The Pipeline
May 23rd, 2005 at 1:51 pm by Susie
So Michael Moore was a liar?
Since September 11th, 2001, there has been intense speculation regarding Bush administration negotiations with the Taliban regarding this very project prior to the attacks. American petroleum giant Unocal very much wanted this project for years, but it was stymied in 1998 after bin Laden blew up two American embassies in Africa, causing the Taliban to be diplomatically isolated.
There are a number of reports that describe a reinvigoration of this pipeline plan after Bush took office, and further describe the Bush administration’s negotiations with the Taliban including threats of war if the project was not allowed to pass through Afghanistan. Some say these threats, in the name of the pipeline, triggered the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban is gone, Afghan President Harmid Karzai is a former Unocal consultant, and the pipeline deal is finally done.
You have to admit, they’re good at what they do: smoke and mirrors.
Fact check…
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Hamid-Karzai
Quibble all you want, Dexter, the only people Bu$h made Afghanistan safe for are the shareholders of Unocal.
And they’d be dead meat if caught walking alone there in the streets.
Ya but being confused withZalmay Khalilzad doens’t paint a better picture of Bush.
Okay, Dexter, you are technically correct in so far as ‘Karzai worked for Unocal’ is an over-simplification. The unsimplified version is that Karzai was a contractor working for the CentGas consortium pipeline project. That project was managed by Unocal. In other words, although he didn’t work for Unocal, he worked for a project run by Unocal.
I leave it up to the reader to decide if this detail really matters or if Moore’s simplification was fair.
The (planned, desired) Afghanistan pipeline is described in detail somewhere by Ted Rall. From what I recall, Enron apparently already built a refinery in India in anticipation for the pipeline, lost their shirts, and then got the money back from California. Too many players to track, but do look up Rall’s articles on the topic.
p.s.I like Rall, but his diatribes - usually justified - just don’t seem productive to me. I drifted away from him a good while back because of this, which is a failing on my part; the guy is motivated and he digs, hard.
Dexter - good catch! Now let’s start sucking that oil out of there and get me some low gas prices..
I’m sure that will happen……soon…….yep….anyday now…
Still, the Afghanistan war was the right one…Noone will convince me otherwise…unfortunately, when you have an administration as corrupt as this one, all the cronies get the spoils of that war too..
Certainly an interesting development. However, Bunch (the author of the article you linked) has now crossed out his statement that Karzai was a Unocal consultant, apparently because Unocal denies that.
Although, whether Karzai was a Unocal consultant or not doesn’t negate the original story — US Wants Afghan Pipeline; Osama screws up negotiations; US hints that war against Afghanistan is an option to get the pipeline; 9/11 happens; war happens; pipeline happens.
After all, even if Karzai wasn’t involved with Unocal, Bush and Cheney have the oil business flowing in their blood. This is a case of trying to discredit the bigger picture by finding a flaw with one small detail. Remove Karzai/Unocal, the whole saga is still disturbing.
What pipeline? That pipeline does not exist, and construction has not even begun. That post is based on a news report from 2002.
This is 2005. That bizarre conspiracy theory is d-e-a-d.
While I don’t believe the most sinister implication (that Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks), it seems plausible that the Taliban may have viewed war as inevitable, and turned bin Laden loose to do his worst. Sort of a final act of defiance (and similar to what we expected from Saddam Hussein if he had indeed retained WMDs).
Whether Karzai is an ex-Unocal consultant or not seems like a rather petty concern compared to the possibility that pipeline politics may have egged on bin Laden.
UNOCAL denied it? Oh, so it must be false because they WOULD NEVER LIE!
Simple minds only need simple explanations.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/afghan.html#transit
There is no pipeline. There will likely be no pipeline. The US invasion of Afghanistan was not about a pipeline.
Dear lord.
As I read things, Karzai did not work for UNOCAL, but he did work with Khalilzad, who was working with CentGas, the consortium of which UNOCAL was the “development manager” and a major investor. UNOCAL dropped out of the consortium in 1998 and is apparently not interesting in pursuing it.
I dropped a few links on the Attytood comments page:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1178920/posts
http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/01.14A.Zalmay.Oil.htm
Key non-denial denial Spokesmen for both Unocal and Karzai have denied any such relationship, although they could not speak for all companies involved in the consortium.
