Taleban 'will kill school girls'

[Adsos Letter]

Source: BBC/South Asia

Taleban militants in the Swat valley in north-west Pakistan have threatened to kill girls who attend school.

A local Taleban commander ordered parents to stop sending their daughters to school by 15 January.

In comments broadcast on an illegal radio station, he threatened to blow up schools which enrolled female students.

This year alone, Taleban militants have destroyed more than 130 schools in the Swat valley. They want to bring in Islamic sharia law in the region.

Although schools for girls have come under attack on numerous occasions in the past, this is the first time Taleban militants have issued a complete ban on girls attending them, the BBC's Ethirajan Anbarasan says.



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7799926.stm

[aquart]

1. Men who are afraid of educated women have tiny limp dicks.

[Adsos Letter]

2. I have never understood the fear of strong, independent, educated women...

I am married to one, and it makes life quite pleasant, and interesting, indeed.

I understand these hangups usually occur because of somebody's interpretation of some religious injunction. That's the rationale anyway, so it seems...

[aquart]

22. Welll....

The point of patriarchal religion to enforce, reinforce, and maintain the rationale for patriarchy. I am not fond of patriarchal religion. When those of MY religion go fundie with their patriarchal roots, I am able to destroy them with pithy bits from the history of our religion. Hint: Sukkos does NOT mean "booths." It causes them to cease proselytizing for whole years on end.

[Adsos Letter]

49. I "understand" the role pf patriarchy....

however, I still fail to understand it...

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

9. As well as tiny, limp minds. nt

[woodsprite]

39. Not anymore since the US is supplying them with Viagra. n/t

[GinaMaria]

55. One lesson I learned growing up

Educate a man and he will earn a living
Educate a woman and she will educate the next generation

It was something I witnessed with the educated women in my family. Their children have been much more successful in careers, marriages, etc. It's interesting when all the cousins get together. I see the value of being a woman who is not only educated but also values education so much so that that value is passed on.

They are harming their society. They are holding back the next generation of not only women but men with this.

Note:
I grew up in a sexist family or what some might call 'old school'. Many in my family remembered separate drinking fountains for black and white people. Equal rights was not something even considered for the girls in my family. I am aware that things are different now and many men take the time to teach their children and value education.

[Adsos Letter]

72. My wife's family was quite sexist (and racist, except for my wife)...however...

my FIL did insist that my wife enter a nursing program after highschool, so that she would never have to be dependent upon a man, or stay in a bad marriage because of financial need.

My wife and I have raised two girls to be strong, independent, and to think for themselves.

The results have been quite gratifying...

[GinaMaria]

75. Like holding up a mirror

It was my mother who pretty much sent me to nursing school, for the same reasons and in case I was married and something ever happened to my husband, I would be able to take care of my kids. My father wanted me to be a nurse so I could take care of him in his old age. And ditto on the racist description at my house as well.

There's something about cutting your teeth as a nurse and facing human tragedy that inspires growth and independence. Give your wife a big smile for me. I'm glad to hear that your family is doing well. I'm sure you had plenty to do with that.

I will say, although I have left nursing, it remains my security. I know if I lost my job today, I could be working by next week. I might not like where I was working but I would have a job.

Best to you,
G

[acmavm]

83. Not in Afganistan. Our CIA is using Viagra to bribe these nasty, evil, disgusting

specimens.

[abq e streeter]

3. Calling these guys pathetic, sick fucks doesn't even begin to describe them adequately

[cliffordu]

10. I'd rather call them decedent.

But I'm just like that.

[Withywindle]

4. Do they even realize how anti-Islamic this is?

I'm not gonna make the case that Islam is "feminist" religion, 'cause it isn't, but still, historically speaking, the Prophet Muhammad had huge respect for women, and was in fact financially supported by his wife, a smart and successful businesswoman (who was older than him) during the period he was getting his first revelations. His daughter was a big force in the early Islamic movement too, and she certainly wasn't uneducated or beaten down.

This isn't Islam. This is barbaric, superstitious hatred.

[PassingFair]

32. Ahem, supported by ONE of his WIVES, at one time.

He did have multiple wives.

[Chulanowa]

71. Indeed he did

That was the traditional way of extending your support and protection to the widows and orphans of your relatives and close friends. Pretty crude by our standards sure, but considering what life was like among the Arabian tribes, it was a pretty good deal - if only because Option B was "starve in the desert"

[GinaMaria]

76. I have a friend from Bangladesh who says the same thing

that multiple wives was a practice to protect widows and that was the only reason it was done. She believes there is no reason for it now.

[Chulanowa]

81. Pretty much

There's also a lot of bullshit out there that is bound to taint most discussions of Islam between non-Muslims.

Speaking as a guy... I can't imagine any dude actually wanting more than one wife. Forgetting one anniversary is bad enough!

