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   BIG DEAL'63  -  BIG OIL  

Royal Dutch Disease: easy money syndrome * P3 doctrine * sudden wealth curse * paradox of plenty * abuse of abundance * need for growth * irresponsible lack of balance * social-economic disaster * industrial dominance * public-private crime * state-corporate crime * enduring horror * spiral money virus * asymmetric financial architecture * risk & debt horizon * chasm of doubt * inconceivable confidence * unsuspected wrongdoing * judicial crime * lax law * sweet crude curse * parameter of excess & aggression * state-corporate crime * war condition * confidence situation * adequate reason for doubt * special interests of the filthy rich * invading Americans  strategic issue-efforts * moral fallout * incalculable misery * strategic issue-efforts * new dictators * industrial abuse * institutional poverty * law of enduring misery * rules without law * greed-technology * inclusive crime * black lack & white right * sick governance * people's resource insecurity * growth of filth * waste & profit * parliamentary threat * the democratic lie * dutch helm disease * windfall curse * windjammer luck * gloabl spiral virus * corruption conduit * rectangular asymmetry * anchor what? * black gold & white elephants * agricultural disorder * Weltschmerz growth * urban abuse rural order * daily bullshit * nontradable error * red flag flutter * global condition * oil & decline * co-operation threat * state implosion * modular totalitarism * global health threat * press pressure * US drag * deceisive words practice * direction selection * literacy innundation * known avalanche *

The Sah / Sopdet / Sopdu relationship.

There is an interesting comparison that can be made between the 'Sothic triangle' and the cone shaped bread offerings often seen illustrated, as in the example above from Karnak, and right were Sopdu is offered such in a cup.

This will be derivative of the fact the Isis-Sopdet was Goddess of grain/bread, and a great agricultural Deity, with Sah-Osiris being her consort

Even yet at harvest time the people make a dedication of the first heads of the grain to be cut, and standing beside the sheaf beat themselves and call upon Isis, by this act rendering honour to the Goddess for the fruits which she discovered, at the season when she first did this. Moreover in some cities, during the Festival of Isis as well, stalks of wheat and barley are carried among the other objects in the procession, as a memorial of what the Goddess so ingeniously discovered at the beginning."

Diodorus Siculus

There were also cone shaped funerary seals which some have seen possibly related to the bread offerings, again this is all suggestive of the importance of the triangular motif/relationship.

The cones may have been used for a variety of functions. Egyptologists suggest that they may have been used to identify the tomb owner (almost like a modern cemetery marker, as an ornamental memorial, as a boundary marker or even as a symbolic offering of bread...

http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/stsmith/research/artifacts_cones.html

Waarom zijn wij in Afghanistan?

19 december 2006 bron: Zapruder

Om democratie te brengen toch? Vandaar toch onze vredesmissie? Nee. Om te zorgen voor meer drugs en meer controle over de olie. Veel meer.
Drugs en olie. CIA en big-oil. Twee van de grootste ‘misdadigers’ op aarde. Als machtigste bedrijf ter wereld (met de grootste winsten ooit door een bedrijf gemaakt), bepaalt Shell in Nederland de buitenlandse politiek. Onze politici houden boven alles rekening met de belangen van Shell ‘Begrijpende’ politici kunnen, geholpen door Bilderberg Bea, rekenen op wat leuke commissariaatjes na hun politiek loopbaan. Ze weten precies wat er van hun gevraagd wordt, zonder dat het ze ooit expliciet is uitgelegd. Vraag Wim Kok hoe dat werkt. Of over 10, 20 jaar aan Wouter Bos, die ongetwijfeld dezelfde weg gaat volgen. We zouden nu een heel verhaal kunnen houden, maar dat is niet nodig. Het werkt beter als we gewoon wat punten geven, zodat jullie zelf de lijntjes kunnen trekken. Is niet al te moeilijk.

Drugs

■ Voordat de CIA en de US zich met Afghanistan gingen bemoeien, destijds om de Mudjahedin te helpen in hun strijd tegen de Soviet-unie, was er vrijwel geen opium-handel in Afghanistan. Dankzij geheime CIA programma’s was Afghanistan in 1986 verantwoordelijk voor 40% van de heroïne op de wereldmarkt. Begin 1999 werd er nog 4600 ton geproduceerd. Tegen die tijd waren echter de Taliban net weer stevig aan de macht en de Taliban bande opium-teelt uit. In 2001 was de opiumteelt daardoor verminderd met 95%. Direct na de invasie van Amerika steeg de productie weer naar oude waarden en inmiddels is de productie gestegen tot een geschatte 6000 ton. Onder de Amerikaanse bezetting is de productie enorm geworden terwijl de wereldproductie afnam. Zie de UNODC Afghan Opium Survey 2005. 

