The Spirit of the Internet Weekly

[NOTE: Condoleezza Rice, one of the principal architects of Bush’s War OF Terrorism is so well-loved by BIG OIL that Chevron even named a tanker after her!]

Watergate On Acid!?

(from Fraser Clark’s UPGRADEmag*, January 18, 2002)

Bush Cronies Guilty Of High Treason And Murder?

STILL THINK IT’S ALL OVER?
The Enron Story thus far is nothing less than astounding: a company valued in the billions on Wall Street, suddenly filed for the largest bankruptcy claim in the history of the known universe. 4,000 employees were abruptly shown the door after having been barred from dumping the company stock, meant to fund their retirement, while it was worth something. Meanwhile, Enron executives in the know were able to dump the stock, back when it was the gold standard on the Street, for a cool $1 billion.

SO WHAT’S NEW, YOU ASK.
Well, apparently, although Enron was ailing for around the last 4 years (to be defined exactly in the courts), the aforementioned executives were able to maintain the mirage of financial viability by stuffing the debt into what are called ‘off-balance-sheet partnerships.’ In essence, each of the executives built personal banking bunkers and hid what has been revealed to be staggering Enron debts within them, keeping the fact that the company was hemorrhaging money off the publicly displayed balance sheets. This maintained the company’s credit rating, and allowed it to continue doing business.

The fact that this went on for four years means several things:

most of the Enron executives were aware of and/or actively participating in this highly criminal and irresponsible activity
the stockholders, including 4,000 loyal Enron employees, were lied to
the executives probably knew the stock value was doomed when they bailed out and cashed in several months ago
they let their employees lose the retirement funds they believed were growing within their Enron stock portfolios
a lot of people got screwed by a pack of sharp operators who didn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves.

SO WHAT’S NEW, YOU ASK AGAIN!!!!
Well, what’s new starts to emerge when the umbilical political and financial connections between Bush and Enron are illuminated. Enron’s capo, Kenneth Lay, was perhaps the best financial friend George W. Bush has ever known. He and a number of Enron employees essentially bankrolled Bush’s 2000 Presidential campaign, even lending Bush an Enron corporate jet for trips between whistle stops. And long before Bush got White House stars in his eyes, he worked very closely with Enron on energy policy in Texas.

This close connection led to the Bush administration’s hiring of a number of influential individuals within Enron’s orbit for important government positions:

THOMAS E. WHITE, Bush’s Secretary of the Army, had been Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Service, and held millions in Enron stock
KARL ROVE, Presidential Advisor, owned as much as $250,000 of Enron stock
LARRY LINDSAY, Economic adviser, leapt straight from Enron to his current White House job
ROBERT B. ZOELLICK, Federal Trade Representative, ditto above.
HARVEY PITTS, SEC Chairman, was handpicked by Kenneth Lay for the position, due to his notorious aversion to governmental regulation of any kind.
DONALD RUMSFELD, Defense Secretary, together with 31 Bush administration officials had a line item for Enron in their stock portfolio. The woebegone corporation held, and continues to hold, enormous influence over the day-to-day machinations of Federal government policy. Was Bush’s recent gutting of the Clean Air Act, a decision designed to improve the fortunes of companies like Enron, the brainchild of people with deep connections to the energy industry?
DICK CHENEY, Vice President, admitted recently to six separate meetings with Enron executives while formulating the Bush administration’s energy policy. Cheney, a former executive of the Halliburton Petroleum interest, was in charge of creating this policy. For reasons soon to be exposed by subpoena, Cheney refused to detail the specifics of the creation of this policy, which included the multiple Enron meetings. The General Accounting Office was preparing to sue Cheney to reveal this information when the September 11th attacks took place. Those subpoenas may be dusted off and mailed within a month.

In the meantime, the Justice Department is preparing a serious criminal investigation into the collapse of Enron. The democratically-controlled Senate is planning hearings on the matter as well. Columnist Robert Scheer has referred to the Bush administration’s involvement in the Enron debacle as “Whitewater in spades.” One wonders if “Watergate” would be a more appropriate comparison.

