Obama supporters: 60 Children Among Afghan Dead, U.N. Finds

[Damocles]

I didn't call you ignorant, but your comments do reflect a certain ignorance of facts about your conclusions. That is not a personal attack.

The Project for a New American Century .. which is not a conspiracy theory .. which wrote the blueprint for Bush's foreign policy agenda .. thought the pipeline in Afghanistan was worth seeking a New Pearl Harbor for.

Your conclusion seems to suggest that it's only a natural gas pipeline and thus there would be no benefit to corporations. PNAC thought it was worth changing the government in Afghanistan for. All they needed was the event to set it off.

Additionally, I don't follow the logic of believing the Bush Administration lied and concocted "evidence" to invade Iraq .. but there is just no way that Afghanistan is anything other than what they told you it is. Certainly Bush wouldn't lie about that.

He didn't lie about anything else did he?

That's deep .. and illogical as hell.

Again, you are deliberately ignoring that your entire proposed argument is based on the assumption that a Natural Gas pipeline is somehow an "oil pipeline" and that it is the reason we went to Afghanistan. It is total rubbish. Natural gas is NOT OIL. No matter how many times you try to maintain that it is and without that particular foundation your argument is just baseless rubbish totally without any merit whatsoever. You so badly want some incentive other than an attack on the US that you are willing to maintain that something is there that simply is not.

 

[Socrtease]

Again, you are deliberately ignoring that your entire proposed argument is based on the assumption that a Natural Gas pipeline is somehow an "oil pipeline" and that it is the reason we went to Afghanistan. It is total rubbish. Natural gas is NOT OIL. No matter how many times you try to maintain that it is.

And because it is NOT OIL there is very little economic motivation to invade Afghanistan for Natural Gas.

 

[Damocles]

And because it is NOT OIL there is very little economic motivation to invade Afghanistan for Natural Gas.

We have more than enough natural gas here, the incentive is minimal for that.

 

[blackascoal]

As I said, no matter how many times you try to spin this into something to do with Iraq, you are friggin clueless when it comes to what the pipeline is for in Afghanistan.

You also have failed once again to provide ANY potential benefit to the US other than building the NAT GAS pipeline.

But I know, you are embarrassed that you have been shown to be wrong and so now you want to spin the topic away from your ignorance.

As for the forces in Afghanistan, no it is not like the coalition in Iraq. Again with your idiotic attempts to try to equate the two. It is a UN sanctioned force that is in Afghanistan. What part of that do you not comprehend.

As for "get more informed" .... you might want to stop spouting that bullshit when it is you that is clearly uninformed with regards to the pipeline and you moronic conspiracy proclaiming that is the reason the UN is in Afghanistan rather than the reason being a direct response to 9/11 and the Talibans refusal to take action against Bin Laden and Al Queda.

I prefer having good civil discussions with you than "winning" any argument .. but you are seriously deluded if you think I'm supposed to be embarrassed by anything said in this discussion.

I'm cool with whatever you choose to believe .. and I'm more than cool with what I believe.

Here's to further good conversation my brother.

 

[blackascoal]

Again, you are deliberately ignoring that your entire proposed argument is based on the assumption that a Natural Gas pipeline is somehow an "oil pipeline" and that it is the reason we went to Afghanistan. It is total rubbish. Natural gas is NOT OIL. No matter how many times you try to maintain that it is and without that particular foundation your argument is just baseless rubbish totally without any merit whatsoever. You so badly want some incentive other than an attack on the US that you are willing to maintain that something is there that simply is not.

In your cognitive dissonance, you don't understand the game.

The Trans-Afghan Pipeline

Washington’s Silk Road Strategy consists in not only excluding Russia from the westbound oil and gas pipeline routes out of the Caspian Sea basin, but also in securing Anglo-American control over strategic southbound and eastbound routes.

This strategy consists in isolating and eventually “encircling” the former Soviet republics by simultaneously taking control of both westbound and east/southbound corridors. In this regard, Washington’s strategy in support of the oil giants is also to prevent the former republics from entering into pipeline ventures (or military cooperation agreements) with Iran and China.

According to the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy organization, the American diplomatic dance with the Taliban was partly an attempt to prevent the construction of a pipeline through Iran and to reduce Russian leverage over Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.(1)

Backed by the Clinton administration, Unocal, the California-based oil giant, developed a plan in 1995 to build an oil and gas pipeline route from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea. Unocal is also involved in the westbound Baku-Ceyan pipeline project out of Azerbaijan across Turkey and Georgia, together with BP, which has a majority stake in the consortium.

The CentGas Consortium

By transiting through Afghanistan, Unocal’s CentGas pipeline project was meant to bypass the more direct southbound route across Iran. Unocal’s design was to develop a dual pipeline system that would also transport Kazakhstan’s huge oil reserves in the Tenghiz Northern Caspian region to the Arabian Sea.