■ Het grootste deel van de opbrengst komt ten goede aan financiële instituten, banken en misdaadsyndicaten, slechts een klein deel, 5%, komt terug bij de boeren of lokale bevolking. Zie ’UNODC The Opium Economy in Afghanistan‘
■ De verbanden tussen drugs en CIA zijn goed gedocumenteerd. De banden tussen CIA en Wallstreet ook. De CIA is volgens vele auteurs de grootste drugsdealer ter wereld. Drugsgeld is de turbo van de financiele wereld en geeft regeringen grote armslag in hun buitenland politiek. Volgens het IMF vormt geld-witwas de vijfde economie op aarde met bijna $1.5 triljard en vormen drugs het grootste deel daarvan.
■ Na wapens en olie zijn drugs de meest winstgevende handelswaar op aarde.
■ Alle grote Westerse banken en alle Westerse regeringen zitten dús tot over hun oren in de drugs en witwaspraktijken, zonder enige twijfel, of kunnen ze zich afzijdig houden bij zulke grote geldstromen? Het IMF schat dat er 250 tot 300 miljard dollar aan drugsgeld per jaar op Wallstreet alleen al binnenkomt. Lees ‘Crossing the Rubicon, the decline of the American empire and the end of the age of oil’ van Michael Ruppert.

Olie

■ De Kaspische olievelden ten noorden van Afghanistan (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan) behoorden eind 90-er jaren nog tot de meest belovende ter wereld (inmiddels is het enthousiasme minder vanwege de moeilijk gebleken winbaarheid). Om de olie te kunnen gebruiken moet deze via een pijplijn door Afghanistan naar de Indische oceaan worden getransporteerd: De UNOCAL-pijpleiding, genoemd naar het Amerikaanse bedrijf dat het CentGas-consortium leidt. De Taliban gingen uiteindelijk niet akkoord met de voorwaarden zodat de pijpleiding niet door kon gaan. De Taliban waren wel akkoord met de pijpleiding op zich, maar eisten in plaats van royalties voor de pijplijn dat de oliemaatschappijen zouden helpen bij de opbouw van Afghanistan en dat de pijplijn ook open zou staan voor gebruik ‘door derden’.
■ In 1998 werden er als reactie op de terroristische aanslagen op de Amerikaanse ambassades in Nairobi en Mombassa kruisraketten afgevuurd op Afghanistan. Vanwege de timing en de geo-politieke situatie, is niet onlogisch om te denken dat deze aanslagen zijn opgezet door de Amerikaanse veiligheidsdiensten om zo als aanleiding te kunnen dienen om de Taliban een lesje te leren en op andere gedachten te brengen. Het mocht niet baten. Het CentGas-consortium viel uit elkaar na de aanvallen omdat UNOCAL zich uit de deal terugtrok.

■ Vrijwel alle belangrijke neocons in de huidige Amerikaanse regering komen uit de olie-industrie. Dick Cheney, the vice-president van de US was CEO van olie- en constructiemaatschappij Halliburton, het welzijn van dat bedrijf is nog steeds erg goed voor het saldo op zijn bankrekening. Halliburton heeft zich bovendien verplicht een oliepijpleiding dwars door Afghanistan aan te leggen, voor het genoemde CentGas-consortium. Condoleeza Rice, de veiligheidsadviseur van Bush, was lid van de raad van bestuur van Chevron. Ze was belast het beleid in het Kaspische gebied. Chevron is één van grootste investeerders in het gebied en daarom sterk afhankelijk van de UNOCAL-pijplijn.
■ De door de Amerikanen aangestelde president, Karzai is een voormalig adviseur van UNOCAL.
■ De parallelen met de oorlog in Kosovo zijn groot. Olie, drugs, pijpleidingen, Westerse oliebelangen. Precies hetzelde verhaal tot en met het gebruik van Depleted Uranium aan toe.

