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I am sure you caught on to press reports that Enron's main interest in government influence was 'energy regulation.' After I read about this trip to Indonesia, I recall Coalgate, where Clinton declared a national park in Utah that effectively prevented the mining of 'clean coal' in the United States.
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10 posted on 1/29/02 6:20 AM Pacific by JohnGalt
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- The Art of the Deal:
 - by Mia T
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- President Clinton, whose gaucheness borders on the grotesque, proposes a
- Marshall Plan for the Balkans. Is he unaware of, or just unimpressed by,
- the fact that the Marshall Plan was proposed in 1947, not 1942?
- ------George Will
- Only pretending there's a plan in Kosovo
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- In a quainter, less enlightened time, miners used to take caged canaries down to coal mines with them to alert the miners to "bad air"...
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- Is Will's complex irony one-too-many times removed, or is Will simply unaware of, or just unimpressed by, the plain fact that clinton's conjecturally incongruous, pre-postpositive plan is a necessary part of the art of the deal?
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- My guess is that the rebuilding contract preceded the demolition ball, that the FOBs' contracts preceded the SOB's bombs. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the FOBs -- and not the SOB -- are the ones actually picking the NATO targets...which are their future projects, after all.
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- I am reminded here of Zaire,
- where the ink was dry on the contract
- even as the blood continued to flow in the streets.
- It was the largest mineral rights contract in history,
- worth billions.
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- The signatories were
- a fledgling company from Hope, Arkansas,
- American Mineral Fields (AMF)
- and the Kabila rebels.
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- AMF is headed up by
- Hope native Mike McMurrough
- and Jean Raymond Boulle
- the ex-chief diamond buyer for DeBeers.
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- McMurrough, a land surveyor,
- first met Boulle when they were both
- exploring for diamonds in Arkansas.
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- Both were later principals of
- Diamond Fields Resources.
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- Boulle and McMurrough in1988 formed
- the Arkansas Diamond Development Co.
- to develop diamond operations on state-owned lands.
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- In 1972, the diamond-rich area of southwest Arkansas
- was purchased by the state and was designated
- Crater of Diamonds State Park
- to prevent private mining.
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- In 1986, then-Gov. Clinton began a
- feasibility study
- to allow commercial operations
- in the state park.
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- In 1989, Clinton,
- despite strong opposition from environmentalists,
- gave Boulle's mining company the okay to begin exploration.
-
- (Sorta like the quid pro coal Utah land grab in reverse.)
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- While the American press
- has totally ignored the AMF-Arkansas connection,
- the foreign press hasn't.
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- The Italian paper Corriere della Sera
- described AMF's link
- with Clinton's home state of Arkansas,
- with Clinton's home town of Hope,
- as a "wicked coincidence."
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- And it is a coincidence that encompasses Stephens Inc.
- the powerful Little Rock-based investment house
- that has consistently backed Clinton
- in his campaigns for governor and his 1992 presidential run.
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- The Wall Street Journal reported on possible U.S.
- assistance to the rebels
- using neighboring Burundi as a conduit for arms
- ultimately destined for Uvira,
- just across Burundi's border in Zaire,
- the cradle of Kabila's revolt.
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- So the quid is covert U.S. assistance for the Kabila rebels;
- the quo is the richest mineral rights contract for FOB's.
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- But there is more.
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- Clinton repeatedly refused to freeze
- the Mobutu multi-billion dollar booty,
- plundered over three decades
- from the impoverished Zairean people.
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- Was Clinton's inaction part of the self-enriching deal?
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