In Fact… In Fact…
STRANGE BOARDFELLOWS Eric Scigliano was intrigued by the announcement that United Airlines, caught up in post-September 11 woes, tapped John Creighton Jr. as its new CEO. Creighton, retired president of the timber giant Weyerhaeuser, has also sat on the board of the California-based oil multinational Unocal since 1995--the period in which Unocal became the main US corporate suitor seeking to do business with the Taliban, alleged protectors of Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the terrorist plot that resulted in the September 11 crashes of two United planes. In 1995 Unocal conceived a pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea and enlisted Saudi, Pakistani, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian partners. In December 1997 Unocal hosted Taliban delegates in Texas, and even took them to the beach. It also gave nearly $1 million to a job-training program in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, out of up to $20 million it spent on the pipeline effort. After the Taliban took Kabul in 1996 and women's groups protested its increasingly intolerant policies, Unocal hung on. Finally, in the wake of Osama bin Laden's fatwa on the United States, of embassy bombings and US missile reprisals, it withdrew from the pipeline project (for more details: www.thenation.com). GOD'S SIDE The copious references to God in public life these days leave the Rev. Peter Laarman of the Judson Memorial Church in New York City unimpressed. He sent us what he calls "Among the Reasons God May Temporarily Be Unavailable to Bless America." Among them: (1) because God has had it up to here with the assumption that prayers for national exemption from pain and tragedy deserve an answer; (2) because God is too busy processing Americans' prayers for their high school football teams; (3) because God takes for granted that the bombs falling on Kabul are America's real prayers; (4) because such a tasteless and lurid efflorescence of red, white and blue (including flags wrapped around church steeples) gives God a massive headache. YOU READ IT HERE FIRST "Even more damning is the Saudi terrorist link. According to a New York Times story, US officials have concluded that 'much of the financial support for terrorists who attack Americans... comes from wealthy individuals from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies of the United States.' Moreover these same officials concede that the principal problem is not state-sponsored terrorism, which the United States continues to target, but the emergence of sophisticated privately financed networks of terrorists" (Sherle Schwenninger, The Nation, October 7, 1996). NEWS OF THE WEAK IN REVIEW Call him irresponsible. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on civilian casualties caused by US bombing: "Responsibility for every single casualty in this war, be they innocent Afghans or innocent Americans, rests at the feet of the Taliban and Al Qaeda."
Nov 8, 2001 / The Editors
The Unforgotten Election The Unforgotten Election
The 2000 presidential election debacle showed that the country needs electoral reform, but there's only silence from both sides of the aisle.
Nov 1, 2001 / The Editors
War Measured War Measured
Mismanagement and secrecy have stalled the war on terrorism—and at home its effects reverberate against civil rights.
Nov 1, 2001 / The Editors
In Fact… In Fact…
US food airdrops, School of the Americas Watch gets border scrutiny, V.S. Naipaul, Walter Isaacson and more.
Nov 1, 2001 / The Editors
Big Pharma’s Payoff Big Pharma’s Payoff
Talk about good times for Washington's mercenary culture. Even as officials scrambled to explain why they had not acted more quickly to protect postal workers from anthrax contami...
Oct 25, 2001 / The Editors
In Fact… In Fact…
ANOTHER KIND OF MONEY LAUNDERING When the Financial Times launched an investigation into the contributors to "counter-capitalist groups," its dragnet hauled in an unlikely name--...
Oct 25, 2001 / The Editors
Indict Pinochet Indict Pinochet
It's been three years since Gen. Augusto Pinochet was detained in London under the European Anti-Terrorism Convention for crimes that included terrorist atrocities. If George W. B...
Oct 18, 2001 / The Editors
Call in the UN Call in the UN
This year the Nobel Peace Prize committee got it stunningly right when it honored the United Nations and Secretary General Kofi Annan. For all its bureaucratic and political timid...
Oct 18, 2001 / The Editors
Review of Review of
Afghanistan. By Angus Hamilton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $5 net.
Oct 11, 2001 / Books & the Arts / The Editors
The Limits of War The Limits of War
The war in Afghanistan, coming after the atrocities of September 11, provokes a welter of contradictory emotions. On the one side, a desire for justice and a yearning for security...
Oct 11, 2001 / The Editors