The big picture

De bovenstaande punten zijn zonder veel moeite te verbinden tot een sprekend verhaal. In 2001 waren voor Amerika de drugsinkomsten laag en de olie-perspectieven onzeker. Westerse bedrijven hebben enorme investeringen gedaan in de Kaspische olievelden. Al die enorme gas- en olievoorraden zijn niets waard zonder een goede verbinding met de afnemersmarkten, daarom is die UNOCAL-pijplijn zo verschrikkelijk belangrijk. Miljarden staan op het spel. Die pijpleiding is echter alleen mogelijk als er één regering aan de macht is in Afghanistan, een Westers georienteerde regering.
Begin 2001 maakte Dick Cheney samen met big-oil (w.o. Exxon, BP, Shell) en –energy (w.o. Enron) een geheim plan, uit naam van de Cheney Energy Task Force. De inhoud van het plan is nooit openbaar gemaakt ondanks dat er een wet op openbaarheid van informatie bestaat. Na jarenlange rechtzaken werden een paar pagina van het rapport gedwongen vrijgegeven. De pagina’s tonen kaarten met daarop exact de locaties waar de Amerikanen na 9/11 militair ingrepen. Het rapport werd echter vóór 9/11 gemaakt en algemeen aangenomen wordt dat dit ‘energy-plan’ de strategische planning voor deze oorlogen bevat. Met de toekomst van Big-oil (Exxon, Shell, BP) in hoofdletters geschreven.
Maar hoe begin je als regering een oorlog uit het niets zonder dat je bevolking je afzet. Ook daarvoor bleek een plan te bestaan, weten we sinds 11 september 2001.

En wat heeft dit te maken met onze aanwezigheid in Afghanistan?

Inmiddels zijn de Amerikanen zich langzaam uit Afghanistan aan het terugtrekken. De oorlog in Afghanistan is een zware verliespost en de Chinezen hebben nu hun eigen pijplijn / deals. Eigenlijk is ‘de slag’ op de oostkant van der Kaspische zee gewonnen door de Chinezen. Het gas zou in de Amerikaanse deal naar de White Elephant centrale in India gaan, maar dit was een Enron deal en Enron is failliet door het handelen van corrupte bestuurders. De Turkmenen hebben de Amerikanen hun land uitgegooid.
Hoe kan het dan dat wij toch troepen sturen naar Afghanistan? We weten nu dat we de vuile karweitjes van de Amerikanen mogen oplossen, we weten nu ook dat democratie en het welzijn van de Afghanen er juíst niets mee te maken hebben. Zouden onze minsters dit allemaal niet weten? En wat te denken van de dodelijke gevaren voor onze soldaten van de Depleted Uranium? Weten ze dat ook allemaal niet? Toch wel. Ze hebben zich terdege geinformeerd, zij het op hun geheel eigen wijze, en zij het met een voor hen gunstige uitkomst.
Voor de gemiddelde nieuwslezer is het onbegrijpelijk waarom onze regerig opzettelijk zo’n verkeerd beeld heeft neergezet van de Afghanistan-missie en weigert zich fatsoenlijk te informeren. De uitleg is eenvoudig: alle eerlijkheid op aarde weegt namelijk niet op tegen de belangen van één van de grootste - zo niet dé grootste- investeerders in het gebied dat voor zijn opbrengsten zo afhankelijk is van die UNOCAL-pijplijn. Zelfs niet een hoop dode soldaten, een nog grotere hoop dode Afghanen, een hoop oorlogsmisdaden, een hoop permanent onbewoonbaar gebied, een hoop leugens of onze ziel. Zie hier corporatisme in volle glorie, the Military-industrial complex by example.
Oja. Die inversteerder (eenentwintig miljard dollar). Wie dat is? SHELL, natuurlijk. Het pensioenfonds *kuch* van Nederlandse politici.
■ De werkelijke situatie in Afghanistan lees je niet in de krant, maar hier.

 www.ditrianum.org/nederlands/Artikelen/Maatschappij/0027.htm

4 mei 2004

Olie voorraad perikelen

Nog één maal iets over de perikelen rond de herkategorisatie van de olie voorraden van Shell. Er werd een hoop lawaai over gemaakt. Alsof Shell nu plotseling een heel ander bedrijf is geworden ...

Wel, kijk ter relativering dan eens naar het volgende plaatje:

Het is van 1997, maar de verhoudingen zijn sindsdien echt niet anders geworden. Het kleine staafje van Exxon is nu Exxon-Mobil geworden (en dus iets groter). Dat geldt ook voor BP-Amoco.

Echter, als het om olie voorraden gaat zijn BP, Exxon en Shell "kleintjes" t.o.v. de nationale oliemaatschappijen van landen als Saoedie Arabië, Nigeria en Venezuela.

