consequences

Off Topic
41

Lumpy raises a good point concerning intelligence giving the White House information they promptly ignore.

It seems there is a deepening rift between the two sides.

One example being that just yesterday I was listening to a BBC journalist who said that a couple FBI agents dropped by their office out of the blue recently and “accidentally” left some classified files on the desk when they left, with a wink.

These files concerned the 9-11 investigation and links to Saudi financing (the blacked out pages from the Congressional papers).

Now there are Saudi terrorists in Iraq attacking US soldiers - yet the White House still does not go after the sources of their funding, indeed they block any thorough investigation.

At some point Bush and his cohorts will have to stop speaking in empty soundbites and start answering to serious matters.

If the Democrats had any balls whatsoever they would run with all of this, assuming some of them aren’t into the Saudis as well.

Who would you trust in these matters:

Intelligence sources who are on the ground investigating?

Or the Bush administration who have vested financial interests to protect?

42

From today’s Washington Post:

“Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers”

“In addition to its Iraq contracts, Brown and Root (Halliburton subsidiary) has also earned $183 million from Operation Enduring Freedom, the military name for the war on terrorism and combat operations in Afghanistan, according to the Army’s numbers.”

“The practice of delegating a vast array of logistics operations to a single contractor dates to the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War and a study commissioned by Cheney, then defense secretary, on military outsourcing. The Pentagon chose Brown and Root to carry out the study and subsequently selected the company to implement its own plan.”

“Brown and Root’s revenue from Operation Iraqi Freedom is already rivaling its earnings from its contracts in the Balkans, and is a major factor in increasing the value of Halliburton shares by 50 percent over the past year, according to industry analysts. The company reported a net profit of $26 million in the second quarter of this year, in contrast to a $498 million loss in the same period last year.”

mmm… riiiiiight.

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more: "Independent experts said the trend toward outsourcing logistic operations has resulted in new problems, such as a lack of accountability and transparency on the part of private military firms and sometimes questionable billing practices.

A major problem in Iraq, Singer said, has been the phenomenon of “no-shows” caused by the inhospitable security environment, including the killing of contract workers, including a Halliburton mail delivery employee earlier this month.

“At the end of the day, neither these companies nor their employees are bound by military justice, and it is up to them whether to show up or not,” Singer said. “The result is that there have been delays in setting up showers for soldiers, getting them cooked meals and so on.”

Think it helps to have a lobbyist in the Vice President's chair?
44

From Counterpunch, showing further the extent how crooked these bastards in the White House are:

"Kellogg Brown & Root, the company chosen last month by the Pentagon to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq, has a long history of supporting the same terrorist regimes vilified by the Bush administration and on at least one occasion defrauded the United States government to the tune of $2 million, according to public documents.

Halliburton, headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, and it’s KBR subsidiary did business with some of the world’s most notorious governments and dictators - in countries such as Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria. The company has routinely skirted U.S. sanctions placed on these countries and lobbied the U.S. government to lift sanctions so it could set up new partnerships and create new business opportunities in these countries."

In all fairness our politicians deserve to make an “honest” billion or two right?

45

"I’ll bet you a dollar for every time you’ve been to the United States. "

I take your bet and you’ve just lost it. I’ve spent all afternoon laughing and smiling at the cuttest girl in shopping center near my house.

And I have been to america twice, once to Boston and New York counting Brazil, which is also in the american continent.

How do you want to arrange the payment? I’ll take money order or credit card.

46

I think it is very nieve (sp?) on the part of Americans, and esp the administration, to assume that those in other cultures want what we want and value what we value. The part of the original post that really hit home for me was that the Iraquis want light, hea, water and security – fuck freedom. That may indeed be the case. One thing for sure, we missed a huge opportunity right after Bahgdad fell to bring in Europe and the UN> I have zero problem sharing this mess. Why is it that the solution to the world’s problems is always dead Americans?

47

Huck, the whole point is that the collateral damage (ie dead Americans and Iraqis) is not significant until it becomes too much of a political problem, as it did in Vietnam.

The Bush Admin knows that under the guise of a “War On Terror” they can (and have gone) go pretty far before serious questions emerge.

Keep us frightened with stories of potential threats & sanitized views of the war.

Meanwhile Halliburton, oil firms, and defence contractors such as the Carlyle Group (for whom pappy Bush works) make billions.

