Well this was an eye-opener
 

..

yeah... you want a real case of the twitches? check out the Afgahnistan- Caspean Sea pipeline situation viz a viz Haliburton and Enron. It feeds the mind a rich meal of conspiracy theories and 9/11.



lions, and tigers, and bears ... oh my.

there's the inquiring journalistic mind in action!

..and people laugh at me in the bar when I tell them exactly what you have just kindly showed us (it's my biz)....it's all about the oil, always has been, always will be.

Yeah, I understand. Seriously. But you'd think somebody would be taking a serious look at it somewhere and making it headline news.

Yeah, that's real good. Every little bit helps. You never know when a nudge will be enough to bring down the mountain. I personally can't imagine being in NYC on that day. It was surreal watching it from a distance. I... well I just can't imagine.

I wish I could believe, but do we want to allow the second biggest oil reserves in the world to belong to a man who personally rapes the wives of his enemies?

I am as sceptical as the next person, but if it gets rid of Saddam, that can't be so bad...

(from a former member of the Labour Party)

Sorry, I just woke up and am living in a one reliable English media source environment.

Can you elaborate, Mon?

I only ask because I thought the plans for an oil pipeline were set from Baku, going through Armenina (touchy relationships there as well: Azerbaijan and Armenia aren't exactly friends. Azerbaijan and Iran are.) on to the Black Sea- which would make it handy to bring Turkey into the EU in the coming months.

IF that is, enough reserves in the Caspian are purchased by companies OTHER than the former state-owned Russian oil conglomerates. Where I left it, studies found the Caspian rife with promise, according to BP and Chevron.

I hate moving to countries that provide holes in my understanding of what is going on in the world.

Ahh! and nyc!! THANK YOU for posting that.

I'm not a big fan of rumors but... Enron was working with the Taliban (then the government of Afghanistan) to put in a pipeline from the Caspean Sea oil field through Afghanistan. As you can see the alternatives were a trip through Turkey to the Mediterranian or through Russia to the Black Sea.

The shorter route was through the "Stans". During the negotiations with the Afghan government, Enron's "man on the ground" was a guy named Hamid Karzhai (now the Afghan president). He was responsible for cutting a good deal with the Afghan government (read The Taliban). Well, the deal started to go sour. The Taliban decided to break off negotiations. That was in the summer of 2001. Then 9/11/2001 takes place. Look what happens in Afghanistan & Pakistan. The American's have an open excuse to essentially put both countries under occupation and martial law. The former Enron employee becomes the president. And miracle of miracles. the pipeline is back on...except now there are no Taliban to object.

The big picture. Whereas America was going to be cut out entirely from the Caspean Sea Oil fields in favor of european and russian concerns, now we're back in business. And even though Enron isn't around to reap the rewards... Haliburton is. (Dick Cheney was of course working for Haliburton before becoming VP). In an even more surreal twist...who recieved the contracts to build the camps in Guantanamo for the Taliban?
Haliburton.

And finally who has already been awarded the contract to restore the Iraqi oil fields to order after a potential conflict there? Haliburton.

It's so blatant it's shameless.

FVCK.

Thank you.

Imagine how much it would suck if the Russians had a monopoly on all of that oil. They'd have the money to become a superpower again. They'd still hate us. And they DEFINITELY have weapons of mass destruction. Would we be picking a fight with them to fill up our SUVs?

As McCauley Caulkin so eloquently put it...


I don't think so.

Yep. And that's just what we may be facing. The only thing worse than a world war would be a religious war between the muslims and the Judeo-Christians.

And to think we went 225 years without being the aggressor in a single war. All it takes is one bad election.

"Democracy is the worst form of government... except for all of the others."
Winston Churchill

Re: cynicism about oil.

One small correction about Afghanistan - Hamed Karzai was always opposed to the Taliban - that's why he's now President of Afghanistan. Agreed on your points re: need for pipeline to flow via allies, and desire to keep BP and Gazprom out of the Caucausus.

Russia still has the potential to become undemocratic again. Personally I sense a Weimar republic kind of thing. Putin has had no scruples in suppressing the media, or Chechnya...

Who are our allies anyway?

seems to me we're burning a bridge for every day Bush is in office

A bridge?

More than just one.

He seems to be doing one hell of a destruction job over here as well- Japan, South Korea and China ALL have had a legitmate curse word or two towards Bush Jr. about his actions since he's taken office.

I won't even mention North Korea.

Thank you for the "axis of evil" there, Georgie. You might as well have just painted a target on my forehead.