So don’t look at Unocal - look at one of its many subsidiaries. It is sort of like Halliburton’s French subsidiary being involved in the oil for food scandal that Senate Republicans want to pin on Kofi Annan rather than on Dick Cheney.
I can’t believe you silly son of a bitches are the product of the same education system as me.
You are a moron if you believe what Unocal tells you.
If you want a good, academic study of the whole Unocal Afghanistan pipeline business, read Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire. He’s got footnotes and everything.
I couldn’t believe how everyone was ragging on Moore and calling him a paranoid for bringing this up when the proof was sitting right there in a book that got good reviews. Hell, it’s probably where he found it.
But we all love the MSM, right?
Dear, sweet, innocent, trusting Geek–
“Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan Pipeline Approved
April 14 (NCA) — A proposed trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan to Pakistan has been given the go-ahead by the Asian Development Bank, which declared that the project is feasible.
Pakistani Petroleum Minister Amanullah Jadoon yesterday called the approval good news for all the three countries”
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/4/
B38B22B3-FA81-4273-AA44-4A1C3A57373B.html
Dateline: April 14, 2005
The Asian Development Bank financed a feasibility study (done deal). The construction of the pipeline was projected (in 2002) to have begun in 2005. Business Information Service for the Newly Independent States (BISNIS) suggests you contact the Turkmen Government through Minister of Oil and Gas, KURBANNAZAR NAZAROV, at this number:. (TEL:(993-12) 35-35-31, 35-58-94 or FAX:(993-12) 51-04-43, 39-38-21). Maybe they can tell us if the damn thing is actually being built or not. Anyway, the point, Mr geek, is that one thing followed another, according to a very neat scenario. Coincidence? You be the judge.
dumbasses, one feasibility study does not a 4 billion dollar project make. What was the result of the study, dare I ask? Who is financing this pipeline-that-isn’t? who is insuring its construction? when will they break ground? does it occur to any of you dolts that the duty of a commerce minister is to talk up projects like this in order to (vainly) attract investment capital? probably not.
oh no, UNOCAL routinely enters into multi billion dollar commitments without telling anyone, not their shareholders or auditors, defnitely not anyone from the media. They don’t have to approach investors or bondholders, ever. So big projects like this are often announced at the very very last minute. It’s how “big oil” operates. lol.
This theory has been throughly debunked by Counterpunch’s Ken Silverstein in TAP. Please, no more tinfoil hattery, it’s just embarrassing.
S.G.
This nitpicking over Karzai is silly. The “Mayor of Kabul” was involved with the pipeline consortium, period. However, this sort of “picking gnat shit out of pepper” is what we can expect from our mainstream media as it busily licks Bush’s ass. I saw the “Mayor” and Chimpy on NWI today, and I noticed that Karzai wanted some “Help and support” in dealing with the major cash crop of Afghanistan, namely opium poppies. I almost hurled when Chimpy mumbled that “Afghanistan was a model of spreading democracy…” to paraphrase. Some model! Some democracy!
Oh, and to feed the theory about 9/11 from way upthread…..The neo-cons knew the attack was coming. It is plausible that Chimpy was in the dark, but not all that likely. The neos knew. Bush probably knew, and the lot of them drooled luridly at the thought of how the attack would be “The New Perle[sic]Harbor” that the PNAC Manifesto spoke of, and had to pinch themselves to make sure they weren’t dreaming when the attack actually happened.
The only good con is the one who puts his ass in Iraq, where he can serve, sacrifice and maybe die, or be badly maimed for life for the pack of Bush’s lies that the con trumpets loudly as being so good for America. Jonah Goldberg, why arn’t you in uniform?
We are in the age of the oil wars. Peak oil has been reached politically if not technically. This is indicated by the false and shifting reasons for the Iraq war. Sabars are being rattled against Iran and Syria rather than North Korea or Dufar because there is no oil in the latter two. I have read reports that the Saudi reserves are not as vast as reported in the past. The Afganistan pipeline has been mentioned for years now as a reason for that war. Now that the women are not free and Bin Laden is free show that all the other reasons have faded, (except revenge). Iraq oil is under US control and still gas prices are rising. China is now in competition with us for that oil. How long can my country fight this war on Chinese credit? i fear for my country.
If Susie won’t say it (for tax reasons
I will:
Welcome to Eschaton readers!
