What is the US doing in Afghanistan? Guarding a pipeline?

:shrug: That's it?

NATO is guarding Kabul, the rest of the country is in the hands of local warlords and tribal chiefs, and every once in a while a special ops force fails to find Osama.

its the american gateway to the oil and gas in the baltic region.

remember enron built a natural gas fired power plant in dabhol india that has no cheap gas supply,

preplanned.

Have you looked it up on the map?

:)

tall and productive, and helping install those good ol' warlords back into regional power.

As far as I know, there are no pipelines that go through Afghanistan.

Central Asia pipeline deal signed

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2608713.stm

not been built, but the construction on it has not even started, how could we be "guarding" it?

going over there in the first place.

our interest in it is - the exporter of the natural gas is Turkmenistan and the biggest buyer is India. Where exactly is USA in this deal?

since the beneficiaries of the pipeline - that is, buyers and sellers - do not include US, where is that $$$$$$ you are talking about?

Hamid Karzai/Unocal connection

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html

"A trans-Afghanistan pipeline was not simply a business matter, but a key component of a broader geo-strategic agenda: total military and economic control of Eurasia (the Middle East and former Soviet Central Asian republics)."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHI203A.html

Is Enron Behind The War In Afghanistan?

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/oilwar1.html


Also, the U.S. isn't necessarily interested in IMPORTING the oil from Iraq or the gas from middle-Asia but is VERY interested in CONTROLLING that flow. They have to do it to prop up the dollar (one of Saddams mortal sins was the threat to convert his oil trade to the Euro -- as Chavez is doing -- and away from the dollar). They also want to be able to divert the flow as the supply begins to run out over the next few years.

The referenced link wouldn't open for me.

it's a big source of revenue for Bu$hCo.

we're just pissing off the populace,

propping up a few bushturd-chosen warlords,

making sure nothing interrupts the flow of poppies for heroin,

torturing the occasional cabdriver to death just for the hell of it,

keeping a large chunk of the Pakistani army on the Afghan border instead of in Kashmir,

keeping the shit stirred enough so that the occasional Afghanistan stink can be used to distract the Murkan public from the royal butt screwing we are getting at home.

But pipeline? There isn't even a pipeline to guard yet.

Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth About Bush, Oil and Washington's Secret Negotiations with The Taliban
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At Democracy Now! we have often called the Bush administration the Oiligarchy. Vice-President Dick Cheney of course was the president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for the oil industry. For nearly a decade,National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice worked with Chevron, while secretaries of commerce and energy, Donald Evans and Spencer Abraham, worked for another oil giant. Many of the US officials now working on the administration's Afghanistan policy also have extensive backgrounds in the world of multinational oil giants.

An explosive new book published originally in France is revealing some extraordinary details of the extent to which US oil corporations influenced the Bush administration's policies toward the Taliban regime prior to September 11th.The book is called Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. And it paints a detailed picture of the Bush administration's secret negotiations with the Taliban government in the months and weeks before the attacks on theWorld Trade Center. It charges that under the influence of US oil companies the Bush administration blocked U.S.secret service investigations on terrorism. It tells the story of how the administration conducted secret negotiations with the Taliban to hand-over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid.The book says that Washington's main aim in Afghanistan prior to September 11th was consolidating the Taliban regime,in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia.

Con't-
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0253220&mode=thread&tid=40

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Bush, oil and the Taliban- article on Salon.com.
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2002/02/08/forbidden/

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It's clear American companies were after the Caspian oil since the 1990's, and then 911 and the invasion of Afghanistan. Much denial and indignation was given at the insinuation that it was the pipeline they wanted.

Associated Press
U.S. Companies Eye Trans-Afghan Pipeline
01.18.2005, 10:18 AM
  
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Associated Press
U.S. Companies Eye Trans-Afghan Pipeline
01.18.2005, 10:18 AM

American companies might join a long-delayed trans-Afghan natural gas pipeline project expected to be launched in 2006, the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan said Tuesday.

"We are seriously looking at the project, and it is quite possible that American companies will join it," U.S. Ambassador Tracey Anne Jacobson said, speaking in Russian, after a meeting with Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov.