Although the Russian oil giant Gazprom was part of the CentGas consortium, its participation was insignificant.(2) The hidden agenda was also to weaken Gazprom, which controls the Northbound gas pipeline routes out of Turkmenistan, and undermine the agreement between Russia and Turkmenistan, which handled the export of Turkmen gas through the network of Russian pipelines.

After Unocal had completed a first round of negotiations with Turkmenistan’s President Niyazov, it opened talks with the Taliban.(3) In turn, the Clinton administration decided to back the installation of a Taliban government in Kabul in 1996, as opposed to the Northern Alliance, which was backed by Moscow:

Impressed by the ruthlessness and willingness of the then-emerging Taliban to cut a pipeline deal, the State Department and Pakistan’s ISI agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, US taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official.(4)

Meanwhile, the Russians were providing logistical support and military supplies to General Massoud’s Northern Alliance out of military bases in Tajikistan. When Kabul finally fell to the Taliban with the military backing of America’s ally Pakistan, in September 1996, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said the US found “nothing objectionable” in the steps taken by the Taliban to impose Islamic law. Senator Hank Brown, a supporter of the Unocal project, said “the good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at least seems capable of developing a government in Kabul.” Unocal’s Vice-President, Martin Miller, called the Taliban’s success a “positive development”.(5)

When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal….A US diplomat said, “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did.” He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. “We can live with that”, he said.(6)

Washington’s endorsement of the Taliban regime instead of the Northern Alliance was part of the “Big Game” and the added rivalry between Russian and US conglomerates for control over oil and gas reserves, as well as pipeline routes out of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. In early 1997, Taliban officials met at Unocal’s Texas office:

NOTE: enter "Kenny Boy" Lay

[Unocal's Barry] Lane says he wasn’t involved in the Texas meetings and doesn’t know whether then-Governor George W. Bush, an ex-oil man, ever had any involvement. Unocal’s Texas spokesperson for Central Asia operations, Teresa Covington, said the consortium delivered three basic messages to the Afghan groups. “We gave them the details on the proposed pipelines. We also talked to them about the projects’benefits, such as the transit fees that would be paid,” she says. “And we reinforced our position the project could not move forward until they stabilized their country and obtained political recognition from the US and the international community.”

Covington says the Taliban were not surprised by that demand…. In December 1997, Unocal arranged a high-level meeting in Washington, DC, for the Taliban with Clinton’s undersecretary of state for South Asia, Karl Inderforth. The Taliban delegation included Acting Minister for Mines and Industry Ahmad Jan, Acting Minister for Culture and Information, Amir Muttaqi, Acting Minister for Planning, Din Muhammad and Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, their permanent UN delegate.(7)

Two months following these negotiations, in February 1998, Unocal Vice President for International Relations, John Maresca, in a statement to the House Committee on International Relations, called for “the need for multiple pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas resources”. (See Chapter 5.) Implied in his statement, US foreign policy in the region was to be geared towards destabilizing the north, west and southbound pipeline routes controlled by Russia, as well as competing pipelines through Iran:

[A] chief technical obstacle [or more likely political 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-centred Soviet period, they tend to head north and west toward Russia. There are no connections to the south and east….

The key question then, is how the energy resources of Central Asia can be made available to nearby Asian markets…. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of US 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.

Unocal foresees a pipeline which would become part of a regional system that would gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The 1,040-mile long oil pipeline would extend south through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast. This 42-inch diameter pipeline would have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per day. The estimated cost of the project, which is similar in scope to the trans-Alaska pipeline, is about $2.5 billion.

Without peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the region, cross-border oil and gas pipelines are not likely to be built. We urge the Administration and the Congress to give strong support to the UN-led peace process in Afghanistan. The US Government should use its influence to help find solutions to all of the region’s conflicts.[8]

further --

According to Joseph Noemi, CEO of Chase Energy, September 11, and the “War on Terrorism” are a blessing in disguise for Afghanistan:

If the United States’ presence continues in the region, [September 11] is probably the best thing that could have happened here for the Central Asian republics … . This region, in terms of oil economics, is the frontier for this century … and Afghanistan is part and parcel of this.

more at link ..
http://kainsa.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/america’s-war-on-terrorism-chapter-6/

A blessing in disguise indeed ..

You don't understand the game brother ..

... and by the way, fuck your 8th gradeish "anti-american" bullshit.

 

[blackascoal]

The PNAC guys didn't care about Afghanistan. Never did. Still don't. It wasn't a target rich environment. That's why we had Iraq. Afghanistan wasn't the war that they wanted.

You are mistaken .. and it takes no more than google to prove that.

project new american century afghanistan pipeline

They not only wanted Iraq and Afghanistan .. and Iran, they wanted to dominate the world with their global strategy of oil dominance.

