The U.S. war on Afghanistan

[Corvo]

Published on Monday, September 14, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Afghanistan: 'Necessary' War for Empire
by Gary Olson

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.

full article;
Afghanistan: 'Necessary' War for Empire | CommonDreams.org

[Yujike]

It was oil then, it is oil now and it will be oil forever (or at least until the reserves run out). Ken Brown defined Americans as : "Inquisitive, extractive and many a time... rapacious."

[Corvo]

Originally Posted by Yujike

It was oil then, it is oil now and it will be oil forever (or at least until the reserves run out). Ken Brown defined Americans as : "Inquisitive, extractive and many a time... rapacious."

You've got it, Don Yujike

[Yujike]

Don Corvo, Zbigniew Brzezinski ( try pronouncing that baby!!), who was National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, wrote a brilliant book on geopolitics called the Grand Chessboard and a follow up called The Choice, and in both he describes for the first this posture on oil/natural gas by the U.S. on the region you just made reference to. Actually this is one of the 4 regions of the planet where the U.S., the last superpower as he calls it, needs to act to secure word domination by controlling these sources of energy left in the world.

[Corvo]

Originally Posted by Yujike

Don Corvo, Zbigniew Brzezinski ( try pronouncing that baby!!), who was National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, wrote a brilliant book on geopolitics called the Grand Chessboard and a follow up called The Choice, and in both he describes for the first this posture on oil/natural gas by the U.S. on the region you just made reference to. Actually this is one of the 4 regions of the planet where the U.S., the last superpower as he calls it, needs to act to secure word domination by controlling these sources of energy left in the world.

I bet. It's this obsession with world dominance that's going to make it crumble, remember Rome, and Napoelian.. Oh! and Germany. Some people just never want to learn. It's a shame really, there really is so much potential here. But bullies just never can see farther then their noses.

Perhaps some day the human race can learn from it's past. Hopefully before it destroys it self, or the whole planet. Y la cosa es, que los jinchos son los mas igotisticos(sp?).

[Yujike]

As Ken Brown says: "Americans are inquisitive, extractive and many a time... rapacious."

Asi es, Don Corvo, those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat it.

Whites are just 9% of the world population, worship violence and crave world domination. (NRA, the Republican party, Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Glen Beck, George Bush 1 and 2, the Queen of England, to name a few)

[Corvo]

Originally Posted by Yujike

As Ken Brown says: "Americans are inquisitive, extractive and many a time... rapacious."

Asi es, Don Corvo, those who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat it.

Whites are just 9% of the world population, worship violence and crave world domination. (NRA, the Republican party, Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Glen Beck, George Bush 1 and 2, the Queen of England, to name a few)

Don Yujike, You are right as the moon is bright. That the Euro-man worships violence and craves world domination seems to be over-looked by a great many. Almost as if it's ok. I don't remember growing up, that it was not OK to correct greedy spoil children.or that bullies did not have to be set straight, so that they would not end up destroying themselves or others.

This very young country has not learned from all the errors of Europe. It's as if the greedy white man wants what is not his. perhaps it's some sort of disorder, or poor up-bringing. What ever is the case. This country and those who control it are malcontent. pobresitos, se meresen una pela!

AXE!