Hang around awhile. Come on Back tomorrow. And drop something in the collection plate on your way.
It’s 2005, and not one ounce of concrete or steel is in place.
Question: What is the main obstacle to the pipeline?
Answer: Political instability in Afghanistan.
Question: Why is there so much instability in Afghanistan?
Answer: Because George W. Bush took his eye off the ball there so he could whack Saddam.
Question: On what planet does the evil Bush web of conspiracy decide to invade Afghanistan in order to build a pipeline, and then immediately turn the country over to warlords and anarchy?
Answer: Not mine.
Moreover, the fact that a pipeline is being discussed doesn’t prove a damn thing. If (and that’s a giant, fifty-point font “IF”) such a pipeline gets built, that construction also doesn’t prove a thing. Folks are alleging an a priori causal relationship, where one really doesn’t exist.
There is NO evidence that the motivation behind the invasion of Afghanistan was to construct a pipeline. It’s like suggesting that an apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head because a Freemason threw it at him.
“It’s like suggesting that an apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head because a Freemason threw it at him.”
Actually, it wouldn’t have changed Newton’s observations, even if the apple had been thrown, would it?
I’m just sayin’…
The observation would have been the same, probably.
Maybe I should have said that they would have dismissed gravity as a cause if a Freemason had been standing in the general vicinity.
The point is that folks ignore a plausible, logically and empirically supported theory for a bizarre conspiracy theory that has no supporting evidence or logic.
Geek,
While I agree that your point about Afghanistan being too unstable to support a pipeline project is right on; there is no reason that a pipeline and oil envy could not have been part of the original interest in Afghanistan as a war target (Before 9/11). Also no reason that it can’t be pursued once the situation in Afghanistan ever stabilizes, although I kind of doubt it will ever be stable now.
I think that after 9/11 we were certainly justified to go to war with Afghanistan, it was the right war at the right time. I also agree with you that Bush should’ve followed through and finished what he started there. It was a collosal blunder to shift forces and attention to Iraq. Perhaps, Bush thought he might actually only get one term, got greedy and jumped the gun.
But none of that means there was no conspiracy involved. PNAC’s document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” basically outlines everything we’ve seen since 2001. It really is a blueprint, that is being followed, if you take the time to read it, and it needed a “New Pearl Harbor” to make it all happen. Don’t kid yourself that these people do not and have not conspired to create a New World Order. 9/11 was their “New Pearl Harbor”, think about it the same way you’re thinking about afghanistan, if you’re smart, those are your goals and you find out 9/11 is about to happen, what do you do? Do you stop it? What did FDR do when he found out the Japanese were about to attack Pearl Harbor?
Don’t be naive. Real conspiracy’s happen every day.
Rebuilding America’s Defenses (Paraphrased - may be out of order slightly):
New Pearl Harbor = 9/11, Check.
Identify Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as Axis of Evil = Check.
Minimalize the UN = Check and in progress with Bolton nomination.
Go to war against Afghanistan = Don’t think that’s mentioned, but no one would have stood for it if we’d outright attacked Iraq, when all fingers pointed to Bin Laden in Afghanistan (and still do).
Go to war with Iraq = Fight multi theatre wars, Check and in progress with veiled threats against Iran and NK.
It goes on, read it for yourself, from the horses mouth as it were, PNAC.
As far as the the pipeline theory being a bizarre conspiracy theory that has no supporting evidence or logic, well I guess we won’t know that until the details of Cheney’s energy committee are finally made public will we?
Seems logical to me, having read the PNAC document, which was drafted in 2000. All too frighteningly logical.
There is NO evidence that the motivation behind the invasion of Afghanistan was to construct a pipeline.
There is no evidence for any other reason, either.
9/11? The Downing Street memo reveals that Bush wanted to invade Iraq FIRST (lots of oil there in Iraq).
Free the people? Please.
It’s a pretty good bet that in this, like in every other thing, what the Admin says are its reasons are absolutely not its reasons.
Re: “Unocal consultant”
Someone is your consultant if they are willing to accept money from you. It’s not hard for rich governments and multinationals to find consultants in unnderdeveloped sovereign territories without extradition treaties. It’s impossible to know who is whose butt boy, in such a relationship.