[GinaMaria]

85. off topic

Dude,
In case you weren't joking. Please sign up for a service that will remind you of your anniversary, important birthdays etc. This will save a lot of pain for you and your spouse. Pro Flowers has reminders and will send you deals on flower arragements you can order. They have saved me from a couple of jams. Even if you don't order the flowers, just use it for the reminder. You could set your email calendar function to remind you too. I'm sure there are tons of solutions.

I can't imagine only getting 50% or less of a spouse. No thanks.

[babylonsister]

5. Wow. I'm so torn. Should these bastards be fought for

instances like this, or shouldn't they? Should we stay because of this disgusting kind of example, or should we leave to preserve ourselves?

I am so torn when I read stories like this.

[balantz]

8. I'm not torn.

Bad as it the information is I have no desire for it to be used as propaganda to further western imperialist moves.

How about MSM reminding us of how many innocent lives that have been lost because of the "wars" the west precipitated? How many rapes have occured in these "wars"? How many children orphaned?

Now we are being pushed into a "war" with Pakistan?

[DixieBlue]

11. There's that ...

But there's also the inherent ethnic/tribal conflict that's part of life in Afghanistan. Even if, let's say, "we" were able to bring "democracy" to the country how long would it last? There is fighting, and has been for centuries, between the different ethnicities. And, even within the ethnicities between different clans or tribes or whatever. Afghanistan is incredibly more complicated than we can begin to even understand. Couple that with the geographic difficulties the country poses ... I don't know how "we" can do anything worthwhile there. It seems it would be better to pull out militarily and work to encourage dialoge among the various factions within the country.

Not that there should be dialoge with the Taliban ... but I think you get my point.

Afghanistan, and Iraq, are examples of why it's a bad idea to wage wars in places you don't understand. Vietnam could be another example.

[babylonsister]

12. You re right, and this is a known. Iraq and Afghanistan

are primo examples of why what we did was messed up, and why we need to leave, pending positive diplomatic dialogue, I hope.

And it's a bad idea to wage illegal occupations, too, in places we never understood.

[SoxFan]

41. Iraq and Afghanistan are two very different situations

In Iraq, you had a thuggish asshole in charge, but there was something vaguely resembling an actual government. There was a foreign policy apparatus, and while it too often thumbed its nose at international institutions, there was the possibility of negotiation, even if it was accompanied by a sharp poke in the eye.

In Afghanistan, you had the Kandahar Hillbillies, a bunch of lunatics and fanatics with no respect for international law or institutions, who harbored Al-Quaeda, committed vile human rights abuses against its own population, stirred up shit in parts of Pakistan, trafficked in heroin, blew up historic sites that offended their sensitivities, and generally acted like insane and bloodthirsty douchebags.

In my opinion, there was absolutely no reason not to go in and take out the Taliban. What was sheer idiocy was doing it in a half-assed manner, dropping the ball to go play in Iraq and letting the Taliban regroup.

[davidinalameda]

87. you're exactly right

they didn't act like insane douchebags; they were insane douchebags

[SoxFan]

30. Western Imperialism?

Excuse me, these fuckwits were in on the 9-11 attack. Remember, the attacks that left 3,000 innocent Americans dead?

Sorry if it offends your Chomskyite sensibilities, but we need to obliterate these evil bastards before they can do any more harm.

[eridani]

36. Actually, they weren't. Bin Laden was there temporarily

For the last 7 years, assuming he's still alive, he's been in Pakistan. Where did you ever get the crackpot idea that the 9/11 terrorists learned to fly in Afghanistan? They learned it right here in the US and A.

[SoxFan]

37. The Taliban harbored OBL and the Al-Quaeda leadership

But that gets in the way of MIHOP and LIHOP delusions, doesn't it?

[eridani]

38. None of the planning for 9/11 was done there

It was done in Hamburg, London, and the US. Afghanistan is just a relatively inaccessible temporary hidey-hole.

[tinrobot]

74. Not exactly.

Setting the record straight -- Bin Laden authorized it and financed the operation while he was based in Afghanistan. Yes, his people were in the US going to flight school and there were other people in other parts of the world enacting his orders, but it started, was controlled and was given the final go-ahead from Afghanistan -- under the protection of the Taliban.

[eridani]

77. Al Qaeda is and was far less centralized than most people think

Bin Laden donated money, but operational control of terror projects was more like a franchise.

[eridani]

34. We've been fucking with them since 1979

We were the ones that established the fundie fruitcakes as an anti-Soviet force. I'd suggest that we quit fucking with them, and trying to "save" the women by blowing them up in air strikes.

[ProgressIn2008]

54. Good point. More war to stop human rights abuses reminds me of IWR discussions.

[Marrah_G]

63. I don't think we should leave right now

I think Obama needs a chance to turn things around in Afgahnistan. I know it has been a colossal fuck up there, but I really think Obama can get it right.