BUSH MAKES BUNDLE, EVERYONE ELSE GETS SHAFTED
Bush’s own dealings within the energy industry carry a disturbingly familiar echo to the Enron situation: once upon a time, he was a high-ranking officer of a petroleum interest called Harken Oil. On June 22, 1990, a week before Harken announced a $23.2 million loss in quarterly earnings making its stock lose 60 percent of its value over the next six months, Bush made $848,560 by selling his Harken stock, earning him a 200% profit. Bush made a bundle while the other investors lost millions. Harken was Enron in miniature.

And some say that daddy tipped little george off about saddam’s impending invasion of kuwait which was the reason for the sudden fall in value. now i wonder which oil companies specifically have profited from replacing mullah omar by a cia guy? somebody care to dig out the records?

ALL RIGHT, BUT WHERE’S THE TREASON AND MURDER?!
There’s a school of thought, espoused primarily by Republicans, that any investigation into potentially dishonorable or illegal actions by the Bush administration is tantamount to treason. We are at war, undeclared though it may be, and Bush must be free to prosecute this war vigorously.

However, if reports recently aired on CNN have any credence, Bush and his cronies may well have to answer for actions that make the Enron catastrophe look like a jaywalking offense, actions that led directly to the incredible carnage in New York and Washington, D.C! In 1998, during the Clinton administration, the U.S.-based energy concern Unocal canceled plans to exploit massive natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan by running a pipeline line from there to Pakistan, where the natural gas could have been processed for Asian and Western energy markets. The idea was scuttled after Clinton ordered the cruise missile bombing of Afghanistan in response to a terrorist attack upon U.S. embassies in Africa which were planned and executed by Osama bin Laden.

The pipeline would have had to pass through Afghanistan, and Unocal was given the message in technicolor by Clinton’s people that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was not to be given any sort of financial boon.

The Bush administration found no moral dilemma in dealing with the Taliban to get to the gas. Immediately upon their arrival in Washington, a vigorous courtship of the Taliban was undertaken. In fact, if former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler is to be believed, the Bush administration had a vested interest in strengthening and stabilizing the Taliban regime, because a stable regime would compel investors to revive the Turkmenistan natural gas pipeline deal. The Taliban, demon of the moment, was the Bush administration’s idea of a ‘stable’ government. Stable enough, anyway, to see the pipeline through.

The connections between Bush and the Taliban became so close that the Taliban went so far as to hire an expert on U.S. public relations named Laila Helms [who is the daughter of a former Director of the CIA], so as to smooth the way between the two regimes. Meetings between the two nations continued at a high level, the last of which occurred in August, scant weeks before the September 11th attacks. All of these actions were taken to exploit the vast energy reserves in Turkmenistan for the benefit of American energy corporations.

The cozy relationship between Bush and the Taliban frustrated the investigative efforts of former FBI Deputy Director John O’Neill. He was the FBI’s chief bin Laden hunter, in charge of the investigations into the bin Laden-connected bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, the destruction of an American troop barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the African embassy bombings in 1998, and the attack upon the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.

O’Neill quit the FBI in protest two weeks before the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. He did so because his investigation was hindered by the Bush administration’s connections to the Taliban, and by the interests of American petroleum companies. O’Neill was quoted as stating, “The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.” After leaving the FBI, O’Neill took a position as head of security for the World Trade Center. He died on September 11th, 2001, trying to save people trapped by the attack. The irony in this, simply, is horrifying. In essence, the Federal agent who knew more about bin Laden than any living American was kept from investigating terrorist threats against America was hindered because the Bush administration was desperate to cultivate the favor of the Taliban, who held terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden in great esteem, so as to gain access to lucrative natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan.

If these allegations prove true, Bush and his friends allowed this affinity to hamstring investigations that could have thwarted bin Laden’s September plans. If these allegations prove true, everything since September 11th has been a massive cover-up operation in which American soldiers and thousands of Afghan civilians have died. If these allegations prove true, the Bush administration has the blood of thousands of American civilians on its hands.

