| Author | Message | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2002 10:55 am Post subject: Mega Afghan pipeline deal signed |
| The following can be found by doing a search under "pipeline" at http://www.cnn.com as the following looks like the "Forbidden Truth" book (like with the double standard for Israeli nuclearand bio/chemical weapons, look how the Bush regime claims to want to "liberate" the people of Iraq but couldn't care less about "liberating" the people of occupied Palestine and the people under the oppressive dictator in Turkmenistan as there is no "democracy" with his rule either-how much are the Bush cronies going to make from this pipeline deal?):
Mega Afghan pipeline deal signed
Friday, December 27, 2002 Posted: 3:56 AM EST (0856 GMT)
Turkmenistan is one Central Asian country with significant oil reserves
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP) -- Leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan have signed an agreement to launch a US$3.2-billion gas pipeline that represents one of the first major investment projects in Afghanistan in decades.
The framework agreement signed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov defines the legal mechanisms for setting up a consortium to build and operate the pipeline.
The project is forecast to bring Afghanistan more than US$300 million in transit fees annually and create some 12,000 jobs there.
The three leaders stressed at a news conference that their agreement could open the way for foreign investment.
"I believe that the document will attract the attention of international financial organizations and investors as a viable investment project," Jamali said.
Asked whether Afghanistan had sufficient security for such a high-profile project, Karzai said, "Very much so."
"I believe it can be considered among the best in the region," he said.
However, potential investors have been wary of the risks of doing business in a country where U.S.-led coalition forces are still hunting down remnants of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.
The Asian Development Bank is carrying out a study for the 1,460-kilometer (910-mile) pipeline, which would tap into natural gas wells at Turkmenistan's huge Dauletabad-Donmez field. The field holds more than 2.83 trillion cubic meters (100 trillion cubic feet) in gas reserves.
The pipeline would carry up to 20 billion cubic meters (700 billion cubic feet) of gas a year.
The pipeline was originally launched in 1997 by a consortium led by U.S. energy giant Unocal Corp. but abandoned after the United States fired cruise missiles into Afghanistan in 1998 in pursuit of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
India is the main potential buyer of the Turkmen gas that would be pumped through Afghanistan. But efforts to interest New Delhi in the project so far have been unsuccessful, with India reluctant to depend on its rival Pakistan.
Karzai, Jamali and Niyazov said they were hoping India would come around.
"It's a commercial project, not only for Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan," Karzai said. "It's for the whole region, and India is part of the region, and it is very much welcome to join it."
Mega Afghan pipeline deal nears
Thursday, December 26, 2002 Posted: 4:02 AM EST (0902 GMT)
Turkmenistan is one Central Asian country with significant oil reserves
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP) -- Leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan have gathered to strike an ambitious deal to build a gas pipeline through war-ravaged Afghanistan.
The long-delayed US$3.2-billion natural gas pipeline, known as the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, would carry gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan. It would be one of the first major investment projects in Afghanistan in decades.
The project promises to give an economic boost to Afghanistan but lacks solid financial backing. Investors are leery of the risks of doing business in a country where U.S.-led coalition forces are still hunting down remnants of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov were to meet for two days in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat starting Thursday to sign a framework agreement.
The pipeline would pump hundreds of millions of dollars into Afghanistan's ruined economy and create 12,000 jobs there.
Pakistan would get more than US$300 million in transit fees annually and gain access to the gas.
"This gas pipeline project is good for the whole of the region," Jamali told reporters before leaving for Ashgabat on his first visit abroad since coming to power last month.
Turkmenistan, which possesses the fifth largest gas reserves in the world, would get a badly needed alternative route for gas exports. In 1994 Russia refused to transport gas from this former Soviet republic via the pipelines running through its territory.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is carrying out a study for the 1,460-kilometer (910-mile) pipeline, which would tap into natural gas wells at Turkmenistan's huge Dauletabad-Donmez field.
The field holds more than 2.83 trillion cubic meters (100 trillion cubic feet) in gas reserves. The pipeline would carry up to 20 billion cubic meters (700 billion cubic feet) of gas a year.
The US$1 million worth study approved last week by ADB directors is slated to begin next month and be complete in June 2003, after which work on setting up a consortium will begin.
