Remember Afghanistan? Must Read Timeline W/Bush Oil Deals W/ Taliban

[bigtree]

This incredible collection is the product of ringnebula.com :

:bounce: http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm :bounce:

This is a comprehensive trail of U.S. ambitions in the siphoning of oil from the Caspian Sea nations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and the attempt to run a pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan by Unacol and Delta oil. This accounting comes complete with corporation documents and news accounts.


Here are examples from the page of their work:

Unocal, seeking to build a pipeline across Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (for delivery to energy hungry Asia via the Pakistani Arabian Sea coast), signed an agreement with Turkmenistan for natural gas purchasing rights for transport through a proposed pipeline (http://www.unocal.com/investor/96ar/finrev/mdanda/outlook.htm). (See also 2) Unocal also signed an agreement with Turkmenistan for an oil pipeline (http://www.unocal.com/uclnews/96htm/081396.htm) along the same route.

Unocal invited Taliban representatives to their corporate headquarters in Sugarland, Tx. (http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/west_asia/newsid_37000/37021.stm) to discuss the pipeline project. They were thereafter invited to Washington for meetings with Clinton Administration officials.

Upon taking office, the Bush administration immediately engaged in active negotiations with Taliban representatives (http://www.rense.com/general17/before.htm) with meetings in Washington, DC, Berlin, and Islamabad. During this time the Taliban government hired Laila Helms, niece of former CIA director Richard Helms (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GOD111A.html), as their go-between in negotiations with the US government.

May 15, 2001 Regarding the placement of the Unocal Pipeline, a U.S. Official delivered this ultimatum to the Taliban (via the Pakistani delegation acting as their interlocutors): "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." (Ref: Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie in "Forbidden Truth" (http://www.forbiddentruth.net/) (Book's Preface online-pdf format (http://www.forbiddentruth.net/pdf/preface.pdf) )

Last meeting with the Taliban (5 weeks before the 9/11/01 attack). (http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01080202.htm) Christina Rocca, in charge of Central Asian affairs for US government, met with the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan (Abdul Salam Zaeef) in Islamabad, at which time Taliban representatives were reminded that the US had provided monetary relief assistance. (The above referenced State Department report fails to mention that oil topics were also discussed (http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2002/02/08/forbidden/index1.html). )

Save everything you find! But don't sit on it. Get it out!

:bounce: http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm :bounce:

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From my book:

Unocal, was a major player in a January 1998 agreement with the Taliban to build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan. The energy company led an international consortium deal to build a $2 billion, 1,275 km-long, natural-gas pipeline from Dauletabad in Turkmenistan to Karachi in Pakistan, via the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar, crossing into Pakistan near Quetta. http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex20867.htm

The Bush family's connections to Unacol date back to the '80's, when Bush associate Nicholas Brady helped defend the firm from a takeover attempt by Mesa Petroleum. http://www.thedubyareport.com/iraq2.html (March of the Neocons)

The Bush Justice Dept. recently filed a friend of the court brief opposing a lawsuit against Unacol that alleged abuses on behalf of an indigenous community, claiming among other things, that the suit was a "threat to national security."
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20030526.html
(Washington Legal Foundation brief)http://www.wlf.org/upload/UNOCAL.pdf

The Clinton administration and the Pakistani Inter Services Agency had developed a strategy in which the Taliban would provide 'stability' in managing the tribal rivalries that had prevented the pipeline from proceeding without sabotage. http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/01/6919.shtml

In 1998 the New York Times reported that, ". . . Unocal opened offices in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan. To help it sell the pipeline project to the many governments involved, Unocal hired senior United States diplomats like the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Problems began with the Taliban's capture of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in September 1996. Unocal initially took a positive view of the movement's triumph."

In October 1997, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Unocal executive Marty Miller testified before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, touting the "economic benefits that a set of pipelines from Central Asia can bring to the Afghan people if it is able to pass through the country." http://www.thedubyareport.com/iraq2.html

Khalilzad met with Taliban representatives in 1997 in Houston during the pipeline negotiations. He wrote in a Washington Post article that, "The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of Muslim fundamentalism practiced by Iran. We should be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance and to promote international economic reconstruction. It is time for the United States to 'reengage' the Taliban."

He has changed his view of the Taliban a great deal since that statement, especially in the wake of the terrorist bombings of 9-11. In 1984, Khalilzad joined the State Department on a one-year fellowship. His background and language skills were enough to enable his placement in a permanent position on the State Department's Policy Planning Council.

He worked at the State Dept. under Paul Wolfowitz, who served as director of policy planning in the Reagan administration. Later Khalilzad worked on issues related to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war.

Khalilzad signed the "open letter" to President Clinton in 1998, calling for regime change in Baghdad.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/archive/1990s/openletter021998.htm

After the 2000 election, Khalilzad, led the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Defense Department, and served as an advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
http://www.counterpunch.org/issam04172003.html

Khalilzad, who was then gifted with a permanent position on the State Department's Policy Planning Council right in the midst of the mujahedeen's war against Soviet occupation, was appointed by our current president to the position of Special Envoy to Afghanistan. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/05/20010523-7.html

Khalizad will have another opportunity to reverse or expound on whatever mistakes he made over there in the lead up to 9-11. It's hard to imagine that his leadership or counsel in Afghanistan's regard will resolve the conflict, or win the hearts and minds of any would-be conscripts or reformers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1736000/1736789.stm

Robert Oakley, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan in the 1980's was chaperone to the CIA support of the Afghan Mujahedeen (in which Osama bin Laden became a commander), later worked for Unacol. http://www.ceto.quantico.usmc.mil/bios/roakley.asp
http://www.kirbymountain.com/rosenlake/media_oil.html

The current president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karszi, hand-picked by this administration, was said to have been employed at one time as a consultant to Unacol. He denies it. http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html

This is a smart cabal of executives who can't seem to clean up their own meddling messes. They seem as foreign and removed from the citizens of Afghanistan as do their invading American benefactors.

The U.S. imposed authority in Kabul can't speak for the people there. It's not clear where the interests of the people of Afghanistan are to be voiced. For now we are left to the brunt of anger and frustration which the Afghan rebels express through desperate, violent reprisals.

Me Book: Power of Mischief-Military industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price

[havocmom]

1. All they needed to get it in gear was a 'Pearl Harbor-like attack'.

And what sort of rent increases can the landowner expect when the new, improved buildings go up at ground zero in NYC above the leases which existed before the towers came down?

LIHOP MIHOP
either or both
at the tip top

[bigtree]

2. I'm with you on this

Everyone knew the towers were a target. Bush didn't care enough before the attack and he has all but ignored the needs of the city afterwards from the environmental hazards to the infrastructure which includes the firefighters and rescue workers who gave their lives and sacrifice.

He was quick to stand atop the rubble though and declare himself the king of the world.

[Trajan]

3. Great find Bigtree ...

[bigtree]

4. I heard the same timeline and discussion on AAR yesterday

This is the book that was mentioned which outlines Bush deals with the Taliban: FORBIDDEN TRUTH : U.S. -Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie
http://www.forbiddentruth.net