Dhruv]

there is way to much crap to read in here, but

a) you'd be an idiot to not realize the oil connection in this situation.

b) It doesn't matter if the Terrorists were Arab or Afghan, there base camp was in Afghanistan, so we went there.

This is similar to the Chechen-Russian situation, going thru Chechnya, Russia will have access to great oil rich seas, we just have a better excuse to go in there and fight.

Are we going to leave Afghanistan? I'm willing to bet our boys will still be around 10 years from now, even if we have a u.s. ally president and strong support from that nation. we won't leave AF without a base or two thats for sure.

 

[etech]

The question is very simple.

If there was no oil connection at all in Afghanistan and the terrorists and their bases were there would the U.S. have done the same.

The undisputable answer is yes.

All of the rest is just speculation and innuendo by people who wish the US harm.

That is all.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

If there were no oil connection this mess would not have been created to begin with.

All of the rest is just speculation and innuendo by people who wish the US harm.

I don't.