posted
or in English, Bin Laden, The Forbidden Truth.
Now, let's get one thing stright here at the get go of this thread, this is a book by two French writers. Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie to be specific, who appear to make claims about the present Bush Administration, the oil industry and the Taliban.
Who are these fellows?
quote:Brisard was until the late 1990s Director of economic analysis and strategy for Vivendi, a French company. He also worked for French secret services, and wrote for them in 1997 a report on the now famous Al-Qaeda network, headed by bin Laden.
Dasquie is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online, a respected newsletter on diplomacy, economic analysis and strategy, available through the Internet.
Ok, now to another major point, I do not speak French beyond bon jour (a couple of years of high school French notwithstanding) and I have not read the book. I can not therefore make any claims to the veracity of the information presented having not looked at soruces. My information comes from reviews and articles about the book and reported claims made by the book in those reviews and articles.
So, why then do I create this thread? More or less in a for your information, here's something I found rather interesting you might too spirit.
So, without further dalliance here are some of the claims alledged by the two French fellows:
Bush Administration began to negotiate with the Taliban about oil rights and pipelines, ect. immediately after coming into power in February. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad.
When the negotiations started to go south, the Bush Administration told the Taliban to accept "a carpet of gold or you'll get a carpet of bombs."
According to Richard Butler, former head of the UN inspection team in Iraq, Brisard and Dasquie charge that the present Bush administration 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.
John O'Neill, Federal Bureau of Investigation's Deputy Director who headed the U.S. investigations into Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, resigned due to the obstruction.
Brisard and Dasquie calim that O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it." In August 2001, O'Neill resigned in frustration and took up a new job as head of security at the World Trade Center. He died in the September 11th attack.
The reviews and articles can be found at the floowing links.
And for you French speakers go here and read the Le Mond article.
Assuming some truth in the allegations, my thoughts are as follow....
The one major fault I see with this is that it does not take into account the vast amount of time and planning that went into the attacks on 11 September 2001. According to some things I've heard, those attacks had been in the planning stages for some time.
Still one has to wonder if the threat to bomb the Taliban had any affect on the timing of the terror attacks on the United States.
And one has to wonder if the slowdown of investigations on Bin Laden and terrorism would have had an affect on the events of 11 September 2001.
If true, what I want to know is what in the heck was Bush thinking slowing down terror investigations to help big oil wtih it's negotiations with the freaking Taliban?
Why did the Bush Administration let big oil / big business define national foreign policy and interests?
Final thought, Bush has a great many questions to answer.
[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
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posted
Hm. Possibly he was thinking the same thing the Pro Cuba trade folks are thinking when they want us to end the embargo on Cuba, and the same thing the Pro China Trade people were thinking when they were lobbying for normalizing trade relations with China... that a major economic influx might help hasten social reforms in the country?
If Bin Laden was mad at the US for having troops (invited there) in Saudi Arabia, he must have been furious at the thought of US companies moving right in on his new home turf.
Oh, and one more thing: Don't trust the French.
[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: First of Two ]
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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posted
I'm kind of disturbed by the U.S. envoy's threat to bomb the Taliban if they didn't cave in to the US's demands (mind you, this was before 9/11 occured). Does Bush think its okay to declare war on a country (albeit, hard to find a more deserving one then the Taliban) if they don't want a pipeline running through ... ?
By taht point, LOTS of people were already anti-Taliban, and it's possible that the US was considering measures against it.
Think of it this way, it's like saying to the enemy "I was planning on coming down hard on you... but if you agree to this, maybe I won't come down quite so hard.. maybe we can avoid this altogether."
I don't trust their interpretation of the dialogue. Nations just don't use that language when dealing with each other.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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posted
Yah, he's the supposedly "independent" senator from North Carolina who ran as a centrist but rubber-stamped for the Liberal Democrats 94% of the time last year.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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"When the negotiations started to go south, the Bush Administration told the Taliban to accept 'a carpet of gold or you'll get a carpet of bombs.'"
I don't believe it. Even though that quote is dumb and makes no sense, it's still too clever for Bush to have thought up. :-)
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
"Bush Administration began to negotiate with the Taliban about oil rights and pipelines, ect. immediately after coming into power in February. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad."
I heard that one reason the US didn't go into the middle east sooner was something about oil and supplies.
And I hear on CNN that Saddam Hussien is saying that his country will destroy any force that threatend iraq... He said that just before Desert Storm too. The US Air Force shoulda turned that putrid pile of rotting flubber into... uh... a smaller pile of putrid rotting flubber (for lack of better descriptive words)a LONG time ago.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
posted
I'm not sure that was meant to be malicious or a slight on any other branches of the armed forces there Jeff.
But the question I have are these.
Do the allegations of obstruction an FBI investigation on terror bother anyone here in the least bit?
Do the allegations that foreign policy considerations and criminal terror investigations were subverted by the oil buisness bother anyone here at all?
[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Not much more than the allegations that Bat-Boy has been recruited by the army to go into Afghanistan's caves to look for BinLaden.
And that Nostradamus predicted all of this.
Anybody can make allegations. The hard part is backing that up. Something that our sensation-hungry society often forgets.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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posted
I never knew "Show me the evidence of wrongdoing" was 'spin.'
Then again, your side is well-established as the best players in the 'guilt by accusation' game, when you use the accusation to 'prove' the guilt.
I can see it now...
"Are you now, or have you ever been, speaking to anybody on or related to the board of Enron?" "Well, I once discussed Grisham's latest book with Enron's vice president in charge of stem bolts' neice.." "AHA!" "'AHA', WHAT?" "Doesn't matter! BURN THE WITCH!!!"
[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: First of Two ]
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
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posted
Well, crap on a stick there Rob, as I recall, it was simply the allegations of wrongdoing the had Clinton investagated for half of his entire term.
If you want to bitch about Enron's access to most of Mr. Bush's administration and the formation of domestic policy, there's an actual thread for that.
If you want to talk about Mr. Bush's obstruction of an FBI investagation for the gain of the oil industry that he and his administration came from, this is the place.
However, a dismissive attitude is what I've come to expect for our two champions of right-wing justice. It's an intresting and predictable thing to watch.
[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: Jay the Obscure ]
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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