De grote olie maatschappijen produceren zo'n 70% van hun producten uit olie die niet uit hun eigen bronnen komt. Dus waar praten we nu over?

Blijft over dat de affaire bij Shell absoluut geen "Enron-look-alike" verhaal is. Daar raakten werknemers hun baan, hun pensioen èn al hun spaargeld kwijt! De heer Odell in Financial Times van 30 april j.l. heeft wat dat betreft gelijk. Het was niet meer - maar ook niet minder (E.W.) - dan "a major embarrassment".

Mazzel & broge, Evert

Naschrift 5/5/2004: Als je overigens naar de gerapporteerde voorraden van de landen in het Midden Oosten kijkt zie je in de jaren 1987 - 89 plotsling een spectaculaire stijging. Dat kan dus niet, en is te verklaren uit het feit dat de OPEC landen toen onder elkaar mot hadden over de productie quota. Als daar nog eens blijkt dat het niet klopt, dan valt het Shell verhaal erbij in het niet.

Zie: www.bp.com/worldenergy/

In de rechtbank van de Amerikaanse stad Houston is dinsdag het openingspleidooi begonnen in de rechtszaak tegen de twee hoofdverdachten in de zaak-Enron, het grootste boekhoudschandaal uit het Amerikaanse bedrijfsleven.

De aanklager, John Hueston, heeft daarbij verklaard dat de twee hoofdverdachten "de ene na de andere leugen verkondigden over de financiële positie" van het energiebedrijf.

List en bedrog
Kenneth Lay, de oprichter van het ter ziele gegane energiebedrijf, en oud-bestuursvoorzitter Jeffrey Skilling bleven liegen om hun eigen zakken te vullen, zelfs nog op het moment dat het bedrijf op instorten stond, zo hield Hueston de twaalf leden tellende jury voor.

In zijn ogen is de Enron-zaak een heel simpele zaak. "Hier gaat het niet om boekhouding, maar om leugens en keuzes." Hij zei dat het proces de omvang van de fraude en de misleiding zal aantonen. Ook zal het proces laten zien dat de topmanagers naar de buitenwereld het beeld van een financieel gezond bedrijf hebben hoog gehouden, ondanks de enorme verliezen die Enron in verschillende divisies leed.

Accountant
Lay (63), de oprichter die Enron ook als topman heeft geleid, ziet zeven aanklachten van fraude en samenzwering tegemoet. Skilling (52), een oud-gediende binnen het bedrijf, moet zich verweren tegen 31 aantijgingen, waaronder fraude en samenzwering en ook handel met voorkennis en liegen tegen de accountant.

Enron had een beurswaarde van 68 miljard dollar (56 miljard euro) kort voor zijn ondergang. Daarbij gingen meer dan 5000 banen verloren. Ook werd tenminste 1 miljard dollar pensioengeld in één klap weggevaagd. Beleggers die geld hadden gestoken in effecten Enron stellen dat de fraude bij elkaar hun zeker 25 miljard dollar heeft gekost.

Stephan Tychon , 01 February 2006 @ 20:34 PM 
Corporate Arrogance - Public Ignorance....
...INCORPORATED GOVERNANCE:
Wat dacht je van E.on Jean?
Nederland is niet alleen deel van Europa, maar tevens de mondiale draaischijf van energie-politiek dat het buitenlands beleid bepaalt:
In Slochteren staat nog steeds de hoofdafsluiter van mondiaal energiebeleid, de meet- en regelkamer voor Haagse absurditeit. Zalm heeft het lef van Putin niet...sterker nog hij heeft het Groei en Stabiliteitspact verkwanseld zoals Den Uyl onze energie-kaarten aan de VS heeft verspeeld.
Amerika heeft met de grootste energietransitie ter wereld (van kolen naar gas) gewoon de oorlogsbuit verzilverd middels technologische pressie.

Waarom zitten wij bijvoorbeeld in Iraq? Vanwege de wurggreep in de Gasunie van Shell door wereld-agressor No1 Exxon, denk ik zelf.

'Lay and Skilling were pioneers in the energy-trading industry who deeply loved their company', aldus Michael Ramsey, Lay's advocaat op de eerste dag van het openingspleidooi.

Exploitatie, productie, raffinage en trading & transport van olie en gas zijn complex verweven zaken ondanks de boedelscheiding achter de facade van het Nederlandse Gasgebouw: Gasunie, Enron, Bechtel, Halliburton...het zijn allemaal loten van een stam: Exxon. Dat gaat federale aanklager John Hueston niet uit kunnen leggen aan de juryrechtbank, dus komt er of geen uitspraak of vrijspraak.

