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Afghanistan: 'Necessary' War for Empire
We've been down this road before. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recent upbeat assessment that the war in Afghanistan "can still be won" is eerily reminiscent of Gen. William Westmoreland's "light at the end of the tunnel" comments from Vietnam and the early rosy reports from Iraq.
Currently there are 68,000 U.S. soldiers and marines in Afghanistan. There have been 190 American fatalities this year, the highest total in nearly eight years. This year's Pentagon budget for Afghanistan is $65 billion and total costs now exceed $228 billion.
Most Americans now understand that the U.S. war on Iraq had nothing to do with the stated reasons. Afghanistan was sold to the public on multiple fabrications, including defeating al-Qaeda, building democracy, stopping heroin, fighting terrorism, and liberating Afghan women. Not one of these reasons is remotely close to the truth.
The 2001 U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has never been the "good and necessary war" defended by President Obama. Although you never read it in the mainstream media, Washington's primary motive is control of oil. Here, it's not Afghan reserves but Central Asian oil and gas. A long planned $7.6 billion, 1,050 mile oil pipeline running from Turkmenistan to India is called TAPI for Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. Turkmenistan has the third largest natural gas reserves in the world and Afghanistan is the crucial transit corridor.
Asia Times journalist Pepe Escobar notes that TAPI goes back to the mid 1990s "[W]hen the Taliban were wined and dined by California-based Unocal -- and the Clinton machine." According to insider accounts, negotiations broke down because the Taliban were demanding too much in transfer fees. (Recall that the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden were created by the CIA).
This pipeline would bisect Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province. It also would permit bypassing Iran, one of Washington's key geopolitical objectives. For this to occur, a reliable client regime needs to be established in Kabul, hence the U.S. invasion, occupation, likely escalation. Escobar adds that the possibility of establishing permanent bases "right at the borders of geopolitical competitors China and Russia" is a closely related motive. This is why Afghan civilians and U.S. soldiers are dying.
The slogan "Enduring Coffins for Pipeline and Profits" doesn't have quite the (pseudo) patriotic call to national sacrifice touted in "Operation Enduring Freedom" but it's more truthful. In this narrow sense and from the perspective of Washington elites, the Afghanistan war is "necessary" as necessary as the Pentagon's budget and the 750 bases spread around the globe. For some on the Left it seems to require almost a willful suppression of logic and evidence not to realize that the Obama administration is no less committed to maintaining the empire than previous occupants of the White House.
Adding additional U.S. troops will at best produce a stalemate and a steeply escalating casualty rate. The outcome hinges on whether the American public will exert enough pressure to force a U.S. withdrawal.
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13 Comments so far
Show Allfinally a word of truth - i take credit for having been talking about the oil/pipeline for some time
just add:
1. chomsky has pointed out that even if the us were 100% solar powered we would still be there because part of the "control" of the oil and gas would have to do with keeping the chinese and the russians out of the mid-east oil and gas markets, thereby constraining their economic growth
don't forget the military slogan in the us is "full spectum dominance"
Harold Pinter referred to the term in his 2005 Nobel Prize acceptance speech:
"I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance'. That is not my term, it is theirs. 'Full spectrum dominance' means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources."
2. the pipeline cuts through over 20 tribal areas and it was supposed to be the role of the taliban to bring all of the tribes under control. when the negotiations with them broke down the went from being "partners" to "terrorists" overnight
neither words had any meaning then and do not have a meaning now
from 1980:
The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region.
Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
This last, key sentence of the Carter Doctrine, was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser. Brzezinski modeled the wording of the Carter Doctrine on the Truman Doctrine,[1] and insisted that the sentence be included in the speech "to make it very clear that the Soviets should stay away from the Persian Gulf."
so, if i may summarize: its ok for us to do it to them but not ok for them to do it to us - that is us foreign policy in a nutshell and not much has changed in the last 30 years
same old same old
we now send poor black boys and latino boys to that shit hole to fight and die for obese white folks to keep their suv's on the road
usa usa
1: So true. I believe John Pilger made the same point in one of his books. It isn't so much controlling the oil for our own use as it is about controlling the production and distribution of it, thus being able to control the price, as well as keeping it out of the hands of the Russians and Chinese.
I do not think we should ignore the reality that the US military is merely the arsenal of the corpofiendocracy. The full spectrum dominance is necessary for the corpofiendocracy to dominate, impoverish, enslave, and even eradicate those of the multitudes around the world who are not wealthy or well-connected. As long as the corpofiend elites can feel secure and insulated from all the misery they are creating, they will continue to pursue these policies that will inevitably create hell on earth for 95+ and possibly even 99+ percent of the human population.
Every swaggering, strutting nation that harbored ambitions of running the world wound up face down in the gutter, stone cold dead. "Full spectrum dominance" is a euphemism for the downfall of the United States.
"Afghanistan: 'Necessary' War for Empire" Nothing could be more precise. But it's not the US empire. The people of the USA have been used like other peoples in the world.
