I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW THE PAIN IS GONE: by Ted Rall
- “As Zalmay Khalilzad co-wrote in The Washington Quarterly in its Winter 2000 issue, “Afghanistan could prove a valuable corridor for this [Caspian Sea] energy as well as for access to markets in Central Asia.” Khalilzad has an unsavory past. As a State and Defense Department official during the Reagan years, Khalilzad helped supply the anti-Soviet mujihadeen with weapons they’re now using to fight Americans. During the `90s he worked as Unocal’s chief consultant on its Afghan pipeline scheme….”
“…Did Bush exploit the September 11th attacks to justify a Central Asian oil grab? The answer seems clear. On December 31, Bush appointed his special envoy to Afghanistan: Zalmay Khalilzad. “This is a moment of opportunity for Afghanistan,” the former Unocal employee commented upon arrival in Kabul January 5. You bet it is: Pakistan’s Frontier Post reports that U.S. ambassador Wendy Chamberlain met in October with Pakistan’s oil minister to discuss reviving the Unocal project.”