Lee Raymond, Exxon's ceo heeft in 2005 81 miljoen dollar bij elkaar weten te harken! Deze man bepaalt in hoofdzaak wat er in de wereld gebeurt, inclusief het bagatelliseren van klimaatverandering met de meest botte argumenten - "that's not the way we do business"! - waar Bush dan weer mee verder kan zoals je ziet.

Niet alleen de energiemarkt maar heel Nederland is met het afgedwongen gascontract in 1963 geprivatiseerd: de trieste consolidatie van de globalisering, al meer dan 40 jaar sluipend aan de gang.

zie ook:
'Historisch proces Enron begonnen' en ' Microsoft geeft geheime broncode vrij' onder 'Duur' op deze site.

en:
www.xxell.com
'Gasgate' en 'Industrial Dominance' onder Houston Connection en 'State law and international crime' onder Imploding Governance.

Stef Tychon
'Investigative Reporting on Abusive Conduct' (IRAC)

Chevron redubs ship named for Bush aide
Condoleezza Rice drew too much attention

 

Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer

Saturday, May 5, 2001

Leaving a wave of controversy in its wake, one of the most visible reminders of the Bush administration's ties to big oil - the 129,000-ton Chevron tanker Condoleezza Rice - has quietly been renamed, Chevron officials acknowledged yesterday.

"We made the change to eliminate the unnecessary attention caused by the vessel's original name," said Chevron spokesman Fred Gorell.

The double-hulled, Bahamian-registered oil tanker carrying the moniker of Bush's national security adviser was renamed the Altair Voyager, after a star, Gorell said.

The unannounced decision to rechristen the tanker was made by Chevron officials in late April, after "we had been in discussions with (Rice's) office," said Gorell. Asked if Rice or the White House had specifically requested the name change, Gorell said, "that's not for me to discuss."

Rice's spokeswoman, Maryellen Countryman, did not return calls on the matter yesterday.

The Chronicle reported a month ago that the White House had faced questions over the appropriateness of the tanker's name -- particularly as California struggled with the effects of an energy crisis.

The giant vessel was part of the international fleet of the San Francisco- based multinational oil firm, christened several years ago in honor of Rice, a longtime Chevron board member. Rice, a former Stanford University provost, served on Chevron's board from 1991 until Jan. 15, when she resigned after Bush named her his top national security aide.

But critics said the ship served as a giant floating symbol of the Bush administration's cozy ties to the oil industry.

"It does underscore that there's never been an administration in power in this country that has been so close to a single industry -- in this instance, the oil-and-gas industry," Chuck Lewis of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity said last month when the watchdog organization first raised the issue.

The tanker's name also raised more serious questions of possible conflict of interest for Rice because Chevron does business on six continents and 25 countries and has been sued for alleged human rights abuses in Nigeria.

Last month, White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted that the issue of the tanker had "already been addressed" by Rice, and he added, "she will uphold the highest ethical standards in office."

Chevron officials argued last month that the ship's name was entirely appropriate because it was a special honor for Rice -- part of a longstanding tradition of naming ships after members of the Chevron board. They noted that George Shultz, David Packard and Kenneth T. Derr were all afforded similar honors, and that those names did not change even when honorees went into government service.

"We would not be renaming the Condi Rice tanker," said Bonnie Schiken, spokeswoman for Chevron, in early April. "If you remember, Carla Hills was on our board, and went off the board to take a role in the administration . . . we did not rename the tanker."

Pat Moloney, executive director of the Pilot Commission and master of the historic liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien, said yesterday, "In the old sailing ship days, they'd say it was bad luck to change the name of a ship."

But in modern times, it's not only common but prudent, he said, noting that the infamous Exxon Valdez was changed to the Sea River Mediterranean after its environmental disaster.

Chevron's move "makes good sense . . . because the ship has potential for high profile," said Moloney of the Condoleezza Rice. "The companies don't want an asset like that with an obvious political liability.

"As soon as I heard she was named (to the administration)," he said, "I figured they'd get out the paintbrush."

E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Afghanistan, The Taliban, And The Bush Oil Team

Wayne Madsen in Washington, DC DCINVESTREP@aol.com

According to Afghan, Iranian, and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the El Segundo, California-based UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan .

Karzai, the leader of the southern Afghan Pashtun Durrani tribe, was a member of the mujaheddin that fought the Soviets during the 1980s. He was a top contact for the CIA and maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Service interlocutors. Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency's interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal, according to Middle East and South Asian sources.

