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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green
Party activists and candidates have begun to express alarm that the
focus of the War Against Terrorism is entering a new phase, shifting
from an effort to ensure international security and bringing those
behind the September 11 attacks to justice into military protection for
U.S.-based corporations -- especially the fossil fuel industry --
seeking control over foreign resources and markets. After Hamid Karzai,
the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, met with Pakistani President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf last week, they announced their endorsement of the
construction of the trans-Afghanistan pipeline to transport oil from
deposits in Turkmenistan with processing centers in Pakistan.
BEN MANSKI, Wisconsin Green, member of the national Steering Committee
of the Green Party of the United States: "The Unocal corporation
lobbied for years for the pipeline through Afghanistan, but the
Taliban's connection with the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa made
pipeline prospects difficult since 1998. Americans need to know
that the recent defeat of the Taliban regime revived hopes for the
pipeline, as did the selection of Karzai, under heavy U.S. pressure,
during the recent Berlin talks on Afghanistan's future. Hamid Karzai is
a former top adviser to Unocal, and helped Unocal negotiate with the
Taliban to construct the CentGas [Central Asia Gas]
pipeline."
Greens note furthermore that Karzai worked with Zalmay Khalilzad on the
pipeline deal. Khalilzad is now President Bush's Special National
Security Assistant and presidential Special Envoy for Afghanistan. The
Bush White House does not mention Karzai's and Khalilzad's ties to
Unocal and the pipeline. Greens also note that Enron conducted the
feasability study for the pipeline, and that Halliburton, at which Vice
President Cheney served as CEO, will be a major benefactor from the
pipeline deal.
TED GLICK, Green Party of New Jersey candidate for the U.S. Senate:
"If the focus of the war changes from justice for September 11 to
an opportunity to impose exploitation of Afghan land, resources, and
people for the benefit of corporate profits and American oil
consumption, then we're resetting the stage for future hostility against
the U.S. Such a project would require continued military occupation and
would threaten the promise of Afghan democracy. Greens believe that the
people of the west, of Islamic nations, and of the rest of the world
want peace and justice. We reject Bush's dangerous comic book rhetoric
about evil empires -- a smokescreen to conceal agenda like the
pipeline."
TOM SEVIGNY, Connecticut Green, member of the national Steering
Committee: "Bush, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, and apologists for the war in
the media have called the conflict everything from a 'Clash of
Civilizations' to 'crusades' to 'Good vs. Evil.' What we're really
seeing is a clash between two fundamentalist ideologies: theocratic
extremism (manifested at its violent worst in al Qaeda and the Taliban)
versus global corporate dominance. It's the latter which has perpetuated
the U.S.'s over-consumption of environmentally harmful fossil
fuels."
"Think of what's at risk because of our addiction to oil and
projects like the pipeline -- stability in central Asia, the Alaskan
wilderness, the air we breathe, stability of the world's climate system.
The only resolution to this conflict is the Green one: conversion from
oil, gas, and nuclear power to clean solar, wind, bio-fuels, and fuel
cell energy; helping Afghans achieve economic and political
democracy. We must learn how to live in harmony with the one billion
Muslims and the many other people who live in the same world we
do."
Greens note that the same dedication to oil interests informs U.S.
policy in the Western Hemisphere. President Bush included a
request for $98 million in his 2003 budget proposal to Congress for
military training and support for Colombian troops to defend an
Occidental Petroleum pipeline in northeastern Colombia -- suggesting
that the purposes behind Plan Colombia and the War on Drugs are more
complicated than publicly admitted.
More Information:
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The Green Party of the
United States http://www.gp.org
Green Party National Office
1314 18th Street, NW, lower level, Washington, DC 20036
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN (toll-free)
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Ted Glick, Green Party of
New Jersey candidate for the U.S. Senate
http://www.gpnj.org/Campaign%202002/Glick2002.htm
FutureHopeTG@aol.com
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"Musharraf, Karzai
agree major oil pipeline in co-operation pact." The Irish Times
(AFP and Reuters story), Wednesday, February 20, 2002 http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2002/0209/448097021FR09KARZAI.html)
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"A Creeping Collapse
in Credibility at the White House: From ENRON Entanglements to
UNOCAL Bringing the Taliban to Texas and Controlling
Afghanistan" by Tom Turnipseed. Friday, January 11, 2002 in
Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0111-05.htm
Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, scottmclarty@yahoo.com
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