Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [16]
To sweeten the pot, the Taliban had recently joined America’s “War on Drugs.” As Afghanistan was responsible for 75 percent of the world’s poppy crop (the prime ingredient of heroin), this was good news to you. The Taliban banned all poppy cultivation and, after an international delegation traveled to the country and declared it poppy-free, you wasted no time in granting $43 million in “humanitarian” aid to the ravaged country. The aid was to be distributed by international organizations. This is the kind of aid that our government has almost always refused to give to places like Cuba and a host of other countries in the past. But, suddenly the Taliban were “okay.”79
Of course, the Taliban still had huge stockpiles of heroin sitting around in warehouses, which they continued to sell. If you pretty much control the market for an in-demand substance, and then you drastically cut the availability of that product, even a failed businessman like you, George, could see what would happen. Prices will go up, up, up! As Foreign Policy In Focus has reported, that meant a kilo of heroin went from $44 to $700. And that’s all pure profit in your evil, freedom-hating pocket if you’re the Taliban.80
According to various reports, representatives of your administration met with the Taliban or conveyed messages to them during the summer of 2001. What were those messages, Mr. Bush? Were you discussing their offer to hand over bin Laden? Were you threatening them with a use of force? Were you talking to them about a pipeline? Did you and your administration, as one former CIA operative suggested to The Washington Post, foul up a chance to get bin Laden into American custody?81 Whatever the case, the talks continued until just days before September 11. There would be no pipeline. The Taliban were out the loot, and the companies who supported you had now lost millions themselves on all the prep that went into this lucrative pipeline. What was going to happen next?
Well, we know what happened. Two planes took down the World Trade Center and another one crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania. And you decided to protect our freedom by taking some of our freedoms away. Then we swooped into Afghanistan and sent the Taliban and their al Qaeda buddies running—which was a hell of a lot easier than catching them. Most of the big shots escaped.
Oh, and we turned Afghanistan over to Unocal. The new American ambassador to Afghanistan? Unocal consultant and National Security Council member Zalmay Khalilzad. And the newly American-installed leader of Afghanistan? Former Unocal staffer Hamid Karzai.82
On December 27, 2001, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a pipeline deal.83 The gas will eventually flow from the Caspian Sea region and all of your friends will be happy.
Something here just doesn’t smell right, Mr. Bush. But it can’t be the natural gas. Natural gas is odorless.
Question #7: What exactly was that look on your face in the Florida classroom on the morning of September 11 when your chief of staff told you, “America is under attack”?
On the afternoon of September 10, you flew down to Florida. Staying in an upscale Sarasota resort, you had dinner with brother Jeb, and then went to sleep.84
In the morning, you took a jog on the golf course and then headed to Booker Elementary to read to little children. You left the resort between 8:30 a.m. and 8:40 a.m., a good ten to twenty minutes after the FAA knew they had hijacked planes in the air. No one bothered to tell you.85
You arrived at the school after the first plane had hit the north tower in New York City. Three months later you