Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6937)	2/10/2003 9:03:02 AM
From: ForYourEyesOnly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25898

"Running a countries foreign policy for the benefit of its oil interests is something France does, not the US." Really???? BIG OIL GOV'T INSTALLED IN KABUL By Greg Butterfield July 1, 2002--While the U.S. corporate media celebrated the selection of Washington's handpicked candidate to lead Afghanistan, the rest of the world focused its attention on dramatic new evidence of U.S. war crimes. On June 13, Hamid Karzai was selected as Afghanistan's president for a term of 18 months by the 1,500-member loya jirga, or grand council, in Kabul. Karzai had also headed the six-month interim government established last January under U.S. and German auspices following the overthrow of the Taliban. Karzai is a former consultant for the U.S. oil company Unocal. He helped Unocal plan a proposed 1,500-kilometer gas pipeline starting in Turkmenistan, stretching across Afghanistan, and ending in Pakistan. While still acting as interim leader, Karzai and the presidents of Pakistan and Turkmenistan signed an agreement May 30 to move ahead with the pipeline. Unocal was said to be the frontrunner to head the multi-billion-dollar project. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, is also a Unocal alumnus. The Bush administration hailed Karzai's selection by the loya jirga delegates as proof of democracy's return to occupied Afghanistan, even as U.S. military actions continue. But most delegates believed the council was "rigged to install a government headed by Karzai and dominated by the Northern Alliance," the Financial Times of London reported June 14. Without warning, the loya jirga was delayed for a day, reportedly to give extra time to pressure the former king to back Karzai. Karzai even told the press he'd been elected before the vote took place. Both the Northern Alliance and the Taliban got arms, money and political support from the United States during their long counter-revolutionary war against the progressive People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and its Soviet allies. The PDPA was finally overthrown in 1992. The Northern Alliance ruled Kabul from 1992 to 1996. For the next four years, massacre, rape and pillage were commonplace. When the Taliban drove the Northern Alliance from Kabul in 1996, they left 50,000 dead civilians behind. Last year, when the Bush administration decided to make this impoverished country the first victim of its "war on terrorism," the Northern Alliance made a suitable local cat's paw for Western consumption. But for many delegates, the Northern Alliance's role in the new government was a bitter pill to swallow. Sima Samar, who headed the interim government's Women's Affairs Ministry, said, "This is not democracy, it is a rubber stamp-everything has already been decided." She was removed from Karzai's new cabinet and replaced by a woman living outside the country.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6937)	2/10/2003 12:09:07 PM
From: zonder	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 25898

I'll just point out that Afghanistan has no oil, no pipeline, and none will be built what with all that has happened there. With all due respect, you are wrong. Before you take a look at the link below and read the news of the pipeline about to be built in Afghanistan, let me kindly remind you that the "preferred US company" UNOCAL is the US oil company that Hamid Karzai worked as a consultant for, at about the time when he negotiated with the Taliban for this very pipeline: news.bbc.co.uk Afghanistan hopes to strike a deal later this month to build a $2bn pipeline through the country to take gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. Afghan interim ruler Hamid Karzai is to hold talks with his Pakistani and Turkmenistan counterparts later this month on Afghanistan's biggest foreign investment project, said Mohammad Alim Razim, minister for Mines and Industries told Reuters. "The work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck at the coming summit," Mr Razim said. <BThe construction of the 850-kilometre pipeline had been previously discussed between Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, US oil company Unocal and Bridas of Argentina. The project was abandoned after the US launched missile attacks on Afghanistan in 1999. US company preferred Mr Razim said US energy company Unocal was the "lead company" among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30bn cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually. Unocal - which led a consortium of companies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Japan and South Korea - has maintained the project is both economically and technically feasible once Afghan stability was secured. "Unocal is not involved in any projects (including pipelines) in Afghanistan, nor do we have any plans to become involved, nor are we discussing any such projects," a spokesman told BBC News Online. The US company formally withdrew from the consortium in 1998. Here's a bit of info on Hamid Karzai and his oil background: lemonde.fr eurasianet.org. globalresearch.ca corpwatch.org greenpartyus.org