If we leave now, the Taliban takes over again, by force, and women are forever relegated to a life far worse then even slavery.

No medical treatment, no education, no communication, bought and sold like cattle, raped, beaten killed. Never feeling the sun upon their skin. Their voices silenced. Ghosts.

As a woman I need to hope and pray that the leader I helped elect will make things better. ZIn all honesty, leaving only makes things better for us.

The RAWA site has much information on the plight of women under Taliban rule.

I have no problem saying I would like to see these monsters they call the Taliban wiped from the earth. They have no redeeming value. None.

I understand why people are torn. No one likes war.

But these women have no choices, except to exist as breeding cattle or to literally set themselves on fire.

If we don't help, who will?

Obama, Biden and Clinton..... If anyone can change things there, they can. I want to give them a chance.

[Lorien]

6. So how are we "helping" over there, exactly?

I thought the whole point was to keep the Taliban OUT of power.

[defendandprotect]

13. We're helping by ...

restoring heroin production now reaching new peak levels --

[notesdev]

19. That will help to ease

the suffering from the economy

hmmm was it their plan all along?

[Lorien]

48. Well, that and ensuring that oil get from the Caspian sea to India

via that new pipeline.

[defendandprotect]

50. There was an interesting YouTube video around DU not so long ago .. .

and as I recall it . . .

it showed shots of the huge heroin crops -- and a British or Canadian

military officer is commenting on "how much the Americans love to sell drugs."

[OwnedByFerrets]

62. The rich and powerful love the drug trade. It keeps a HUGE agency

in business AND it keeps the prison industry profitable. It also keeps those pesky people off the streets and incarcerated.

[bertman]

67. . . . and don't forget securing and protecting the proposed cross-country natural gas pipeline.

[uppityperson]

7. 1 concern I have is those who have gone forward when Taliban were gone, are now going to suffer more

when Taliban are back. Thinking Afghanistan, that it. Or people who have been going back and forth, connections both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I really hate the Taliban. I understand that they can pull some groups together so they don't have to have warlords fighting back and forth, but for women and girls and the non-Fundie people, they are really really really bad.

[TheWraith]

14. Simple solution. Illegal radio station = AGM-88 HARM radio-seeking missile.

The AGM-88 HARM, or High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile, is specifically designed to hunt down radio transmissions, such as from an air-defense radar, and vaporize the source.

Drop a HARM, let it shred the transmitter, then send in helicopter gunships to kill everything within a 500 meter radius of the missile strike.

[Posteritatis]

45. All well and good until you find a station in downtown Herat (nt)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

78. Thats not the way a HARM works

It seeks the antenna, not the transmitter, and can not vaporize anything. You might be better off triangulating and sending JDAMs to the coordinates. Be prepared for some serious collateral damage.

[tomreedtoon]

15. Let them kill their own women. And leave them alone.

This is why we need energy independence. If we stop buying energy from them, and leave them isolated, embargoed and alone, they will kill all their women. Then they'll be dead within a generation. Call it a form of tough love, or evolution in action. They refuse to believe that women have any worth. Let them find out.

[gtar100]

16. Unfortunately what will happen is the women will become slaves.

As nice as it would be for these sick fucks to breed themselves out of existence, that's not historically what happens.

[LeftyMom]

17. "their own women"??? Women aren't possessions and you can't let them all be killed to teach men a

lesson.

Jesus H. Christ. The very idea's appalling.

[tomreedtoon]

20. So you want ANOTHER war with them?

Look, you either let them stew in their own juices (genocide of women, or gynocide, or whatever) or you have to go in and kill them. We just tried the second choice. It didn't work.

This way, they kill themselves, remove themselves from the human gene pool by themselves, and they serve as an object lesson as to why you should respect women.

You want to get strapped and go on another "crusade"? Go right ahead.

[LeftyMom]

43. Oooh! Binary thinking, my favorite!

Fuck it, I don't really have the patience this morning.

*click*

[Posteritatis]

44. Never again and again and again and again and again and again and ... (nt)

[tclambert]

21. They want to kill the smart women, and breed with the stupid ones.

Then the next generation will be even stupider. Theocracy = Idiocracy.

[SoxFan]

28. Poppies are an energy source?

Sorry, but we do not rely on Afghanistan for energy. The country has gone from undeveloped mess to Soviet client state to theocratic hellhole to complete clusterfuck, so they haven't really gotten around to developing anything.

I just hope and pray that you forgot to add the tag. We tried leaving the Taliban alone once before, and look where it got us.

[JerseygirlCT]

58. That's nonsense

First, those women are people, not property - unless you happen to agree with these thugs.