Basically the Bush Junta and friends make money for going to war, then get paid even more to clean it up.

Win Win.

Oh, except for those dead people.

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Actually I’ll have to reply to the post by US=GG just to show him how much he’s wrong about the impact Bush is having on the USA’s echonomy. Talk about wishfull thinking.

The USA deficit will be at the end of tis current fiscal year the biggest the USA ever had. A planned budget surplus of $5.6 trillion turned out into a deficit of over $400 billion.

Overall economic growth is at 1%, the lowest for any USA’s administration in 50 years.

The unemployment rate was at 6.4 last June, which is the highest in 9 years. It was at 3.9 before Bush.

41.2 Million People in America Have NO Health Insurance.

The number of Americans living in Poverty rises for first time in eight years.

The only reason I care is that this effects the whole whole and particularly Europe’s economy also.

Better than ever? Says who?

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Was going to let this forum post die, but I had to respond to Restless.

5.6 Trillion? When? How? I know that during the last administration there were some surpluses, but then suddenly they were spent, but were still being reported by both the parties as being surpluses even though they were spent. Regardless I don’t remember any projection ever listing 5.6 trillion in surplus. That would be a major overtax.

The growth was an annualized 3% this last quarter.

The unemployment rate goes up and down, read my statement in the “Bush’s Campaign Platform” thread. Unemployment is never just a straight line, nor has ever just been on a downward slant. If you look at a historical chart of unemployment it bounces up and down all the time. And the July figures are at 6.2% for July, which would be a 0.2% improvement.

So what about health insurance? Do you know why? Did you know that many who can afford health insurance do not have it? Mostly they are young and foolish, but mostly being young they don’t feel they need it. Also many don’t realize that they can more easily afford “catastrophic” health insurance. It only kicks in after a $10,000 deductible. This insurance costs only 1/5 the normal insurance rate. It is the big expenses that really hurt people financially, not the small expenses, so it is surprisingly affordable.

I also cannot believe the people who have tried to tell me that this is too much of a deductible, yet have no problem taking out a loan for a $25,000 car.

Do you know what the poverty rate is? Do you know how many of these people in “poverty” have DVD players, cable, and Internet access? I recently heard an economist say that the poor in this country have more then the average person did in 1970.

Also economists have stated that this recession was just a minor “hiccup” and had a very small effect compared to previous recessions.

This recession (which is technically 2 or more quarters of declining Gross Domestic Product) ended in November 2001, and we have been in recovery since. Sure a slow and lagging recovery, but if you know what happened on 9/11/2001 you have to understand that this might have had an effect, considering Americas financial heart was hit.

Now where did you get this “Better then ever” statement? I don’t think anybody said anything was better then ever.

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aaw, thanks Mage, don’t let it die yet! Not this quietly!

We haven’t heard from US or Diesel as of late… shame on you for not defending our corporate White House :slight_smile:

C’mon, we haven’t yet probed the depths to which the US Govmt. goes to protect cheap Saudi oil.

Imagine for a moment what would happen if the Saudi royals were overthrown and the oil supply restricted - suddenly gas prices go up 20 fold.

No wonder they put Kharzai (ex-Unocal employee) in charge of Afghanistan!

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Top Ten Sources for Oil Imports into US

Canada 1800K BPD
Saudi Arabia 1500K BPD
Mexico 1500K BPD
Venezuela 13800K BPD
Nigeria 600K BPD
Iraq 500K BPD
UK 500K BPD
Norway 400K BPD
Angola 300K BPD
Algeria 250K BPD

(BPD is barrels per day)

So 14% of the US imports are from Saudi. All oil is sold on the world market at the same commodity price so Saudi oil is no cheaper off the ship than Mexican oil. This is the price that while low prevents US domestic oil exploration and extraction from being profitable. A loss of Saudi oil would not drive prices up nearly 20 times.

Cheap oil might help international companies but it doesn’t help the domestic ones, nor does it help the US government whose second largest source of income is offshore mineral leases. That revenue is based on a percentage of the oil recovered on the leases and that goes down when the oil prices drop.

Afghanistan has an estimated 95 million barrels of oil reserves, a drop in the bucket compared to other places like Canada with 11.6 billion with a B barrels. Indonesia has 5 billion barrels. Nigeria has 22.5 billion barrels. We don’t need to fight Canada, Nigeria, or Indonesia to get the oil, we just buy it.

