Pipe Dreams: The origin of the "bombing Afghanistan for oil pipelines" theory (Lefties Proved Liars)

tangled web
Pipe Dreams
The origin of the "bombing-Afghanistan-for-oil-pipelines" theory.
By Seth Stevenson
Posted Thursday, December 6, 2001, at 11:32 AM PT

A theory making the rounds on the Internet, on the airwaves, and in the press claims that the bombing of the Taliban has nothing to do with a "war on terrorism" but everything to do with the oil pipeline the West wants to build through Afghanistan. Where did this theory start, and how did it spread?

The California energy company Unocal seriously pursued building an Afghanistan pipeline in the 1990s, but back then the theorists, such as this Middle East specialist in 1998, argued that the West was propping up the Taliban in hopes that they would cooperate on building a pipeline. On March 8, 2001, a think-tanker and former CIA analyst noted in a New York Times op-ed that "[i]n 1996, it seemed possible that American-built gas and oil pipelines from Central Asia could run through an Afghanistan ruled by one leader. Cruelty to women aside, we did not condemn the Taliban juggernaut rolling across the country."

The beauty of conspiracy theories is that even the most contradictory evidence can be folded into a new conspiracy theory. For example, after the events of Sept. 11, the pipeline conspiracy theorists spun 180 degrees from …

We're supporting the Taliban so we can build a pipeline while we pretend we don't care about their links to terrorism (and, to a lesser degree, their cruelty to women).

We're bombing the Taliban so we can build a pipeline while we pretend we care about their links to terrorism (and, to a lesser degree, their cruelty to women).

The turnaround can be tracked within a single news agency. On Oct. 7 of this year, right before the U.S. bombing began, Agence France-Presse wrote up the old theory: "Keen to see Afghanistan under strong central rule to allow a US-led group to build a multi-billion-dollar oil and gas pipeline, Washington urged key allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to back the militia's bid for power in 1996." Just four days later, AFP wrote that "experts say the end of the Islamic militia [the Taliban] could spell the start of more lucrative opportunities for Western oil companies."

Nearly all sites pushing the newer theory point to two pieces of evidence: 1) This U.S. Department of Energy information page on Afghanistan, updated September 2001, which espouses the pipeline idea but says Afghanistan is too chaotic for it to work. 2) This 1998 testimony by a Unocal vice president to the House Committee on International Relations, in which he states that a pipeline will never be built without a stable Afghan government in place.

How did the new theory spread? After the Sept. 11 attacks, no one says anything oil-related for a respectable mourning period. Then, in the cover story of its Sept. 21-27 issue, L.A. Weekly makes the case that "it's the oil, stupid." The piece doesn't mention the pipeline specifically, but soon after, someone else does. On Sept. 25, the Village Voice's James Ridgeway and Camila E. Fard write that the 9/11 terrorist attack "provides Washington with an extraordinary opportunity" to overthrow the Taliban and build a pipeline. Ridgeway fails to make the direct link to Unocal, though. On Oct. 1, we see the whole theory come together on the Web site of the Independent Media Center. This article links to both the Unocal testimony and the DOE page and says they "leave little doubt as to the reasons behind Washington's desire to replace the Taliban government." After this, the floodgates open. The theory never evolves much—it just gets passed around.

Oct. 5: An India-based writer for the Inter Press Service says Bush's "coalition against terrorism" is "the first opportunity that has any chance of making UNOCAL's wish come true." The story is reprinted the following day in the Asia Times.

Oct. 11: A Russian TV commentator says oil is the real reason for the war. In a transcript from Russia’s Ren TV, the commentator refers to Unocal.

Oct. 13: The Hindu, an Indian national newspaper, asserts that the pipeline, not terrorism, is driving the U.S. bombing. The Hindu quotes the DOE page and adds the point that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney are "intimately connected with the U.S. oil industry."

Oct. 14: The Washington Times reports that a Taliban ambassador says the war is more oil than Osama. Also, the International Action Center (an anti-militarism site) runs the Unocal theory.

Oct. 23: Britain's Guardian quotes the Unocal testimony and says that while the United States is in part fighting terrorism, it "would be naive to believe that this is all it is doing." Pakistan's Dawn reprints the essay two days later.

Oct. 24: The Guardian strikes again, writing that any pipeline would require the creation of a stable government and that "[t]his, it can be argued, is precisely what Washington is now trying to do."