THE EMPIRE OF "THE CITY"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4675077383139148549
Did they teach oil pipe lines in Yale or Harvard??
When did Obama learn about the pipe lines??
Before or after his winning the presidency?
It's time for the Ivy Leagues to tell the truth to the students and the public...
When the established order in the USA learned of the oil and the pipe lines, they dumped our industrial base to China,
and doublecrossed the working classes in this country.
And there you know about Bubba Clinton...
What leader will the working classes follow? Clinton and
Obama are not for us the new slaves of the empire.
We have been down this road before. See this article from 2006 for a more complete account of how this war became necessary for empire:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1203-21.htm
And this interesting synopsis from a Pakistani military site:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/33935-unocal-bridas-taliban-turkmanistan-gas-pipeline.html
Too much has been invested in the CIA-Pentagon's 911 conspiracy and the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanisstan for our ruling class to simply call it quit. These wars will only "end" when the objectives laid out in the agendas for the New American Century and New World Order are achieved. Please revisit the blatant lies of 911 on websites like 911truth.org and whatreallyhappened.com
In the meantime go to Atimes.com and read Pepe Escobar's article "Fifty questions on 9/11" and "Eduring freedom until 2050"
In only 450 days, the number of troops in Afghanistan has swelled from 67,000 to 118,000. Since 2001, the United States has spent $179 billion in the country, while its European allies have burned $102 billion. The tragicomedy is clear: the US and its allies will do - and spend - whatever it takes to implant military bases on the doorstep of Russia and China, and to get their gas pipeline on track. - Pepe Escobar
THANK YOU I know i had seen it but
what a great refresher...and the paki
def site is new to me. I called cspan
mmm 720 est fri i think in response to
"are we safer?" & mentioned 'fictional al qaeda;
afghan pipeline; iraq oil access; and
all corrupt media distractions to relegitimize
totally corrupt repugnant party not to mention
intertwining boards of directors ; CONGRESSpeople
using their ILLegitimate pac money to support other
congresspeople reelection campaigns creating
codependent realations with new legislators.
RANGEL should be the sacrificial lamb to begin
investigations into corrupt endemic practises in congress.
Rangel was practically APPOINTED by that socalled
'dimocrat' Rockefeller. R's = rapists
D's are prostitutes
excepting only a few...KUCINICH for example
Tke main point in this article was the last statement, "THe outcome hinges on whether the American public can exert enough pressure to force a U.S. withdrawal."
It ain't gonna happen. We are so soaked in Hope and Change we want like hell to believe in to do a damn thing. Look at the condition of the working people in this nation. We have lost our jobs, our homes, our democracy, our Freedom of Speech (Patriot Act) We have lost our right to a trial by a jury of our peers if someone unknown says we are a domestic terrorist. (That is someone who speaks our against our government). We have lost Habeus Corpus, lost Posse Comitatas that says they can't use American troops against the American people. Don't you see the cameras everywhere?
How long can you pretend not to know what is happening? You don't want to hear about what really happened on 9/11, or the facts about Canadian health care compared to ours. Are you opposed to the trillions of our tax dollars that our government gave to the banksters which they are celebrating with fat bonuses? Do you oppose the endless wars based on lies of Bush and Cheney? Do you approve of Obama extending the illegal wars into Pakistan? Do want to go to war against Iran for Israel? Would you not prefer our tax funds to be used to take care of ourselves and to protect our environment?
Well, you have to do something. My advice is DON'T VOTE FOR ONE OF THE CORRUPT PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE. They have ALL sold out to Big Pharma. Get over your mistaken idea that one corporate party is better than the other. THEY ARE ALL WORKING AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE OF THIS NATION.
We people have to come alive before it is too late...and it nearly is.
What kind of an article is this? The author makes but one citation from Pepe Escobar about meetings with the Taliban in the mid '90s. Suppositions and conjecture are being published as fact. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?
Eg.
"Washington's primary motive is control of oil. Here, it's not Afghan reserves but Central Asian oil and gas. A long planned $7.6 billion, 1,050 mile oil pipeline running from Turkmenistan to India is called TAPI for Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. Turkmenistan has the third largest natural gas reserves in the world and Afghanistan is the crucial transit corridor."
Well, Dr. Olson, you're probably correct. But, where do you get this information? Do you have a source from the Bush or Obama administrations or the Pentagon? Are there any leaked documents that support this 'fact' you state? Or are you simply stating what you believe as fact? Is that how you got your Ph.D.? If so, can I get one?
I'd love to forward this article around to people who've been suckered into believing the party line on this war, but I can't because it's nothing but belief stated as fact.
Oh by the way, Jesus is coming very soon to take the true believers to heaven. That's a fact because I believe it.
At some point in the near future, China is going to stop lending us money to support our futile wars. When they shut off the money supply, we will have no choice but to pull out of Afghanistan.