When one peers beyond all of the rhetoric of the White House and Pentagon concerning the Taliban, a clear pattern emerges showing that construction of the trans-Afghan pipeline was a top priority of the Bush administration from the outset. Although UNOCAL claims it abandoned the pipeline project in December 1998, the series of meetings held between U.S., Pakistani, and Taliban officials after 1998, indicates the project was never off the table.

Quite to the contrary, recent meetings between U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain and that country's oil minister Usman Aminuddin indicate the pipeline project is international Project Number One for the Bush administration. Chamberlain, who maintains close ties to the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan (a one-time chief money conduit for the Taliban), has been pushing Pakistan to begin work on its Arabian Sea oil terminus for the pipeline.

Meanwhile, President Bush says that U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan for the long haul. Far from being engaged in Afghan peacekeeping -- the Europeans are doing much of that -- our troops will effectively be guarding pipeline construction personnel that will soon be flooding into the country.

Karzai's ties with UNOCAL and the Bush administration are the main reason why the CIA pushed him for Afghan leader over rival Abdul Haq, the assassinated former mujaheddin leader from Jalalabad, and the leadership of the Northern Alliance, seen by Langley as being too close to the Russians and Iranians. Haq had no apparent close ties to the U.S. oil industry and, as both a Pushtun and a northern Afghani, was popular with a wide cross-section of the Afghan people, including the Northern Alliance. Those credentials likely sealed his fate.

When Haq entered Afghanistan from Pakistan last October, his position was immediately known to Taliban forces, which subsequently pinned him and his small party down, captured, and executed them. Former Reagan National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who worked with Haq, vainly attempted to get the CIA to help rescue Haq. The agency claimed it sent a remotely-piloted armed drone to attack the Taliban but its actions were too little and too late. Some observers in Pakistan claim the CIA tipped off the ISI about Haq's journey and the Pakistanis, in turn, informed the Taliban. McFarlane, who runs a K Street oil consulting firm, did not comment on further questions about the circumstances leading to the death of Haq.

While Haq was not part of the Bush administration's GOP (Grand Oil Plan) for South Asia, Karzai was a key player on the Bush Oil team. During the late 1990s, Karzai worked with an Afghani-American, Zalmay Khalilzad, on the CentGas project. Khalilzad is President Bush's Special National Security Assistant and recently named presidential Special Envoy for Afghanistan. Interestingly, in the White House press release naming Khalilzad special envoy, no mention was made of his past work for UNOCAL. Khalilzad has worked on Afghan issues under National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, a former member of the board of Chevron, itself no innocent bystander in the future CentGas deal. Rice made an impression on her old colleagues at Chevron. The company has named one of their supertankers the SS Condoleezza Rice.

Khalilzad, a fellow Pashtun and the son of a former government official under King Mohammed Zahir Shah, was, in addition to being a consultant to the RAND Corporation, a special liaison between UNOCAL and the Taliban government. Khalilzad also worked on various risk analyses for the project.

Khalilzad's efforts complemented those of the Enron Corporation, a major political contributor to the Bush campaign. Enron, which recently filed for bankruptcy in the single biggest corporate collapse in the nation's history, conducted the feasibility study for the CentGas deal. Vice President Cheney held several secret meetings with top Enron officials, including its Chairman Kenneth Lay, earlier in 2001. These meetings were presumably part of Cheney's non-public Energy Task Force sessions. A number of Enron stockholders, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, became officials in the Bush administration. In addition, Thomas White, a former Vice Chairman of Enron and a multimillionaire in Enron stock, currently serves as the Secretary of the Army.

A chief benefactor in the CentGas deal would have been Halliburton, the huge oil pipeline construction firm that also had its eye on the Central Asian oil reserves. At the time, Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney. After Cheney's selection as Bush's Vice Presidential candidate, Halliburton also pumped a huge amount of cash into the Bush-Cheney campaign coffers. And like oil cash cow Enron, there were Wall Street rumors in late December that Halliburton, which suffered a forty per cent drop in share value, might follow Enron into bankruptcy court.

Assisting with the CentGas negotiations with the Taliban was Laili Helms, the niece-in-law of former CIA Director Richard Helms. Laili Helms, also a relative of King Zahir Shah, was the Taliban's unofficial envoy to the United States and arranged for various Taliban officials to visit the United States. Laili Helms' base of operations was in her home in Jersey City on the Hudson River. Ironically, most of her work on behalf of the Taliban was practically conducted in the shadows of the World Trade Center, just across the river.