Secondly, war is not the only way to contain these people. Education is the best ammunition. And we need to get our heads around the idea that human rights abuses are not acceptable, no matter what good buddies of ours are doing it. (Think the Saudis).

Women are not acceptable human collateral.

[Freddie Stubbs]

84. They will not have to kill all of the women

A few murders will go a long way toward getting most of the women to change their behavior. Just like it did prior to 2001.

[davidthegnome]

18. Breed themselves out of existence?

Kill their own women? What kind of absurdity is that? Would we not find it perhaps, preferable, if they did NOT do these things? Should it ever occur that we here in America face similar circumstances, I would hope there would be some international empathy for us.

How much blood have we spilled already? Now we can wash our hands of it and let them drown in it? There is something very wrong with that sort of thinking - and you really don't need me (or at least you shouldn't) to point that out.

While I despise both of these wars we are engaged in, hoping for an entire Nation to breed itself out of existence seems to me much like Darwinist philosophy. Such as that some would prefer the "undesirables" to cease to breed and therefor cease to exist.

What remarkable nobility and civility. Indeed, as we are such an extraordinary authority on such matters, perhaps we might suggest to other peoples that they do the same. God forbid the degenerates continue to breed....

How clever.

How damn disgusting.

[HopeHoops]

23. Step 2: Ban all women. Step 3: "Um, why don't we have any children?"

[ohio2007]

25. Step 4: immigrate to were the women are at

Like Sweden perhaps

http://www.thelocal.se/16480/20081219 /

spread their peacful ways and
good news for 'man'

http://www.thelocal.se/16358/20081215 /

As the NYTimes writes about it,
"diversity is the spice of life"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27islam....

until the upper hand is reached and they can 'lay down the law'


lucky it will never happen here.

[Joey Liberal]

24. It's the failure of Bush/Cheney and the GOP

What this tells me is that our miitary strategy in Afghanistan has failed. What the heck have we been doing over there for all of this time? We don't have enough troops. We've (Bush) split our forces (remember Iraq?). We've (Bush) closed bases. We've (Bush) made Army basic training so soft that a middle aged soccer mom can handle the training. This is what 8 years of republican/evangelical rule has done to our military. But hey, at least our Soldiers get to wear cool looking berets that were once earned, not issued.

[biopowertoday]

26. I would

not send my girls to any school if I was threatened by them with this horrible act.

[IndianaGreen]

27. Religion at work!

Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.

Emma Goldman

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works...

[SoxFan]

29. Oh, give it a fucking rest, will you?

Yes, let's lump the Taliban, Dorothy Day, the Dalai Lama, and Ned Flanders all in the same category, because that makes us look so worldly and sophisticated.

[IndianaGreen]

33. It is a western religion that treats women as baby factories

And the Dalai Lama rocks, while the German Pope sucks with his protect the forest speech.

[EFerrari]

61. The truth is that the venues that don't treat women in that way are the exception,

not the rule. Blaming religion for the traffic in women is like blaming paved roads for the wheel.

[Dorian Gray]

31. Ugh

For each school they blow up, I hope that their own compounds receive the same treatment in retaliation.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

35. Taliban going against ruling by Islamic councils

which have stated again and again that the Qur'an says ALL should be educated--see Three Cups of Tea, p. 199. Of course, this was a ruling from the Supreme Council of Ayotollahs in Qom, Iran--Shias. Taliban are Wahhabists, and their madrassas don't educate anyone. There is a war within Islam, and it is being fought with Saudi money, which is financing the Wahhabists and the terrorists. Other Muslims don't agree with them, and are saying so--but dont expect the MSM here to let you know. Far better for Americans to figure all Muslims are terrorists, hate women, etc.

[IndianaGreen]

40. Exactly, these are Wahhabis, just as Al-Qaeda and Saudi Arabia

but let us recognize that all of these monotheistic religions have a very bloody and reactionary component which many of their adherents fail to come to grips with. Should I mention those religious wackos in my own faith that want to reestablish Temple worship in Jerusalem, together with a corrupt priesthood, and an endless animal slaughter to satisfy a never-satisfied deity with blood sacrifices?

It doesn't matter if we have to appease a deity by sacrificing an animal, or symbolically as it is done in the Catholic Mass, the point is that we shouldn't prostrate ourselves at the feet of a deity so cruel, so vain, and so capricious, as the deity in many of our holy books.

Jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty - Jehovah had just created Adam and Eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. He generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. He expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal God, his creator and his master. But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.