The pipeline was originally launched in 1997 by a consortium led by U.S. energy giant Unocal Corp. but abandoned after the United States fired cruise missiles into Afghanistan in 1998 in pursuit of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
The Afghan, Pakistani and Turkmen leaders relaunched the project in May in Islamabad. The signing ceremony was set for October but was postponed because Pakistan was busy forming a Cabinet and the ADB had raised questions about the plan.
The Japanese conglomerate Itochu has expressed interest in participating, but no company has joined the project. Unocal said it has no plans to do so.
India is the main potential buyer of the Turkmen gas that would be pumped through Afghanistan. But efforts to interest New Delhi in the project so far have been unsuccessful, with India reluctant to depend on its rival Pakistan.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones said earlier this year that Washington would support the project as long as it is commercially viable.
Skeptics say the project would require an indefinite foreign military presence in Afghanistan.
The summit comes a month after the Turkmen government reported an assassination attempt against Niyazov. The authoritarian leader has ruled the five-million Central Asian nation with an iron hand since before the Soviet collapse, maintaining state control over the country's extensive energy resources. | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2002 11:01 am Post subject: Forbidden Truth |
| Forbidden Truth was hurriedly written by two French ex-intelligence folks Dasquie and Brisard who had inadvertently spent time
interviewing John P. O'Neill the summer before 9-11. They drew the connections between the bin Ladens/bush/Carlyle group and more, but the info from that book was what prevented it being printed at the height of interest in O'Neill immediately following WTC.
The New Yorker magazine also did one helluva great lengthy piece /profile on O'Neill last January...cannot remember the date but it was a very in-depth fascinating look at that man, what he knew, what his focus was, why he was so pivotal...and why he left the FBI after so many years of tracking terror cells without any genuine support from his "superiors"....if you want that piece just call the 800
phone number for the New Yorker archive library and they can locate that article for you under O'Neill's name....that one was a "dont miss" in my book.....Forbidden Truth was "fair".... | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2002 11:04 am Post subject: What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11 |
| What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11
May 31, 2002 For Immediate Release
By Atty. John J. Loftus*
http://www.john-loftus.com/
A captured Al Qaida document reveals that US energy companies were secretly negotiating with the Taliban to build a pipeline. The document was obtained by the FBI but was not allowed to be shared with other agencies in order to protect Enron. Multiple sources confirm that American law enforcement agencies were deliberately kept in the dark and systematically prevented from connecting the dots before 9/11 in order to aid Enron’s secret and immoral Taliban negotiations. The suppressed Al Qaida document tends to support recent claims of a cover-up made by several mid-level intelligence and law enforcement figures. Their ongoing terrorist investigations appear to have been hindered during the same sensitive time period while the Enron Corporation was still negotiating with the Taliban. An inadvertent result of the Taliban pipeline cover-up was that the Taliban’s friends in Al Qaida were able to complete their last eight months of preparations for 9/11 while the Enron secrecy block was still in force. Although the latest order to block investigations allegedly resulted from Enron’s January 2002 appeal to Vice President Dick Cheney, it appears that there were at least three previous block orders, each building upon the other, stretching back for decades and involving both Republican and Democratic administrations. The first block came in the 1970’s, as a result of Congressional reaction to domestic espionage against the anti-Vietnam war movement. In a case of blatant over-reaction, the FBI placed all houses of worship and religious charities off-limits for any surveillance whatsoever unless there was independent probable cause. This meant that all Mosques and other Muslim meeting places for terrorist groups were effectively off limits until after a crime had been committed. The block order was not lifted until last week by Atty. General Ashcroft. The second block order, in force since the 1980’s, was against any investigation that would embarrass the Saudi Royal family. Originally, it was designed to conceal Saudi support for Muslim extremists fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan and Chechnya, but it went too far. Oliver North noted in his autobiography, that every time he tried to do something about terrorism links in the Middle East, he was told to stop because it might embarrass the Saudis. This block remains in place. As the combined result of these two blocks, the Saudis were able to fund middle eastern terrorists in complete secrecy during the 1990’s through a network of Muslim charities in Virginia, Tampa and Florida. The Saudi funding network was targeted at the destruction of the State of Israel and the obstruction of the Palestinian peace process. The Saudi funding conduit has now been exposed and shut down by means of a private lawsuit, Loftus vs. Sami Al Arian, which is currently pending in Hillsborough County, Florida. The lawsuit, filed on March 20, 2002, influenced the