War on Terror shift to Pakistan over Iran Pipeline

I was puzzled why, after years of doing our bidding in the War on Terror, Pakistan suddenly was recognized as a haven of terrorists that must be dealt with--even though the same extremist groups had been there all along, often acting with the blessing and support of Pakistani intelligence, and tacitly the US.

I had a fleeting hope that Obama was actually going to end the War on Terror by extinguishing the relatively small terrorist groups that might be motivated to launch 9/11 type attacks against us, dig up the body of bin Laden, do the DNA tests, declare him dead, and thereby end the remaining public support for the War on Terror.

I should have known that was too much to hope for since Obama never addressed the real reasons for our invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Iraq has tens of trillions of dollars worth of easy extracted oil, but no contracts with American companies before the war. One of our goals in the Iraq War was to force them to give up 88% of their oil income to oil companies as stated in a Bush sponsored Hydrocarbon Law. For comparison, the Saudis, only give up about half. Despite Bush and members of both parties in Washington strong-arming Iraqis to pass it, they could only get the Iraqi cabinet to pass it, never the whole parliament--even when the oil companies offered millions in bribes to each member.

Similarly, energy companies courted the Taliban for a pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to take natural gas to India but gave up in frustration shortly before 9/11. In 2006, India was concerned about continuing the project until America gave assurances that we would protect the pipeline. Those assurances were repeated in 2008. (Thanks to chill_wind at DU, who provided another good background link on the pipeline)

The Pakistan link of the pipeline route seemed to be in place--until IRAN proposed an alternative to the Afghanistan route that ran from Iran to Pakistan to India instead. And Pakistan accepted the offer:

Perhaps the most convenient distraction of the entire War on Terror has been the fact that war makes privatization easier. Energy economist John Foster notes how the focus on national security masks a critical motive of the AfPak war: “Rivalry for pipeline routes and energy resources reflects competition for power and control in the region.”

One such route is the massive Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-India-Pakistan pipeline, which would transport 30 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year. Meanwhile, Iran is planning an alternative pipeline through Pakistan and India, to which Pakistan has agreed to in principle.

(from Vancouver, BC's Straight.com)

What is the US response to losing this game of geopolitical chess? Patrick Clawson, Deputy Director for Research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said:

Washington fears the pipeline will reduce the West's economic leverage over Tehran - economic leverage that is necessary to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

(from Voice of America)

The only thing I disagree with in that quote is that Washington probably doesn't want the economic leverage to make Iran drop their nuclear program, but instead wants Iran to drop their nuclear program so that the US has the full range of options to coerce Iran to conform to our oil & gas companies business interests.

The real decision-makers in Washington have no concern about nuclear proliferation. If they did, they would bomb or invade North Korea every time they did a nuclear test or launched a missile over Japan.

The real decision-makers in Washington have no concern about terrorism. If they did, they would have gone after the country that the FBI found sent one of their intelligence agents to pick up two of the hijackers at the Los Angeles airport, set them up in an apartment, and then funneled money to them from the their ambassador's wife until 9/11. The Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 also found this country same country involved in the attack: Saudi Arabia.

Business interests dictate foreign policy. If you want to find out how much, read the Pulitzer Prize winning history of oil, THE PRIZE by Daniel Yergin. When oil companies want something, they don't ask senators and presidents for favors, they give orders. You might also read OVERTHROW by Steven Kinzer on why the US overthrew various other countries governments, including the secular, democratically elected one in Iran in 1953.

Business uses our state department and military to coerce deals with other countries because it costs them next nothing. They make a tens of million dollars of political donations and reap hundreds of billions in profit when the politicians follow their orders and cook up a war. And we don't present them with a bill for the military action or get a cut of the profits from the oil or land we stole for them.

Worst of all though is that our elected leaders don't talk honestly about any of this with the public and instead misplace blame for events like 9/11 and make up embarrassingly juvenile fairy tales about an "Islamofascist" menace from countries that have no ability invade or hold territory in the United States, and no technology equal to ours unless we sell it to them. To the extent that we are not let in on the real debate, we do not have a real democracy.

All AIG execs FIRED, jobs outsourced to India

In a desperate move to restore public confidence in the giant Wall St. firm AIG, the board of directors fired all the executives and replaced them with executives from India.

"We thought the bailout would help," said a board member who wished to remain anonymous, "but when the top executives used the money to give themselves bonuses and go on multiple group vacations, we knew it was time for a more serious intervention."

The execs were fired while away on one of their retreats. Their company credit cards were cancelled, the corporate jet called home, and they were left stranded in Bali. When the resort realized they couldn't pay for their rooms and bar tab, they called the Indonesian authorities, who caned them and threw them in jail until family members wire the money for their bills. None have done so as of yet.

The board member went on to say that they realized their hiring practices were deeply flawed.

"Look, we pretend we hire these guys because they are the best and the brightest, the 'masters of the universe,' and sure they graduated from Ivy League schools, but they got into those schools for the same reason we hired them: their families are rich, and their dads called someone on the board who belonged to their frat or secret society in college. However, the fact someone's father had sex with a goat, spilled their seed on a cracker, or had prison sex in a coffin doesn't qualify their son to run a business that is so essential to the smooth running of the American economy."

Another incredible admission is that most of the hired executives never held a job in their lives below corporate vice president.

Despite their Ivy League educations, few had any real job skills they brought to the table. "Let's face it," the board member said, "these guys are trust fund babies like George W. Bush. They lived on an allowance from their parents until they were 26, and most of them still do in spite of the multi-million dollar salaries we pay them. One VP panicked when the bathroom attendant was out one day because he had never wiped his own ass. We had to call one of the janitors to do it."

"What these guys are good at is stealing and hiding what they stole. In spite of their generous allowances, most of them would burn through that pretty quick and have to figure out how to steal from their parents to pay for their gambling, alcohol, cocaine, and hookers, without their parents noticing. We're not talking five bucks from mommy's purse here, but real money. Jeff Gannon is not a cheap date. That skill was very valuable to us for a while, but now that everybody is playing hide the pea with shell corporations, off shore accounts and the like, the whole thing is collapsing."

"We need people who actually know how to run a business."

While the Indians, who were brought to the US on H-1B visas, have only been in the states a few days, the board is already impressed with their work.

"These guys show up on time, they're good at math, they don't drink, they don't lounge around at the country club, hell, I don't even think any of them know how to golf. And the best thing is, none of them gets paid over a million dollars--NONE."

The board member added that if this move is as successful as he hopes it will be, it could set an example for other corporations. "We have been going about this outsourcing business all wrong," he said. "Everyone was trying to cut the fat by cutting workers, but it's pretty obvious that fat floats to the top, and needs to be skimmed off every once in a while and fed to the pigs."