Reply #8: Natural gas. Oil. Afghanistan sits astride the route from the fields to the consumers.

[bertman]

The oil and gas pipelines cannot be built, maintained and utilized while wars are raging in Afghanistan. There were lots of players in this drama, but one that is probably familiar to Americans is Unocal, which was bought by Chevron.

In other words, there are trillions of dollars to be made pumping oil and gas across Afghanistan. Whoever controls the country can make a lot of money and have a lot of power--including determining who does and does not get oil and natural gas. But first, someone has to control the country and stabilize the situation there.

Consider the fact that the Taliban are Sunnis who are strongly influenced and financed by Wahabbi fanatics from Saudi Arabia. They also get support from Pakistan and are often protected by the Pakistani government, or at the least, treated with a hands-off policy. Why in the world would the Saudis want to control Afghan oil/gas pipelines? Ummm, I wonder.

So, President Obama can build up the troop contingent in Afghanistan and attempt to lure other nations to join us there, or he can pull out. He is not going to pull out for two reasons: 1) the oil interests who have such a huge influence in our government will lose trillions if the pipeline is not built and used; 2) Allowing the pipeline to be built by ANYONE OTHER THAN US means that someone else will have the ability to cut off the economic lifeline to countries all around central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

Now, the best our President can do is convince the American people that Afghanistan is a worthy cause and try to gain control of it with as few casualties as possible. Already we see that as we step up our involvement there so do the indigenous forces of opposition who are aided by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other muslim/arab nations. It's likely that we will continue our ongoing Middle East debacle in Afghanistan under the guise of rooting out terrorism, but that is only a smoke screen for maintaining U.S. control over more of the world's oil and natural gas AND holding a strategic staging point in the Middle East.

At least, that's my opinion of what's going on.

And MADem is correct that this should come as no surprise to any of us. Obama was always open about his support for ramping up the war in Afghanistan.