NASA helping U.S. to steal Afghan's Gas and Minerals -Remember Unacol?-

[bigtree]

NASA Confirms Gas, Mineral Reserves In Afghanistan

http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=125710

Thursday November 17, 2005

KABUL, November 18 (Online): The US-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has confirmed the existence of gas reserves in northern and southwestern Afghan regions.

The NASA also hinted at the existence of copper and gold reserves in the central Logar province and fuel reserves near Amo River, a senior official claimed.

Afghan Mines and Industries Minister Mir Mohammad Siddique told a news conference here: "We were earlier unaware of the natural gas, copper and fuel reserves discovered by NASA." An agreement on exploring these reserves involving US$17 million was signed between the Afghan mines minister and former US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in Kabul last year.

>>>>Also, there are mines of precious stones in Afghanistan and the US has promised to help in their excavation and cutting.



So NASA, which is littered with Lockheed and Boeing executives like the Bush administration, is in the business now of exploiting the resources of Afghanistan. We wondered how long it would be before they started back on their robber baron hunt for oil and gold that once had the U.S. coddling the Taliban to get them to provide security for Unacol pipeline workers who were building a pipeline from the Russian provinces into Pakistan through Afghanistan.


Khalilzad has been a shadowy operator in Iraq and Afghanistan, weaving between roles as a corporate shill and government-appointed corporatist. During the Clinton administration, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a AEI splinter group lobbied for the installation of the so-called Iraqi National Congress to replace the Hussein dictatorship. This group was the creation of the U.S. Congress which, following testimony from Ahmed Chalabi, and defense policy executive, Zalmay Khalilzad, passed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, and sanctioned the new U.S. policy of regime change. Almost $100 million in taxpayer funds was provided to the group.

Zalmay Khalilzad (these days a U.S. envoy to Iraq) was a Unacol executive. In October 1997, Khalilzad, and fellow Unocal executive Marty Miller testified before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, bragging about the "economic benefits that a set of pipelines from Central Asia can bring to the Afghan people if it is able to pass through the country."

Unocal, was a major player in a January 1998 agreement with the Taliban to build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan. The energy company led an international consortium deal to build a $ 2 billion, 1,275 km-long, natural-gas pipeline from Dauletabad in Turkmenistan to Karachi in Pakistan, via the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar, crossing into Pakistan near Quetta. http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex20867.htm

The Clinton administration and the Pakistani Inter Services Agency had developed a strategy in which the Taliban would provide 'stability' in managing the tribal rivalries that had prevented the pipeline from proceeding without sabotage.

Khalilzad met with Taliban representatives in 1997 in Houston during the pipeline negotiations. He wrote in a Washington Post article that, "The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of Muslim fundamentalism practiced by Iran. We should be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance and to promote international economic reconstruction. It is time for the United States to 'reengage' the Taliban."

He has changed his view of the Taliban a great deal since that statement, especially in the wake of the terrorist bombings of 9-11. In 1984, Khalilzad joined the State Department on a one-year fellowship. His background and language skills were enough to enable his placement in a permanent position on the State Department's Policy Planning Council.

He worked at the State Dept. under Paul Wolfowitz, who served as director of policy planning in the Reagan administration. Later Khalilzad worked on issues related to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq war.

Khalilzad had signed Feith's "open letter" to President Clinton in 1998, calling for "a determined program to change the regime in Baghdad." The letter echoed policy proposals prepared by Perle and Feith two years earlier, for Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu. Khalilzad was among the first Bush administration officials to speak publicly of "regime change" in Iraq.

After the 2000 election, Khalilzad, led the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Defense Department, and served as an advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Robert Oakley, U.S. ambassador to Pakistan in the 1980's was chaperone to the CIA support of the Afghan Mujahedin (in which Osama bin Laden became a commander), later worked for Unacol. The current president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karszi, hand-picked by this administration, was said to have been employed at one time as a consultant to Unacol. He denies it.

Khalilzad, who was then gifted with a permanent position on the State Department's Policy Planning Council right in the midst of the mujahedeen's war against Soviet occupation, was appointed by our current president to the position of Special Envoy to Afghanistan. Khalizad had another opportunity to reverse or expound on whatever mistakes he made over there in the lead up to 9-11. Looks like he's returning to cash in on his influence. It's hard to imagine that his or Karszi's leadership or counsel in Afghanistan's regard will resolve the conflicts there, or win the hearts and minds of any would-be conscripts or reformers. They are just crooks, and we pay their way.

[bigtree]

1. I reworked it to make it more coherent

now I'll go work on myself . . .