Remember back in the halcyon days pre-9/11 when “conflict of interest” was something to complain about? Nowadays the stench has to knock you to the ground before anyone cares, and pointing it out gets you labelled a “conspiracy theorist”. Governments’ motives are always mixed, and simple explanations don’t always suffice; yet make no mistake, patterns that emerge over time do speak volumes about those in power.
What Moore did not tell us…
Sun Apr 10th, 2005 at 16:58:54 PDT
Wed Oct 13th, 2004 at 00:23:34 GMT
From DailyKos:
What Moore did not tell us…
Google John Ellis (no not John Ellis “JEB” Bush, the other John Ellis in the family tree,
who worked Fox news and called FLA for Bush…
First link of his venture capital firm search on google which the CSpan boss man gave out listed mellon(scaife) bank.
He’s so right(Ellis) we are just being elitist to go after his cousin’s failed policies.
G.H. Venture Partners, a venture capital firm… other links suggest a vital role in Homeland Security and Patriot act subcontractors but they are a pay-to-see basis…
Surely it is just another coincidence, like the year 2000…
Diaries :: Mr Murder’s diary :: :: Trackback ::
How could we know a monolith-worshipping chimp would herald mars and beat his way to the top of the primate pack with a braying jawbone of an ass and smirk as the defining moment to date of space exploration’s industry?
My eyes are wide shut to the symbolic irony… so much to look forward to only to be thrown back. Just a matter of social darwinism applied to the finer aspects of evolution’s progress and man’s attempted enlightenment.Technology takes back seats to social darwinism every time.
Here is the pipeline trail… that Moore mentions in his movie in the making circa 1996.
Mellon-Scaife was a formative backer of the diebold ES&S trails that helped insert Noriega… Hagel used the same methods here.Minus the diebold office thefts Republicans are in the 40% range for state governorships and Congressional positions. Hagel in, Cleland out.And the band played on…
Diebold was directly involved with the efforts to quell attempts at limiting money transfers the terrorists used because of their ATM market share.
And this company has a list of superpower globalists and names of note. The case in point this thread is its relation to the vote scam that enabled Bush and the money trail that is directly related to 9-11 and the PNAC stratagems. Well the Finance Council in the first of those three links ties these seemingly unrelated elements together directly.
You see Moore could have told us this in the movie but that additional personas would distract the leadership failure of the Chief Executive.
THE SCLM SHOULD FOLLOW UP WITH THIS:
Robert E. Allgyer, Partner, Arthur Andersen. (Enron’s account firm and the initial appointed attorney for John Walker Lyndh).Gillespie and Enron are directly linked to Andersen.
Merlin L. Alper, Vice President and Deputy Controller, Madison Square Garden. (Paying the support at the RNC).
Imperial oil,Amaco,petroseed,Texaco, telecomms(Access,Motorola,Sprint,AT&T).
Joseph L. Dwyer Jr., Deputy Director, General Services, and Controller, U. S. General Accounting Office.
Ellis name? Gerald R. Ellis, Director, Xerox Services, Xerox Corp. (There is a CIA firm for you…the best Iran business link would be IBM and IBM-Xerox would perhaps be an item to search there… Chalabi connections?) They are making the mideast theirs and as long as their people hate us it gets overlooked…and vice-versa ad infinitum.
Linda A. Frietsch, Manager, West Coast Operations, Cisco Systems Inc.(Another INTEL lobby)
H. Russell Justice, Vice President, Facilities and Services, Walt Disney Co. (Hannity-Limbaugh)
Charles A. Bowsher, Comptroller General of the United States.
L. Patrick Deering, Chairman of the Board, Riggs, Counselman, Michaels & Downes Inc.(There is the Riggs-bin laden link via the money trail)
DynCorp (contractors anyone?)
McDonald’s, Kmart,Sony,many more to list and the reason the media is silent because top pressure demands it.
Donald Ercole, Tax Partner, Ernst & Young.
Lorne H. Parker, Manager of Risk Management, Bechtel Group Inc. (Cheneyburton link)
Robert J. Smith Jr., President, Madison Insurance Co. (Madison knows Bush bailouts…)
Gordon J. Feeney, Vice Chairman, Royal Bank of Canada. Russell Banks.
Clyde E. Dickey, Partner and Senior Advisor, Arthur Andersen & Co. SC.
Dr. Gail H. Marcus, Office of Nuclear Reactor, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission
AMA’s newest center, located in Islamabad, provides state-of-the-art learning facilities
DAVID K. DIEBOLD.
