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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><B>-----Original Message-----</B><BR><B>From:
</B>Chuck Cannon <<A
href="mailto:chuckcan@jps.net">chuckcan@jps.net</A>><BR><B>To: </B><A
href="mailto:cDUI@yahoogroups.com">cDUI@yahoogroups.com</A> <<A
href="mailto:cDUI@yahoogroups.com">cDUI@yahoogroups.com</A>><BR><B>Date:
</B>Thursday, November 01, 2001 8:37 PM<BR><B>Subject: </B>CDUI Fwd: Surprise!
It’s also a dirty war for
oil<BR><BR></DIV></FONT><TT><BR>>X-eGroups-Return: <BR>><A
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<mailto:portside-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com><BR>>Date: Wed, 31 Oct
2001 23:04:56 -0800 (PST)<BR>>Reply-To:
portside@yahoogroups.com<BR>>Subject: Surprise! It's also a dirty war for
oil<BR>><BR>>[Nicholas Woomer, the Editorial Page Editor of the Michigan
Daily,<BR>>www.michigandaily.com, sent us the following note and
article:<BR>><BR>>I wrote sort of a "quick and dirty" synopsis
of the role of oil<BR>>interests in Afghanistan that may be of some interest.
It was published<BR>>today in the Michigan Daily, the student-run newspaper
at the<BR>>University of Michigan. The column combines different information
from<BR>>several different sources (some of which, I believe have been posted
to<BR>>portside already), but I think it's kind of nice to have everything
in<BR>>one short piece.<BR>><BR>>Anyway, it's available here for your
consideration:<BR>><BR>> <A
href="http://www.themichigandaily.com/articles.php?uniqid=20011031e2">http://www.themichigandaily.com/articles.php?uniqid=20011031e2</A><BR>><BR>>
Best,
-N<BR>><BR>>==================================<BR>><BR>>Surprise!
It's also a dirty war for oil<BR>><BR>>Nick Woomer Back to the
Woom<BR>><BR>>The truth: How hard it is to hide - and that's
bad news for the Bush<BR>>administration.<BR>><BR>>America's so-called
"New War" in Afghanistan is fueled by public<BR>>perception that
our primary goal is to emerge victorious from a<BR>>struggle to the
death with terrorists who despise American freedoms,<BR>>and the battle
begins by destroying the Al-Queda terrorist network and<BR>>its
supporters. The secondary goal of the war is purportedly<BR>>liberating the
people of Afghanistan from their brutal Taliban rulers.<BR>>End of
story - you can keep waving that flag.<BR>><BR>>But that's
only 2/3 of the story, there's yet another goal; one that<BR>>has received
sparse attention and mostly in the foreign or alternative<BR>>press:
Access to oil deposits in central Asia.<BR>><BR>>While Afghanistan itself
is relatively oil-poor, its neighbors in the<BR>>Caspian region are quite
the opposite. To quote Dick Cheney in 1998,<BR>>back when he was just a
humble oil baron: "I can't think of a time<BR>>when we've had a
region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically<BR>>significant as the
Caspian." Given the unimpeachable integrity of the<BR>>Bush
administration, I'm sure it's just a coincidence that:<BR>><BR>>In
Cheney used to serve on the Kazakhstan Oil Advisory Board with<BR>>executives
from Chevron and Texaco.<BR>><BR>>In The Federal Trade Commission
announced that it had approved a merger<BR>>between Chevron and Texaco
only days before the bombs began to fall on<BR>>Afghanistan. The resulting
company, ChevronTexaco, will have a 45<BR>>percent interest in
Kazakhstan's huge Tengiz oil field near its border<BR>>with Afghanistan
(ExxonMobil has a 25 percent interest).<BR>><BR>>In Bush the Elder, also
cozy with Texas oilmen, is a member of the $12<BR>>billion private equity
firm the Carlyle Group, which invests heavily<BR>>in defense
contractors, according to journalist Nina Burleigh in an<BR>>10/11
article for tompaine.com. This worries Charles Lewis, who works<BR>>for
the Center for Public Integrity in Washington D.C. Lewis
told<BR>>Burleigh that "in a really peculiar way, George W. Bush
could, some<BR>>day, benefit financially from his own administration's
decisions,<BR>>through his father's investments. And that to me is a
jaw-dropper."<BR>><BR>>These "coincidences" are relevant to
the current conflict in<BR>>Afghanistan, and not just because of its
proximity to an oil-rich<BR>>region. Afghanistan occupies a critical
strategic position in a grand<BR>>plan for U.S. oil companies to control
Caspian oil.<BR>><BR>>For years, U.S. oil interests have drooled over the
prospects of<BR>>building a $4 billion, 1,000-mile long pipeline across
Afghanistan<BR>>that would pump Caspian oil to Karachi, Pakistan,
thereby allowing<BR>>U.S. firms to sell it in the lucrative South Asian
market. All that is<BR>>needed is a ruling government in Afghanistan
friendly to U.S.<BR>>corporate interests, not necessarily the Afghan
people; that is why<BR>>U.S. firms - and recently even the U.S.