We know what followed. The good God, whose foresight, which is one of the divine faculties, should have warned him of what would happen, flew into a terrible and ridiculous rage; he cursed Satan, man, and the world created by himself, striking himself so to speak in his own creation, as children do when they get angry; and, not content with smiting our ancestors themselves, he cursed them in all the generations to come, innocent of the crime committed by their forefathers. Our Catholic and Protestant theologians look upon that as very profound and very just, precisely because it is monstrously iniquitous and absurd. Then, remembering that he was not only a God of vengeance and wrath, but also a God of love, after having tormented the existence of a few milliards of poor human beings and condemned them to an eternal hell, he took pity on the rest, and, to save them and reconcile his eternal and divine love with his eternal and divine anger, always greedy for victims and blood, he sent into the world, as an expiatory victim, his only son, that he might be killed by men. That is called the mystery of the Redemption, the basis of all the Christian religions. Still, if the divine Savior had saved the human world! But no; in the paradise promised by Christ, as we know, such being the formal announcement, the elect will number very few. The rest, the immense majority of the generations present and to come, will burn eternally in hell. In the meantime, to console us, God, ever just, ever good, hands over the earth to the government of the Napoleon Thirds, of the William Firsts, of the Ferdinands of Austria, and of the Alexanders of all the Russias.

Mikhail Bakunin
God and the State (1871)

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

51. Shalom

The mystics see a God concept different than this--a God that simply is--much like the Lakota concept of Wahkan Tahkan. The nice thing about mystics is that they do not see differences but join together with whomever to be One with That.

I see religion as a historical record of the evolution of God concepts. Sadly, if there were no religion, I believe that humans would find another excuse to justify their bad behavior.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

79. Even so, I don't see this being denounced by any Shia leaders

Sufi either for that matter. Its a credibility issue for me. Not asking them to shoot it out with the Taliban, but at least make some noise.

Over the last 8 years people around the world realized that there were groups within the US that opposed what the Chimp was doing. It gave them hope that the US would return to being a better neighbor. I am looking for such encouragement from Muslims with regards to the Taliban, and am still waiting. I hear individuals, here and elsewhere, but not leaders of groups within Islam.

[Mari333]

42. we are in afghanistan to secure oil pipeline routes

we dont give a frigging flying fuck about them otherwise. there is no other reason we are there, not to get bin laden, not to secure democracy, thats all propoganda bullshit. we are there to secure an oil pipeline route and keep the oil flowing for our corporate owners. and US taxpayers are paying for it once again. bend over and use a lot of vaseline, corporate america wants your money to fund their enterprises as usual.

just bring the goddamn troops home and get the hell out of there.










http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[ohio2007]

52. where is this oil you speak of ?

seven years.......
but your tin foil screed link starts on Bill Clintons watch 1998

1998 - This lays out our energy policy for Eurasia
snip

Ten years ....
just how long til this pipline gets done and where is the end terminal going to be ?

[JohnyCanuck]

80. Where's the oil (and gas too)? It was thought to be in the Caspian basin

Although my understanding is that in the last few years, the quantity and to a greater degree the quality of those reserves have been downgraded from the more optimistic projections of the mid 1990s.

48–119 CC
1998
U.S. INTERESTS IN THE CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 12, 1998


SNIP

STATEMENT OF JOHN J. MARESCA, VICE PRESIDENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Unocal CORPORATION

Mr. MARESCA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's nice to see you again. I am John Maresca, vice president for international relations of the Unocal Corporation. Unocal, as you know, is one of the world's leading energy resource and project development companies. I appreciate your invitation to speak here today. I believe these hearings are important and timely. I congratulate you for focusing on Central Asia oil and gas reserves and the role they play in shaping U.S. policy.

I would like to focus today on three issues. First, the need for multiple pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas resources. Second, the need for U.S. support for international and regional efforts to achieve balanced and lasting political settlements to the conflicts in the region, including Afghanistan. Third, the need for structured assistance to encourage economic reforms and the development of appropriate investment climates in the region. In this regard, we specifically support repeal or removal of section 907 of the Freedom Support Act.

Mr. Chairman, the Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves. Just to give an idea of the scale, proven natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day. By 2010, western companies could increase production to about 4.5 million barrels a day, an increase of more than 500 percent in only 15 years. If this occurs, the region would represent about 5 percent of the world's total oil production.

One major problem has yet to be resolved: how to get the region's vast energy resources to the markets where they are needed. Central Asia is isolated. Their natural resources are landlocked, both geographically and politically. Each of the countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia faces difficult political challenges. Some have unsettled wars or latent conflicts. Others have evolving systems where the laws and even the courts are dynamic and changing. In addition, a chief technical obstacle which we in the industry face in transporting oil is the region's existing pipeline infrastructure.

Because the region's pipelines were constructed during the Moscow-centered Soviet period, they tend to head north and west toward Russia. There are no connections to the south and east. But Russia is currently unlikely to absorb large new quantities of foreign oil. It's unlikely to be a significant market for new energy in the next decade. It lacks the capacity to deliver it to other markets.

