'Terrorism' is merely the pretext cited by George W. Bush to begin a series of oil wars that John McCain says may last '10,000 years'. Bush has helped his corporate 'base' create a 'New World Order' in which robber barons of big oil, assisted by 'big media', rule the world and plunder its resources. Bush is their tool! The super corporations were carving up territory around the Caspian Sea back in 1997, perhaps even earlier. Pakistan had been promised a war with Afghanistan to begin around October 15th of that year. Who made those promises and what did they know that we didn't?

The US is now reduced to the 'muscle', the 'enforcement arm' of huge multi-national corporations whose only interest in the Middle East is the oil. In less than ten years, a cabal of huge, multi-national corporations have very nearly consolidated corporate control of world's resources. Bush has not merely made of the US a fascist dictatorship, hehas helped his corporate 'base' create a 'New World Order' in which robber barons of big oil, assisted by 'big media', rule the world and plunder its resources in the name of 'free enterprise'. So far, no one has effectively opposed this artificial 'beast'. Bush is their tool!

The nation's super corporations were carving up territory around the Caspian Sea back in 1997, perhaps even earlier. Pakistan had been promised a war with Afghanistan to begin around October 15th of that year. Who made those promises and what did they know that we didn't?

It is no coincidence that since failed 'oil man' George W. Bush took office, war has either raged or is threatened in a region that is known to be rich in oil. The collapse of the Soviet Union added three new countries to the map of the Middle East - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, areas once shared between the Soviet Union and Iran. The Russian-Kazakh agreement cleared the way for more exploration and development. For American oil companies and Dick Cheney, specifically, it was a question of how to get it! The question was: how to get in on it!

Countries have gone to war for less. The cast of characters are big multinational oil, gas, and pipeline companies: Unocal , Halliburton , and Chevron . The Moscow agreement divided the northern half down the middle of the Caspian. It defined who "owned" what! It defined which countries had exploration and development rights. It is not surprise that the multi-national corporations would urge the US to go to war on their behalf. It was and remains a rich resource.

In 1997, several Taliban representatives visited Sugarland, TX to meet with representatives of Unocal --an international energy company based in Sugarland. Sugarland is an affluent Houston suburb, a Republican enclave, represented at the time by Tom Delay. [The Taliban, Unocal and a Pipeline].

Unocal had proposed the construction of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan, delivering oil to waiting tankers in the Arabian Sea. From there, the oil would have been delivered, presumably to the US and other oil addicted nations around the world. Unocal claimed to have had agreements with with Turkmenistan to sell and and with Pakistan who would buy.

Unocal's own website stated that the pipeline was put on hold when the US struck against terrorist in the Sudan. While Unocal said that they would 'wait for peace', we must assume that they are still waiting. Still other reports hint at reasons oil barons might insist upon a war: the Talian, say the reports, opposed the pipeline. It at about this time, that the US State Department reportedly threatened the Tabliban with a 'carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs'. In any case, the construction deal was 'off the table'. The Taliban left the land of Tom DeLay without an agreement.[See: Wayne Madsen: The Sellouts in the Fourth Estate]

I want to know what Tom DeLay knew at the time. It was, I believe, soon after the talks broke down that DeLay sponsored legislation 'exempting' US sodiers from war crimes prosecution at the International Criminal Court at the Hague! What did DeLay know? And when did he know it?

The following story was probably overlooked in the wake of a spectacular attack that 'traumatized' the nation and much of the world.

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.

Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.

The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taliban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah. Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.

He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby. Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.

He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.

And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.

--US 'planned attack on Taliban' [Before 911]

Certainly --a war with Afghanistan was already on the table before 911. Bush needed a pretext and got it on 911! Bush has since treated it as a 'blank check', citing it to justify dictatorial powers never given the office of 'President' by the US Constitution.

Of course, U.S. firms aren't generally supposed to do business with Saddam Hussein. But thanks to legal loopholes large enough to steer an oil tanker through, Halliburton profited big-time from deals with the Iraqi dictatorship. Conducted discreetly through several Halliburton subsidiaries in Europe, these greasy transactions helped Saddam Hussein retain his grip on power while lining the pockets of Cheney and company.