 

[Damocles]

In your cognitive dissonance, you don't understand the game.

The Trans-Afghan Pipeline

Washington’s Silk Road Strategy consists in not only excluding Russia from the westbound oil and gas pipeline routes out of the Caspian Sea basin, but also in securing Anglo-American control over strategic southbound and eastbound routes.

This strategy consists in isolating and eventually “encircling” the former Soviet republics by simultaneously taking control of both westbound and east/southbound corridors. In this regard, Washington’s strategy in support of the oil giants is also to prevent the former republics from entering into pipeline ventures (or military cooperation agreements) with Iran and China.

According to the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy organization, the American diplomatic dance with the Taliban was partly an attempt to prevent the construction of a pipeline through Iran and to reduce Russian leverage over Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.(1)

Backed by the Clinton administration, Unocal, the California-based oil giant, developed a plan in 1995 to build an oil and gas pipeline route from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea. Unocal is also involved in the westbound Baku-Ceyan pipeline project out of Azerbaijan across Turkey and Georgia, together with BP, which has a majority stake in the consortium.

The CentGas Consortium

By transiting through Afghanistan, Unocal’s CentGas pipeline project was meant to bypass the more direct southbound route across Iran. Unocal’s design was to develop a dual pipeline system that would also transport Kazakhstan’s huge oil reserves in the Tenghiz Northern Caspian region to the Arabian Sea.

Although the Russian oil giant Gazprom was part of the CentGas consortium, its participation was insignificant.(2) The hidden agenda was also to weaken Gazprom, which controls the Northbound gas pipeline routes out of Turkmenistan, and undermine the agreement between Russia and Turkmenistan, which handled the export of Turkmen gas through the network of Russian pipelines.

After Unocal had completed a first round of negotiations with Turkmenistan’s President Niyazov, it opened talks with the Taliban.(3) In turn, the Clinton administration decided to back the installation of a Taliban government in Kabul in 1996, as opposed to the Northern Alliance, which was backed by Moscow:

Impressed by the ruthlessness and willingness of the then-emerging Taliban to cut a pipeline deal, the State Department and Pakistan’s ISI agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, US taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official.(4)

Meanwhile, the Russians were providing logistical support and military supplies to General Massoud’s Northern Alliance out of military bases in Tajikistan. When Kabul finally fell to the Taliban with the military backing of America’s ally Pakistan, in September 1996, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said the US found “nothing objectionable” in the steps taken by the Taliban to impose Islamic law. Senator Hank Brown, a supporter of the Unocal project, said “the good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at least seems capable of developing a government in Kabul.” Unocal’s Vice-President, Martin Miller, called the Taliban’s success a “positive development”.(5)

When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal….A US diplomat said, “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did.” He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. “We can live with that”, he said.(6)

Washington’s endorsement of the Taliban regime instead of the Northern Alliance was part of the “Big Game” and the added rivalry between Russian and US conglomerates for control over oil and gas reserves, as well as pipeline routes out of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. In early 1997, Taliban officials met at Unocal’s Texas office:

NOTE: enter "Kenny Boy" Lay

[Unocal's Barry] Lane says he wasn’t involved in the Texas meetings and doesn’t know whether then-Governor George W. Bush, an ex-oil man, ever had any involvement. Unocal’s Texas spokesperson for Central Asia operations, Teresa Covington, said the consortium delivered three basic messages to the Afghan groups. “We gave them the details on the proposed pipelines. We also talked to them about the projects’benefits, such as the transit fees that would be paid,” she says. “And we reinforced our position the project could not move forward until they stabilized their country and obtained political recognition from the US and the international community.”

Covington says the Taliban were not surprised by that demand…. In December 1997, Unocal arranged a high-level meeting in Washington, DC, for the Taliban with Clinton’s undersecretary of state for South Asia, Karl Inderforth. The Taliban delegation included Acting Minister for Mines and Industry Ahmad Jan, Acting Minister for Culture and Information, Amir Muttaqi, Acting Minister for Planning, Din Muhammad and Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, their permanent UN delegate.(7)

Two months following these negotiations, in February 1998, Unocal Vice President for International Relations, John Maresca, in a statement to the House Committee on International Relations, called for “the need for multiple pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas resources”. (See Chapter 5.) Implied in his statement, US foreign policy in the region was to be geared towards destabilizing the north, west and southbound pipeline routes controlled by Russia, as well as competing pipelines through Iran:

[A] chief technical obstacle [or more likely political 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-centred Soviet period, they tend to head north and west toward Russia. There are no connections to the south and east….

The key question then, is how the energy resources of Central Asia can be made available to nearby Asian markets…. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of US 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.

Unocal foresees a pipeline which would become part of a regional system that would gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The 1,040-mile long oil pipeline would extend south through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast. This 42-inch diameter pipeline would have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per day. The estimated cost of the project, which is similar in scope to the trans-Alaska pipeline, is about $2.5 billion.

