HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
Hmmm?? Just a complete and total coincidence I'm sure.
Despite irrefutable
proof to the contrary, America's greed and lust for oil couldn't have been the
real
reason for this war?? Could
it???
mart
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 9:03 PM
Subject: [PeaceNoWar] Oil company adviser named US representative to
Afghanistan
Oil company adviser named US representative to Afghanistan
By Patrick Martin
3 January 2002
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/oil-j03.shtml
President Bush has appointed a former aide to the American
oil company Unocal, Afghan-born Zalmay
Khalilzad, as special
envoy to Afghanistan. The nomination was
announced December
31, nine days after the US-backed
interim government of Hamid
Karzai took office in
Kabul.
The nomination underscores the real economic and financial
interests at stake in the US military intervention in Central Asia.
Khalilzad is intimately involved in the long-running US efforts to
obtain direct access to the oil and gas resources of the region,
largely unexploited but believed to be the second largest in the
world after the Persian Gulf.
As an adviser for Unocal, Khalilzad drew up a risk
The nomination underscores the real economic and financial
interests at stake in the US military intervention in Central Asia.
Khalilzad is intimately involved in the long-running US efforts to
obtain direct access to the oil and gas resources of the region,
largely unexploited but believed to be the second largest in the
world after the Persian Gulf.
As an adviser for Unocal, Khalilzad drew up a risk
analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from
the former
Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across
Afghanistan
and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. He
participated
in talks between the
oil company and Taliban officials
in 1997, which were
aimed at implementing a 1995
agreement to build the pipeline across western
agreement to build the pipeline across western
Afghanistan.
Unocal was the lead company in the formation
Unocal was the lead company in the formation
of the Centgas consortium, whose purpose
was
to bring to market natural gas from the
Dauletabad
Field in southeastern Turkmenistan, one of
the
world’s largest. The $2 billion project involved a
world’s largest. The $2 billion project involved a
48-inch diameter pipeline from the
Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border, passing near
the cities of Herat and Kandahar,
crossing into
Pakistan near Quetta and linking with existing
pipelines at Multan. An additional $600 million
extension to India was also under
consideration.
Khalilzad also lobbied publicly for a more
Khalilzad also lobbied publicly for a more
sympathetic US government policy towards
the Taliban. Four years ago, in an op-ed
article in the
Washington Post, he defended
theTaliban regime against accusations that it
was a sponsor of terrorism, writing, “The
Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style
of fundamentalism practiced by Iran.”
“We should ... be willing to offer recognition
“We should ... be willing to offer recognition
and humanitarian assistance and to promote
international economic reconstruction,” he
declared. “It is time for the United States to
reengage” the Afghan regime.
This
“reengagement” would, of course, have
been
enormously profitable to Unocal, which was
enormously profitable to Unocal, which was
otherwise unable
to bring gas and oil to market
from landlocked Turkmenistan.
Khalilzad only shifted his position on the Taliban
Khalilzad only shifted his position on the Taliban
after the Clinton administration fired cruise missiles
at targets in Afghanistan in August 1998, claiming
that terrorists under the direction of
Afghan-based
Osama bin Laden were
responsible for bombing US
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. One day after
the attack, Unocal put Centgas on hold. Two months
later it
abandoned all plans for a trans-Afghan pipeline.
The oil interests began to look towards a
post-Taliban
Afghanistan, and so
did their representatives in the
US national security
establishment.
Liasion to Islamic guerrillas
Born in Mazar-e Sharif in 1951, Khalilzad hails
Liasion to Islamic guerrillas
Born in Mazar-e Sharif in 1951, Khalilzad hails
from the old ruling elite of Afghanistan. His father
was an aide to King Zahir Shah, who ruled the
country until 1973. Khalilzad was a graduate
student at the
University of Chicago, an intellectual
center for the American right-wing, when the Soviet
Union invaded
Afghanistan in 1979. Khalilzad
became an American
citizen, while serving as a
key link between US imperialism and the Islamic
fundamentalist mujahedin fighting the Soviet
backed regime in
Kabul—the milieu out of which
both the
Taliban and bin
Laden’s Al Qaeda group
arose. He was a special adviser to the State
Department during
the Reagan administration,
lobbying successfully for accelerated US military
aid to the mujahedin, including hand-held
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles which
played a key
role in the war. He
later became undersecretary
of defense in the administration of Bush’s
father,
during the US war against Iraq, then went to the
Rand Corporation, a top US military think tank.
