Nov. 26, 2001 | Read the story.
In "The United States of Oil," Damien Cave states "Before Sept. 11 Saudi Arabia was reportedly pushing the U.S. to pressure Israel into Palestine peace concessions and, according to a Newsweek story, Bush was beginning to comply." The White House has been promoting this misleading story for some time in an attempt to direct attention away from White House actions that may have triggered the Sept. 11 attacks. In May 2001, after Bush walked away from the Palestinians, Israel's Sharon enraged the Arab world by attacking Palestinian positions with US-made F-16 fighter jets. These attacks underlined the fact that Israel is the Middle East's most powerful military power because roughly $91 billion in past U.S. aid (and $3 billion/year currently) has been used to indirectly subsidize U.S. defense contractors via the sale of advanced weapons to Israel.
Newsweek's story that Bush was pushing Israel to make peace with Arafat prior to Sept. 11 is hilarious, given that the White House let Lockheed Martin sell Israel 52 more F-16 fighters on Sept 5, one week before the Sept. 11 attacks. The fact that the F-16s are made in Fort Worth Texas and that Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne Cheney, was on Lockheed's board of directors from 1994 to Jan 2001 only underlined the point for the Arab world.
Cairo's Al-Wafd criticized the sale in a blistering article on Sept. 8 -- an excerpt: "The timing the U.S. chose to announce its decision to give Israel the dangerous F-16 jets is really strange. It seems as though the U.S. is telling Israel 'Go ahead Sharon! Carry on with the assassination of Palestinian children and the destruction of the houses of peaceful civilians! Proceed with the destruction of the Palestinian defenseless people's infrastructure and with desecrating Islamic sanctities in the holy land!'"
In interviews with CNN in 1997, with ABC News in 1998, and in his 1998 Jihad Declaration, Osama bin Laden explicitly cited American support of Israel, and its harmful effects on Muslim Palestinians, as one of the primary motivations for his declared jihad. How was bin Laden likely to view the sale of the 52 F-16s on Sept. 5?
The American voters are unlikely to get the full story. Condoleezza Rice has asked the TV networks to censor any statements from bin Laden and the networks, vulnerable to FCC actions, have hastened to comply. If bin Laden is captured, any statements he makes are unlikely to escape the secret military tribunal that President Bush is setting up.
-- Don Williams
Of course the administration has a background in oil. So much the better to understand and manage energy policy.
If Afghanistan proved to be an alternative to Saudi Arabia in delivering Russian and Central Asian oil to the world market that would be great but unfortunately Afghanistan does not reach the sea and we would have to pass through Iran or Pakistan.
I would love to see a militarized oil corridor going to the Caspian Sea and perhaps that can be worked out with Pakistan.
Meanwhile you people are placing all your hopes on "alternative energy" unproven on a mass scale.
-- Wayne Huber
Mr. Cave's stunning revelation that the Bush family and their associates are former oilmen is indeed groundbreaking journalism in the grand tradition of "Weekend Update" and "The Daily Show."
He seems (as many did a few months ago) to build the case that this administration would support helping the industry with higher prices, but the plummeting prices we now are experiencing (I thought the companies had the power to manipulate prices?) make such a position untenable, thus we are greeted with his final paragraph:
"But there is no clear evidence, right now, of oil company desires affecting current U.S. foreign policy. If anything, the terrorist attacks have reduced the energy industry's influence. Before Sept. 11 Saudi Arabia was reportedly pushing the U.S. to pressure Israel into Palestine peace concessions and, according to a Newsweek story, Bush was beginning to comply. But after Sept. 11, the chance that the U.S. would accede to Saudi requests evaporated, given the numerous Saudi connections to the attacks."
It is as if Mr. Cave builds his own straw man of a premise then demolishes it since the facts can't support them.
All I can say to this is if the oil industry creates public service of the caliber of Cheney & Rice maybe we should regularly hire people from there.
-- Peter Ingemi
Great article about the oil-soaked Bush administration. How about checking out the reports of this year's negotiations between the Bush administration and the Taliban. Sounds like they were our best buds until the Taliban refused to cooperate with the US plan to build and control an oil pipeline in Afghanistan. When they balked, we threatened to blast them to pieces, like we seem to do to everyone that doesn't do exactly what we want them to do. All the stories point to a pre-planned military attack against Afghanistan slated to begin in mid-October. Fits right in with the lack of proof against bin Laden and the refusal to accept the Taliban's multiple offers to hand bin Laden over to a neutral country for trial, post-9/11. There are multiple articles out there -- BBC's George Arney "US Planned Attack on Taliban," "Zalmay Khalilzad and the Great Game" by David Lloyd and Rick Berg in Counterpunch and there is a new book out in France called, "Bin Laden, Forbidden Truth" by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, which deals with it as well.
I believe it very much effects current policy. I believe that the war in Afghanistan has very little to do with terrorism and practically everything to do with the 3 trillion dollars worth of oil and natural gas in the Caspian Sea basin area. Getting the American press to open their eyes and investigate this rampant corruption is another matter. Keep up the good work. After the disgusting display of American journalists as government propagandists, not only since 9/11, but for many years now, it's nice to see a start in the right direction, namely, full reporting.
-- Laurie Sampson
Next page: Is nuclear power the answer?
