- Dancamp wrote:
- Not conspiration, justification, when circumstances help to justify intervention.
http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Maresca_testimony_USHouse_1998.htm
You see I don't try to propose that intervention wasn't needed, I'm not qualified to evaluate that. what I mean is that it is better to inform than to hide. If there are economic interests that are served as a side effect, they should say it loud and clear so nobody gets the feeling that they are led to support decisions on false information.
Cool link Dan!
I was particularly impressed with all the very selective bold, underlined text. I guess the guy giving the testimony must have really emphasized those points when he was speaking about a geographic region about a quarter the size of the planet earth, eh?
Oh... those were added by the guys at ringnebula.com, the guys with all the other posts about conspiracy, the "war machine", etc?
Jeez, who'd have thought that!!!!! No spin there!!!!
Maybe the conspiracy theorists at www.Ringnebula know that the people who tend to come to their website really aren't very bright to begin with, have the attention span of a gnat, so bolding and underlining the scary parts is what's required?
Now let's take the tinfoil hat off and have a look at this smoking gun you seem to think you have found with this website, and was somehow hidden. Because I see nothing here - and especially nothing to support your earlier comment that "
someone who sends people to die on his personnal profits, oh excuse me, beliefs."
Profits. First, can you find any of the whackjob conspiracy theorist websites that have ANYTHING to suggest Bush had investments or financial interests over there? Or did you just simply post a simplistic claim that he started the war for his personal profits because you figured you had a smoking gun?
Second, US resource companies have projected and existing projects all over the world, then and now. So do Canadian resource companies - and they often give statements in front of Canadian Parliamentary committees just as happened here. For example, there are both Canadian corporations and Canadian troops in Sierra Leone. Maybe we need Ringnebula.com to start investigating the war mongering link between Prime Minister Chretien who sent Canadians there and his link to Power Corp? Hell, lets go really big and unearth the conspiracy of how Quebec based Power Corp and Prime Ministers from Quebec with financial interests in Quebec based Power Corp foisted the Kyoto Accord on the world through the evil manoeuvering of Power Corp's Chairman Mo, while at the same time Chretien and Paul Martin stood to make enormous profits through their link to Power Corp!
Wouldn't you as a Canadian find a conspiracy theory involving Canadian prime ministers and their ties with Power Corp, Sierra Leone, and the Kyoto Accord much more interesting than multinational consortiums including the US back in 1998? And how all that information is being suppressed and not disclosed to your fellow Canadians? Aren't you as a Canadian at least as concerned about Canadian conspiracies involving a Quebec multinational energy corporation, it's links to at least three Canadian Prime Ministers from Quebec (employed every one of them!), and that corporation's business dealings and profits coming out of Canadian troops in Sierra Leone and the Kyoto Accord?
Bottom line: the fact that US petroleum companies were active in the area means exactly nothing by itself. No different than the fact former Liberal Prime Ministers from Quebec and Mo Strong are Power Corp insiders means Kyoto and Sierra Leone are Canadian conspiracies.
Third. I am sure you read ALL the testimony given the House Committee on Foreign Relations available at that web link - rather than just the text that was helpfully bolded (and then underlined just to make sure you didn't miss it) by the whackjob at Ringnebula. So I'm wondering how the following points from that testimony apparently didn't change your view of the smoking gun so helpfully provided in bolded and underlined form by Ringnebula:
- The testimony (not relevant enough to be either bolded nor underlined) stated that Asia was an exploding market with high energy demands for the forseeable future. And satisfying those demands would aid in political and economic stability for both those parts of Asia and the emerging states which would be producing that oil and gas. It further stated that it was in all country's interests to work towards having those developing markets provide Asia with that non-OPEC oil because otherwise Asia's demands would put pressure on all world markets and drive world oil prices up (hey, doesn't high prices mean more profit for evil big oil?). And so the oil would be come from developing oil producers and go to Asian markets - not the US.
- The testimony mentions CentGas - which Unocal was a minority shareholder in and which they pulled out of well before 9/11. Hmmmm... no profit there.
- The testimony emphasizes (although Ringnebula didn't bold nor underline it) how viable industry in the region gives both the producing and destination countries strong economic returns which most people agree are pretty helpful in reducing poverty, building national infrastructure, and economic and social development. Not to mention helps those countries move towards no longer needing intervention from the UN, World Bank, whatever. Which in turn is good for everyone, not just the US. So, I don't see how you could find anything evil and spooky in those objectives, nor why you would think it was preferable to leave both the producing countries and the consumer countries without that industry or required to do it just with Russian/Chinese help.
So where's the deep, dark conspiracy again - particularly that had something to do with Bush's "personal profit" as you put it?
Moving right along, we head over to the UN, where we see that our NATO presence there - known as ISAF - is a UN Security Council Resolution, and has been since December 2011. Like all SCR's, ISAF had to be approved without a veto from the permanent Security Council members - which includes China and Russia. Either or both of those countries veto ISAF, it's toast. And yet, both China and Russia have voted in favour of every single ISAF related resolution since 2001.
Here's the question for the adults in the room who aren't wearing tinfoil hats: if the war really was about oil and personal profits for whatever US oil interests we're supposed to believe Bush had over there - just why the hell did the Russians and Chinese approve of the US/NATO presence in Afghanistan to grab all that oil?
Oil is a resource of tremendous strategic importance - and China alone has been running all over the globe buying up every oil property it can find, near and far. Including a large part of Canada's oil industry, incidentally. So the adults have to ask themselves where the logic is in China voting in favour of an ISAF mandate that would allow the US to grab access and control of that oil - much of it almost on their doorstep, and certainly much closer than Canada's oil sands. Particularly with the US as a potential adversary, and particularly with oil so critical to China's continued economic boom.
Are the Chinese and Russian intelligence and economic analysts really so dumb that they couldn't see through this US ploy in Afghanistan to get access to that oil? All the tin foil hat wearing Internet nutbars out there, sitting in Mom's basement in their underwear scratching their nuts while eating Cheetos and posting about the US Big Oil conspiracy in Afghanistan figured out what probably tens of thousands of Russian and Chinese intelligence and economic analysts couldn't?
You might believe that. I don't. Those who do believe that, please adjust the frequency on your tin foil headpieces.
The final question that needs to be answered is how George Bush bought off Julian Assange and Wikileaks? All those tens of thousands of internal documents that Wikileaks released, covering just about every subject under the sun. And NOT ONE about the government conspiracy to go into Afghanistan to secure oil for American Big Oil and George Bush's personal profit.
Man! An American conspiracy so big they even got to Julian Assange and corrupted him as well. Because otherwise, you just know that Assange would have released all the internal documents from that time showing the discussions and decision making process, negotiations, etc that led to the Afghanistan government giving the thumbs up to our intervention in Afghanistan.
I simply see no conspiracy here, nor anything that should have involved some sort of disclosure before going after the assholes responsible for 9/11 and the group which was aiding and abetting them. If the US - or any other country - felt a need to fully disclose every single business interest in an area, have a big group talk about the relevance of it, etc, before acting, we'd still be mumbling back and forth awaiting action. And the tin foil hat crowd would still find something to rant about.
There was no "economic interest" in going to Afghanistan - unless you think we raised more money going there than it has cost us of course.
And a statement that Bush went into Afghanistan to make a "personal profit" without a shred of effort whatsoever, is just plain old Internet sleaze. Just as it would be to claim Obama went into Libya for some kind of "personal profit" without any evidence.
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