government into raiding the Saudi charities in Herndon, Virginia, a few hours later. After filing the Al-Arian lawsuit, Attorney Loftus began to receive very detailed documents and information about a third block: a prohibition on investigations concerning the Taliban. In the early 1990’s, a consortium of American oil companies (lead by Unocal) had hired Enron to determine the profitability of building an oil and gas pipeline across Afghanistan so that America could have access to the Caspian Sea Basin, holding 1/8th of the worlds energy supplies. There is no doubt that these secret negotiations existed, and that they were known to Al Qaida. Loftus recently received an FBI translation of a highly classified and encrypted Al Qaida document, circa 1997-1998, which was retrieved and decrypted from a computer laptop following the Embassy bombing in Africa. The document was written by Osama Bin Laden’s military commander, Mohammed Atef, under his nom de guerre, Abu Haf, and reveals extensive knowledge of the supposedly secret pipeline negotiations, and their potential economic worth to the Taliban, Pakistan and the U.S. Former Afghanistan CIA agent Robert Baer has recently published a book charging that the cover-up of the 1990’s pipeline negotiations revealed extensive financial corruption inside the Clinton administration, and contributed to the lack of intelligence before 9/11. The Taliban negotiations temporarily collapsed in 1999 after Clinton reversed his NSC advisor’s policy, and ordered a missile strike against terrorists in Afghanistan. However, in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has confirmed that it was O’Neill who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa. O’Neill gave an overview of the Enron block to two French authors who will soon be publishing in the United States. The FBI is currently investigating Loftus’ links to John O’Neill, and is also refusing FBI agent Robert Wright permission to publish his own findings about the Enron block. Loftus asserts that the Enron block, which remained in force from January 2001 until August 2001 when the pipeline deal collapsed, is the reason that none of FBI agent Rowley’s requests for investigations were ever approved. As numerous British and French authors have concluded, the information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so extensive, that it is no longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of incompetence. It is time for Congress to face the truth: In order to give Enron one last desperate chance to complete the Taliban pipeline and save itself from bankruptcy, senior levels of US intelligence were ordered to keep their eyes shut and their subordinates ignorant. The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse.
- * About the author: As a former federal prosecutor, John Loftus had an insider’s knowledge of high level intelligence operations, including obstruction of Congressional investigations. Loftus resigned from the Justice Department in 1981 to expose how the intelligence community had recruited Nazi war criminals and then concealed the files from Congressional subpoena. After appearing on an Emmy Award winning segment of 60 Minutes, Loftus has spent the next two decades writing histories of intelligence cover-ups, and serving as an unpaid lawyer helping other whistleblowers inside US intelligence. | | | | Guest | | | | *Mutt American | | Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2002 7:12 pm Post subject: |
| | Excellent news for the Afghani people. $300,000,000 for their economy and 12,000 jobs. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 9:15 am Post subject: how israel corrupts and controls the us congress and media |
| AIPAC (Jewish lobbying group composed of American Zionist Jews who for for pro-Israeli US policies) is the forth most influential lobby in the US, yet the ones above it are irrelevent as far as foreign policy goes:
http://www.fortune.com/lists/power25/index.html
Let us see AIPAC's work:
http://www.wrmea.com/html/aipac.htm
Let us look at the resultant support the US gives to Israel:
http://www.sustaincampaign.org/aidchart.html
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html
http://www.sustaincampaign.org/FASchart.html
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/010201/0101015.html
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel050602.html
Of course this is the premise accepted by many Muslims and open-minded people:
http://www.ummah.com/waragainstislam/question.htm
So after all this, see the results in an article by Richard Curtiss as to the cost of Israel to the American people:
http://www.ummah.com/waragainstislam/cost.htm
The real fifth column who brought this mess upon the US are all the organisations under AIPAC and it's supporters who follow it's ideology, you should be blaming them, not Arabs/Muslims who acted as a natural conduit for the naturally expected retaliation which followed, i.e. 9-11 (if Muslims did it).
When you look at those pictures of the collapsing towers, and the people jumping out before they collapsed, think first about the US' biased support for this most unjust of states which was created violating the rights of the natives and which stole the people's lands. Then think about exactly who drives the US to gives it's support for this, as shown above. You shall see that they are amongst you, not the much demonised Arabs or Muslims but the Zionists who work against your national interests.
http://www.ummah.com/waragainstislam/reap.htm
Question: Before the US support of the Jewish state which started in 1947 when the US arm-twisted nations like Greece to support the creation of Israel, was the USA hated by Arabs and Muslims?
