Any discussion of Afghanistan and Pakistan that doesn't start and end with pipelines is a lie

[yurbud]

Poll question: Any discussion of Afghanistan and Pakistan that doesn't start and end with pipelines is a lie

I don't think we will be leaving Afghanistan any time soon because of the absence of discussion of the untold billions in pipeline deals at stake there--deals that would benefit American and European energy companies.

Even the recent US turn against Pakistan (what, no one noticed Musharraf coddled and funded terrorists like the guys who beheaded Daniel Pearl?) fits pipeline politics. As long as Pakistan was on board with the US backed natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan, they were the good guys, regardless of their actual behavior. But when they made a pipeline deal with Iran that undercut the value of the Turkmenistan deal, and refused to buckle to US pressure to back out of the deal, suddenly, they were on our shit list, in spite of reverting to democracy from a military dictatorship that had close relations with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.


The Afghanistan Pipeline
http://digg.com/d316ZqK
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2009/02/were-fighting-to-hold-afghanistan.html

The Iran Pipeline
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2009/08/war-on-terror-shift-to-pakistan-over.html

If our president and elected representatives in Congress are not talking about this in the open, we have been shut out of the actual decision-making and everything else they say is an irrelevant lie.

[madeline_con]

1. They'll never admit what it's really about.

They're busy writing the speech that will "explain" the situation to is in Amerispeak. Maybe there will be a "humanitarian crisis", and the need for blankets and food to be sent. That always seems to work. :shrug:

[yurbud]

8. Bill Clinton and Papa Bush learned the limits of humanitarian wars--no casualties

or public will demand a pull out.

And that demand can't be called cowardice because we weren't there to defend ourselves.

So if you want to stay and burn up massive bucks and lives, you have to make it a matter of life and death.

[hobbit709]

2. It was ALWAYS about oil.

[Xicano]

3. Not just a pipeline

Let's not forget the opium and its strategical location.

[yurbud]

7. see my second link on Afghanistan--it's hard to measure how much that props up

Wall St. and banks

[Xicano]

17. I'll post infomation on that a later from now.

I am currently watching some interesting stuff on the discovery channel.

You can check out Mike Ruppert.

[Xicano]

21. Here's some information on that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDPiyVfcCpc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnwlu3ud_mI

http://solari.com/archive/


Review those two short youtube clips. The website link is the person in the first youtube clip.

[KamaAina]

33. I learned something about the opium on PBS yesterday

come to find out, a fair chunk of the Afghan crop is grown with the aid of irrigation systems originally provided by (drum roll, please)... the USA. :eyes:

[AntiFascist]

39. I'm sure there's plenty more to find...

along that line of thought.

[Nikki Stone1]

35. +1

:thumbsup:

[stray cat]

4. I don't think war there for 8 years would have happened without 9-11

[yurbud]

6. which sadly does not undercut my argument at all. Afghan War was being planned well before that

[conscious evolution]

11. PNAC

is the blueprint for the region.
If there are any DUers who are not familar with the American Enterprise Institute and the Policy for a New American Century,along with its signatories,then they really should use DU's search feature to educate themselves as to what it is all about.

[yurbud]

15. yep

[Blue_In_AK]

5. It's ALWAYS all about the oil.

[yurbud]

9. you would never know it from all the talking head shows on TV and even most columnists

including fairly progressive ones.

[grahamhgreen]

13. And the arms sales...

[Robb]

10. "Even" the US turn against Pakistan?

Not to keep bringing up my Robbstrodamus, but the turn against Pakistan is critical to "pipeline politics."

I outlined this notion a few weeks after 9/11 on Bartcop:

...The plan revolved around a pipeline which would move Turkmenistan's valuable natural gas to Pakistan's pipeline grid, from which point it could be sold to the West. The line would run from the Turkmen field near Dauletabad through the Afghanistan towns of Herat and Kandahar, down to Quetta in Pakistan and then on to the grid in Sui...

(snip)

Direct involvement with the Taliban is no longer necessary for U.S. corporations who wish to benefit from the natural resources of Central Asia. The U.S. government has made it clear that stability in Afghanistan is one of its central goals in the current military operation; I suspect it will become clear in coming weeks that the U.S. will require a similar stability in Pakistan, thereby closing the circuit of pipeline between Turkmenistan and the West.

OK, it took longer than "weeks," but you get the idea. :D

[yurbud]

14. stability means a compliant government that will kill their own people if they get in the way of the

pipeline, so we don't have to do it.