SNIP

The key question then is how the energy resources of Central Asia can be made available to nearby Asian markets. There are two possible solutions, with several variations. One option is to go east across China, but this would mean constructing a pipeline of more than 3,000 kilometers just to reach Central China. In addition, there would have to be a 2,000-kilometer connection to reach the main population centers along the coast. The question then is what will be the cost of transporting oil through this pipeline, and what would be the netback which the producers would receive.
For those who are not familiar with the terminology, the netback is the price which the producer receives for his oil or gas at the wellhead after all the transportation costs have been deducted. So it's the price he receives for the oil he produces at the wellhead.

The second option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route is across Afghanistan, which has of course its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades, and is still divided by civil war. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company. (emphasis added/JC)

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa48119.0...

Pipeline Politics Taint US War
Salim Muwakkil | Chicago Tribune | March 18, 2002

SNIP

Outside this country, there is a widespread belief that U.S. military deployments in Central Asia mostly are about oil.

An article in the Guardian of London headlined, "A pro-western regime in Kabul should give the U.S. an Afghan route for Caspian oil," foreshadowed the kind of skeptical coverage the U.S. war now receives in many countries.

"The invasion of Afghanistan is certainly a campaign against terrorism," wrote author George Monbiot in the Oct. 22, 2001, piece, "but it may also be a late colonial adventure."

He wrote that the U.S. oil company Unocal Corp. had been negotiating with the Taliban since 1995 to build "oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and into Pakistani ports on the Arabian sea." He cited Ahmed Rashid's authoritative book "Taliban, Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia" as a source for this information.

Rashid, who has reported on Afghan wars for more than 20 years as a correspondent for the Eastern Economic Review and the Daily Telegraph, carefully documents in his book how the U.S. and Pakistan helped install the Taliban in hopes of bringing stability to the war-ravaged region and making it safer for the pipeline project. Unocal pulled out of the deal after the 1998 terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were linked to terrorists based in Afghanistan.

"The war against terrorism is a fraud," exclaimed John Pilger in an Oct. 29 commentary in the British-based Mirror. Pilger, the publication's former chief foreign correspondent, wrote, "Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth."

These harsh assessments are not just those of embittered ideologues. They are common fare. "Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was about oil, the new conflict in South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region's abundant petroleum resources," writes Ranjit Devraj in the Hong Kong-based Asia Times, a business-oriented publication.

http://www.why-war.com/news/2002/03/18/pipeline.html

TALIBAN DEFEAT REVIVES DEBATE ON TRANS-AFGHAN PIPELINE
Igor Torbakov 12/12/01

The defeat of the Taliban appears to be reviving a debate about pipeline construction in Afghanistan that would widen international access to Central Asia’s vast energy resources. A few observers argue that pipelines might speed Afghanistan’s reconstruction. However, others say that an attempt to establish Afghanistan as a transit hub for energy exports could provoke a collision of interests among key power brokers in the region.

Natural gas-rich Turkmenistan in 1997 forged a consortium with oil companies, led by Unocal, to build a trans-Afghan pipeline. The $1.9-billion project hit snags almost from the time of its announcement. The main obstacle was the Taliban’s control of most of Afghanistan’s territory, and the on-going civil war. By 1998, construction plans collapsed after Unocal withdrew from the consortium.

With the Taliban no longer a factor in Afghanistan, some experts say the pipeline idea merits a second look. "The large-scale projects aimed at building gas and oil pipelines linking the Caspian region with the attractive international market of the Arabian Sea may become the principal, if not the only, means to breathe a life into Afghanistan", said Carnegie Endowment’s Central Asia scholar Martha Brill Olcott in the interview with the Moscow daily Izvestia.

SNIP

A number of Russian observers tend to interpret the current US troop deployment and basing agreements with the Central Asian nations within the context of energy geopolitics. "The United States does not conceal the plans to establish its bases in the region to secure the safety of energy transit routes," writes the Kommersant daily.

Another detail adds to the Kremlin’s worries. Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American academic, recently was appointed in June as special assistant to President George W. Bush and senior director at the National Security Council for the Persian Gulf and southwest Asia and other issues. According to Philip Smith, director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis, "Zalmay is immensely influential in driving US policy toward Afghanistan." Four years ago, Khalilzad served as a liaison for Unocal in the trans-Afghan pipeline project.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/business/articles...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

46. I hereby declare I agree with Richard Dawkins' assessment of the underlying causes of shit like this

That will be all.

[Odin2005]

47. Mother-F***ing bastards.

The Taliban MUST be destroyed. We (unfortunately) created them, now we must clean up our evil creation before they fuck the Afghan people again.

[superconnected]

92. Agreed!

[Bragi]

53. There is nothing we can or should do

Taliban-like tribal thugs run many Muslim areas of the world, have done so for centuries, and will continue to do so in the future. It is the height of arrogance and folly to think that the west can or should make war to topple these regimes so they will adopt our values.

