- (Note - Nina has written for The Washington Post, The
Chicago Tribune, and New York magazine. As a reporter for TIME, she was
among the first American journalists to enter Iraq after the Gulf War.
Further, Rense.com has run numerous well-researched stories on the Bush-oil
web in the Middle East...and the huge Caspian oil and gas fields just waiting
for a pipeline through Afghanistan. It is encouraging to see even more
journalists of note looking at this crucial issue. -ed)
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-
- Recently, I attended one of those legendary Washington
dinner parties, attended by British cosmopolites and Americans in the know.
A few courses in, people were gossiping about the Bush family's close and
enduring friendship with the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, dean of the
diplomatic corps in Washington. By the end of the evening, everyone was
talking about how the unfolding events were going to affect the flow of
oil out of Central Asia.
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- I left wondering whether 6,000 Americans might prove
to have died in New York for the royal family of Saud, or oil, or both.
But I didn't have much more than insider dinner gossip to go on. I get
my analysis from the standard all-American news outlets. And they've been
too focused on a) anthrax and smallpox, or b) the intricacies of Muslim
fanaticism, to throw any reporters at the murky ways in which international
oil politics and its big players have a stake in what's unfolding.
-
- A quick Nexis search brought up a raft of interesting
leads that would keep me busy for 10 years if the economics of this war
was my beat. But only two articles in the American media since September
11 have tried to describe how Big Oil might benefit from a cleanup of terrorists
and other anti-American elements in the Central Asia region. One was by
James Ridgeway of the Village Voice. The other was by a Hearst writer based
in Paris and it was picked up only in the San Francisco Chronicle.
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- In other words, only the Left is connecting the dots
of what the Russians have called "The Great Game" -- how oil
underneath the 'stans' fits into the new world order. Here's just a small
slice of what ought to provoke deeper research by American reporters with
resources and talent.
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- Start with father Bush. The former president and ex-CIA
director is not unemployed these days. He's been globetrotting as a member
of Washington's Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm which
employs a motorcade of former ranking Republicans, including Frank Carlucci,
Jim Baker and Richard Darman. George Bush Senior and colleagues open doors
overseas for The Carlyle Group's "access capitalists."
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- Bush specializes in Asia and has been in and out of Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait (countries that revere him thanks to the Gulf War) often
on business since his presidency. Baker, the pin-striped midwife of 'Election
2000' was working his network in the 'stans' before the ink was dry on
Clinton's first inaugural address.
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- The Bin Laden family (presumably the friendly wing) is
also invested in Carlyle. Carlyle's portfolio is heavy in defense and telecommunications
firms, although it has other holdings including food and bottling companies.
-
- The Carlyle connection means that George Bush Senior
is on the payroll from private interests that have defense business before
the government, while his son is president. Hmmm. As Charles Lewis of the
Washington-based Center for Public Integrity has put it, "in a really
peculiar way, George W. Bush could, some day, benefit financially from
his own administration's decisions, through his father's investments. And
that to me is a jaw-dropper."
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- Why can we assume that global businessmen like Bush Senior
and Jim Baker care about who runs Afghanistan and NOT just because it's
home base for lethal anti-Americans? Because it also happens to be situated
in the middle of that perennial vital national interest -- a region with
abundant oil. By 2050, Central Asia will account for more than 80 percent
of our oil. On September 10, an industry publication, Oil and Gas Journal,
reported that Central Asia represents one of the world's last great frontiers
for geological survey and analysis, "offering opportunities for investment
in the discovery, production, transportation, and refining of enormous
quantities of oil and gas resources."
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- It's assumed we need unimpeded access in the 'stans'
for our geologists, construction workers and pipelines if we are going
to realize the conservation-free, fossil-fueled future outlined recently
by Vice President Cheney. A number of pipeline projects to carry Central
Asia's resources west are already under way or have been proposed. They
would go through Russia, through the Caucasus or via Turkey and Iran. Each
route will be within easy reach of the Taliban's thugs and could be made
much safer by an American vanquishment of Muslim terrorism.
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- There's also lots of oil beneath the turf of our politically
precarious newest best friend, Pakistan. "Massive untapped gas reserves
are believed to be lying beneath Pakistan's remotest deserts, but they
are being held hostage by armed tribal groups demanding a better deal from
the central government," reported Agence France Presse just days before
September 11.
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- So many business deals, so much oil, all those big players
with powerful connections to the Bush administration. It doesn't add up
to a conspiracy theory. But it does mean there is a significant MONEY subtext
that the American public ought to know about as "Operation Enduring
Freedom" blasts new holes where pipelines might someday be buried.
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- http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/10/11/index.html
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