Before I get to the questions, I want you to know how we all get here, with Texas being in charge and all. Now, I know a lot of about Texas politics, starting with the Texas Alliance to the current day affairs. If you ever wonder how Texas got to be in control of the country, I offer you three simple answers (though there are more):
- Until recently, Texas was fiercely Democratic, and we have a tendency of once we send people to office, we keep them there. There is this thing called Seniority in Congress, and when Roosevelt came into power off the fumbling of Hoover, there was a horde of Texans in key Chairmanships in many Committees. They pushed through the New Deal on a congressional level (look up the names of the Acts, you will repeatedly see Rayburn.), and gained their political 'capital' by being people who could hand out a lot jobs during the deepest part of the Depression. This lead to:
- Yankee bank interests in New York City did not develop the East Texas oil field. After these wild-ass Texas wildcatters had started to reap in untold fortunes, the grip of finicial power in the state pass to the citizens of the Republic of Texas. Which lead to this:
- An unknown Representative called Lyndon Johnson from cowtown of district used the wildcatters' (and contractors' who profited off the pork of the New Deal) money to fund the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. That is how the corporate power base got into action, and Tom Delay is still using that same old scheme. Both times, the rise of Texas power could have been stopped by the Federal Corrupt Practices Act. See Case No. S.I. 19267-F of the Internal Revenue Service. That should have brought Johnson down, but it didn't. Such might also be the case with Delay.
Now, that is just Delay you say, not the whole GOP. I know. And what I am about to tell you will not win me any friends in Texas politics, but here is the skinny:
The Scandals of Scandals:
There was a phone call placed, and for those with gum on their shoes - an internationally traceable call, from the Vice President's office in that still innocent summer of 2001. On the line were Vice President Dick Cheney, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay and some very high-powered Afghani officials. They were talking pipelines.
Now it is common knowledge that Cheney, whose Halliburton was sure to build pipelines, and Lay, whose company's profit margin would jump considerably if they control said pipelines, had a lot of hopes and dreams placed on these pipelines. But contrary to common knowledge, the Afghans also had hopes and dreams. Under one condition would they back the pipeline, it was that the contractor who builds the pipeline would also have to build a highway infrastructure in the country, too.
This reasonable request was meet with a threat by Cheney and Lay that if they did not accept the contract sans highway system, or any other further costs, they would be bombed. Why Cheney and Lay were issuing such diplomatic threats instead of the President or the Senate, is just one of the many legal issues surrounding this case. More keen legal minds, once they get their hands on the transcript of this phone call, can bring up much better and more creative legal issues than this simple Texas country boy. But I have an eye for clarity when it comes to Texas, and being in NYC on 9-11 made this a particularly sore issue. Here is I think it really went down, feel free to pencil in the exact dates yourself:
- Cheney and Lay threaten the Afghan officials that if they do not comply, military action will be taken.
- The Afghans, remembering their Soviet lessons very well, realized that a pre-emptive strike against targets we are so fond of would demoralize the country. They figured they were going to be bombed anyway, so why not.
- The Afghans got the Taliban on the horn, whose headquarters were then located in their own country, and talked to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden who had just been itching for such a request to occur.
- The famous memo, Bin Laden was determined to attack inside the USA, was passed to Bush in Crawford, Texas. If Cheney told Bush of his and Lay's threat against the Afghans, who were obviously backing Bin Laden in said memo, is a question that is worth it's weight in black gold.
- Al Qaeda kicks into high gear in August of 2001, and in weeks, not years, executes the 9-11 operation with assets they already had in the USA. Though I am sure the idea had been kicked around at Bin Laden's cookouts for years, I do not think they would have been carried out unless the Afghan officials had given the necessary wink.
So in a nutshell, our globally abusive energy policies, combined with an equally abusive administration to carry them out, was the direct result of 9-11, not their hatred of our 'freedom.' The past four years of conflict would have just been a bad dream in the night, had we only given the Afghan's a highway, instead of bombs.
So for those not use to the Texas why of asking questions, here they are:
What was the content of the conversation of Cheney and Lay with the Afghan officials in the summer of 2001?
And more importantly,
Did Cheney tell Bush about this conversation when he was handed the memo that said, 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the USA?'
All roads lead back to this, this Rome of a scandal.