The Turkmen government said Monday that a feasibility study for the project for a pipeline from the gas-rich Central Asian nation through Afghanistan and Pakistan was complete, and that construction would begin in 2006.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/ap/2005/01/18/ap1764703.html

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CIA Factbook-
United States
consumer of cocaine shipped from Colombia through Mexico and the Caribbean; consumer of heroin, marijuana, and increasingly methamphetamine from Mexico; consumer of high-quality Southeast Asian heroin; illicit producer of cannabis, marijuana, depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, and methamphetamine; money-laundering center

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2086.html


State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade
 -FBI Whistleblower

Sibel Edmonds- FBI Whistleblower, interview
SE: Everything – from drugs to money laundering to arms sales. And yes, there are certain convergences with all these activities and international terrorism.
CD: So with these organizations we're talking about a lot of money –
SE: Huge, just massive. They don't deal with 1 million or 5 million dollars, but with hundreds of millions.
CD: From your previous testimony and the examples I want to bring up next, it would seem that organized crime with terrorist links is really holding the reins inside powerful governments, even the American one. No?
SE: That may be, but I don't know. I didn't get high enough up on the ladder to find out. With all of this suspicious and unprecedented "state secrets" obstructionism from Ashcroft, it might seem that way, but I don't have any direct information.
CD: But what do think, within departments such as the Pentagon and the State Department. Do you suspect certain high officials may be profiting from terrorist-linked organized crime?
SE: I can't say anything specific with regards to these departments, because I didn't work for them. But as for the politicians, what I can say is that when you start talking about huge amounts of money, certain elected officials become automatically involved. And there are different kinds of campaign contributions – legal and illegal, declared and undeclared.
CD: Could this apparent toleration of dangerous criminal groups in the midst possibly be interpreted to mean that American policy is driven by the "ends justify the means" philosophy?
SE: But how are the ends possibly met by such activities? To this day, I just can't see how. What is happening does not benefit 99.9 percent of Americans – just a very small elite.
I'm no expert, but from what I have personally seen I can say that our national security is being compromised every day, because important investigations are being stopped, and potentially important clues are being overlooked. It's absolutely incredible that even after 9/11, certain individuals, foreign businessmen and others, among others, are still escaping scrutiny.
Okay, perhaps talking about the pre-9/11 world they could get away with saying "we didn't know," but to continue doing so – I mean, what if we are attacked by nuclear or chemical weapons, what will be their next excuse? That "we didn't know" it could happen? Come on! I can prove they are lying, because they know."

http://www.breakfornews.com/Sibel-Edmonds-Story.htm

:thumbsup:

Tom Flocco on Black Op Radio

http://www.blackopradio.com/

Go to "Archives" "2005 Archives" and scroll to show 219.
Taped May 5th.
---

NEW from Tom Flocco:
Campaign coffers profit from 911, coke and courts
FBI linguist won't deny intercepts tied 911 drug money to U.S. elections "...this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it’s getting into somebody’s political campaign, and somebody’s lobbying. And people don’t want to be traced back to this money."

"Once this issue gets to be...investigated, you will be seeing certain people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally." Sibel Edmonds (former FBI linguist and 911 federal whistleblower)

http://tomflocco.com/

If that natural gas isn't sold to someone, China is going to step up and buy it and we don't want that.

Finding a market for it by sending it to a bulwark against Chinese expansion provides money to the brokers and refiners (Bush and Unocal)

They tried this back when the Taliban were the good guys, then the Taliban decided they didn't like the pipeline and became the bad guys.

Anyone here read "The Great Game" by Peter Hopkirk about the British and Russian (and others) attempts to control this region? Great book!

Explain why YOU don't want that.

If you don't know enough to intelligently discuss the topic, then don't bother.

If you don't want to answer a question because you realize your position is indefensible, at least refrain from insults.

the matter under duscussion is not "natural resources that belong to Afghanistan", since the natural gas would come from Turkmenistan, not Afghanistan, and the fact that there is no attempt to make those natural resources "the rightful property of the United States", since the natural gas would be sold mostly to India and the money that would be paid for it would go to Turkmenistan.

Other than those two things, your statement is correct.

and Unocal appreciates it!