[sam sarrha]

23. Pakistan is about to break up into 3 countries .. 2 will destroy the one with the nukes..and get the

nukes...

[catzies]

38. Holy frickin shite, that was you??? I saved that to my hard drive back in '01!

And all this time I thought you were just a dingbat.

[Robb]

40. LOL. My first job was soothsayer.

Turns out there's better money in dingbattery. :hi:

[Selatius]

12. Unocal was in serious talks with the Taliban to run a pipeline through prior to 9/11.

Of course, after that, the plans were shelved.

[yurbud]

16. you're being sarcastic, right?

I mean about the shelving.

[Subdivisions]

27. The U.S. suddenly withdrew from negotiations. If I recall correctly, the Taliban

basically told Unocal to go take a hike.

[BOG PERSON]

18. I don't think its a pipeline

I think it comes down to other things, like

1) The possibility of encircling Russia/China/Iran, if necessary

2) Political inertia, in spite of the US's history of unsuccessful counterinsurgency strategy, short of just buying people off

3) It would be supremely embarrassing for the mighty US military to retreat from Afghanistan

[madeline_con]

24. It IS a pipeline; to get oil from the Dauletabad gas field to India and the surrounding region. n/t

[madrchsod]

19. uncle dickie could`t cut a deal with the taliban

they taliban were invited to discuss fees for transporting gas through afganistan. the taliban turned dickie down and the rest is history.

[sam sarrha]

22. it will never happen... they know they can destroy us by cutting off our oil.. and bankrupt us with

unending war

[madeline_con]

25. "... cutting off our oil.. " OUR oil? n/t

[sam sarrha]

34. our supply of oil.... ask before you jump.. someone will think you have an agenda.. i have to type

with one finger.. so i tend to do a minimalist approach. it isn't much fun...

[Subdivisions]

26. How do you figure that's OUR oil? n/t

[sam sarrha]

20. the billions we waste in that Blackhole could build solar and wind farms to free us from oil

[johnaries]

28. So, you're saying it was MIHOP? Just so we could invade

Afghanistan?

[yurbud]

29. hmmm...so you figure if you can paint this with the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory brush...

everyone will dismiss it?

The war was in the pipe. It could well have been that they planned to sell it like Iraq with plain old lies and 9/11 was just a "happy" coincidence.

Whether they made 9/11 happen on purpose or not does not change that wars throughout human history have been about land, resources, and cheap labor.

The Bushies were nothing but business scammers with a pathetic gloss of ideology and national security. Unfortunately, Republicans aren't the only ones on the take, too many Democrats are too.

[yurbud]

30. our government chooses how to respond to provocations--take two naval engagements

in one case, no sailors were killed, no damage was done to the ship, and there was a good possibility it wasn't even fired on. In the other case,our ship was hit in broad daylight by aircraft and torpedo boats close enough for the American ship to see the flags on the attacking boats (so presumably they could see our ship's flag as well), and they made multiple pass at our ship. 34 sailors were killed, and 173 wounded.

Guess which attack led to a decade long war and which led to a country writing some checks to cover damages?

and of course the two countries involved were Vietnam and Israel, with the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the attack on the USS Liberty.

[yurbud]

31. Do you think the Taliban are a threat to us? How about Saudi Arabia who sent agents to

pick up two of the hijackers at LAX, set them up in an apartment, funneled money to them from the Saudi ambassador, and was in constant phone contact with the Saudi embassy and consulate before the attacks according to the FBI?


If the goal was fighting terror, a relatively short campaign in Afghanistan to wipe out Al Qaeda, which could have been what would have happened at Tora Bora if Bush had not inexplicably allowed Pakistan to extract top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders to safety, and a simultaneous campaign to topple the Saudi government for their financial and intelligence support for the attacks. That neither of those things were done makes it clear that the agenda was not ending this particular terrorist threat, but leaving it as an open wound to be used as a go-to excuse for everything. At one point, the Bush administration even claimed al Qaeda was in Venezuela as part of their campaign to undermine Hugo Chavez.

Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh on Tora Bora
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/01/28/020128fa_FACT

FBI FOIA docs on Saudi involvement in 9/11
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2008/03/foia-doc-shows-911commission-lied-about.html

[Orwellian_Ghost]

32. Yup

K&R

[onethatcares]

36. who said, "carpet of bombs or carpet of gold"?

I forget the name but it was about this very subject.

[Thothmes]

37. Don't tell us. Tell it to the head decider in charge.

He is the one that will decide who dies and who lives.