Laili Helms' liaison work for the Taliban paid off for Big Oil. In December 1997, the Taliban visited UNOCAL's Houston refinery operations. Interestingly, the chief Taliban leader based in Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed Omar, now on America's international Most Wanted List, was firmly in the UNOCAL camp. His rival Taliban leader in Kabul, Mullah Mohammed Rabbani (not to be confused with the head of the Northern Alliance Burhanuddin Rabbani), favored Bridas, an Argentine oil company, for the pipeline project. But Mullah Omar knew UNOCAL had pumped large sums of money to the Taliban hierarchy in Kandahar and its expatriate Afghan supporters in the United States. Some of those supporters were also close to the Bush campaign and administration. And Kandahar was the city near which the CentGas pipeline was to pass, a lucrative deal for the otherwise desert outpost.

While Clinton's State Department omitted Afghanistan from the top foreign policy priority list, the Bush administration, beholden to the oil interests that pumped millions of dollars into the 2000 campaign, restored Afghanistan to the top of the list, but for all the wrong reasons. After Bush's accession to the presidency, various Taliban envoys were received at the State Department, CIA, and National Security Council. The CIA, which appears, more than ever, to be a virtual extended family of the Bush oil interests, facilitated a renewed approach to the Taliban. The CIA agent who helped set up the Afghan mujaheddin, Milt Bearden, continued to defend the interests of the Taliban. He bemoaned the fact that the United States never really bothered to understand the Taliban when he told the Washington Post last October, "We never heard what they were trying to say... We had no common language. Ours was, 'Give up bin Laden.' They were saying, 'Do something to help us give him up.' "

There were even reports that the CIA met with their old mujaheddin operative bin Laden in the months before September 11 attacks. The French newspaper Le Figaro quoted an Arab specialist named Antoine Sfeir who postulated that the CIA met with bin Laden in July in a failed attempt to bring him back under its fold. Sfeir said the CIA maintained links with bin Laden before the U.S. attacked his terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in 1998 and, more astonishingly, kept them going even after the attacks. Sfeir told the paper, "Until the last minute, CIA agents hoped bin Laden would return to U.S. command, as was the case before 1998." Bin Laden actually officially broke with the US in 1991 when US troops began arriving in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. Bin Laden felt this was a violation of the Saudi regime’s responsibility to protect the Islamic Holy Shrines of Mecca and Medina from the infidels. Bin Laden’s anti-American and anti-House of Saud rhetoric soon reached a fever pitch.

The Clinton administration made numerous attempts to kill Bin Laden. In August 1998, Al Qaeda operatives blew up several U.S. embassies in Africa. In response, Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles to be launched from US ships in the Persian Gulf into Afghanistan, which missed Bin Laden by a few hours. The Clinton administration also devised a plan with Pakistan's ISI to send a team of assassins into Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden. But Pakistan's government was overthrown by General Musharraf, who was viewed as particularly close to the Taliban. The CIA cancelled its plans, fearing Musharraf's ISI would tip off the Taliban and Bin Laden. . The CIA's connections to the ISI in the months before September 11 and the weeks after are also worthy of a full-blown investigation. The CIA continues to maintain an unhealthy alliance with the ISI, the organization that groomed bin Laden and the Taliban. Last September, the head of the ISI, General Mahmud Ahmed, was fired by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for his pro-Taliban leanings and reportedly after the U.S. government presented Musharraf with disturbing intelligence linking the general to the terrorist hijackers.

General Ahmed was in Washington, DC on the morning of September 11 meeting with CIA and State Department officials as the hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Later, both the Northern Alliance spokesman in Washington, Haron Amin, and Indian intelligence, in an apparent leak to The Times of India, confirmed that General Ahmed ordered a Pakistani-born British citizen and known terrorist named Ahmed Umar Sheik to wire $100,000 from Pakistan to the U.S. bank account of Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker.

When the FBI traced calls made between General Ahmed and Sheik's cellular phone - the number having been supplied by Indian intelligence to the FBI - a pattern linking the general with Sheik clearly emerged. According to The Times of India, the revelation that General Ahmed was involved in the Sheik-Atta money transfer was more than enough for a nervous and embarrassed Bush administration. It pressed Musharraf to dump General Ahmed. Musharraf mealy-mouthed the announcement of his general's dismissal by stating Ahmed "requested" early retirement.

