Oil Diplomacy Muddled U.S. Pursuit of bin Laden

[Max Sawicky]

I am starting to fear for my sanity because all this is
starting to make sense to me, but even if every word
of it is true, there remains no foundation for the premise
that the attack on the WTC was known about in advance
by U.S. authorities, much less that it originated with
complicity from any U.S. elites.

The OBL-for-pipeline trade, even if true, is country-to-country
business as usual.  So too is the idea of trying to gain some
advantage from adversity.  No less then H. Kissinger had a
big column in the Post proposing this very thing -- to use this
affair to 'recast' the world according to U.S. interests.  The
notion that threatening to go after someone (who deserves
getting after) by someone could result in a counter-attack of
some sort is also a no-brainer.  So the U.S. thought OBL
was behind the Cole attack, among others, and escalated
its moves to scoop him up, understanding that such pressure
could encourage more OBL attacks.  A jaundiced inference
from this situation is that the U.S. should have backed down,
notwithstanding OBL's complicity in previous attacks.

A problem with the internal logic of all this is that if the U.S.
was really interested in snatching OBL, it wouldn't have
let him get away so often.  Alternatively, if they needed
some kind of Taliban cooperation to get a pipeline-
friendly environment, why demand OBL on top of that?

The threats to Afghanistan could have instigated the WTC
attack, but that possibility is a long way from demonstrating
that the threats intended to provoke something like the WTC,
or that there was any foreknowledge of WTC per se.  The
WTC attack justified moves to overthrow Taliban, something
that may have been fortuitous, but that doesn't mean the attacks
were instigated by U.S. forces.

OBL was a pig who deserved a skewer before 9/11, so
there is no onus on the U.S. for throwing its weight around
in this regard, from where I sit.  None of this changes the
arguments about whether or how to deal with al-qaida,
nor who should do so.  It simply shows that the U.S.
interests in the region go well beyond destroying
OBL and his network.  Didn't we know that?

I might as well throw in the point that if all the angst about the
West running out of fossil fuels is well-founded, then investing
all sorts of assets in ensuring a flow of oil to Pakistan
and the PRC is not exactly a logical remedy.

mbs

 || Oil Diplomacy Muddled U.S. Pursuit of bin Laden, New Book Contends

 ||

This book and a covering article in Le Monde[1] looks like a devastating
follow-up to the Figaro-Radio France[2] story about the “get-well” visit by
a CIA agent to ObL in the American Hospital in Dubai. . . .