In fact, we are not in Afghanistan to liberate women or anyone else. We are in Afghanistan to secure a future oil pipeline route. In the end, we will fail to do this, and Afghanistan will become Obama's quagmire. He should figure out a way of ending that war instead of escalating it.

- B

[Psephos]

65. You're worse than the Taliban wackos. They just threatened to KILL LITTLE GIRLS.

You're not even a faux progressive. You're the opposite of a progressive.

[Bragi]

69. I'd like to reply to your argument

Unfortunately, you didn't actually make an argument, so there's nothing to which I can reply.

Feel free to give it another try.

- B

[Psephos]

73. It's not an argument. It's an opinion.

My opinion of those who care more about protecting their political dogma than protecting the lives of girls threatened by vicious thugs is not very high.

Perhaps you'd care to reply to this, however:
http://www.rawa.us/movies/zarmeena.mpg

Here's an article in Slate about what you just saw:
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/10/02/fatima /

And here's a list of other ways the Taliban enforces its views:
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Life:under:Taliban:rule...

I live in a second-story loft downtown in a middle-sized city. Last night my gf and I were watching a movie, and I heard yelling, crying, and violent language. For a moment I thought it was in the movie...then we both realized it was coming from outside, from down on the sidewalk. I looked out the window and could see a man kicking, shoving, and screaming at a woman who was crouched down on the sidewalk. I had my gf call the cops, and I went downstairs to stop the assault.

The man pulled back when he saw me. Through grit teeth, I very slowly said to BACK. OFF. NOW. He said there really wasn't anything happening, and besides, it was none of my business. I said if he stepped an inch closer to her I was going to take him down...hard...and told him it was his choice, no fight or a fight, but he was done kicking that woman.

When I went out there I didn't know if he was armed, freaked on meth, drunk, or whatever. But I did know it was up to me in that moment whether that woman got a broken rib, a concussion, or worse from a violent man.

Then the cops came and it was over.

Applying your worldview, not only would I not have intervened, but my gf wouldn't have even dialed 911.

Forget my story. Respond to those links above. Maybe you can explain why women threatened with death have to live on the proper side of an imaginary map line to deserve assistance.

[Bragi]

82. So what?

The Taliban are perfectly dreadful. Blah, blah, blah.

The problem is that they and their fellow tribal thugs and drug barons have been running Afghanistan for the past 200 years. Sometimes the west gets involved and supports one faction over another for some strategic purpose. In the current case, the strategic purpose is securing an oil pipeline. Once we shed enough blood and lost enough treasure, we will move on, and the old crowd will resume control. The women will not be free because that is the way of life in that dreadful, backward, poorest of countries.

Open your eyes. Read up. Learn from history. Stop sending troops to pointlessly kill and die.

- B

[Psephos]

86. pathetic n/t

[WriteDown]

88. By that argument....

Why try to assist anywhere. Rwanda, Somalia, etc. Or why even try to rehabilitate cities in the US. Afterall, places like Detroit, Newark, etc. have been bad for decades and run by drug lords and criminals. In your words, once we shed enough blood and treasure, its time to move on.

[SOS]

56. The Marxist government in the 1980s educated women

But Carter and Reagan armed bin Laden and Al Qaeda instead.

[JerseygirlCT]

57. The Taliban... brought to you by the US gov't.

If we hadn't encouraged these creeps in our obsession with "communism", and then hadn't turned our back on the war in Afghanistan after 9-11 in order to have our war of choice in Iraq, these thugs would still be a Saudi dream today.

[cambie]

59. The Russians didn't understand either.

It certainly wasn’t part of their culture. They enrolled many women in the university, enraging the mullahs, and leaving themselves open to be messed up by our side. We paid for the madras’s and set the religious curriculum toward killing the heathen foreign invaders, (who unfortunately looked a lot like us), siding with the reactionary forces. More recently when we encouraged the Taliban to take control of the country it was with the understanding that there is nothing wrong with a little Sharia law, just like Saudi Arabia.
Consider that this would be the only war in history fought for woman’s rights. Mrs. george w bush tells us that’s why we are there. Don’t swallow it.

[DS1]

60. If I could throw a switch and have every last one of those fuckers killed

it would have already gone click

[Marrah_G]

64. Ditto

There is not one redeeming thing about those assholes. not one.

[lonestarnot]

66. Those motherfuckers need to go! I've been hearing about their shit since 1999 and I hate them.

[bertman]

68. Okay, so we somehow manage to kill ALL of these Taliban fanatics and save the women

of Afghanistan. Who's the next group we're going to save?

How about Burma? Think maybe we should invade that human-rights cesspool first?

Or we could annihilate the Congolese mothermutilators and child rapers. Since we already fought one bloody conflict in a steamy, jungle environment just a few years back, we ought to be able to save some money by using the Vietnam training manuals.