This is why the USA did what it did when it supported Israel in 1947 when it's President was Truman:
"I am sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.” - President Harry Truman, quoted in “Anti-Zionism”
Think about those Jewish-Zionist organisations all around the USA conspiring to help support and maintain US foreign policy which invites terrorism on the US civilians.
how israel corrupts and controls the us congress and media:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/06/01/how-israel-corrupts-and-controls-the-us-congress-and-media.php
WAKE UP AMERICA: YOUR GOVERNMENT IS HIJACKED BY ZIONISM
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/09/29/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism.php
Zionists Influencing USA (Britain) to Invade Iraq for Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/30/zionists-influencing-usa-britain-to-invade-iraq-for-israel.php | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 10:41 am Post subject: Oil and Israel |
| Oil and Israel
Two unspoken reasons why Bush wants to wage war against Iraq
An Iraqi oil worker works at Al-Doura oil refinery Oct. 14 in Baghdad. What role does oil play in any campaign to topple Saddam Hussein?
By Michael Kinsley
SLATE.COM
Oct. 24 — So, why exactly is Iraq different from North Korea? Both are founding members of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” and both deserve that honor. North Korea has now admitted to a nuclear weapons development program on about the same timeline as what we only suspect about Iraq. So, why are we barely complaining in one case and off to war in the other?
• eDiets Diet Center
• Shop at B&N.com
• Auctions at uBid
• Yellow Pages
• lavalife.com Where singles click
• MSN Broadband
BUSH ADDRESSED this conundrum the other day. “Saddam Hussein is unique,” he explained. “He has thumbed his nose at the world for 11 years … and for 11 years he has said, ‘No, I refuse to disarm.’ ” The North Koreans, by contrast, said, “Yes, we will disarm” — they promised to stop building nukes in exchange for help in developing peaceful nuclear power — and then they didn’t do it. I guess that’s a difference, but it sounds as if we’re punishing Saddam for his honesty.
ULTERIOR MOTIVES
Bush’s public case for going to war against Iraq is full of logical inconsistencies, exaggerations, and outright lies. It reeks of ex-post-facto: First came the desire, and then came the reasons. But this raises a troubling question, especially for opponents of Bush’s policy: If his ostensible reasons are unpersuasive even to him, what are his real reasons? There must be some: Nobody starts a war as a lark. It would be easier to dismiss the whole exercise if there were an obvious ulterior motive. Without one, you are left wondering, “Am I missing something?”
Tariq Aziz has a theory. Saddam Hussein’s deputy told The New York Times this week, “The reason for this warmongering policy toward Iraq is oil and Israel.” Although no one wishes to agree with Tariq Aziz, he has put succinctly what many people in Washington apparently believe. They do not think the concern over potential use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons is negligible or insincere, but they do think that “oil and Israel” is a pretty good summary of what, for President Bush, makes Iraq different from your run-of-the-mill evil dictatorship. Yet this presumption about Bush, and these issues themselves, barely appear in the flood of speculation and argument about Bush War II.
THE OIL FACTOR
“President Bush” is, of course, a metaphor. Much Washington political commentary and analysis is basically a discussion of what or whom the term “President Bush” is a metaphor for. Is it Karl Rove? Is it still Karen Hughes, although she has decamped? Even more than most presidents, Bush is regarded as the sum total of his advisers. Regarding Iraq, the advisers themselves are also used as metaphors, often in plural to signify a stereotype. “The Cheneys and the Rumsfelds” evokes a retro world of confident white CEOs in suits, oil barons, and the military industrial complex. “The Wolfowitzes and the Richard Perles” evokes — well, you know what it evokes.
MSNBC Weblogs
What are these people thinking about today?
• Eric Alterman: Altercation
• Alan Boyle: Cosmic Log
• Jan Herman: The Juice
• Chris Matthews: Hardball
• Michael Rogers: The Practical Futurist
• Robert Windrem: Spyscope
• Michael Moran: War of Words
• Weblog Central
The idea that oil is a factor in official thinking about Iraq shouldn’t even be controversial. Protecting oil supplies from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was an explicit — though disingenuously underemphasized — reason for Bush War I. After all, we couldn’t claim to be fighting to restore democracy to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, let alone Iraq. This time around, the fact that Bush and Cheney are both oil men is suggestive, but the implication is not clear. A war to topple Saddam will raise oil prices in the short run but probably lower them in the longer run by stabilizing the supply. An oil man could have sincerely mixed feelings about these prospects. Surely, though, even a sensible opponent of the war ought to register a steady oil supply as one of the better reasons for it.