After Bush was installed as president by a 5-4
After Bush was installed as president by a 5-4
vote of the
US Supreme Court, Khalilzad headed
the Bush-Cheney
transition team
for the Defense
Department and
advised incoming Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.Significantly,
however,
he was not named to a subcabinet position, which
would have required
Senate confirmation and might
have provoked
uncomfortable questions about his
role as an oil company adviser in Central Asia and
intermediary with the Taliban. Instead, he was named
to the National Security Council, where no
confirmation vote was needed.
At the NSC Khalilzad reports to Condoleeza Rice,
At the NSC Khalilzad reports to Condoleeza Rice,
the national
security adviser, who also served as
an oil company consultant on Central Asia. After
serving in
the first Bush administration from 1989
to 1992,
Rice was placed on the board of directors
of Chevron
Corporation and
served as its principal
expert on
Kazakhstan, where Chevron holds the l
argest concession of
any of the
international oil
companies. The oil industry connections of Bush
and Cheney are well known, but little has been said
in the media about the prominent role being played
in Afghan policy by officials who advised the oil
industry on Central Asia.
One of the few commentaries in the America
One of the few commentaries in the America
media about
this aspect of the US military
campaign appeared in
the San Francisco
Chronicle last September 26. Staff writer
Frank Viviano
observed: “The hidden stakes
in the war against terrorism can
be summed
up in a single word:
oil. The map of
terrorist
sanctuaries and
targets in the Middle East
and Central Asia is
also, to an extraordinary
degree, a map of the world’s principal
energy
sources in the 21st
century.... It is inevitable
that the war against terrorism will be seen by
many as a war on behalf of America’s Chevron,
Exxon, and Arco; France’s TotalFinaElf;
British
Petroleum; Royal
Dutch Shell and other
multinational giants, which have hundreds of
billions of dollars of investment
in the region.”
Silence in the media
This reality is well understood in official Washington,
Silence in the media
This reality is well understood in official Washington,
but the most important
corporate-controlled media
outlets—the television networks and
major national
daily newspapers—have maintained silence
that
amounts to deliberate, politically motivated self
censorship.
The sole recent exception is an article which
The sole recent exception is an article which
appeared December
15 in the New York Times
business section, headlined, “As the War Shifts
Alliances, Oil Deals Follow.” The Times reported,
“The State Department is exploring
the potential
for post-Taliban energy projects in the
region,
which has more than 6 percent of
the world’s
proven oil
reserves and almost 40 percent of its
gas reserves.”
The Times noted that during a visit in early December to
Kazakhstan, “Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he
The Times noted that during a visit in early December to
Kazakhstan, “Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he
was ‘particularly impressed’ with the
money that
American oil
companies were investing there. He estimated
that $200
billion could flow into Kazakhstan
during the next
5 to 10 years.”
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham also pushed US
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham also pushed US
oil investments in
the region during a November visit to
Russia, on
which he was accompanied by David J.
O’Reilly,
chairman of
ChevronTexaco.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has also played a role in the
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has also played a role in the
ongoing oil pipeline maneuvers. During a
December 14 visit
to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, he
assured officials of the
oil-rich Caspian state that the
administration would lift
sanctions imposed in
1992 in the wake of the conflict with
Armenia over the
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Both Azerbaijan and Armenia have aligned themselves with
Both Azerbaijan and Armenia have aligned themselves with
the US military thrust into Central
Asia, offering the Pentagon
transit rights and use of airfields. Rumsfeld’s visit and his
conciliatory remarks were the reward. Rumsfeld told
President
Haydar Aliyev that the administration had reached
agreement
with congressional leaders to waive the
sanctions.
On November 28 the White House released a statement
On November 28 the White House released a statement
hailing the official opening of the
first new pipeline by the
Caspian Pipeline Consortium, a joint
venture of Russia,
Kazakhstan, Oman, ChevronTexaco,
ExxonMobil and
several other oil companies.
The pipeline connects the
huge Tengiz oilfield in
northwestern Kazakhstan to the
Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk,
where tankers
are loaded for the world market. US companies put
up $1
billion of the $2.65 billion construction cost.
The Bush statement declared, “The CPC project also
billion of the $2.65 billion construction cost.
The Bush statement declared, “The CPC project also
advances my Administration’s National
Energy Policy
by developing a network of multiple
Caspian pipelines
that also includes
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Supsa,
and Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipelines and
the
Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas
pipeline.”
There was little US press coverage of this announcement.
Nor did the media refer to the fact that the pipeline consortium
involvedin the Baku-Ceyhan plan, led by the British
oil company
BP, is represented by the law firm of Baker &
Botts. The principal
attorney at this firm is James Baker III, secretary of state under
Bush’s father and chief spokesman for the 2000 Bush campaign
attorney at this firm is James Baker III, secretary of state under
Bush’s father and chief spokesman for the 2000 Bush campaign
during its successful effort to shut
down the Florida vote recount.
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