Also this issue: IndependencePall -Howard Altman The Kvetch Games -Bruce Schimmel Introducing CitySpace New feature debuts offering a critical, informed look at design, architecture and the hows and whys of growth. -William P. Becker Unjust Justice Why Commonwealth Court's decision is flawed and outrageous. -Angel L. Ortiz Letters to the Editor

September 19-25, 2002

slant

Pipeline Dreams

“It’s important not to point at ties between the Bushies, Enron and BCCI as de facto proof of ill intent after September 11. Granted, corruption may be present, but at this point it isn’t necessary to discuss what is, in some ways, a distraction from the main point. The point is that in all likelihood a president of the United States invaded a sovereign state for one cynical reason: to create a puppet state that might, with luck, serve as a conduit for oil to go into SUVs on American highways.

“Proof is in the timelines, in the reported facts, in the reality that the trans-Afghan pipeline was conceived concurrent to a bombing campaign that killed more than 3,500 Afghan civilians. Proof is in the relative unimportance of Afghanistan as a terrorist state and the United States’ failure -- or unwillingness -- to launch a bonafide campaign against terrorists or the countries where they operate. We went to Afghanistan to get Osama -- at least that’s what Bush said. We didn’t get Osama, or Mullah Omar, or anyone important, but we ended up with a trans-Afghan pipeline project. And it only took a few months.”

--from “My Government Went To Afghanistan and All I Got Was This Stupid Pipeline: The Complete Truth About the U.S. Attack on Afghanistan,” by Ted Rall