SUPPORTING ISRAEL
The lack of public discussion about the role of Israel in the thinking of “President Bush” is easier to understand, but weird nevertheless. It is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions it. The reason is obvious and admirable: Neither supporters nor opponents of a war against Iraq wish to evoke the classic anti-Semitic image of the king’s Jewish advisers whispering poison into his ear and betraying the country to foreign interests. But the consequence of this massive “Shhhhhhhhh!” is to make a perfectly valid American concern for a democratic ally in a region of nutty theocracies, rotting monarchies, and worse seem furtive and suspicious.
• The obstacles to peace in the Middle East
Having brought this up, I hasten to add a few self-protective points. The president’s advisors, Jewish and non-Jewish, are patriotic Americans who sincerely believe that the interests of America and Israel coincide. What’s more, they are right about that, though they may be wrong about where that shared interest lies. Among Jewish Americans, including me, there are people who hold every conceivable opinion about war with Iraq with every variation of intensity, including passionate opposition and complete indifference. Jews are undoubtedly overrepresented in what little organized antiwar movement there may be (thus feeding another variant of the anti-Semitic stereotype).
Why and whether an American war against Iraq would be good for Israel is far from clear and is the subject of vigorous debate in Israel itself — but not in America.
A SILENT DEBATE
Advertisement
Theories range from the mundane to the exotic to the paranoid: Clearing out a neighborhood troublemaker before he gets the bomb is reason enough. Or, deposing Saddam will set off a complex regional chain reaction that will somehow turn the Arab nations into peaceful bourgeois societies. Or, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon actually wants a huge regional conflagration that he can use as an excuse and cover for expelling the Palestinians from the West Bank. In any event, the downside risk for Israel — of carnage, military and civilian — is like America’s, only far greater.
But we’d better not talk about it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Kinsley is Slate’s founding editor.
Printable version
Point and click on a menu choice or a highlighted country.
Iraq
OPEC quota: Iraqi oil production is constrained by
the United Nations' limits on its exports. The U.S.
Energy Information Administration estimates
production at 2,560,00 barrels/day
United Arab Emirates
OPEC quota: 2,289,400 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,219,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 97.8 billion barrels
Minister: Obeid bin Saif Al-Nasiri
Qatar
OPEC quota: 678,800 barrels/day
Old quota: 658,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 3.7 billion barrels
Minister: Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiya
Kuwait
OPEC quota: 2,101,000 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,037,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 96.5 billion barrels
Minister: Sheikh Saud Naser Al-Sabah
Saudi Arabia
OPEC quota: 8,512,200 barrels/day
Old quota: 8,253,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 263.5 billion barrels
Minister: Ali bin Ibrahim al-Naimi
Iran
OPEC quota: 3,843,800 barrels/day
Old quota: 3,727,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 89.7 billion barrels
Minister: Bijan Namdar Zaganeh
Indonesia
OPEC quota: 1,358,600 barrels/day
Old quota: 1,317,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 5.0 billion barrels
Minister: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Nigeria
OPEC quota: 2,156,600 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,091,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 22.5 billion barrels
Minister: Rilwanu Lukman
Libya
OPEC quota: 1,404,200 barrels/day
Old quota: 1,361,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 29.5 billion barrels
Minister: Abdullah Salim al-Badri
Algeria
OPEC quota: 836,600 barrels/day
Old quota: 811,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 9.2 billion barrels
Minister: Chakib Khelil
Venezuela
OPEC quota: 3,018,800 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,926,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 72.6 billion barrels
Minister: Ali Rodriguez
Russia
1999 Average Production: 6,074,000 barrels/day
Norway
1999 Average Production: 3,018,000 barrels/day
United Kingdom
1999 Average Production: 2,691,000 barrels/day
China
1999 Average Production: 3,206,000 barrels/day
Oman
1999 Average Production: 900,000 barrels/day
Egypt
1999 Average Production: 852,000 barrels/day
Brazil
1999 Average Production: 1,094,000 barrels/day
Mexico
1999 Average Production: 2,906,000 barrels/day
United States
1999 Average Production: 5,938,000 barrels/day
(preliminary estimate)
Canada
1999 Average Production: 1,905,000 barrels/day
Printable version
SOURCE: U.S. Energy Information Administration | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 10:47 am Post subject: Oil and Israel |
| Oil and Israel
Two unspoken reasons why Bush wants to wage war against Iraq
An Iraqi oil worker works at Al-Doura oil refinery Oct. 14 in Baghdad. What role does oil play in any campaign to topple Saddam Hussein?
