Actually you were the FIRST to write anything which associated the attack by the US on the Taliban with oil profits and Unical. I believe you were the first on the net to make that connection - though MUCH has been written about it since and of course we should always follow the money. Good writing Greg.--Adar aka Hank Roth (via email Jan. 9, 2003)

Beginning Sept. 13, 2001, NVUSA began sending email reminders of updates to the Sept. 11 collection. The early emails simply listed the URL for NVUSA and encouraged people to click in. On Sept. 24, 2001, NVUSA sent its first email digest with a summary of updated clips. Following is a collection of some email digests that have been saved.

• update peace links
  (Sept. 24, 2001)
  Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems from its geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This potential includes proposed multi-billion-dollar oil and gas export pipelines through Afghanistan, although these plans have now been thrown into serious question (see below for more detail)....
     --A Briefing from the Department of Energy (Dec., 2000). Mirrored onsite.
  
  Kazakhstan is one of the three key producers of oil in the Caspian sea region together with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. This region, which surrounds the world's largest inland sea, is estimated to contain as much as 200 billion barrels of oil alone plus another 100 billion barrels' worth of gas under the Kara Kum Desert and other sites. At average price levels for the 1990s, that adds up to a treasure chest of roughly US$5 trillion.
     --Project Underground (1998? ). See map.
  
  SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. and WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Sept. 7, 2001 -- Chevron Corp. and Texaco Inc. today confirmed that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has approved a consent order that will allow the two companies to complete their previously announced merger.
     --Press Release (chevron.com).
  
  
• peace and oil
  (Sept. 25, 2001)
  The USA waited until October to follow a UN suggestion made in January to freeze suspected terrorist funds; Congress (remember them?) asks why; Iraq is likely next war zone; protest report from Pakistan to Palestine; and Afghan refugees report civilian targets hit.
  
  
• An Oil War Coming?
  (Oct. Sept. 27, 2001)
  Among the global assets counted in the ChevronTexaco merger is a 45 percent interest in 9 billion barrels of reserves in the Tengiz oil field of Kazakhstan, not very far from Afghanistan. ExxonMobil owns a 25 percent interest in the Tengiz field, bringing total US shares to 70 percent of the recoverable reserves. The Center for Public Integrity reports the area has been of longstanding interest to Vice President Dick Cheney who once served on the Kazakhstan Oil Advisory Board, along with executives from Chevron and Texaco.
  
  
• opium & war
  (Sept. 29, 2001)
  The latest updates to peace pages at Nonviolence USA focus on web resources for understanding a context of covert operations in Afghanistan that have been hinted at, then revealed, in recent editions of the New York Times.
  
  NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman hints that the best way to kill Osama Bin Laden would be to hire hitmen from drug cartels. A more recent report from the NYT says the CIA has been working for three years with the Afghanistan Northern Alliance, apparently to produce such a result. It was the Northern Alliance leader who was recently assassinated.
  
  According to a May 29 report from Eurasia Net, Afghanistan's opium trade has been shifting to the territory controlled by the Northern Alliance since "the late 1990s". Converging timelines thus indicate that opium trade was gravitating toward the Northern Alliance Territory about the time that the CIA was beginning its covert operations in the area. Afghanistan is a huge source of opium.
  
  Previous updates at Nonviolence USA, also following hints from a NYT columnist, point to longstanding US interests in Afghanistan as a territory in need of a pipeline that would help move oil and gas from the giant reserves at Tengiz, Kazakhstan, where ChevronTexaco and Mobil own 70 percent of 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Vice President Dick Cheney has a longstanding record in the region as CEO of Halliburton and former member of the Kazakhstan Oil Advisory Board.
  
  What can be clearly inferred from these convergencies is difficult to say, but the evidence suggests that American citizens have a right to demand clarifications that would help discipline Afghanistan-based military actions such that activities undertaken under cover of the American flag do not exceed their stated intentions to produce a safer world. The sooner we get critical help from mainstream media in these matters, the better.
  
