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=> Re: the taliban a friend of Clinton

Re: the taliban a friend of Clinton
Posted by St. Me (Guest) - Saturday, October 23 2004, 6:57:41 (CEST)
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Proposed Unocal Pipeline in Afghanistan

Deceits 27-30



This segment is introduced with the question, "Or was the war in Afghanistan really about something else?" The "something else" is shown to be a Unocal pipeline.

Moore mentions that the Taliban visited Texas while Bush was governor, over a possible pipeline deal with Unocal. But Moore doesn’t say that they never actually met with Bush or that the deal went bust in 1998 and had been supported by the Clinton administration.

Labash, Weekly Standard.

Moore asserts that the Afghan war was fought only to enable the Unocal company to build a pipeline. In fact, Unocal dropped that idea back in August 1998.

Jonathan Foreman, "Moore’s The Pity," New York Post, June 23, 2004.

In December 1997, a delegation from Afghanistan’s ruling and ruthless Taliban visited the United States to meet with an oil and gas company that had extensive dealings in Texas. The company, Unocal, was interested in building a natural gas line through Afghanistan. Moore implies that Bush, who was then governor of Texas, met with the delegation.

But, as Gannett News Service points out, Bush did not meet with the Taliban representatives. What’s more, Clinton administration officials did sit down with Taliban officials, and the delegation’s visit was made with the Clinton administration’s permission.

McNamee, Chicago Sun-Times.

Whatever the motive, the Unocal pipeline project was entirely a Clinton-era proposal: By 1998, as the Taliban hardened its positions, the U.S. oil company pulled out of the deal. By the time George W. Bush took office, it was a dead issue—and no longer the subject of any lobbying in Washington.

Isikoff & Hosenball, MSNBC.com.


Moore claims that "Enron stood to benefit from the pipeline." To the contrary, Enron was not part of the consortium which expressed interest in working with Unocal on the pipeline.


On December 9, 2003, the new Afghanistan government did sign a protocol with Turkmenistan and Pakistan to facilitate a pipeline. Indeed, any Afghani government (Taliban or otherwise) would rationally seek the revenue that could be gained from a pipeline. But the protocol merely aims to entice corporations to build a new pipeline; no corporation has has agreed to do so. Nor does the new proposed pipeline even resemble Unocal's failed proposal; the new pipeline would the bring oil and gas from the Caspian Sea basin, whereas Unocal's proposal involved deposits five hundred miles away, in eastern Turkmenistan.


Fahrenheit showed images of pipeline construction, but the images have nothing to do with the Caspian Sea pipeline, for which construction has never begun. Nor do they have anything to do with the Unocal pipeline, which never existed except on paper.

According to Fahrenheit, Afghanistan's new President, Hamid Karzai, was a Unocal consultant. This is false. Sumana Chatterjee and David Goldstein, "A lowdown on the facts behind the allegations in 'Fahrenheit 9/11'," Knight-Ridder newspapers, July 2, 2004. The origin of the claim appears to be a December 6, 2001 story in the center-left French newspaper Le Monde. The story does not cite any source for its claim. (The story is available on-line from Le Monde's website; registration and payment are required.) Unocal has denied that Karzai was ever a consultant.


(Deceits: 1. Governor Bush never met the Taliban; 2. The Unocal pipeline idea was abandoned; 3. The new pipeline is different from the Unocal proposal; 4. Construction has not begun. Bonus deceit: Enron.)


[Moore response: Regarding Karzai, cites the article in Le Monde, and two later articles which appear to use Le Monde's information. Moore's translation is: "He was a consultant for the American oil company Unocal, while they studied the construction of a pipeline in Afghanistan." The actual sentence was "Après Kaboul et l'Inde ou il a étudié le droit, il a parfait sa formation aux Etats-Unis ou il fut un moment consultant de l'enterprise pétrolière américaine Unocal, quand celle-ci étudiant la construction d'un oléduc en Afghanistan." Translated: After Kabul and India where he had studied law, he completed his training in the United States where he was briefly (literally: "for a moment") a consultant for the American petroleum business Unocal, when it was studying the construction of a pipeline in Afghanistan." Neither Le Monde nor Moore has provided any evidence to substantiate the claim about Unocal and Karzai.


Regarding Enron, Moore cites a 1997 speech a professor, in which the professor said that Enron would be interested in helping to build the Unocal pipeline. There is no reason to doubt the professor, but the fact is that Enron was not among the companies which Unocal chose to work with. There is no evidence supporting Moore's assertion that Enron would benefit from the new Caspian Sea basin pipeline.


Moore does not attempt to defend the other falsities which are detailed in this section: that Unocal had abandoned the project in 1998, that the 2003 Protocol involves an entirely different pipeline, and that the pipeline footage in the movie has nothing to do with either the 1998 or 2003 proposals.]



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