By Michael Kinsley
SLATE.COM
Oct. 24 — So, why exactly is Iraq different from North Korea? Both are founding members of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” and both deserve that honor. North Korea has now admitted to a nuclear weapons development program on about the same timeline as what we only suspect about Iraq. So, why are we barely complaining in one case and off to war in the other?
• eDiets Diet Center
• Shop at B&N.com
• Auctions at uBid
• Yellow Pages
• lavalife.com Where singles click
• MSN Broadband
BUSH ADDRESSED this conundrum the other day. “Saddam Hussein is unique,” he explained. “He has thumbed his nose at the world for 11 years … and for 11 years he has said, ‘No, I refuse to disarm.’ ” The North Koreans, by contrast, said, “Yes, we will disarm” — they promised to stop building nukes in exchange for help in developing peaceful nuclear power — and then they didn’t do it. I guess that’s a difference, but it sounds as if we’re punishing Saddam for his honesty.
ULTERIOR MOTIVES
Bush’s public case for going to war against Iraq is full of logical inconsistencies, exaggerations, and outright lies. It reeks of ex-post-facto: First came the desire, and then came the reasons. But this raises a troubling question, especially for opponents of Bush’s policy: If his ostensible reasons are unpersuasive even to him, what are his real reasons? There must be some: Nobody starts a war as a lark. It would be easier to dismiss the whole exercise if there were an obvious ulterior motive. Without one, you are left wondering, “Am I missing something?”
Tariq Aziz has a theory. Saddam Hussein’s deputy told The New York Times this week, “The reason for this warmongering policy toward Iraq is oil and Israel.” Although no one wishes to agree with Tariq Aziz, he has put succinctly what many people in Washington apparently believe. They do not think the concern over potential use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons is negligible or insincere, but they do think that “oil and Israel” is a pretty good summary of what, for President Bush, makes Iraq different from your run-of-the-mill evil dictatorship. Yet this presumption about Bush, and these issues themselves, barely appear in the flood of speculation and argument about Bush War II.
THE OIL FACTOR
“President Bush” is, of course, a metaphor. Much Washington political commentary and analysis is basically a discussion of what or whom the term “President Bush” is a metaphor for. Is it Karl Rove? Is it still Karen Hughes, although she has decamped? Even more than most presidents, Bush is regarded as the sum total of his advisers. Regarding Iraq, the advisers themselves are also used as metaphors, often in plural to signify a stereotype. “The Cheneys and the Rumsfelds” evokes a retro world of confident white CEOs in suits, oil barons, and the military industrial complex. “The Wolfowitzes and the Richard Perles” evokes — well, you know what it evokes.
MSNBC Weblogs
What are these people thinking about today?
• Eric Alterman: Altercation
• Alan Boyle: Cosmic Log
• Jan Herman: The Juice
• Chris Matthews: Hardball
• Michael Rogers: The Practical Futurist
• Robert Windrem: Spyscope
• Michael Moran: War of Words
• Weblog Central
The idea that oil is a factor in official thinking about Iraq shouldn’t even be controversial. Protecting oil supplies from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was an explicit — though disingenuously underemphasized — reason for Bush War I. After all, we couldn’t claim to be fighting to restore democracy to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, let alone Iraq. This time around, the fact that Bush and Cheney are both oil men is suggestive, but the implication is not clear. A war to topple Saddam will raise oil prices in the short run but probably lower them in the longer run by stabilizing the supply. An oil man could have sincerely mixed feelings about these prospects. Surely, though, even a sensible opponent of the war ought to register a steady oil supply as one of the better reasons for it.
SUPPORTING ISRAEL
The lack of public discussion about the role of Israel in the thinking of “President Bush” is easier to understand, but weird nevertheless. It is the proverbial elephant in the room: Everybody sees it, no one mentions it. The reason is obvious and admirable: Neither supporters nor opponents of a war against Iraq wish to evoke the classic anti-Semitic image of the king’s Jewish advisers whispering poison into his ear and betraying the country to foreign interests. But the consequence of this massive “Shhhhhhhhh!” is to make a perfectly valid American concern for a democratic ally in a region of nutty theocracies, rotting monarchies, and worse seem furtive and suspicious.