If you look at a map of the world there is a lot of oil in a lot of places we haven’t had wars in. We don’t need to blow up countries to get it or keep it cheap, competition does that just fine

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I second what The Mage said about the standard of living in the US. We’ve all heard the stories from our grandparents about how much harder they had it. It’s all true. These days, living at or below the poverty level doesn’t necessarily mean you’re hurting. Hell, I’m technically below the poverty level based on income, but I’m not deprived of any essentials. It’s all how you look at the stats, which don’t always reflect the way things really are.

And Restless, the US is in North America. Brazil is in South America. Two different continents. Give me a dollar.

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SteelyEyes,

You make some good points but some of that needs to be qualified I think.

Regarding that import chart (from 2002 right?), what needs to be mentioned is that for some of those countries political instablility has caused the amount of oil the US brings to drop in the last couple of years, namely Iraq, Venezuela, Angola, Nigeria, and Saudi.

The actions of Shell Oil in murdering Ken Saro-Wiwa and others speaking out against them in Nigeria is well known. Regardless oil corps and the Nigerian Govmt. has faced alot of pressure regarding exploiting for oil. Their government supports US oil corps, so the US doesn’t need to wage war.

CIA had backed an unsuccessful coup in Venezuela. Their Gvmt also supports US oil Corps but the relationships there too seem strained.

Angola has been mired in civil war for years, and highly unstable.

And regarding Afghanistan - the oil they want is not in Afghan, it is up north in Khazakstan, Uzbek etc… They want to run the pipeline through Afghanistan. This is what the US meetings with the Taliban were about.

Theres a large amount of literature on the relationships between maintaining stable and cheap oil supplies and politics.

54

Now I never said I liked the oil industry, but I don’t think there is actual information that the only reason that we took any action is for oil. Yes our government does worry about energy, this is called a national interest, and it has a very big impact on the American economy.

Opec has a big influence on oil prices, but not as much as they use to. For most of the 90’s they kept agreeing to reduce the amount of oil they produced, but each country would go back on the agreement, hoping the other countries would cause the prices to drop, and they would reap the benefit. Finally they did start following through, and this is when the American economy started slowing down, along with the rise in prices.

I have stated it before, but more oil in the market is great for the American economy, but it is not good for the oil industry, because it results in lower prices. Although it does not always work out that way. The oil industry has unfortunately placed some blocks in the way which slows down the flow of gas in this country. They have secretly helped out the environmentalists by supporting their causes like preventing refineries from being built, and supporting various states requiring differently refined gas. (I believe that there are a total of 14 different ways to refine gas for the various states.) After they refine it to conform for one state, they have to shut the thing down, clean it to prevent contamination, and then refine another type of gas.

What needs to happen is to get various states to get together on how they require gas to be refined, get more refineries built, and not allow the current oil industries to work together as much, if not spit them up more then what they are.

We would not have had a war with Afghanistan, and the Taliban if they would have given up Osama and the leaders of Al Qaeda. By stating that we only went to war for a pipeline, you are saying that the war was a set up, which implies that America attacked itself. (Which Lumpy’s favorite website has stated before, along with other conspiracy nuts.) Are we only allowed to go to war with countries that have no oil? Just because a country has oil makes a good political statement, weather it is true or not.

And all this shit about Haliburton, so what if Cheney worked for them? Does that mean they are now disbarred from any military contracts? I have heard experts state that they are the best equipped to do the job. Just because a person worked for a company does not mean it is a smoking gun to a conspiracy theory. Does everybody who has worked for any gas company, or government contractor is a crook, liar, and murderer? When I pay for my gas, does the kid who takes my money secretly plan government overthrows?

We need a more logical connection then Cheney worked for Haliburton, and Haliburton got the contract so the war was started so Haliburton could get a contract. Or the even greater logical argument Bush worked for the oil industry, we went to war with a country that has oil so obviously the war was about oil.

What people don’t realize is that Bush also has connections to baseball, and the actual reason we went to war is to steal the Iraqi baseball players.