  
• oil & war updates
  (Oct. 5, 2001)
  Updated clips and links at Nonviolence USA include a Sept. 8 report that Russia & China had signed a pathbreaking agreement for cooperation in oil & gas development. China has been releasing reports of very promising oil fields in several regions of Tibet, usually associated with British Petroleum. Meanwhile, web pages for upbeat Russian energy companies speak of investment potential for Americans and a consolidated Eurasian energy network.
  
  
• the worst so far
  (Oct. 5, 2001)
  In the three and a half weeks that I have been reading emails and web sites since Sept. 11, today's results have been the worst.
  
  Bill Keller's column in the New York Times sums it up: "This is going to be a trying time for those who promote human rights, and for those who advocate humanitarian intervention. That decent 1990's impulse to do good in Bosnia and Kosovo, even at the price of alienating Russia and China, was already, before Sept. 11, giving way to a foreign policy based on an unsentimental notion of our national interest. Now the calculations will be even colder."
  
  
• slowing it down
  (Oct. 9, 2001)
  (1) The following article by Center for Defense Information analyst Nicholas Berry is not a pacifist document, but it does provide grounds for showing how the US military strategy is inappropriate as a military strategy, because combating terrorism requires a special set of considerations. Berry argues that it was wrong for Bush to obviate distinctions between terrorists and the states who harbor them: "A distinction must be made. Attacking Afghanistan, Iran and/or Iraq would have seriously adverse consequences."
  
  (2) A comprehensive strategic analysis by CDI further supports arguments that even when considered from a military point of view, the opening days of the War in Afghanistan do not pass the test of a sophisticated (indeed postmodern) military strategy. CDI Senior Analyst Marcus Corbin argues, for instance, "that success in conflict depends most upon people, then ideas, and least upon hardware."
  
  (3) Finally, a genuine pacifist Thich Nhat Hahn, who knows very well what it means to experience personal holocaust, counsels Americans to stop acting from fear, revenge, and hatred. Ethical action requires calm, understanding, and awareness. "The first thing we can do is to cool the flames of anger and hatred that are so strong in us. As mentioned before, it is crucial to look at the way we feed the hatred and violence within us and to take immediate steps to cut off the nourishment for our hatred and violence."
  
  Whether from a strategic military point of view, or from a pacifist point of view, the current US actions in Afghanistan look like too much, too soon, too hot.
  
  
• 911 Updates at Nonviolence USA
  (Oct. 10, 2001)
  When they come for you in the morning:
  Three Political Websites Downed After Government "Homeland Security" Threat...
  
  Tony Blair and George Bush appeared to have struck an historic deal at the weekend which could chart the European and US military map for years to come....
  
  British Prime Minister Tony Blair has denounced Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as one of the world's most dangerous rulers.
  
  Ahead of his first meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush, Blair defended both countries' airstrikes on Baghdad on Friday....
  
  In past times of tragedy and fear, our government has harassed, investigated and arrested people solely because of their race, their religion, their national origin, their speech or their political beliefs. In the 1950's, when fears of the Soviet threat were used to convert dissent into disloyalty, people were spied upon and punished on the basis of political beliefs and associations instead of criminal evidence. Normal standards of criminal evidence were abandoned; instead, race and political beliefs became a cause for suspicion and recrimination. Intelligence-gathering activities were directed at Americans who dared to disagree with the government. We must not allow this to happen again.--ACLU Action Alert (10/9/2001).
  
  A consortium of major American news organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, has decided to withhold the results of its recount of ballots cast in Florida in the 2000 presidential election. The consortium had planned to publish its report this week, and although its decision to suppress its own findings has received virtually no media attention, the reason is made clear in a September 23 column by New York Times Washington bureau chief Richard L. Berke.--Barry Grey (WSWS 9/25/2001).
  
  
• Crisis Updates from NVUSA Oct. 12
  (Oct. 12, 2001)
  The USA waited until October to follow a UN suggestion made in January to freeze suspected terrorist funds; Congress (remember them?) asks why; Iraq is likely next war zone; protest report from Pakistan to Palestine; and Afghan refugees report civilian targets hit.