According to the Financial Times of London, between September 1998 and last winter, Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, oversaw $23.8 million of business contracts for the sale of oil-industry equipment and services to Iraq through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, which helped rebuild Iraq's war-damaged petroleum-production infrastructure. The combined value of these contracts exceeded those of any other U.S. company doing business with Baghdad.

Halliburton was among more than a dozen American firms that supplied Iraq's petroleum industry with spare parts and retooled its oil rigs when UN sanctions were eased in 1998. Cheney's company utilized subsidiaries in France, Italy, Germany, and Austria so as not to draw undue attention to controversial business arrangements that might embarrass Washington and jeopardize lucrative ties to Iraq, which will pump $24 billion of petrol under the UN-administered oil-for-food program this year. Assisted by Halliburton, Hussein's government will earn another $1 billion by illegally exporting oil through black-market channels.

With Cheney at the helm since 1995, Halliburton quickly grew into America's number-one oil-services company, the fifth-largest military contractor, and the biggest nonunion employer in the nation. Although Cheney claimed that the U.S. government "had absolutely nothing to do" with his firm's meteoric financial success, State Department documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicate that U.S. officials helped Halliburton secure major contracts in Asia and Africa. Halliburton now does business in 130 countries and employs more than 100,000 workers worldwide.

Its 1999 income was a cool $15 billion.

--Dick Cheney Made Millions with Saddam Hussein

Not only did Bush exploit the 911 pretext for a series of never-ending wars throughout the oil rich Middle East, Saddam had been lured into attacking Kuwait during the regime of George Bush Sr. The senior Bush's real issue with Saddam was not that Saddam had taken over Kuwait but that Saddam had been maniupulating the price of oil at hte spigot! Bush had wanted to keep the price of oil high. Bush Sr set a trap for Saddam in the hopes that he would 'annex' Kuwait. Saddam fell into the trap and the first Persian Gulf War resulted. Here's a just a portion of a transcript between US Ambassador April Glaspie, Saddam Hussein, and Tariq Azis before Saddam "annexed" Kuwait:

TARIQ AZIZ: Our policy in OPEC opposes sudden jumps in oil prices.

HUSSEIN: Twenty-five dollars a barrel is not a high price.

GLASPIE: We have many Americans who would like to see the price go above $25 because they come from oil-producing states.

HUSSEIN: The price at one stage had dropped to $12 a barrel and a reduction in the modest Iraqi budget of $6 billion to $7 billion is a disaster.

GLASPIE: I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.

Source: New York Times, Sunday, September 23, 1990

After Bush Srs war crime against the people of Iraq, Francis Boyle, PhD presided over a 'War Crimes Trial' at University. The following is from his 'indictment'.

Bush's "New World Order" 41. Today, the government in the United States of America constitutes an international criminal conspiracy under the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment and Principles, that is legally identical to the Nazi government in World War II Germany. The Defendants' wanton extermination of approximately 250,000 People in Iraq provides definite proof of the validity of this Nuremberg Proposition for the entire world to see. Indeed, Defendant Bush's so-called New World Order sounds and looks strikingly similar to the New Order proclaimed by Adolph Hitler over fifty years ago. You do not build a real New World Order with stealth bombers, Abrams tanks, and tomahawk cruise missiles. For their own good and the good of all humanity, the American People must condemn and repudiate Defendant Bush and his grotesque vision of a New World Order that is constructed upon warfare, bloodshed, violence and criminality.

--Francis Boyle, Symposium at Albany Law School -- International War Crimes: The Search for Justice

Kucinich: 'Stealing Iraq's Oil is a War Crime

Additional resources

• Dick Cheney and Halliburton: A Chronology
• US War Crimes in Iraq: Manufactured Dissent
• Flashback: US War Crimes During the Gulf War

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June 21, 2008 By: Len Hart How Bush Helped Establish a Corporate 'New World Order', via The Existentialist Cowboy