If these allegations carry even the faintest whiff of credibility, George W. Bush and members of his administration stand in taint of high treason and murder.

On November 7th, 2000, a clear majority of Americans came to the conclusion that George W. Bush was unfit to govern this nation. For a variety of dark and controversial reasons, that conclusion was thrown over. Sometime soon, if the media’s electronic web continues to carry these sordid stories of corruption, greed and death, the American people will come to fully understand the consequences of that failed election.

It is one thing to coddle and court a corrupt energy company for political and financial gain. But it’s quite another to coddle and court a murderous terrorist-supporting regime, hindering anti-terrorism investigations in the process, for the purpose of exploiting valuable natural resources. The former cost a number of people their retirement funds. The latter has cost thousands of people their lives. One is criminal. The other is abominable. George W. Bush is deeply implicated in both.

―William Pitt

# STILL THINK IT’S ALL OVER?
JAN 8 AMERICAN MORNING WITH PAULA ZAHN on CNN

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to check in with ambassador-in-residence, Richard Butler, this morning. An explosive new book published in France alleges that the United States was in negotiations to do a deal with the Taliban for an oil pipeline in Afghanistan. Joining us right now is Richard Butler to shed some light on this new book. He is the former chief U.N. weapons inspector. He is now on the Council on Foreign Relations and our own ambassador-in-residence -- good morning.

RICHARD BUTLER, FMR. U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Boy, if any of these charges are true...

BUTLER: If...

ZAHN: ...this...

BUTLER: Yes.

ZAHN: ...is really big news.

BUTLER: I agree.

ZAHN: Start off with what your understanding is of what is in this book -- the most explosive charge.

BUTLER: The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan.
ZAHN: And this book points out that the FBI’s deputy director, John O’Neill, actually resigned because he felt the U.S. administration was obstructing...

BUTLER: A proper...

ZAHN: ...the prosecution of terrorism.

BUTLER: Yes, yes, a proper intelligence investigation of terrorism. Now, you said if, and I affirmed that in responding to you. We have to be careful here. These are allegations. They’re worth airing and talking about, because of their gravity. We don’t know if they are correct. But I believe they should be investigated, because Central Asian oil, as we were discussing yesterday, is potentially so important. And all prior attempts to have a pipeline had to be done through Russia. It had to be negotiated with Russia. Now, if there is to be a pipeline through Afghanistan, obviating the need to deal with Russia, it would also cost less than half of what a pipeline through Russia would cost. So financially and politically, there’s a big prize to be had. A pipeline through Afghanistan down to the Pakistan coast would bring out that Central Asian oil easier and more cheaply.

ZAHN: But let’s come back to this whole issue of what John O’Neill, this FBI agent...
BUTLER: Right.

ZAHN: ...apparently told the authors of this book. He is alleging that -- what -- the U.S. government was trying to protect U.S. oil interests? And at the same time, shut off the investigation of terrorism to allow for that to happen?

BUTLER: That’s the allegation that instead of prosecuting properly an investigation of terrorism, which has its home in Afghanistan as we now know, or one of its main homes, that was shut down or slowed down in order to pursue oil interests with the Taliban. The people who we have now bombed out of existence, and this not many months ago. The book says that the negotiators said to the Taliban, you have a choice. You have a carpet of gold, meaning an oil deal, or a carpet of bombs.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: The UPGRADEmag (the Upgrade Emag, or just the “UP”) is a global edutainment news round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[10,357]= Trance// New Age// Alternative// Activist// Zippy folks who have been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as “showing signs of life”. Since many recipients choose to forward it to their own lists, we estimate 27,000+ recipients. Further, because of its less ‘specialist’ content, it’s increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making a total weekly ‘readership’ of 275,000+.

― Parallel YOUniversity, Box 833, London NW6, UK
fraser@parallel-youniversity.com

Return to Opinions Return to January 19 page

[Home] [World Events] [Take Charge] [Links] [Hagerty Home Page] [About Us] [Store] [Search] [Site Map]
[What's New]