Online Journal Editors' Blog

In response to the assassination of George Hawi, which is being blamed on Syria despite no evidence whatsoever for the crime, Condoleeza Rice said:

"I don't know who is responsible, and I don't want to say that I know who was responsible, because I don't. But there is an atmosphere of instability. Syria's activities are part of that context, and that atmosphere, and they need to knock it off."

The news headlines that followed this performance promptly screamed, "Rice Blames Syria For Killing", "Rice links Syria to Lebanon assassination", "Rice: Syria Responsible".

No, Condi. You do “want to say.” You know exactly what you want to say. You know exactly what you are planting.

Yes, Condi. We know who benefits from Syria being blamed for the assassinations of Hariri, journalist Samir Kassir, and now Hawi. It's not Syria.

Yes, Condi, we know you like the way anti-Syrian Lebanese are parading around the streets with banners reading "Who's next, Syria?"

Yes, Condi. If this is not a US/Israel-guided insurrection and destabilization all the way, it is working like one, and the world knows that you and your administration are deeply involved in the “context.”

So knock it off.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation's $18.5 billion bid to buy Unocal has gone to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for approval. This secret federal panel, consisting of operatives from 12 federal agencies, reviews mergers and acquisitions that potentially threaten “national security”. The committee can then ask the president of the United States to block any business deal.

The only US president to block a deal sent up from the committee (that itself deserves to be thoroughly investigated and exposed) was, not ironically, George Herbert Walker Bush, who spiked a bid by the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation to buy an American aircraft parts manufacturer.

In addition to the likely interference by this committee, politicians from both the Republican and Democratic Parties are sweating bullets, urging Bush to block CNOOC's bid. A letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow, signed by three southern congressmen (Jefferson, D-La., Green, D-Texas, Jindal, R-La., and Brady, R-Texas) demands an investigation of the national security threat posed by the deal.

In perhaps the most uproarious example of how the “free market” really works, C. Richard D'Amato, chairman of the US-China Economic and Security Review, a congressional “advisory” panel (also known as a lobbying group), blustered that the CNOOC offer was “not a business transaction at all”, and “not a free market deal”, but “the Chinese government acquiring energy resources.”

(I don't suppose that the Bush administration's post-9/11 conquest of the area containing 60 percent of the world's known energy resources, and its persistent interference in Latin America, the South China Sea, and other hot spots, has had anything to do with “acquiring energy resources”. Nah.)

As previously noted (see "CNOOC eyes Unocal", and coverage of China-US conflict at From The Wilderness and other sources) this battle cuts to the heart of the larger superpower conflict that continues to blossom between the US and China over the remaining energy reserves left on the planet.

"China in global quest to quench thirst for oil"

Against the landscape of Peak Oil, what are the chances that Bush will permit China to acquire Unocal, the entity that, in bitter irony, lit the 9/11 match with its Central Asian pipeline politics?

More evidence continues to emerge, adding to proof ad nauseum that the Bush administration had its mind made up on taking Iraq at least as early as March 2002, if not sooner. (On 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld gave the green light to “go massive…sweep it all up…things related and not”—which included attacking Iraq).

The new corroboration is clearly presented across no less than seven memos (comprising the “Downing Street Memos”) and a secret memo from Bush to Blair (from Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch, in preparation for Bush-Blair summits in April 2002).

The memo by Blair's chief foreign policy adviser David Manning confirms that in dinner conversations with Condoleezza Rice, she was “enthusiastic about regime change,” and focused primarily on cleverly devising ways to justify and sell the invasion (knowing that it was a criminal act, in absolute violation of international law), and create a plan of falsification to “produce the right result.” Rice was also concerned with eliminating political fallout that could result in the administration “bombing Iraq, but losing the Gulf”—-proof that the so-called “liberation of Iraq” is a bald-faced lie, while “the Gulf” (Persian Gulf oil) is, and has always been, the only goal.

More evidence of emerging Cold War between the US and China has exploded this week, as Donald Rumsfeld issued new threats towards China regarding its expanding military. The Chinese have responded with predictable fury (see Rumsfeld and US irrationalism).

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan entered the fray, alluding to East-West financial warfare involving the outflow of foreign investments and harm to the dollar, and repeating the Wall Street mantra that China must float its currency.

Meanwhile, the Sino-US race for oil (China's Global Hunt for Oil) continues to ramp up, as China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is positioning to bid for Unocal.

It may seem ironic that Chinese oil interests are poised to acquire the company that was (along with the myriad other machinations over Central Asian oil and gas pipelines) central to the buildup to 9/11, the ensuing “war on terrorism,” and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. (Unocal's role is exhaustively detailed in Ahmed Rashid's Taliban, Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, and summarized in Unocal and the Afghanistan pipeline.)

But maybe it is not so ironic.

Henry Kissinger, a former Unocal consultant deeply involved in the pre-9/11 pipeline consortium, sits on CNOOC's international board, which he joined in October 2001. Essentially, Kissinger has been on both sides of the oil deal for years, from CentGas to whatever comes of CNOOC's play for Unocal.

While the flames of world war burn, true inner circle elites like Kissinger play all sides, up and down, profiting all along the way.

Christopher Cox is another fine example of the Bush 2 administration appointing blatantly partisan cronies who have no real qualifications for their respective jobs, beyond being Bush right-wing loyals who will keep the Pandora's Box of abuse and criminality wide open for Bush and Wall Street. But in BushWorld, that is the important qualification.

Given the history of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), from its continuous series of CIA-connected directors to the disaster of Harvey Pitt., this is what we expect from openly criminal government. As Mike Ruppert and others have documented, the CIA is Wall Street, and Wall Street is the CIA.

The outgoing SEC chief William Donaldson was a Wall Street veteran (Donaldson, Lufkin, Jenrette) who "shocked" the Bush administration by levying record fines for corporate misconduct—actually enforcing regulations. Bush and Wall Street viewed Donaldson as "heavy handed". If Donaldson hadn't resigned, he would have been driven out.

Check Cox and his background: Harvard-educated corporate finance attorney; senior counsel to Ronald Reagan; Orange County, Calif., Republican (a hard-liner), who rose to prominence during the Gingrich "Contract on America" era in the mid-1990s; chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee; supports elimination of corporate divdend and capital gains taxes, and estate taxes. Any single point should disqualify him. But this is BushWorld.

Following his certain confirmation by a lapdog Congress, Cox will likely scale back the small bit of enforcement that Donaldson took on.

Wall Street will pop the cork on the bubbly.