Oct. 25: Britain's Channel 4 says the pipeline is "an important subtext" to the war.

Oct. 29: The cover story of the Britain's Daily Mirror screams, "This War Is a Fraud." Meanwhile, the BBC says the pipeline theory is in the air and recaps its basic points, but then dismantles it.

The pipeline theory has continued to bounce around, showing up on every "progressive" Web site out there. It ran in the Syrian daily Tishrin on Nov. 29, from which it was picked up on Dec. 2 by Pakistan's Frontier Post. It may never die.

Why does the bombing-for-pipelines theory hold such appeal? For the same reason the supporting-the-Taliban-for-pipelines theory attracted so many: There's evidence that points in that direction. Unocal did want to build a pipeline through Afghanistan and did cozy up to the Taliban. Bush and Cheney do have ties to big oil. But theories like these are ridiculously reductionist. Their authors don't try to argue conclusions from evidence—they decide on conclusions first, then hunt for justification. Also, many thinkers are comfortable with the conditioned response that dates back to Ida Tarbell vs. Standard Oil: When in Doubt, Blame Oil First.

What's absurd about the pipeline theory is how thoroughly it discounts the obvious reason the United States set the bombers loose on Afghanistan: Terrorists headquartered in Afghanistan attacked America's financial and military centers, killing 4,000 people, and then took credit for it. Nope—must be the pipeline.

If 35-40 percent of the population of Afghanistan belongs to the Pashtun tribe then for any government of Afghanistan to have a chance of remaining in power they would have to include some Pashtuns. This would seem to be the most obvious reason for the U.S. to be accomodating them. The Northern Alliance consists of mostly non Pashtuns. Until quite recently most Pashtuns were supporting the Taliban.

Unocal has a consistant company policy of saying they will do buisness with all existing regimes, and that the United States should recognise all existing regimes. The theory behind this is that the benefits both to Unocal and the native population of trade and development outweigh the harm done by recognising a bad regime which would be in power anyway. This of course has earned Unocal much criticism from liberal human rights groups both in Burma/Myamar and in Afghanistan. In order for your conspiracy theory to be true, Unocal would have to be engineering conflict to bring about the overthrow of the government of Afghanistan, which is against company policy.

This multiple pipelines theory won't fly either. In order for a pipeline to be profitable there has to be a certain minimum volume of oil or gas flowing through it in order to offset the cost of construction and maintenace. This is why, for example, the oil industry needs to drill in the 10-02 area of the ANWR in Alaska since the amount of oil produced by existing fields is gradually diminishing. Your argument is like saying that I am going to open eight new supermarkets in the same town and they are all going to be profitable.

Since you seem intent on dancing around the issues, I'll try and restate my points so you can confuse them again.

As far a the Taliban goes, the President has said that he intends to destroy it and remove it from power. Nowhere did he say anything about killing every member of that party.

As a comparison, I made the point that after WWII, both MacArthur and Patton, in their roles as military leaders in occupied territories, chose memebers of the Nazi party (Patton) and Japanese royalty (Mac) to help reestablish viable governments in those countries. My point is that being a member of an EVIL organization did not completely disqualify some people, properly chosen, to aid in reestablishing self-rule. As I recall, our government labelled Nazis EVIL, just as we have the Taliban, but that did not stop them from using some members of the party.

You are making a big point out of an old report that some in our government would not object to memebers of the Taliban party retaining power in the new government. Since nothing further has come out of that story, and there were no Taliban named to the interim government, your complaint is baseless.

And you STILL didn't answer the question about the pipelines. Why aid in the destruction of the WTC and the deaths of thousands to build a pipeline, when the same result could have been easily accomplished with a simple diplomatic manuever?

And your explanation about "multiple pipelines" is the silliest yet. You mean to tell me the government was complicit in the deaths of all those people in order to keep an OPTION open for building a pipeline?

Your arguments get more and more tenuous.

Your position on Iran and "multiple pipeline routes is totally contradictory. At the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives on February 12 1998 the following people testified:
Robert Gee Assistant sec for Policy U.S. Department of Energy
Fred Starr from Johns Hopkins
John Maresca from Unocal
Since all of you pipeline conspiracy theorists consider this hearing to be the smoking gun I will rely on it as evidence.