We have to take logical steps, not make wild jumps to conclusions. If we have a theory, it should be mentioned that it is a theory, and not a fact. Do I have absolute proof that it wasn’t only about oil, or a contract? No. But I also don’t have any proof that Atlantis did not plan the JFK assassination.

I don’t want to point a finger based on politically biased information taken out of context to convict a person of actions that probably don’t exist. We should keep our eyes open, and question everything, (which I will tell you is why I actually like discussions like this,) but should be more careful of jumping to blame.

Now if you want to stick it to the oil industry, drive a Geo Metro. Ride a bike for short trips. Park in the first available spot and walk to the door instead of driving around to save 30 seconds of walking. Keep your tires inflated. Get the tune up. And do all the other energy saving shit. The less we use the lower the demand, and the greater the supply, resulting in lower gas prices.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is expecting the government to make the auto industry create more fuel efficient cars. They will fight this. But if the consumer requests it then they will do whatever they can to comply. They don’t care what the government wants as much as the consumer. But as long as people want the big cars, and don’t care about gas mileage, they will keep pumping out gas guzzlers.

I tried looking up Ken Saro-Wiwa and found no mention of Shell oil killing him. I found that he complained about Shell Oil, and that the military government killed him, but I didn’t see any direct link. I only found 5 news articles on google though. And the Venezuela CIA link you mentioned, the news gave me nothing, and the web only mentioned anything in political opinion in communist “newspapers”. Unfortunately I don’t have the time for a more in-depth search right now.

55

Kuri,

(I hate having to repeat myself as the months and years go by).

Repeat after me (sing it with me now): “AFGHANISTAN WAS NOT ABOUT OIL. AFGHANISTAN WAS NOT ABOUT OIL. AFGHANISTAN WAS NOT ABOUT OIL.”

Please read this article VERY thoroughly, and then refrain from making any such idiotic assertions. Thank you.

http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/14/silverstein-k.html

56

But the Taliban DID offer to give up Osama prior to 9/11, but the negotiations fell through.

Why exactly I don’t know but apparently it was to do with the pipeline dealings.

In a July 2001 meeting a US representative told Taliban officials at a meeting in Europe “accept our offer of a carpet of gold or be buried under a carpet of our bombs” (details were provided by Euro intelligence sources who were at the meeting).

Now, whether Osama knew of the Taliban’s offer may not be known, but most likely he had found out.

Clinton messed up in not accepting Sudan’s offer to hand Osama over in 98’.

They have repeatedly mishandled chances at grabbing him.

So why did the US not grab him, why were investigations shut down?

Spare me the tired conspiracy theory rebuttal.

That is no answer and only seeks to avoid the issues

57

Damici,

The Silverstein article was well written and makes some good points.

1st off- I’m not saying the war was ONLY about oil, of course not. The fervor for revenge following 9/11, a show of power by the new administration are integral factors I believe.

He made the same point that I have in that Afghanistan was (and is) deemed to unstable to invest in the pipeline.

Thus a stable Afghanistan was needed by oil corporations who have highly placed ex-employees in the administration.

Silverstein is also a professional consultant to many energy corporations, which puts him in the know right? But also puts him in contact with some of the same individuals involved.

Where I think his argument doesn’t hold water is that he says nobody is interested anymore in getting the pipeline done, because Afghan is so unstable, among other factors. Which is true, but

that still does not refute the fact that negotiations with the Taliban took place, corporations such as Unocal and Enron invested much money and time in exploring the pipeline ideas, talks ultimately fell through, and a war was waged.
Now there is a Unocal man, Karzai, appointed to run the show.

If Afghanistan were stabilized there would be a sudden influx of investments I imagine.

58

Ok kuri, if they are not conspiracy theories, where is the proof? Not just the ides or illogical links, but the actual proof.

Now I do have conspiracy theories of my own. Like the liberal attempt to slow down the economy in an attempt to make Bush look bad. And the attempt to twist everything to make what Bush does look bad, even if it is the exact thing a democratic President would have done, and would have been cheered by these same liberals.

But this is just a theory, backed up with some evidence, but not strong enough to be proof or fact. So it remains a conspiracy theory. And since I have no proof of an attempt to slow the economy I don’t use this in any argument. If I were to mention it I would say, “I think.” Or, “I believe.”

Now as far as why both Clinton and Bush didn’t take any initiative to get Osama, before 9/11 people really didn’t care so much. What happened was “out there”, so blocks were not aggressively attacked. After 9/11 things changed. Suddenly we cared.

It was something we cared about, but didn’t place a high level of importance in.

Now where did the July 2001 information come from?

I don’t doubt there were oil companies trying to make deals in the Mid-East, there is a lot of oil there. I am fairly certain that we have oil companies dealing with almost every Mid-East country. But just because the big oil companies are trying to make deals does not mean you can jump to this Bush war for oil link.

Hey, here is a theory. Many people who are politically biased can take information and read into it what is not there. They can take weak, and coincidental information and see a situation that does not exist, or probably does not. This is easier then actually believing that maybe the person disliked for his or her political position is actually on the up and up, or actually may be correct.

I remember a study done where teachers were told the good students were problem children, and the week students were the smart kids. Suddenly the bell curve reversed. All because of how the teacher perceived these kids. Perception is everything.

59

Kuri,

Perhaps I misread what you were inferring, and jumped the gun a little (although I don’t think so), but I do believe the Silverstein article is THE single most thorough and concise recent history of the US’s oil- and gas-related interests in and around Afghanistan. The point that the article makes, and does so in great detail, is that on Sept. 10th of 2001, the US government and US energy companies had precisely zero interest in trying to build, extract, transport or do anything having to do with oil/gas in Afghanistan. Had ideas been discussed, researched, bandied about, proposals put on the table, etc. in years PAST? Yes. Was there any such interest left on the US’s part in doing so by Sept. 10th 2001? No. Did the Clinton administration (which, I agree, fucked up royally on numerous occasions) try to use a little carrot-and-stick action with the Taliban to try to get them to hand over Osama (the carpet of gold/bombs quip)? Yeah, and I actually don’t see anything wrong with that at all. If it had worked, we’d all be better off for it. Yet, did we immediately gear up for and go to war in Afghanistan after Sept. 11th? Yes.

But what you are inferring (or at least this is how it comes across), is the tired old cliche that we “went to war for oil” in Afghanistan. BULLSHIT. You actually wrote in your last post that you’re “not saying the war was ONLY about oil,” which implies that it was at least PARTIALLY about oil. Again, BULLSHIT. As The Mage so deftly pointed out, the fact that a resource or industry in which our nation might take an interest exists in a certain country (such as his example of Iraqi baseball players) lends ZERO credence to the idea that “that’s why we went to war.” In the years prior to 9/11 I’ll bet we also discussed textile trade with the Taliban at some point (i.e. the buying of Afghan rugs), yet you cannot convince me that we went to war there in late 2001 in order to stablize or take control of the Afghan rug industry.

The fact that we installed Karzai, who happens to be “a Unocal man,” however you want to define that, does nothing to further your argument that our war in Afghanistan was (at least partially) “about oil.” Perhaps he was known by someone in the administration such as Cheney, through his industry ties, and they therefore knew that he was a good, smart, stable and capable guy. Perhaps they also thought, “Hey, while we’re at it (kicking Osama and the Taliban’s asses, which we have to do), why not install someone who might just be useful to us in the future with regard to the energy trade?” There would be absolutely nothing wrong with that. The old Cheney/Halliburton conspiracy garbage (regarding A’stan, Iraq, etc.) also grows tired. Dick Cheney is worth HUNDREDS of millions of dollars. He will never, EVER have to fear for living anything less than a life of extreme luxury. GWB, although not quite is wealthy, is also way, WAY up there on the wealth scale. To suggest that either of them would steer the country/world into WAR in order to, in some convoluted way, make themselves more money (or their old friends at their old companies, who are similarly rediculously wealthy), is patently INSANE.

By the way, if you asked anyone high up in the US administration right now whether they think Afghanistan would ever (at least in the foreseeable future) be a place in which they think it would make sense to make large oil/gas investments, given the ongoing (and probably perpetual) stability problems there, I can almost guarantee you that they’d say, “Probably not.” Yet will that same administration continue to have soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines stationed there fighting battles, some large and some small, for quite some time to come? You bet.

The point is that, although there was/is/may someday be (although probably not) oil & gas trade to be done with Afghanistan, the oil/gas issue has NO BUSINESS being mentioned in a discussion of why we went to war there (except if you’re bringing it up to refute silly conspiracy theorists). Thank you.

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