[Peace-discuss] FW: MISSING THE OIL STORY

[Jim.B at zeus.kia.net]

I'd heard something of a current Bush-the-elder/bin Laden Construction connection for the Afghan pipeline on C-Span the other day. A quick Google search turns up this gem. Read 'n' weep. Not so surprising that they're still in cahoots I guess, as 1 or more bin Ladens were among the investors in GW's early oil boondoggles. Of course, brother #17 of 53 has been disowned and all ...

http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/10/11/


    MISSING THE OIL STORY
    AUDIO and TEXT

  	Nina Burleigh has written for The Washington Post, The Chicago
	Tribune, and New York magazine. As a reporter for TIME, she was
	among the first American journalists to enter Iraq after the
        Gulf War.
    
    Take on the News

        
	AUDIO:	Click here to listen to Ms. Burleigh's commentary.To
        download RealPlayer for free, click here.
        
        
	Recently I attended one of those legendary Washington dinner
	parties, attended by British cosmopolites and Americans in the
	know. A few courses in, people were gossiping about the Bush
	family's close and enduring friendship with the Saudi
	ambassador, Prince Bandar, dean of the diplomatic corps in
	Washington. By the end of the evening, everyone was talking
	about how the unfolding events were going to affect the flow of
        oil out of Central Asia. 
        
	I left wondering whether 6,000 Americans might prove to have
	died in New York for the royal family of Saud, or oil, or both.
	But I didn't have much more than insider dinner gossip to go
	on. I get my analysis from the standard all-American news
	outlets. And they've been too focused on a) anthrax and
	smallpox, or b) the intricacies of Muslim fanaticism, to throw
	any reporters at the murky ways in which international oil
        politics and its big players have a stake in what's unfolding. 
        
	A quick Nexis search brought up a raft of interesting leads
	that would keep me busy for 10 years if the economics of this
	war was my beat. But only two articles in the American media
	since September 11 have tried to describe how Big Oil might
	benefit from a cleanup of terrorists and other anti-American
	elements in the Central Asia region. One was by James Ridgeway
	of the Village Voice. The other was by a Hearst writer based in
	Paris and it was picked up only in the San Francisco Chronicle.

        
	In other words, only the Left is connecting the dots of what
	the Russians have called "The Great Game" -- how oil underneath
	the 'stans' fits into the new world order. Here's just a small
	slice of what ought to provoke deeper research by American
        reporters with resources and talent. 
        
	Start with father Bush. The former president and ex-CIA
	director is not unemployed these days. He's been globetrotting
	as a member of Washington's Carlyle Group, a $12 billion
	private equity firm which employs a motorcade of former ranking
	Republicans, including Frank Carlucci, Jim Baker and Richard
	Darman. George Bush senior and colleagues open doors overseas
        for The Carlyle Group's "access capitalists." 
        
	Bush specializes in Asia and has been in and out of Saudi
	Arabia and Kuwait (countries that revere him thanks to the Gulf
	War) often on business since his presidency. Baker, the
	pin-striped midwife of 'Election 2000' was working his network
	in the 'stans' before the ink was dry on Clinton's first
	inaugural address. The Bin Laden family (presumably the
	friendly wing) is also invested in Carlyle. Carlyle's portfolio
	is heavy in defense and telecommunications firms, although it
        has other holdings including food and bottling companies. 
        
	The Carlyle connection means that George Bush Senior is on the
	payroll from private interests that have defense business
	before the government, while his son is president. Hmmm. As
	Charles Lewis of the Washington-based Center for Public
	Integrity has put it, "in a really peculiar way, George W. Bush
	could, some day, benefit financially from his own
	administration's decisions, through his father's investments.
        And that to me is a jaw-dropper." 
        
	Why can we assume that global businessmen like Bush Senior and
	Jim Baker care about who runs Afghanistan and NOT just because
	it's home base for lethal anti-Americans?  Because it also
	happens to be situated in the middle of that perennial vital
	national interest -- a region with abundant oil. By 2050,
	Central Asia will account for more than 80 percent of our oil.
	On September 10, an industry publication, Oil and Gas Journal,
	reported that Central Asia represents one of the world's last
	great frontiers for geological survey and analysis, "offering
	opportunities for investment in the discovery, production,
	transportation, and refining of enormous quantities of oil and
        gas resources." 
        
	It's assumed we need unimpeded access in the 'stans' for our
	geologists, construction workers and pipelines if we are going
	to realize the conservation-free, fossil-fueled future outlined
	recently by Vice President Cheney. A number of pipeline
	projects to carry Central Asia's resources west are already
	under way or have been proposed. They would go through Russia,
	through the Caucasus or via Turkey and Iran. Each route will be
	within easy reach of the Taliban's thugs and could be made much
        safer by an American vanquishment of Muslim terrorism. 
        
	There's also lots of oil beneath the turf of our politically
	precarious newest best friend, Pakistan. "Massive untapped gas
	reserves are believed to be lying beneath Pakistan's remotest
	deserts, but they are being held hostage by armed tribal groups
	demanding a better deal from the central government," reported
        Agence France Presse just days before September 11. 
        
	So many business deals, so much oil, all those big players with
	powerful connections to the Bush administration. It doesn't add
	up to a conspiracy theory. But it does mean there is a
	significant MONEY subtext that the American public ought to
	know about as "Operation Enduring Freedom" blasts new holes
        where pipelines might someday be buried. 
        
        This is Nina Burleigh for TomPaine.com.
        
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