Without peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the region, cross-border oil and gas pipelines are not likely to be built. We urge the Administration and the Congress to give strong support to the UN-led peace process in Afghanistan. The US Government should use its influence to help find solutions to all of the region’s conflicts.[8]

further --

According to Joseph Noemi, CEO of Chase Energy, September 11, and the “War on Terrorism” are a blessing in disguise for Afghanistan:

If the United States’ presence continues in the region, [September 11] is probably the best thing that could have happened here for the Central Asian republics … . This region, in terms of oil economics, is the frontier for this century … and Afghanistan is part and parcel of this.

more at link ..
http://kainsa.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/america’s-war-on-terrorism-chapter-6/

A blessing in disguise indeed ..

You don't understand the game brother ..

... and by the way, fuck your 8th gradeish "anti-american" bullshit.

Again, your site ignores that it is solely a NG pipeline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline

You pull up sites that support your theory regardless of more credible sites that tell a different picture.

The oil project was dismissed in the 90s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Oil_Pipeline

Yet the site you give maintains that it was the current plan. It was not, nor is it planned any time in the future.

You can continue to pretend that an oil pipeline is going to be there, but it is only imaginary and used by you to maintain the vision you want to see.

 

[Care4all]

i think i'm gonna be sick.....ty for the info regardless of it giving me the blues BAC....

geez, is there no party, and no one in politics left that one can count on? where does one turn...? where is there truely hope....? i don't really see it anywhere, anymore....life was so much lovelier when i was ignorant, and didn't own a computer to read about all this kind of stuff....really going on behind the scenes.... (

care

 

[blackascoal]

Again, your site ignores that it is solely a NG pipeline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline

You pull up sites that support your theory regardless of more credible sites that tell a different picture.

The oil project was dismissed in the 90s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Oil_Pipeline

Yet the site you give maintains that it was the current plan. It was not, nor is it planned any time in the future.

You can continue to pretend that an oil pipeline is going to be there, but it is only imaginary and used by you to maintain the vision you want to see.

Sure .. you hold onto that real tight

Asia's new 'great game' is all about pipelines -- Secure routes needed to move Central Asia's vast energy resources to international markets

August 20, 2008

The quest for control of energy resources has been dubbed the "new great game" – a rivalry for pipeline routes to access energy resources in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea.

It's a geopolitical game that is openly analyzed in U.S. think-tanks, widely reported in the Asian press but rarely commented upon in Canada. It began after the Soviet Union broke up and the five "Stans" of Central Asia became independent.

Recent reports have linked the conflict in Georgia with pipelines that bring oil and gas to Europe but the pipeline rivalry extends far beyond Georgia to the vast oil and gas resources of the Caspian region and Central Asia.

When the countries of Central Asia were part of the Soviet Union, their oil and gas flowed only to the north through Soviet-controlled pipelines. After the Soviet breakup in 1991, however, competing world powers began to explore ways to tap these enormous reserves and move them in other directions.

Pipelines are important today in the same way that railway building was important in the 19th century. They connect trading partners and influence the regional balance of power.

Both Georgia and Afghanistan are seen as energy bridges – transit routes for the export of land-locked hydrocarbons.

Washington has long promoted a gas pipeline south from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. It would pass through Kandahar.

Realistic or not, construction is planned to start in 2010, and Canadian Forces are committed until December 2011. Richard Boucher, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, said last year: "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan," and to link South and Central Asia "so that energy can flow to the south."

Unwittingly or willingly, Canadian forces are supporting American goals.

The BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) oil pipeline and South Caucasus gas pipeline that pass through Georgia to Turkey originate in Azerbaijan. Recently built, they are the jewels in the crown of U.S. strategy to secure energy resources that bypass Russia and reduce European dependence on pipelines from Russia.

Two Central Asian countries are rich in hydrocarbons. According to the International Energy Agency, Turkmenistan has the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas, while Kazakhstan's oil reserves are said to be three times those of the North Sea. Turkmenistan exports virtually all its gas to Russia. Last year, the presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan agreed on a new gas line north to expand the export system. Construction starts this summer.

China is tapping into Central Asia's treasure, too. There is a new pipeline that brings oil from Kazakhstan to China. And a gas pipeline is being built from Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan to China.

The rivalry continues with plans for new gas lines to Central Europe. The Russians plan a line under the Black Sea to Bulgaria called South Stream, and the EU backs a project called Nabucco that would supply gas via Turkey.

As well, Washington is pushing for new pipelines under the Caspian Sea that would link Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan and the pipelines to Europe.

But Russia is blocking these plans. Boucher asserts that European energy security is important to the United States as well as to Europeans and that it "is based on having multiple sources."

The United States expresses great concern about European dependence on oil and gas imports from Russia. But Europe has imported energy from Russia for 40 years. It imports from the Middle East and Africa, too.

Is Russia less reliable? Much is made of Russia's temporary cuts in gas supplies to Ukraine and Belarus, but these countries were enjoying highly subsidized gas (a hangover from the Soviet era) and refusing to pay full European border prices. In similar circumstances, what would Canadian energy suppliers do?

Energy has become an issue of strategic discussions at NATO. At recent NATO summits the United States sought to commit NATO to energy security activities, calling for NATO to guard pipelines and sea lanes.

Last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said energy security required "unprecedented international co-operation, ... protecting and maintaining the world's energy supply system."

NATO proposals could have enormous consequences for Canada. U.S. strategic thinking is to get other NATO countries involved in guarding the world's oil and gas supplies. Canada is in danger of being drawn into long-term military commitments relating to energy.

Recently, Defence Minister Peter MacKay told a Halifax talk show that Canadian troops were not in Afghanistan "specifically" to guard a pipeline, but "if the Taliban are attacking certain projects, then yes we will play a role."

Neither Afghanistan nor Georgia is a member of NATO, but both are transit countries in the new great game.

Energy geopolitics are worthy of public discussion. The rivalry for energy resources is a power game – and militarizing energy is a long-term recipe for disaster.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/481731

It's just a natural gas pipeline .. virtually worthless ..

Amazing

 

[blackascoal]

i think i'm gonna be sick.....ty for the info regardless of it giving me the blues BAC....

geez, is there no party, and no one in politics left that one can count on? where does one turn...? where is there truely hope....? i don't really see it anywhere, anymore....life was so much lovelier when i was ignorant, and didn't own a computer to read about all this kind of stuff....really going on behind the scenes.... (

care

Sorry for the blues my sister .. but knowledge is power .. but it is also a burden of responsibility

 

[Socrtease]

So then I guess my question is BAC what are you going to do to elect someone that has a REALISTIC chance of changing the way the US conducts its foreign policy. Do you think that withholding your vote from Obama serves that purpose? In the US if you want to see your decidely leftwing policies implemented then you have to start somewhere. The MAJORITY of Americans would NEVER vote for the type of candidate I think you would support. Someone with serious leftward leanings. The Pendullum in the US never swings that fast, UNLESS there is some sort of economic emergency that can be laid solely at the feet of on party or a particular ideology. We just don't roll that way. Obama is at least going to push on some issues in the same direction you lean, not as fast or as hard as you would like, but much more so than McCain.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

In your cognitive dissonance, you don't understand the game.

The Trans-Afghan Pipeline

Washington’s Silk Road Strategy consists in not only excluding Russia from the westbound oil and gas pipeline routes out of the Caspian Sea basin, but also in securing Anglo-American control over strategic southbound and eastbound routes.

This strategy consists in isolating and eventually “encircling” the former Soviet republics by simultaneously taking control of both westbound and east/southbound corridors. In this regard, Washington’s strategy in support of the oil giants is also to prevent the former republics from entering into pipeline ventures (or military cooperation agreements) with Iran and China.

According to the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy organization, the American diplomatic dance with the Taliban was partly an attempt to prevent the construction of a pipeline through Iran and to reduce Russian leverage over Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.(1)

Backed by the Clinton administration, Unocal, the California-based oil giant, developed a plan in 1995 to build an oil and gas pipeline route from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea. Unocal is also involved in the westbound Baku-Ceyan pipeline project out of Azerbaijan across Turkey and Georgia, together with BP, which has a majority stake in the consortium.

The CentGas Consortium

By transiting through Afghanistan, Unocal’s CentGas pipeline project was meant to bypass the more direct southbound route across Iran. Unocal’s design was to develop a dual pipeline system that would also transport Kazakhstan’s huge oil reserves in the Tenghiz Northern Caspian region to the Arabian Sea.

Although the Russian oil giant Gazprom was part of the CentGas consortium, its participation was insignificant.(2) The hidden agenda was also to weaken Gazprom, which controls the Northbound gas pipeline routes out of Turkmenistan, and undermine the agreement between Russia and Turkmenistan, which handled the export of Turkmen gas through the network of Russian pipelines.