government - were warming up<BR>>to the Taliban right up until
Sept. 11.<BR>><BR>>When Taliban troops rolled into Kabul in 1996, the
California firm<BR>>Unocal began wooing Taliban leaders until
"long after the movement's<BR>>bloody brutality and ties to terrorism
became the commonest knowledge"<BR>>according to a story by
Michael Daly in last Sunday's New York Daily<BR>>News. Daly goes on to
describe in detail how Unocal flew Taliban<BR>>Mullahs to the United
States and entertained them lavishly. When Bill<BR>>Clinton sent cruise
missiles into Al-Queda training camps in 1998,<BR>>Unocal suspended its
plans for a trans-Afghanistan pipeline.<BR>><BR>>"Lest anyone think
the company had taken a moral stand, a spokesman<BR>>insisted that Unocal
had not been influenced by protests over its<BR>>dealings with the
Taliban. The real reason was that oil had dropped to<BR>>a paltry $12 a
barrel," explains Daly.<BR>><BR>>Clinton's cruise missile adventure
was a setback for Unocal but, as a<BR>>Sept. 29 article in the Toronto
Star elaborates, right-wingers in<BR>>Washington still saw a lot of money to
be made in a U.S./Taliban<BR>>partnership. With the Bush
administration's arrival in Washington,<BR>>there was talk of returning
to the good old days between 1994 and 1997<BR>>when "American policy
toward the Taliban was driven by fear of Iran<BR>>and support of
Unocal."<BR>><BR>>These suggestions were bolstered by concern in
right-wing policy<BR>>circles that isolating the Taliban would force
companies to transport<BR>>Caspian oil through Russia, thereby
increasing Russia's influence in<BR>>the world unnecessarily. When the
Taliban banned opium production in<BR>>2000, the U.S. gave $43 million in aid
to Afghanistan through the<BR>>United Nations and independent aid
agencies. U.S. Secretary of State<BR>>Collin Powell even suggested publicly
that the U.S. should reconsider<BR>>its economic sanctions against
Afghanistan.<BR>><BR>>There are two direct implications of this
information to the events<BR>>that are unfolding before our eyes on
CNN. The first implication is<BR>>that access to oil might be the reason why
our government refuses to<BR>>enter into good-faith negotiations with
the Taliban for bin Laden -<BR>>even if doing so will cause
thousands or even millions of Afghans to<BR>>starve in the harsh Central
Asian winter that starts in two weeks (see<BR>>my 10/17/01
column).<BR>><BR>>The second implication of the "oil angle" is
that it contradicts the<BR>>administration's position that this war is
a struggle between good and<BR>>evil, indeed for America's very existence.
But, as Mark Danner<BR>>observed in a 10/16/01 op-ed piece in The New
York Times,<BR>>"Unfortunately, as we know from the last
quarter-century or more,<BR>>political support thus purchased tends to be
built on emotion and<BR>>brittle and weak. In the days and hours
following the next terrorist<BR>>Spectacular, or the next, Americans
may well begin to ask themselves<BR>>why exactly they are being
targeted and what exactly it is they are<BR>>risking their lives
for."<BR>><BR>>Bush had better hope Danner is wrong. When this war
turns into what<BR>>some commentators fear will be "Vietnam with
snow," and dead 19-year<BR>>olds start coming home en-masse, I doubt
most Americans (or at least<BR>>American students) will decide the war
is an acceptable price to pay<BR>>just so they can continue driving
gas-guzzling SUVs.<BR>><BR>>Nick Woomer can be reached via e-mail at
nwoomer@umich.edu.<BR>><BR>><BR>>__________________________________________________<BR>>Do
You Yahoo!?<BR>>Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.<BR>><A
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