Kuri,
Come on, man! A person’s arguments start to lose credibility when they don’t even bother to keep the small facts straight. Condoleeza Rice was never the CEO of Chevron, she was only a member of the board – big difference. I’ve searched high and low and read many bios/resumes of Donald Rumsfeld, and NOWHERE could I find any mention of him having ever worked for GE in any capacity. (Correct me if I’m wrong, though). You mentioned the Bush family having ties to the Bin Laden family (through private business dealings). Yeah, Osama is one of about 26 kids, disowned and harshly criticized by the rest of his family, who run a very large and successful construction business in Saudi Arabia. Your obvious underhanded implication, that “The Bushes have always been in cahoots with Osama!” (although you didn’t come out and say that – you didn’t have to), is therefore pure horseshit. These are just tiny examples of how one can start out with less than solid information and then work themselves into a lather.
Speaking of working oneself into a lather, that’s just what you’ve been doing by throwing around a whole lot of vague, often completely disassociated yet highly conspiratorial thoughts about oil-Cheney-gas-Carlyle-Halliburton-money-Unocal-BinLadenFamily-pipelines-Enron-Afghanistan-ManInTheMoon. The “art” of throwing enough similar-sounding shit against the wall in the hopes that some of it will stick DOES NOT CREATE TRUTH.
Please RE-READ the Silverstein piece CAREFULLY, as it refutes PIECE-BY-PIECE the notion that there is ANY desire or need on ANYONE’S part (apart from maybe Karzai himself) to build or invest in a pipeline in Afghanistan. I’ll quote from the article (as you’ve forced me to do): " ‘The idea of Afghanistan re-emerging as a transit corridor for Caspian oil and gas is not remotely realistic in today’s circumstances – even in a best-case scenario in which Afghanistan were to emerge from the present conflict with a vigorous, broadly based and stable government with strong international support,’ says Laurent Ruseckas, a Caspian expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates."
" . . . By the following year (meaning 1998), the United States had largely dumped Unocal’s plan and had shifted its backing to a competing project. This one, called the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline, has greatly excited the conspiracy theorists as well, because Enron did the feasibility study and was closely involved with the planning. Thus it has been portrayed in some accounts as reflective of the United States’ long-standing need to control Afghanistan. This is a particularly stupid assertion because the Trans-Caspian pipeline’s route wouldn’t even have crossed Afghanistan. Rather, it would have moved Turkmen gas across Azerbaijan and Georgia into Turkey. Furthermore, though Enron had been expected to lead a consortium of energy companies behind the project, a joint venture between Amoco, Bechtel and GE capital was selected in the end."
“After al-Qaeda bombed U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the Clinton administration focused its Afghanistan policy almost exclusively on Osama bin Laden, not on winning support for a pipeline project that by then was effectively dead. The Trans-Caspian project that Enron was involved in, meanwhile, died just as it was picking up steam. The reason was that Azerbaijan discovered large gas fields of its own. The Azeri government was no longer interested in furnishing a transit route for Turkmen gas to Turkey, where Azerbaijan could now could sell its own reserves.”
" . . . What about today? given the friendly regime of Hamid Karzai now installed in Kabul, might Afghanistan come to emerge as a bustling thoroughfare for Caspian energy resources?"
“Don’t bet on it. Afghanistan never made much sense as a transit point for energy, and today less than ever. In the mid-1990s, when the Unocal project arose, Turkmenistan was desperate to find new export markets for its gas. Russia, which had traditionally bought almost all Turkmen gas, was in a prolonged post-communist recession, and its purchases had plummeted from 88 billion cubic meters in 1992 to about 15 billion cubic meters in 1996. Furthermore, Moscow was refusing to allow Turkmenistan to use its vast pipeline network to send gas to non-Russian customers – despite the fact that Pakistan and India faced gas shortages and were eager to buy from Turkmenistan. Hence there was at least a commercial logic to the Unocal proposal.”
“Today the situation has completely changed. In 2000 the Russian economy emerged from its deep slump, prompting the country to sign a special arrangement with Turkmenistan for gas imports. Since then, Turkmen exports to Russia have climbed steadily and now stand at around 31 billion cubic meters. As part of the deal the Russians have become more generous in allowing Turkmen exporters to utilize their pipeline system.”
“At the same time, the customers that Unocal had foreseen for Turkmen gas have disappeared. Turkey has lined up sufficient future supplies from Russia and Azerbaijan, while Pakistan has discovered domestic supplies and no longer needs to import gas. That leaves only India, which has cheaper alternatives than buying Turkmen gas that’s been shipped across three countries. It’s also highly unlikely that India would buy gas from a pipeline that runs through its archenemy Pakistan – which in addition to collecting transit fees could cut the flow at any time.”
"A final obstacle to a Unocal-style pipeline is that Turkmen President Niyazov is an unstable megalomaniac . . . . "
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:
"Brisard, co-author of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, makes much of the fact that the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan decided in late May to revive the old Unocal pipeline project. In an article he penned for Salon on June 5, Brisard wrote that this basically proved his thesis about the critical importance of the Unocal pipeline to American war policy, claiming that “‘In the end … the U.S. got its way.’”
“Yet no major energy firm has expressed any interest in working with the three countries. Even Unocal has stated forthrightly that it has abandoned its old project and that its priorities have shifted outside of Central Asia. (!!!) ‘The fact that Karzai, Niyazov and the Pakistanis have agreed to build a pipeline is meaningless,’ says Robin Bhatty, an independent energy analyst whose focus is the Caspian region. ‘None of them have the money or skills to build the thing, and no international firm will be involved given the availability of already-built pipelines and alternative routes.’”
" . . . . In some ways, the fall of the Taliban has been bad for American business interests. Nanay points out that the Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan and were trying to establish a strong central government. Today the warlords are back and the Karzai regime controls a far smaller slice of the country. ‘If bin Laden hadn’t come along, we would have dealt with the Taliban,’ Nanay says. ‘Now there’s a lot more insecurity and lawlessness.’ She adds that neither Caspian energy reserves nor control of Afghanistan were goals of the war, saying, ‘We didn’t care about Afghanistan, we cared about bin Laden.’"
Sorry for cutting and pasting so much, but many of your points were directly refuted in the piece, which you seemed to gloss over. You had asked why the State Department didn’t voice any objection when the Taliban came to power in 1996, despite their extremist nature and human rights issues. For better or worse, the US has not made a habit of actively denouncing every undesirable regime that ever emerges in the world (and their are dozens upon dozens of them). Especially if we’re able to trade or do business with them in some way that’s useful to us, assuming it won’t directly hurt us or our interests, we’ve often looked the other way at things like human rights abuses. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, just the way it’s always been. I think that answers your question.
You went off on a rather distant tangent about Cheney and his closed-door meetings with Enron, etc. You may or may not be right about Cheney having close associations with Enron, or looking somewhat questionable in the way he’s acted regarding these issues. That’s beside the point, though. I’m not here to defend Cheney or Bush personally. I jumped into this thread when I read your ridiculous assertion that our war in Afghanistan was (at least in part) about oil. I have come here to explain that that is false. You have yet to convince me with one single shred of evidence that our war in Afghanistan was at all “about oil,” and the Silverstein article that I just quoted ad infinitum explains in excruciating detail why NO ONE in the US – not the oil companies, not the administration, NO ONE – is interested in Afghanistan right now as it relates to oil and gas, NOR WERE THEY ON SEPT. 10th OF 2001!
You’ve asked why rich people, such as Warren Buffet, might continue to seek even further profit. Buffet’s very job, his very line of work, is SEEKING PROFIT – INVESTING (i.e. turning money into more money). THAT’S WHAT HE DOES FOR A LIVING. Now, you could ask (and I’ve often wondered myself) why someone who is filthy rich would continue to work, rather than retiring and hanging out on the beach all the time, or something. I can’t claim to know exactly, but I think it’s fair to assume that it’s because they enjoy the challenge, have the drive to accomplish bigger and bigger things, find it fun, find it mentally and intelectually stimulating, want to feed their egos by surpassing what they achieved last year, etc. Do Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld feel this way (or rather, will they feel this way once they’re out of office and free to do other things)? Probably. And I wouldn’t be surprised if any or all of them get involved in private business ventures, investing, consulting, etc. once GWB’s time in office is over. There is NOTHING wrong with or inappropriate about this! I wouldn’t expect them to just go pick daisies until they die of old age.
The Carlyle group in particular has been an absolute wet dream for the conspiracy theorists, who are particularly titilated by the fact that George Bush Sr., along with several others that served in his and Reagan’s administrations, are involved in it. For those who aren’t aware, it’s a private equity fund (a fund that invests in companies that are not publicly traded) – one of zillions of private equity funds, that has every right to invest in private equity and business ventures. (See www.thecarlylegroup.com). The conspiracy theorists view this as Bush Sr.'s private engine to TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND MAKE ZILLIONS FOR HIMSELF AND HIS “CRONIES”!!! (Right before keeling over dead, of course, as he’s getting up there in years). And guess what??! They even have some oil/gas and defense-related holdings!! (That is, in addition to real estate, transportation, healthcare, technology, business services, consumer/industrial, telecom and media holdings). LET THE SUSPICIOUS GEARS IN YOUR HEAD BEGIN TO WHIR!!! Now, is the goal of an investment company, such as the Carlyle Group, to make money? Yes. Is Bush Sr. involved in it because he has an evil, relentless, devil-may-care-what-comes-of-the-rest-of-the-world, fuck-the-consequences, let’s-steer-the-world-to-the-brink-of-total-nuclear-apocolypse-so-I-can-make-a-few-more bucks attitude? Ummm . . . don’t think so. Sorry, but I remain to be convinced that he, or his son, or Cheney, or Rumsfeld, is the Antichrist. Which is exactly what you’d need to be if you were willing to start WARS, especially involving YOUR OWN COUNTRY, in order to make a few million bucks off of them, especially WHEN YOU ALREADY HAVE ZILLIONS!!! GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!! I don’t have any particular personal love for any of these people; they may very well be complete bastards for all I know. Do I agree with a lot of their politics? Yeah. Do I feel the need to personally defend their character as human beings? Fuck no. BUT, NO ONE, including you, has yet convinced me that they (or Clinton, for that matter, who I loathe on many levels) is THAT EVIL! Not convinced. Not a shred of evidence of it. It would take LOTS of evidence to convince me that that’s true of ANYONE, regardless of their politics, and having some investments in energy and defense companies just doesn’t do it.
Back to the point, though: THE US’S WAR IN AFGHANISTAN WAS AND IS NOT ABOUT OIL. If September 11th hadn’t happened (or something similar emanting from Afghanistan), WE WOULD NEVER HAVE GONE TO WAR IN AFGHANISTAN! But it DID happen, so we HAD to. END OF STORY. We do not, and have never, gone around overthrowing regimes merely to steal their resources (or in this case, force them to transport resources), as you’re alleging we threatened to do to the Taliban pre-September 11th. It would look kind of bad in other people’s eyes, don’t you think? (You can just see the news headlines: “The US initiated a massive military campaign against Afghanistan today, even though Afghanistan wasn’t hurting anyone yesterday. The Bush administration says it’s angry that the Taliban wouldn’t let a gas pipeline be built there.” Riiiiiiiiiight . . .).
I do HATE to say it, because it just couldn’t be this simple, could it (?), but it’s like this: The US was attacked on 9/11/01 by a terrorist group located in, and harbored by, Afghanistan. As a result, the US went to war with the regime in Afghanistan and the terrorist group located there (and elsewhere), overthrowing the regime and installing one which would not harbor or support terrorists who are itching to do things such as flying planes into our buildings full of people.
Thank you.
Take care.