After Unocal had completed a first round of negotiations with Turkmenistan’s President Niyazov, it opened talks with the Taliban.(3) In turn, the Clinton administration decided to back the installation of a Taliban government in Kabul in 1996, as opposed to the Northern Alliance, which was backed by Moscow:

Impressed by the ruthlessness and willingness of the then-emerging Taliban to cut a pipeline deal, the State Department and Pakistan’s ISI agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, US taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official.(4)

Meanwhile, the Russians were providing logistical support and military supplies to General Massoud’s Northern Alliance out of military bases in Tajikistan. When Kabul finally fell to the Taliban with the military backing of America’s ally Pakistan, in September 1996, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said the US found “nothing objectionable” in the steps taken by the Taliban to impose Islamic law. Senator Hank Brown, a supporter of the Unocal project, said “the good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at least seems capable of developing a government in Kabul.” Unocal’s Vice-President, Martin Miller, called the Taliban’s success a “positive development”.(5)

When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal….A US diplomat said, “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did.” He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. “We can live with that”, he said.(6)

Washington’s endorsement of the Taliban regime instead of the Northern Alliance was part of the “Big Game” and the added rivalry between Russian and US conglomerates for control over oil and gas reserves, as well as pipeline routes out of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. In early 1997, Taliban officials met at Unocal’s Texas office:

NOTE: enter "Kenny Boy" Lay

[Unocal's Barry] Lane says he wasn’t involved in the Texas meetings and doesn’t know whether then-Governor George W. Bush, an ex-oil man, ever had any involvement. Unocal’s Texas spokesperson for Central Asia operations, Teresa Covington, said the consortium delivered three basic messages to the Afghan groups. “We gave them the details on the proposed pipelines. We also talked to them about the projects’benefits, such as the transit fees that would be paid,” she says. “And we reinforced our position the project could not move forward until they stabilized their country and obtained political recognition from the US and the international community.”

Covington says the Taliban were not surprised by that demand…. In December 1997, Unocal arranged a high-level meeting in Washington, DC, for the Taliban with Clinton’s undersecretary of state for South Asia, Karl Inderforth. The Taliban delegation included Acting Minister for Mines and Industry Ahmad Jan, Acting Minister for Culture and Information, Amir Muttaqi, Acting Minister for Planning, Din Muhammad and Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, their permanent UN delegate.(7)

Two months following these negotiations, in February 1998, Unocal Vice President for International Relations, John Maresca, in a statement to the House Committee on International Relations, called for “the need for multiple pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas resources”. (See Chapter 5.) Implied in his statement, US foreign policy in the region was to be geared towards destabilizing the north, west and southbound pipeline routes controlled by Russia, as well as competing pipelines through Iran:

[A] chief technical obstacle [or more likely political 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-centred Soviet period, they tend to head north and west toward Russia. There are no connections to the south and east….

The key question then, is how the energy resources of Central Asia can be made available to nearby Asian markets…. One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of US 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.

Unocal foresees a pipeline which would become part of a regional system that would gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The 1,040-mile long oil pipeline would extend south through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast. This 42-inch diameter pipeline would have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per day. The estimated cost of the project, which is similar in scope to the trans-Alaska pipeline, is about $2.5 billion.

Without peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the region, cross-border oil and gas pipelines are not likely to be built. We urge the Administration and the Congress to give strong support to the UN-led peace process in Afghanistan. The US Government should use its influence to help find solutions to all of the region’s conflicts.[8]

further --

According to Joseph Noemi, CEO of Chase Energy, September 11, and the “War on Terrorism” are a blessing in disguise for Afghanistan:

If the United States’ presence continues in the region, [September 11] is probably the best thing that could have happened here for the Central Asian republics … . This region, in terms of oil economics, is the frontier for this century … and Afghanistan is part and parcel of this.

more at link ..
http://kainsa.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/america’s-war-on-terrorism-chapter-6/

A blessing in disguise indeed ..

You don't understand the game brother ..

... and by the way, fuck your 8th gradeish "anti-american" bullshit.

AGAIN... you are quoting "plans" from 1995-99 etc... Do you realize that there is NO plan today that suggests routing oil through Afghanistan? What the hell do you think Georgia and Azerbaijan are for? It makes little sense to route Caspian oil through Afghanistan. The major buyers are the EU. It makes far more sense to route the oil pipelines through Azerbaijan/Armenia/Turkey or through Georgia and connecting to the Turkish lines (and eventually expanding Turkish capacity).

The ONLY pipelines that will be built through Afghanistan will be for NAT GAS. It will ship the NAT GAS from eastern Turkmenistan to Pakistan. There is no reason to build an oil pipeline 500-700 miles across Turkmenistan another 500-700 miles through Afghanistan and Pakistan to ship the oil. They can connect to Turkish lines in half that distance.... while at the same time getting the oil closer to the main end users.

This is one of the reasons of contention between Russia and Georgia. Russia does not want the competition. (obviously there are more reasons for Russia being pissed at Georgia, but this is certainly one of the top two reason... the other being the NATO push)

Quit relying on decade old "we think we should look into doing this" type plans. They are leading you astray. At the time the Afghanistan war began, we had NO intention of building an OIL pipeline. Even if there were some idiots that still wanted to... it STILL would not be a reason to go to war. There is NO benefit to the US... other than a few building contracts.

 

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Sure .. you hold onto that real tight

Asia's new 'great game' is all about pipelines -- Secure routes needed to move Central Asia's vast energy resources to international markets

August 20, 2008

The quest for control of energy resources has been dubbed the "new great game" – a rivalry for pipeline routes to access energy resources in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea.

It's a geopolitical game that is openly analyzed in U.S. think-tanks, widely reported in the Asian press but rarely commented upon in Canada. It began after the Soviet Union broke up and the five "Stans" of Central Asia became independent.

Recent reports have linked the conflict in Georgia with pipelines that bring oil and gas to Europe but the pipeline rivalry extends far beyond Georgia to the vast oil and gas resources of the Caspian region and Central Asia.

When the countries of Central Asia were part of the Soviet Union, their oil and gas flowed only to the north through Soviet-controlled pipelines. After the Soviet breakup in 1991, however, competing world powers began to explore ways to tap these enormous reserves and move them in other directions.

Pipelines are important today in the same way that railway building was important in the 19th century. They connect trading partners and influence the regional balance of power.

Both Georgia and Afghanistan are seen as energy bridges – transit routes for the export of land-locked hydrocarbons.

Washington has long promoted a gas pipeline south from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. It would pass through Kandahar.

Realistic or not, construction is planned to start in 2010, and Canadian Forces are committed until December 2011. Richard Boucher, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, said last year: "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan," and to link South and Central Asia "so that energy can flow to the south."

Unwittingly or willingly, Canadian forces are supporting American goals.

The BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) oil pipeline and South Caucasus gas pipeline that pass through Georgia to Turkey originate in Azerbaijan. Recently built, they are the jewels in the crown of U.S. strategy to secure energy resources that bypass Russia and reduce European dependence on pipelines from Russia.

Two Central Asian countries are rich in hydrocarbons. According to the International Energy Agency, Turkmenistan has the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas,
while Kazakhstan's oil reserves are said to be three times those of the North Sea. Turkmenistan exports virtually all its gas to Russia. Last year, the presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan agreed on a new gas line north to expand the export system. Construction starts this summer.

China is tapping into Central Asia's treasure, too. There is a new pipeline that brings oil from Kazakhstan to China. And a gas pipeline is being built from Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan to China.


The rivalry continues with plans for new gas lines to Central Europe. The Russians plan a line under the Black Sea to Bulgaria called South Stream, and the EU backs a project called Nabucco that would supply gas via Turkey.

As well, Washington is pushing for new pipelines under the Caspian Sea that would link Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan and the pipelines to Europe.

But Russia is blocking these plans. Boucher asserts that European energy security is important to the United States as well as to Europeans and that it "is based on having multiple sources."

The United States expresses great concern about European dependence on oil and gas imports from Russia. But Europe has imported energy from Russia for 40 years. It imports from the Middle East and Africa, too.

Is Russia less reliable? Much is made of Russia's temporary cuts in gas supplies to Ukraine and Belarus, but these countries were enjoying highly subsidized gas (a hangover from the Soviet era) and refusing to pay full European border prices. In similar circumstances, what would Canadian energy suppliers do?

Energy has become an issue of strategic discussions at NATO. At recent NATO summits the United States sought to commit NATO to energy security activities, calling for NATO to guard pipelines and sea lanes.

Last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said energy security required "unprecedented international co-operation, ... protecting and maintaining the world's energy supply system."

NATO proposals could have enormous consequences for Canada. U.S. strategic thinking is to get other NATO countries involved in guarding the world's oil and gas supplies. Canada is in danger of being drawn into long-term military commitments relating to energy.

Recently, Defence Minister Peter MacKay told a Halifax talk show that Canadian troops were not in Afghanistan "specifically" to guard a pipeline, but "if the Taliban are attacking certain projects, then yes we will play a role."

Neither Afghanistan nor Georgia is a member of NATO, but both are transit countries in the new great game.

Energy geopolitics are worthy of public discussion. The rivalry for energy resources is a power game – and militarizing energy is a long-term recipe for disaster.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/481731

It's just a natural gas pipeline .. virtually worthless ..

Amazing

What is truly amazing is that you don't even seem to have read the very article you posted.....

 

[blackascoal]

So then I guess my question is BAC what are you going to do to elect someone that has a REALISTIC chance of changing the way the US conducts its foreign policy. Do you think that withholding your vote from Obama serves that purpose? In the US if you want to see your decidely leftwing policies implemented then you have to start somewhere. The MAJORITY of Americans would NEVER vote for the type of candidate I think you would support. Someone with serious leftward leanings. The Pendullum in the US never swings that fast, UNLESS there is some sort of economic emergency that can be laid solely at the feet of on party or a particular ideology. We just don't roll that way. Obama is at least going to push on some issues in the same direction you lean, not as fast or as hard as you would like, but much more so than McCain.

The disconnect between you and I is that I have a completely different perspective of politics and American society than you my brother.