No, wait. wait. How about North Korea? Isn't slave labor and starvation as bad as murdering school girls? And if we went into North Korea we could test all of our nifty nuclear warfare gear--kind of a training exercise for the upcoming Iran invasion.

So many choices. So few brigades available to save humanity from itself.

As if WE don't need to get our mess straightened out at home before we SAVE everyone else.

[Bragi]

70. Well said

I can't believe the insufferable arrogance of those who think that America can and ought to militarily right every wrong in the world. One wonders if there isn't some psychotic bloodlust that underlies this perspective.

[davidthegnome]

89. I think there are very few (if any)

Here, who would argue that we should police the world. The idea is absurd. Yet encouraging entire Nations to breed themselves out of existence is also absurd, and extraordinarily hateful, in my opinion. Some in this thread have shown such contempt for our so called enemies that I couldn't help but add my ten cents.

There are oppressive regimes all over the world, and no we can't stop them all on our own. Hell, we can't even do much when our own regime becomes oppressive. I do think though, that concern for the lives of others, for their well-being, is a good thing. More empathy is always a good thing.

And I can't help but wonder what we'd do right here in similar circumstances. Say some group is threatening to blow up schools in the US that openly welcome homoesexual students, or female students, or black students. Would we permit it? Hell no. But then, we are, generally speaking, better off in terms of civil rights, weaponry, and financial ability.

Is it our obligation to right these wrongs around the world? No. But we should certainly care.

[The2ndWheel]

93. The US has a strong central government

That strong central government only came about by clearing out other people, enslaving other people, a war for independence from an empire, a war against itself, and then a few wars here and there as an empire against other strong central governments which only became so through the same process.

To add to that, we're really only better, generally speaking, in terms of civil rights, etc, because we've had access to cheap(only economically speaking) external energy, which is helping to cause all sorts of other problems that are fundamental to the momentum of an unsustainable way of life that has been building for thousands of years.

"And I can't help but wonder what we'd do right here in similar circumstances."

That might depend on when you asked the question, and who asked the question.

[jzodda]

90. This fight will be long and very hard

In one of the poorest, and most inhospitable terrain-wise countries on earth with a long history of war we are in for very tough times. The Taleban are getting stronger and have gained much power in Pakistan as well. Whatever the strategy has been for the last 8 years, well its been a failure.

The Afghan government is a total failure as well. They don't rule much outside the capital city.

I would almost say it's not worth the trouble but if we leave the Taleban would probably over-run the country within weeks and start oppressing the people, especially females almost right away. Bin Laden and friends would also be free to set up their camps again I am sure, although they are quite comfortable now in Pakistan.

This whole thing is one HUGE cluster fuck.

[ohio2007]

91. not really (Scenic Pakistani valley falls to Taliban militants ) just a matter of time and how much

of the state formally known as Pakistan the parallel government decides they need to annex into the new country they rule

Taliban militants are beheading and burning their way through Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley, and residents say the insurgents now control most of the mountainous region far from the lawless tribal areas where jihadists thrive.

The deteriorating situation in the former tourist haven comes despite an army offensive that began in 2007 and an attempted peace deal. It is especially worrisome to Pakistani officials because the valley lies outside the areas where al-Qaida and Taliban militants have traditionally operated and where the military is staging a separate offensive.



snip
Militants began preying on Swat's lush mountain ranges about two years ago, and it is now too dangerous for foreign and Pakistani journalists to visit. Interviews with residents, lawmakers and officials who have fled the region paint a dire picture.

A suicide blast killed 40 people Sunday at a polling station in Buner, an area bordering Swat that had been relatively peaceful. The attack underscored fears that even so-called "settled" regions presumptively under government control are increasingly unsafe.

The 3,500-square-mile Swat Valley lies less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad.
snip

Officials estimate that up to a third of Swat's 1.5 million people have left the area. Salah-ud-Din, who oversees relief efforts in Swat for the International Committee of the Red Cross, estimated that 80 percent of the valley is now under Taliban control.

Swat's militants are led by Maulana Fazlullah, a cleric who rose to prominence through radio broadcasts demanding the imposition of a harsh brand of Islamic law. His appeal tapped into widespread frustration with the area's inefficient judicial system.

Most of the insurgents are easy to spot with long hair, beards, rifles, camouflage vests and running shoes.


snip

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/29/ap5865858.htm...

looks like a duck,quaks like a duck,

Pakistan has no buisness being an occupying force and should cut and run....well, I guess they are
But,
of course, they have no place to run or hide from the flea infested bed they slept in for the past 15 years. I don't think it's a good idea for BHO to throw good $ into bad govt coffers over there any time soon. That sectarian govt over there will have to decide who they are and how they intend to deal with that house divided .