I did a brief search on UNOCAL and came up with the following info. If this is true, it seems that some US oilmen can benefit from the current war in Afganistan.
http://www.oilandgasinternational.com/departments/from_editor/10_29_01.html
Unocal & Afghanistan
(10/29/01) There can be no doubt that the tragic terrorist attack on New York City and Washington requires apprehension and bringing to justice those responsible. They and their organization were in all likelihood led by the terrorist linchpin Osama bin Laden, who is harbored in Afghanistan, from which he is believed to have directed, trained, and financed this and other terrorist acts. And there can be no question that the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan are aiding and abetting him and his al-Qaida organization. But, despite how much this terrorist and his henchmen and the Taliban themselves are despised by most of the civilized world and the majority of Afghans themselves, can that be a justification for the present bombing of the country and soaring number of innocent casualties? Or, as is being said throughout the Middle East, is there an ulterior motive? Is it to put another regime in power that may be more favorable to the West?
Author Ahmed Rashid has revealed that since 1995, Unocal has sought to build US$1.9 billion, 790-mile oil and gas pipelines from the 25 Tcf Dauletabad Field in Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistani ports on the Arabian Sea as an alternate route for transporting Caspian region oil and gas to the enormous Indian subcontinent markets and perhaps beyond to Southeast Asia. But, Rashid points out, this requires an agreeable administration in Afghanistan, which the Taliban no longer is.
Unocal tried courting Taliban leaders after they took Kabul in 1996, taking them to Houston, where they were treated royally. They were offered US$.15 per 1000 cf of gas that passed through Afghanistan, and they agreed after US Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphael lobbied them for the Unocal pipeline. During their first year running the country.
The Taliban were unopposed by the US government. Rashid says in 1997, he was told by an American diplomat, "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament, and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that." But when the Taliban began to enforce strict sharia edicts, particularly against women, policies began to change. Nevertheless, Rashid says, Unocal told a 1998 US congressional hearing that Asian energy demands and the sanctions against Iran made Afghanistan "the only other possible route" for its proposed million b/d pipeline, but when the Taliban demanded more than the $100 million a year in rent for the pipeline route in the form of the construction of roads, water supplies, telephone lines, and electricity power lines, as well as a tap in the pipeline to provide oil and gas for Afghanistan, Unocal balked, and finally dropped its plans after the East Africa embassy bombings.
The US Energy Information Agency says, "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 the possible construction of oil and natural gas export pipelines through Afghanistan."
If the Taliban is overthrown, terrorism may take a major blow, but in doing so, the primary stumbling block to the Caspian-Pakistan pipeline will also be removed. In the Middle East, where oil has always dominated political decisions, this is the rationale for the US-led strike against Afghanistan. The question is asked, if bin Laden were still in Saudi Arabia, would the same punishment be given that country?