Several email forwards are making the rounds right now applauding our brave men and women who are fighting in the Middle East. I agree, we should always support our troops, always. Unfortunately, regardless of how brave our young men and women are, the many who have been wounded and killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were done so in vain and there is nothing noble and righteous about giving up your life for a cause that is not just.
Each time I see a story of a young man in a wheel chair with his legs missing or a vet with a traumatic head injury, I think about how much more noble it would have been for the war to not have begun in the first place. The men and women who fight for us are noble, brave, and true Americans regardless of what cause they are sent to fight for…..just or unjust. Leaders who lie, scheme and distort the truth so that a war can be fought with a specific” for profit” agenda, are NOT true Americans but mercenaries who send their nation’s children to do their bidding while they reap the rewards financially.
War is not the romanticized movie script we see in videos and great speeches. It is individuals, soldiers and civilians, being burned, wounded, and killed. Killing and wounding other human beings should never be romanticized…….it is what it is. It is sometimes necessary to keep others safe and free but it should never be undertaken with a planned scheme and out right lies.
Sadly, these brave young men, women, and their families pay the price and NOT the people who are putting money in the bank and planning their next coo for profit.
For those of you who still feel that the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was NOT about oil and that we had no choice but to go there, here is a timeline of events leading up to this costly disaster. Many of these facts come directly from the 9/11 Commission Report and some from various fact checked sources.
1991 – The Soviet Collapse
In 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed which created new nations such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. These nations border in the Caspian Sea and are known to have huge oil and natural gas reserves. Major US oil companies, ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell, and Enron start for investing billions to secure equity rights by bribing heads of state. US companies own approx. 75% of the rights but the big problem facing them is the high prices they pay to Russia for the use of their pipelines in getting the oil out of the area.
Sept – Oct – 1995 Unocal and Let’s make a Deal
Unocal signs an $8 Billion deal with Turkmenistan to construct pipelines as part of a bigger deal intended to transport oil from there through Afghanistan and into Pakistan. The problem now is that Unocal needs permission from these two countries to proceed. But there is a wrench in the works because Pakistan and Afghanistan have already signed a pipeline deal with an Argentinean company.
Sept 1996 – Taking Control of Kabul
Taliban conquer Kabul and take control over most of Afghanistan. The 9/11 Commission later concludes that some State Department diplomats were willing to “give the Taliban a chance” because it might be able to bring stability to Afghanistan, which would allow a Unocal oil pipeline to be built through the country. Unocal opens an office in Kabul and starts “courting” the Taliban trying to get their support. Also in 1996, Unocal and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia reach agreement with state companies in Turkmenistan and Russia to build a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan; the agreement is finalized in 1997
Oct 1996 – Engaging with the Taliban
Zalmay Khalilzad calls on the US to deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan. “It is time for the United States to reengage……The Taliban does not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran—it is closer to the Saudi model.” He calls on the US to help the Taliban “put Afghanistan on a path toward peace,” noting that continuing violence “has been a source of regional instability and an obstacle to building pipelines to bring Central Asian oil and gas to Pakistan and the world markets.”
Dec 1997 – Funding the Training Camps
Unocal pays University of Nebraska $900,000 to set up a training facility near Osama bin Laden’s Kandahar compound, to train 400 Afghan teachers, electricians, carpenters and pipe fitters in anticipation of using them for their pipeline in Afghanistan.
One hundred and fifty students are already attending classes in southern Afghanistan. Unocal is playing University of Nebraska professor Thomas Gouttierre to develop the training program. Gouttierre travels to Afghanistan and meets with Taliban leaders, and also arranges for some Taliban leaders to visit the US at a later date. It will later be revealed that the CIA paid Gouttierre to head a program at the University of Nebraska that created textbooks for Afghanistan promoting violence and jihad (see 1984-1994). Gouttierre will continue to work with the Taliban after Unocal officially cuts off ties with them.
Dec 1997 – Taliban Representatives Visit America
Representatives of the Taliban are invited guests to the Texas headquarters of Unocal to negotiate their support for the pipeline. Future President George W. Bush is Governor of Texas at the time. The Taliban appear to agree to a $2 billion pipeline deal, but will do the deal only if the US officially recognizes the Taliban regime.
According to the Daily Telegraph, “the US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban’s policies against women and children ‘despicable,’ appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract.” A BBC regional correspondent says that “the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian
.
Nov 3rd 1998 – Attacks stop US Oil Pipeline
Oct 1998 – The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Julie Sirrs, a military analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency,(DIA) travels to Afghanistan. Traveling undercover, she meets with Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. She sees a terrorist training center in Taliban-controlled territory. Sirrs claims, “The Taliban’s brutal regime was being kept in power significantly by bin Laden’s money, plus the narcotics trade, while [Massoud’s] resistance was surviving on a shoestring. )
She claims, “Massoud told me he had proof that Unocal had provided money that helped the Taliban take Kabul.” She also states, “The State Department didn’t want to have anything to do with Afghan resistance, or even, politically, to reveal that there was any viable option to the Taliban.” By interviewing captured al-Qaeda operatives, she learns that the official Afghanistan airline, Ariana Airlines, is being used to ferry weapons and drugs, and learns that bin Laden goes hunting with “rich Saudis and top Taliban officials”
When she returns from Afghanistan, her material is confiscated and she is accused of being a spy. She is cleared of wrongdoing, but her security clearance is pulled. She eventually quits the DIA in frustration in 1999.
Jan 2nd 1999 – US Strikes Targets in Afghanistan
1999 – Unocal Withdraws from the Pipeline Consortium
Unocal announces it is withdrawing from the CentGas pipeline consortium, and closing three of its four offices in Central Asia. President Clinton refuses to extend diplomatic recognition to the Taliban, making business there legally problematic. A concern that Clinton will lose support among women voters for upholding the Taliban plays a role in the cancellation. The Taliban then award the pipeline to a a company in Argentina.
July – August 1999 Let’s Visit America Again
About a dozen Afghan leaders visit the US. They are militia commanders, mostly Taliban, and some with ties to al-Qaeda. A few are opponents of the Taliban. Their exact names and titles remain classified. For five weeks, they visit numerous locales in the US, including Mt. Rushmore. All their expenses are paid by the US government and the University of Nebraska. Thomas Gouttierre, an academic heading an Afghanistan program at the University of Nebraska, hosts their visit. Gouttierre is working as a consultant to Unocal at the time, and some Taliban visits to the US are paid for by Unocal, such as a visit two years earlier.
15th March 2001 – Allies Invade Afghanistan
India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. Military sources in Delhi, claim that the opposition Northern Alliance’s capture of the strategic town of Bamiyan, was precipitated by the four countries’ collaborative effort.
May 23, 2001 – A Special Envoy
Zalmay Khalilzad is appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Gulf, Southwest Asia and Other Regional Issues on the National Security Council. Khalilzad was an official in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. During the Clinton years, he worked for Unocal. He previously worked under Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and helped him write a controversial 1992 plan for US world domination.
He was a member of the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century. The Asia Times notes, “It was Khalilzad—when he was a huge Taliban fan—who conducted the risk analysis for Unocal (Union Oil Company of California) for the infamous proposed $2 billion, 1,500 kilometer-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan [TAP] gas pipeline.” After 9/11, he will be appointed as special envoy to Afghanistan Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and his transitional government assume power in Afghanistan. It was reported a few weeks before that he had been a paid consultant for Unocal at one time. In his former role as Unocal adviser, Khalilzad participated in negotiations with the Taliban to build the pipeline through Afghanistan. He was also at one time, Deputy Foreign Minister for the Taliban.
Sept 3rd 2001 – Allies Deploy Huge Task-Force for “fictional” Conflict – Prior to 9/11
The aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious has sailed from Portsmouth to lead the biggest Royal Navy and Royal Marine deployment since the Falklands. HMS Illustrious is the flagship of three groups of warships travelling to the Middle East to take part in exercise “Saif Sareea 2.”More than 24 surface ships from Britain, plus two nuclear submarines, will be completing the 13,000 mile round trip.The operation, costing nearly £100m, will end with a major excercise before Christmas that will also involve the Army, Royal Air Force and the Armed Forces of Oman. The strike force has been put together to take part in a conflict between” fictional forces” of the so-called state of Alawham and those of Oman.
September 11, 2001 War Comes to America
18th September 2001 – Diplomat reveals 9/11 “response” began before 9/11 attacks.”Former Pakistani Forign Secretary Naz Naik tells the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban even before the weeks attacks. Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin. The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taliban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in it’s place.Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place. He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby. Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.
16th March 2001 – Bush prepares America to Wage War
“I want to remind the American people that the prime suspect’s [Osama Bin Laden] organization is in a lot of countries,” Mr Bush told reporters on the White House lawn.
May 30, 2002 – Afghan, Turkmen, and Pakistani Leaders Sign Pipeline Deal
May 25, 2005: BTC Pipeline Opens
May 28, 2006: Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline Opens
The first oil pumped from Baku, by the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, arrives in Ceyhan, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, and is loaded onto a ship. The 1,770 km pipeline, which passes through the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, bypasses Russia and Iran for geopolitical reasons. The main shareholder is British Petroleum, and other significant shareholders include the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Statoil of Norway, and the US company Unocal, which has an 8.9% interest
.
Journalist Pepe Escobar comments: “In terms of no-holds-barred power politics and oil geopolitics, BTC is the real deal—a key component in the US’s overall strategy of wrestling the Caucasus and Central Asia away from Russia—and bypassing Iranian oil and gas routes… BTC makes little sense in economic terms. Oil experts know that the most cost-effective routes from the Caspian would be south through Iran or north through Russia. But BTC is a designer masterpiece of power politics—from the point of view of Washington and its corporate allies
Just a Few of the Cast Members:
Zalmay Khalilzad – Ambassador to the United Nations and the only Middle East native in a senior position in the administration and former ambassador to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a known neoconservative who formerly held a position with Unocal.
John Negroponte – Appointed top deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Condoleezza Rice – Secretary of State and was a former advisor to Chevron Oil. Chevron named one of their newest “supertankers” after Condoleeza.
George Bush Sr. – Now works with the Carlysle Group specializing in oil investments around the world.
Dick Cheney – Worked for the giant conglomerate Halliburton before becoming VP. Halliburton gave Cheney $34 Million dollars as a “farewell” gift when he “left” Halliburton. Halliburton is in the pipeline construction business.
There is an estimated $6 Trillion dollars worth of oil in the Caspian Sea area.
Now, can you really tell me that this war we are fighting in the Middle East isn’t about oil?
