NP? oily geopolitics

[Doug Millison]

[...] Although in the aftermath of 9/11 the bin Laden 2 million dollar
investment in Carlyle was withdrawn, prior to that time George W's
administration had put up road-blocks to the investigation of the bin Laden
family. The lead investigator of Osama bid Laden's involvement in terror
actions against the US, from the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 to the
African embassy bombings in 1998 to the assault on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000,
was John O'Neill, a Deputy Director of the FBI. O'Neill had repeatedly been
denied access to questioning the bin Laden family, including a January 2001
directive from the White House to desist from investigating two of Osama's
brothers who were residing in Falls Church, Virginia at the time. In the
face of such continuing obstruction, O'Neill resigned in protest from the
FBI claiming that the "main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism
were U.S. oil interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it."
Ironically, O'Neill became the chief security person at the World Trade
Center shortly before 9/11 where he, along with between 2-3,000 others,
perished in the destruction of the WTC on that fateful and tragic day.

If /911 was a tragedy to thousands of Americans and their families, Bush
and his father's Carlyle cronies hit the jackpot, especially with renewed
contracts for Carlyle defense investments. [...] if the Saudi and Carlyle
connections to father and son Bush don't raise alarms, then the whole
history of the Bush Administration's dealings with the Taliban should. The
primary focus of these dealings was the renewal of a planned pipeline from
the natural gas rich fields of Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and
Pakistan to other Asian markets. Behind this whole operation was the Unocal
company. Among the advisors to Unocal was Zalmay Khalilzad, an
Afghan-American academic, who in addition to being an advisor to Unocal in
the 1990's was also part of the foreign policy think-tanks that included
Frank Carlucci. Khalilzad joined the Taliban's lobbyist, Laila Helms (a
relative of former CIA director, Richard Helms) in direct talks between
representatives of the Taliban and the Bush Administration right up through
July of 2001. When the Taliban broke off the talks, refusing the pipeline
offers, the Bush Administration made known it's efforts to strike back at
the Taliban as early as August of 2001. Ostensibly attacking the Taliban
for it's refusal to hand over Osama bid Laden, the Bush Administration
refused any alternatives to the military option. During the whole military
operation, the Pentagon has tried to establish security points that reflect
the route of the proposed pipeline. Moreover, Harmid Karzai, the
hand-picked US leader of Afghanistan, was, at one time, also a consultant
for Unocal. Along with Khalilzad, who now is the US representative to
Afghanistan's interim government, plans for the pipeline seem closer to
realization. [...] To suggest that the Bush Administration arranged the
9/11 tragedy is to resort to wildly speculative conspiracy theories. On the
other hand, there is a substantive and documented record of neglect and
obstruction to warrant a charge of criminal negligence by Bush and his
national security state apparatus. [...]

from:
May 21, 2002
Follow the Money
Bush, 9/11 and Deep Threat
by Fran Shor
http://www.counterpunch.org/


...see also, May 20 interview with Greg Palast, at http://www.flashpoints.net/