DAVID A. RIGGS
AMA CENTERS AND LOCATIONSUNITED STATESAMA HEADQUARTERS1601 Broadway.
New York, N.Y. 10019-7420.
(tel.) 212-586-8100.
(fax) 212-903-8168.
AMA SARANAC LAKEP.O. Box 319, Trudeau Road.
Saranac Lake, N.Y. 12983.
Anyone pursuing a civil suit on 9-11 ought to subpoenae this group…and each company member listed in full for full disclosure and transparency.
So you see why the media is vested in this for ad revenues and telecomm stocks, the military industrial vertical integration across borders for global PNAC efforts, and the clincher:
Thomas F. McBride, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Ingersoll-Rand Co. (Ingersoll-rand, Condie Rand Rice! Their subcontractor firm in gemrany issues the paper trail and is run by an American).
The First Latin American Human Resources Conference was held in Buenos Aires in April. The theme was “How to Align Human Resources with Your Business Strategy,” and the program attracted 150 participants. International speakers were led by Jac Fitz-enz of the Saratoga Institute; Cabot Jaffee, CEO of Electronic Selection Systems Corp.; and Kate Owen, [bold]British Petroleum’s director of organizational development[/bold] and training.
South African Top Management Forum was keynoted by statesman [bold]Henry Kissinger[/bold] and Cyril Ramaphosa, secretary general of the African National Congress. The TMF, which was held in Johannesburg in October, attracted an audience of 113 senior executives, most of whom came from within South Africa.
Diebold is vested with the pipeline deal via this association, the media has too much fiscal interest to out this, Bush is doing the Kissinger/Perle PNAC bidding as told. The bin laden financiers are directly vested in the pipeline with Riggs Bank and directly linked to the Bush family’s new world order.Diebold was probably the money transfer source for terror transfers.
The So Called Lousy Media is due an outing. They will not do it. Buddhists burned themselves in the street, Ghandi went on hunger strikes. It will take people doing things of such nature to demand action,civil disobedience. Thought King died so this would not happen again.
The guy wearing a black hood was ahead of the curve. We need to start a media campaign to interview him and see he is okay.
This is how much money you are up against. Moore didn’t have time to tell this, giving voice to the people who have paid in human terms this miserable failure is what he featured, a story which tells itself for the most part and unites in shared tragedy.
The media is a cornered rat trying to discredit him , and republicans are shying away from Bush photo ops and head-on meetings with Dems on the talk show circle. Nothing left to do but let journalists interview one another about how brave they think each other is to tow the party line…
pravda plus commericals! the best of both worlds thanks to the new world order!
Moore just showed the dots, the SCLM refuses to connect.
* * *
John Ellis is a “journalist” on the latest CSpan discussions of this current Presidential campaign this week. The continued “balanced” spin of letting a Repub flat out lie while Dems have to wage equivolency contests is not something to stand for any longer.
Free speech is fine, but any media outlet misrepresenting facts should be held liable.
This was originally posted on/about the July 4th holdiay at dKos. My diary subscription erased it in my options window when trying to resume reading of it.
This copy was posted by ‘dk’ at the John Kerry forums and I have added new words after the * past the phrase that bears repeating, “Moore showed the dots, the SCLM refuses to connect.”
The original links to the post in my first Kos post are now unavailable. GH Venture took its main link down, the Sacaife-link was tinyurled and not avaialable on copy/paste format, and finally another indy blogger had corraborating evidence referred to that simply helped solidify the argument already posted in the original comapny statement from GH Venture Partners.
Still the CEOs and companies named are a part of this, they have vested interests in the same fiscal pipeline money trail backers. Their interconnected efforts evidence that our media is truly bought and paid for as is most of our foreign policy.
GH Venture Partners is the smoking pipeline.
Ohhh, nobody has reply for a 1995 assessment from the company describing its ties and objectives?
Deepthought42:
I think the PNAC’ers are guilty of pernicious opportunism. But, to base a conspiracy theory on a (to say the least) distasteful part of a policy memo stretches things.
Besides, Richard Perle is too goddamn f@cking stupid to organize his deskdrawers, let alone a conspiracy like that.
An interesting debate. I wonder what allegations of “conspiracy theorist” you all will level against my new book, American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone.