Friday, November 19, 2004
This story is worth watching
There's been a lot of heated talk about the Afghan and Iraq wars being "all about oil", and much of it is overblown. However, if this story about a proposed trans-Afghan natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan pans out, especially the Unocal involvement, it would be hard to ignore.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the current US ambassador to Afghanistan and its virtual proconsul, was a consultant to Unocal in the mid-90s when this project was first proposed. At the time, Unocal was negotiating with the Taliban, which didn't sit well with the human rights community, to say nothing of Jay Leno's wife, Mavis. If the pipeline project gets handed to Unocal by the Karzai government, which doesn't make a move without consulting Khalilzad, it would be a major scandal.
According to the story linked above,
Zalmay Khalilzad, the current US ambassador to Afghanistan and its virtual proconsul, was a consultant to Unocal in the mid-90s when this project was first proposed. At the time, Unocal was negotiating with the Taliban, which didn't sit well with the human rights community, to say nothing of Jay Leno's wife, Mavis. If the pipeline project gets handed to Unocal by the Karzai government, which doesn't make a move without consulting Khalilzad, it would be a major scandal.
According to the story linked above,
''[the Asian Development Bank's] technical and economic study will be completed and the three countries involved in the project - Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan - will hold a meeting in Islamabad at the end of November and then the final results will be announced.''I'll keep you posted.