Sheik was well known to the Indian police. He was arrested in New Delhi in 1994 for plotting to kidnap four foreigners, including an American citizen. Sheik was released by the Indians in 1999 in a swap for passengers on board New Delhi-bound Indian Airlines flight 814, hijacked by Islamic militants from Kathmandu, Nepal to Kandahar, Afghanistan. India continues to believe the ISI played a part in the hijacking since the hijackers were affiliated with the pro-bin Laden Kashmiri terrorist group, Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin, a group only recently and quite belatedly placed on the State Department's terrorist list. The ISI and bin Laden's Al Qaeda reportedly assists the group in its operations against Indian government targets in Kashmir.

The FBI, which assisted its Indian counterpart in the investigation of the Indian Airlines hijacking, says it wants information leading to the arrest of those involved in the terrorist attacks. Yet, no move has been made to question General Ahmed or those U.S. government officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who met with him in September. Clearly, General Ahmed was a major player in terrorist activities across South Asia, yet still had very close ties to the U.S. government. General Ahmed's terrorist-supporting activities - and the U.S. government officials who tolerated those activities - need to be investigated.

The Taliban visits to Washington continued up to a few months prior to the September 11 attacks. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's South Asian Division maintained constant satellite telephone contact with the Taliban in Kandahar and Kabul. Washington permitted the Taliban to maintain a diplomatic office in Queens, New York headed by Taliban diplomat Abdul Hakim Mojahed. In addition, U.S. officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca, who is also a former CIA officer, visited Taliban diplomatic officials in Islamabad. In the meantime, the Bush administration took a hostile attitude towards the Islamic State of Afghanistan, otherwise known as the Northern Alliance. Even though the United Nations recognized the alliance as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the Bush administration, with oil at the forefront of its goals, decided to follow the lead of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and curry favor with the Taliban mullahs of Afghanistan. The visits of Islamist radicals did not end with the Taliban. In July 2001, the head of Pakistan's pro-bin Laden Jamiaat-i-Islami Party, Qazi Hussein Ahmed, also reportedly was received at the George Bush Center for Intelligence (aka, CIA headquarters) in Langley, Virginia.

According to the Washington Post, the Special Envoy of Mullah Omar, Rahmatullah Hashami, even came to Washington bearing a gift carpet for President Bush from the one-eyed Taliban leader. The Village Voice reported that Hashami, on behalf of the Taliban, offered the Bush administration to hold on to bin Laden long enough for the United States to capture or kill him but, inexplicably, the administration refused. Meanwhile, Spozhmai Maiwandi, the director of the Voice of America's Pashtun service, jokingly nicknamed "Kandahar Rose" by her colleagues, aired favorable reports on the Taliban, including a controversial interview with Mullah Omar.

The Bush administration's dalliances with the Taliban may have even continued after the start of the bombing campaign against their country. According to European intelligence sources, a number of European governments were concerned that the CIA and Big Oil were pressuring the Bush administration not to engage in an initial serious ground war on behalf of the Northern Alliance in order to placate Pakistan and its Taliban compatriots. The early-on decision to stick with an incessant air bombardment, they reasoned, was causing too many civilian deaths and increasing the shakiness of the international coalition.

The obvious, and woefully underreported, interfaces between the Bush administration, UNOCAL, the CIA, the Taliban, Enron, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, the groundwork for which was laid when the Bush Oil team was on the sidelines during the Clinton administration, is making the Republicans worried. Vanquished vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman is in the ironic position of being the senator who will chair the Senate Government Affairs Committee hearings on the collapse of Enron. The roads from Enron also lead to Afghanistan and murky Bush oil politics.

UNOCAL was also clearly concerned about its past ties to the Taliban. On September 14, just three days after terrorists of the Afghan-base al Qaeda movement crashed their planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, UNOCAL issued the following statement: "The company is not supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan in any way whatsoever. Nor do we have any project or involvement in Afghanistan. Beginning in late 1997, Unocal was a member of a multinational consortium that was evaluating construction of a Central Asia Gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Pakistan [via western Afghanistan]. Our company has had no further role in developing or funding that project or any other project that might involve the Taliban."

The Bush Oil Team, which can now rely on the support of the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, may think that war and oil profits mix. But there is simply too much evidence that the War in Afghanistan was primarily about building UNOCAL's pipeline, not about fighting terrorism. The Democrats, who control the Senate and its investigation agenda, should investigate the secretive deals between Big Oil, Bush, and the Taliban.

http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5496

November 16, 2007 3:47 PM

Dana Hughes Reports: