From The Israel lobby: How powerful is it really? by Stephen Zunes, in Asia Times Online:

  ...When examining the power of the Israel lobby in negatively influencing US Middle East policy, it is important to recognize the role of other lobbies that have an interest in encouraging the dangerous direction of current US policy. Placing so much emphasis on AIPAC and its allied groups ignores other special interests and ideologies that also play a role in urging US support for the Israeli government.

Such allied groups include fundamentalist Christians, who believe that a militarily dominant Israel is necessary for the Second Coming of Christ. However, Mearsheimer and Walt mention them only in passing in their article. The authors recount, as an example of the power of the Israel lobby, how - after President Bush's initial call on Israel to back off from its bloody spring 2002 re-conquest of West Bank cities was rebuffed by former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon - the US administration backed down and threw its support behind the offensive. However, most accounts of Bush's backtracking attribute it not primarily to pressure from AIPAC and other Jewish groups but rather to the more than 100,000 e-mails received by the White House from Christian conservatives defending the Israeli offensive.

Indeed, these Christian Zionists exercise a much more influential role in the current administration than do Jewish Zionists. During his two presidential election campaigns, George W Bush was less dependent on Jewish voters than any modern president, but no president has ever been more beholden to the Christian Right. ...

...

... Unfortunately, Washington's agenda provokes a reaction that all but precludes any kind of stable order that would enhance the long-term national-security interests of the United States or Israel, much less peace or justice. US policy has resulted in dividing Israelis from Arabs, although both are Semitic peoples who worship the same god, love the same land, and share a history of subjugation and oppression. The so-called peace process is not about peace but about imposing a Pax Americana. To blame the current morass in the Middle East on the Israel lobby only exacerbates animosities and plays into the hands of the divide-and-rule tactics of those in the US Congress and administration whose primary objective is ultimately not to help Israel but to advance the American Empire. 

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from rivers, fed
by 2 glaciers.

Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it.

Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they provide
the second largest source of income for the area.

Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other
minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the
glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to
make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and
one for the mine's rubbish tip.

The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold.

The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members
is George Bush Senior.

The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this year, 2006.

The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a
temporary stay of execution. If they destroy the glaciers, they will not
just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will permanently
contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human or animal
consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the
extraction process.

Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not
one will be left with the people whose land it is.

They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been
forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.

Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from
international justice. The world must know what is happening in Chile.

The only place to start changing the world is from here.

We ask you to circulate this message amongst your friends in the following
way.
Please copy this text, paste it into a new email adding your signature and
send it to everyone in your address book.
Please, will the 100th person to receive and sign the petition, send it to
[email protected] to be forwarded to the Chilean Government.

Say NO to Pascua Lama Open-cast mine in the Andean Cordillera on the
Chilean-Argentine frontier.
We ask the Chilean Government not to authorize the Pascua Lama; to protect
the whole of 3 glaciers; the purity of the water of the San Felix Valley and
El Transito; the quality of the agricultural land of the region of Atacama;
the quality of life of the Diaguita people and of the whole population of
the region.

Folowed by many signatures of promiinent and ordinary worldwide citizens.

Note that Malcolm Kinnaird’s company Kinhill (which became Halliburton/KBR Australia) partnered the development of Mawson Lakes.  The Property group Kinsmen, which has as its board members two former partners of Kinhill, is building 150 new houses where the train line and road converge near the city (right beside Robert Gerard's Clipsal plant- apparently he still owns the land). 

Also note that the Osbourne Maritime Precinct is under the control of the Port Adelaide Maritime Corporation, which is chaired by the former Halliburton/KBR Global Vice-President Andrew Fletcher.  On the riverbank, between the precinct and Port Adelaide, lies Adelaide Brighton Cement, of whose board the aforementioned Mr Kinnaird is a board member.

Adjacent to the Osbourne Precinct is the Northhaven yacht squadron.  Can you guess who the Commodore is?  Right first time.

It's interesting to me that the other train line, from the city to Port Adelaide, doesn't appear on this map. 

Big Business is done via business clubs, secret societies, charitable organisations, etc..... Business done on merit is usually done when someone wants a "better price" but the final deal is "tenderised" through connections... whether public or private... If you're not in the loop of smiling friends, they do not know you exist even if you can provide the best...

The rest is done via public relations and advertising...

The importance of the service provided is proportional to the money you can pay for... If one has the courage to read "Old Sox on Trumpeting" by E T Gundlash, one can see how the deeds are done and this gem was written in 1928... Nothing much has changed except the massaging medium...

Keep smiling Richard and keep us up-to-date with the latest in Adelaide... Just think for a second there was a long shot connection to Vice-President Cheney in the beaconsfield mine... via a company he had some shares in that had some interest in... and after a rigmarole of 4 or 5 companies twice removed... there was a thin link with beaconsfield. And this was know at least a year ago before the mine accident... No conspiracy theory, just talking about people making a buck on gold anyway they can, including the miners...