2001 -- August 6th-- Foreign Policy Advisor Condoleeza Rice relays memo to Bush warning that planes may be used to attack the US.
2001 -- September 11th -- Pilots of hijacked commercial planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Nearly 3000 people die. Regardless of the answer to the question of who it was that pulled off this attack, it proved to be a useful propaganda tool for the US.
But in his speech to the nation that night, Bush states, "I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice."
That initiative, deemed appropriate by international law experts, was rapidly transformed into a military campaign.
2001 -- October 7th- President Bush makes the following announcement shortly after the noon hour: "Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: Close terrorist training camps; hand over leaders of the al Qaeda network; and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met. And now the Taliban will pay a price."
Bush does not mention that his ultimatums to the Taliban before 9/11 may have provoked the WTC attack. Nor is anything said about his willingness to overlook terrorism in exchange for the "oil" agreement.
2001 -- December 22nd-- After the Taliban were pushed out of Kabul by US forces, Bush persuades political leaders at a meeting in Bonn, Germany, to appoint Hamid Karzai, a CIA operative during the decade-long fight against the Soviets, as head of Afghanistan's interim government. (The claim by a number of sources that Karzai worked for UNOCAL appears to be an urban legend.)
2001 -- December 31st- Bush appoints Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad as US Special Envoy to Afghanistan. He also served under Brzezinski in Afghanistan during the Soviets' attempt to pacify the country. Khalilzad did indeed work for UNOCAL as a consultant in the nineties. He has since served as US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations.
The American people have never been told that the US objective in Afghanistan is to install a government that is recognized as legitimate by all Afghans, but one that will comply with US demands and be able to guarantee security for the pipelines. Instead, a pretense is being maintained that it is the security of America for which US troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan.
While the operation in Afghanistan should be shut down because it is in violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions, it should also be shut down because no outsiders or insiders have ever been able to unite the country under a single government. Just as travelers once did along the Silk Route, governments of various stripes have only been able to rule a tiny portion of Afghanistan by paying tribute to warlords from the mountainous rural areas to forestall their raiding parties. Even now, reporters in the country's capital refer to Karzai, the winner of the 2004 presidential election, as "the mayor of Kabul."
But there's another even more urgent reason. The corporate world whose policies and practices have brought us to an unprecedented global crisis want to continue to enrich themselves by selling fossil fuels to developing economies in the Far East.
This ongoing use of fossil fuel products is just one indication that corporate leaders put profits over any agreements to work collectively to halt an ever-deepening worldwide climate crisis.
If life on earth is to continue, they must be stopped.
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