• The obstacles to peace in the Middle East
Having brought this up, I hasten to add a few self-protective points. The president’s advisors, Jewish and non-Jewish, are patriotic Americans who sincerely believe that the interests of America and Israel coincide. What’s more, they are right about that, though they may be wrong about where that shared interest lies. Among Jewish Americans, including me, there are people who hold every conceivable opinion about war with Iraq with every variation of intensity, including passionate opposition and complete indifference. Jews are undoubtedly overrepresented in what little organized antiwar movement there may be (thus feeding another variant of the anti-Semitic stereotype).
Why and whether an American war against Iraq would be good for Israel is far from clear and is the subject of vigorous debate in Israel itself — but not in America.
A SILENT DEBATE
Advertisement
Theories range from the mundane to the exotic to the paranoid: Clearing out a neighborhood troublemaker before he gets the bomb is reason enough. Or, deposing Saddam will set off a complex regional chain reaction that will somehow turn the Arab nations into peaceful bourgeois societies. Or, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon actually wants a huge regional conflagration that he can use as an excuse and cover for expelling the Palestinians from the West Bank. In any event, the downside risk for Israel — of carnage, military and civilian — is like America’s, only far greater.
But we’d better not talk about it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Kinsley is Slate’s founding editor.
Printable version
Point and click on a menu choice or a highlighted country.
Iraq
OPEC quota: Iraqi oil production is constrained by
the United Nations' limits on its exports. The U.S.
Energy Information Administration estimates
production at 2,560,00 barrels/day
United Arab Emirates
OPEC quota: 2,289,400 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,219,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 97.8 billion barrels
Minister: Obeid bin Saif Al-Nasiri
Qatar
OPEC quota: 678,800 barrels/day
Old quota: 658,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 3.7 billion barrels
Minister: Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiya
Kuwait
OPEC quota: 2,101,000 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,037,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 96.5 billion barrels
Minister: Sheikh Saud Naser Al-Sabah
Saudi Arabia
OPEC quota: 8,512,200 barrels/day
Old quota: 8,253,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 263.5 billion barrels
Minister: Ali bin Ibrahim al-Naimi
Iran
OPEC quota: 3,843,800 barrels/day
Old quota: 3,727,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 89.7 billion barrels
Minister: Bijan Namdar Zaganeh
Indonesia
OPEC quota: 1,358,600 barrels/day
Old quota: 1,317,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 5.0 billion barrels
Minister: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Nigeria
OPEC quota: 2,156,600 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,091,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 22.5 billion barrels
Minister: Rilwanu Lukman
Libya
OPEC quota: 1,404,200 barrels/day
Old quota: 1,361,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 29.5 billion barrels
Minister: Abdullah Salim al-Badri
Algeria
OPEC quota: 836,600 barrels/day
Old quota: 811,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 9.2 billion barrels
Minister: Chakib Khelil
Venezuela
OPEC quota: 3,018,800 barrels/day
Old quota: 2,926,000 barrels/day
Reserves: 72.6 billion barrels
Minister: Ali Rodriguez
Russia
1999 Average Production: 6,074,000 barrels/day
Norway
1999 Average Production: 3,018,000 barrels/day
United Kingdom
1999 Average Production: 2,691,000 barrels/day
China
1999 Average Production: 3,206,000 barrels/day
Oman
1999 Average Production: 900,000 barrels/day
Egypt
1999 Average Production: 852,000 barrels/day
Brazil
1999 Average Production: 1,094,000 barrels/day
Mexico
1999 Average Production: 2,906,000 barrels/day
United States
1999 Average Production: 5,938,000 barrels/day
(preliminary estimate)
Canada
1999 Average Production: 1,905,000 barrels/day
Printable version
SOURCE: U.S. Energy Information Administration | | | | Bungee | | Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 11:22 am Post subject: |
| http://www.oilandgasinternational.com/departments/from_editor/10_29_01.html
This article has always been a favourite of mine. I have referred to it on many forums.
I am naturally sceptical, but when the oil industry, of which the Bush family are well known members, tells us that oil is the reason for the war in Afghanistan I start to wonder what this is really about!! | | | | *Mutt American | | Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 2:08 pm Post subject: |
| Excellent news for the Afghani people. $300,000,000 for their economy and 12,000 jobs.
There is a problem with that? | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