I have absolutely no illusions that I, or you, will elect someone who is going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. American foreign policy will change when it is forced to change, just as it is being forced to change right before our eyes today. It will change because America can no longer force its will on the rest of the world. Americans do not elect politicians that will tell you that. We elect clowns and actors.

Since Carter, Americans have elected nothing but corporatists to the White House .. add Obama, Hillary, McCain, and Biden .. nothing but corporatists .. every last one of them. What is destroying America ain't(eb) some arab in a desert thousands of miles away from our shores. What destroys us wears Brooks Brothers suits.

That's too abstract for most Americans who need their information on a bumper sticker or it's too difficult to comprehend.

I don't expect a "leftward" presidential candidate to win .. and I don't need it for my politics to work. I expect a candidate that will tell the truth and one that recognizes that America foreign policy makes war a business.

If truth and courage are too much to ask of an American president then why should I care which evil wins? BOTH are going to do the bidding of the corporate will and BOTH are going to get America deeper involved in the business of war.

But again .. too abstract for most Americans.

 

[blackascoal]

AGAIN... you are quoting "plans" from 1995-99 etc... Do you realize that there is NO plan today that suggests routing oil through Afghanistan? What the hell do you think Georgia and Azerbaijan are for? It makes little sense to route Caspian oil through Afghanistan. The major buyers are the EU. It makes far more sense to route the oil pipelines through Azerbaijan/Armenia/Turkey or through Georgia and connecting to the Turkish lines (and eventually expanding Turkish capacity).

The ONLY pipelines that will be built through Afghanistan will be for NAT GAS. It will ship the NAT GAS from eastern Turkmenistan to Pakistan. There is no reason to build an oil pipeline 500-700 miles across Turkmenistan another 500-700 miles through Afghanistan and Pakistan to ship the oil. They can connect to Turkish lines in half that distance.... while at the same time getting the oil closer to the main end users.

This is one of the reasons of contention between Russia and Georgia. Russia does not want the competition. (obviously there are more reasons for Russia being pissed at Georgia, but this is certainly one of the top two reason... the other being the NATO push)

Quit relying on decade old "we think we should look into doing this" type plans. They are leading you astray. At the time the Afghanistan war began, we had NO intention of building an OIL pipeline. Even if there were some idiots that still wanted to... it STILL would not be a reason to go to war. There is NO benefit to the US... other than a few building contracts.

That is near braindead brother.

Pipelines not important?

You have no clue what you're talking about.

 

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That is near braindead brother.

Pipelines not important?

You have no clue what you're talking about.

LMAO... the very article that YOU posted shows that they intended the OIL pipeline to go exactly where I said it would... THROUGH Azerbaijan/Georgia and connecting to the Turkish lines.

Try reading your own articles... it may help end your embarassment.

Also, I never said pipelines aren't important.... but your CLAIM that we went to war in Afghanistan so that a OIL pipeline could be built is nothing but bullshit. There is nothing to indicate the US would go to war over a NAT GAS pipeline that primarily benefits Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 

[blackascoal]

LMAO... the very article that YOU posted shows that they intended the OIL pipeline to go exactly where I said it would... THROUGH Azerbaijan/Georgia and connecting to the Turkish lines.

Try reading your own articles... it may help end your embarassment.

Also, I never said pipelines aren't important.... but your CLAIM that we went to war in Afghanistan so that a OIL pipeline could be built is nothing but bullshit. There is nothing to indicate the US would go to war over a NAT GAS pipeline that primarily benefits Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There are 800 billion barrels of oil in the region and if you don't believe the ROUTE is important, not what is currently being transported through it .. then there is a real good reason why you couldn't see through the fraud of Iraq my brother.

The Great Game is all about pipelines.

It's a subject you should study.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

There are 800 billion barrels of oil in the region and if you don't believe the ROUTE is important, not what is currently being transported through it .. then there is a real good reason why you couldn't see through the fraud of Iraq my brother.

The Great Game is all about pipelines.

It's a subject you should study.

AGAIN... since you seem to be having a very hard time comprehending this...

1) I NEVER stated there wasn't oil in the region... there is... the obvious Caspian reserves as well as the oil reserves in Kazakhstan

2) I NEVER stated pipelines weren't important... that is your bogus assertation on my position

3) What I did state was that there IS NO OIL PIPELINE BEING CURRENTLY PROPOSED THROUGH AFGHANISTAN. NONE.

4) The oil pipelines being built go the other way.... through Azerbaijan and Georgia connecting up to the Turkish lines

5) The pipeline in Afghanistan IS FOR NAT GAS.

But I know... you will continue to ignore all of the above FACTS and continue to pretend that the war in Afghanistan was started for a pipeline construction contract.

You are truly making a fool of yourself on this issue... which is uncharacteristic of you. Take your own advice and educate yourself on this topic.