First of all, both Gee and Maresca agreed that the pipeline to China was too expensive and too long to be a reasonable option. Gee also stated that a pipeline to the Black Sea through Russia was bad for environmental and strategic reasons. Gee, Starr, and Maresca all agreed that a Baku to Ceyhan pipeline was a great idea along with a trans Caspian extension to that pipeline. They also agreed that U.S. foreign policy should be more sympathetic to Azerbaijan.

Most importantly however, Gee stating the Clinton Administration position said;
"Our policy on Iran is unchanged. The U.S. Government opposes pipelines through Iran. Development of Iran's oil and gas industry and pipelines from the Caspian Basin south through Iran will seriously undercut the development of east-west infrastructure and give Iran improper leverage over the economies of the Caucuses and Central Asian States. Moreover from an energy security standpoint, it makes no sense to move yet more energy resources through the Persian Gulf, a potential major hot spot or chokepoint. From an economic standpoint, Iran competes with Turkmenistan for the lucrative Turkish gas market. Turkmenistan could provide the gas to build the pipeline, only to see itself desplaced ultimately by Iran's own gas exports."

The phrase multiple pipelines means "anywhere but Iran". Gee did not believe all options were equally workable. He said " A Baku-Ceyhan route appears to be the most viable option" , but he was willing to tolerate any route so long as it did not go through Iran. Maresca's position was that he thought Baku-Ceyhan might not be enough and that he also wanted a pipeline across Afghanistan. He accepted the Administration position that ILSA would not be lifted. When he was asked whether he could build a pipeline across a country having a civil war he said " We urge the Administration and Congress to give strong support to the U.N. peace process in Afghanistan." This does not to me indicate a plot to overthrow the Taliban.

In the abscence of political obstacles such as the Iran Libya sanctions act, the Iranian pipeline would be the shortest and most efficient route. The whole point of the Afghan route is to avoid Iran. In economic terms they are mutually exclusive.

Merry Christmass Black Jade!!!

I think you are making two mistakes here. First you are taking Pena's comments out of context and secondly you are being too trusting of the honesty of a Clinton administration official.
Pipelines compete with each other when they are both delivering the same product from the same source to the same market. They complement each other only if they are serving different sources or different markets. The Baku to Ceyhan pipeline is in direct competition with the Baku to Novorosiisk pipeline and both Turkey and Russia are aware of this. The Baku to Novorosiisk pipeline is more cost effective because the Black Sea is closer to Azerbaijan than the Mediteranean Sea. However Turkey controls the choke point for all ships leaving the Black Sea at the Bosporus. Turkey cannot deny passage to tankers completely because of the Montreux Convention of 1936 but they can increase transit fees and regulate the size of the ships. The Russians have considered bypassing this choke point by building pipelines in Bulgaria or Romania. The Clinton Administration had been openly supportive of the Baku to Ceyhan route. Pena had just attended an economic meeting where undoubtedly the Russians indicated their displeasure with this. For the sake of diplomacy and maintaining good relations with Russia, secretary Pena had to make a statement giving an impression of neutrality. He was lying.

The Cato Institute did a paper explaining why this sort of involvement in pipeline competition is dangerous foreign policy. The Centgas/CAOPP pipeline is in direct competition with Iran. Unlike the case of Russia where we have to at least try to seem friendly, Iran already has a sanctions regime in place against it. There had been some speculation that when ILSA expired in August the U.S. would resume trade since Iran had just elected a pro-western President, Khatami, and Libya had allowed a trial of at least some of the terrorists responsible for Pan Am 103 to take place. Unfortunately for Iran, President Bush signed the ILSA extension act on August 3, 2001 which provides for a 5 year extension of ILSA. This act not only prevents the U.S. from doing buisness with Iran but also provides for third party sanctions on any foreign company that helps to develop Iran's oil and gas industry if they spend more than a certain amount. That threshold was originally 40 million dollars but Clinton lowered it to 20 million dollars.

Unless you are in the trade of selling guns and ammo, peace and stability are better for buisness than war and chaos. Since Unocal wanted to build a pipeline across Afghanistan it would not make sense for them to foment conflict there. Multinational corporations will almost always accomodate the existing regime if they are serious about doing buisness somewhere.

"...even heard it during the Kosovo campaign: supposedly someone wanted to build a pipeline through Kosovo."

Pipelines?!

You mean it wasn't fought for the riches of the zinc mines at Trepca.

At least that was one branch of conspiracy theory at the time.

But, as we all know, the Kosovo campaign was really fought for three reasons:

1. Impeachment

2. Treason

3. And rape.

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