Bush's nominee for U.N. is a member of PNAC, supports Taliban, and UNOCAL advisor

[Poiuyt]

He is a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998, PNAC Letter sent to President William Jefferson Clinton.

In September 2004, Khalilzad was charged with trying to influence the October 9 Afghan presidential elections. "Several candidates ... maintain that the U.S. ambassador and his aides are pushing behind the scenes to ensure a convincing victory by the pro-American incumbent, President Hamid Karzai," reported the Los Angeles Times. One candidate, Mohammed Mohaqiq, said Khalilzad had asked him and others to withdraw from the race: "They have been doing the same thing with all candidates. That is why all people think that not only Khalilzad is like this, but the whole U.S. government is the same. They all want Karzai -- and this election is just a show."

snip -

Joel Brinkley summarized Khalilzad's network in the Bush administration as follows:

"Mr. Khalilzad, a protégé of Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz since long before Mr. Bush took office, served as a senior director on the president's national security council staff during the early years of Mr. Bush's first term."

snip -

Zalmay Khalilzad served as an advisor to the giant oil company Unocal during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. While working for the Cambridge Energy Research Associates in the mid 1990s, Khalilzad conducted risk analyses for Unocal for a proposed 890-mile, $2-billion, 1.9-billion-cubic-feet-per-day natural gas pipeline project which would have extended from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. In 1997, Khalilzad "joined Unocal officials at a reception for an invited Taliban delegation to Texas." <15>

"Just as oil industry conflicts of interest have not been a concern for the Bush administration in its appointments, Khalilzad's historic support for the Taliban seems not to be either," wrote the environmental, anti-mining group Project Underground of Khalilzad's ambassadorship. "Even as the Clinton administration was beginning to recognize the repressive nature of the Taliban regime and its links to bin Laden, Khalilzad called for U.S. engagement with the Taliban. 'The Taliban do not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran,' wrote Khalilzad. 'We should ... be willing to offer recognition and humanitarian assistance and to promote international economic reconstruction. It is time for the United States to re-engage.'"

more-

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Zalmay_Khalilzad

Whoo-boy! This guy's bad. I didn't think it was possible for Bush to find a worse person than John Bolton.

[liberal N proud]

1. You would expect nothing more than a PNAC candidate from the bu$h regime

His whole presidency has been under the design of the PNAC

[fooj]

2. They had better ask him about the PNAC...

or we are in for more of the same.

[Hubert Flottz]

3. Here is a good place for congress to dig in and say no!

These people got us into Iraq...we don't need them in the UN.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. I don't suppose many of us expected anything better from Bush.

For all his talk of cooperation and bipartisanship, I don't think we'll see many changes in the way Bush does business. His idea of compromise is that everyone do things his way.