It seems that with the anti-capitalists, it is ALWAYS about the oil. The notion that Bush and Cheney woke up one morning and said, "Since we're so intimately tied to the oil industry, we're going to go out and bomb Afghanistan" is ludicrous. I'm waiting for some conspiracy nuts to claim that our government planned and executed the 9/11 attacks just so Bush and Cheney could go to war with Afghanistan to help out their oil buddies; or have they already claimed that?
Because there was strong Unocal influence (via their ties with Occidental Petroleum) on the previous administration.
It's been six months since the US Government told India there would be an invasion of Afghanistan in October,
three years since Congress discussed removing the government of Afghanistan to make way for an oil pipeline,
five months since BBC heard about the planned invasion of Afghanistan,
ten months since Jane's Defense got word of the planned invasion of Afghanistan,
and of course, only two months since the attacks on the World Trade Towers that got the American people angered into support of the war that everybody on the planet BUT Americans had been told was on the way.
Everybody has a tie to something. Clinton - Hookers, Cigar Makers, Attorneys and Interns. Hillary - Black Panthers and Black Pantsuits. Gore - Tobacco, Slumlord, Mineral Mining.
Here's another candidate for the "American Press on Parade" segment on the Show. I'm driving to Washington on Wednesday, so I'll flag a maximum number of items for your attention before I leave.
It is tedious but productive work to trace a story back to its origins. The value of it is the exposure of which "reporters" and which "news" organizations will search far and wide for a lie with which to attack the truth. The chain of use of this "oil pipeline" story includes Pravda as a sidelight, and the Village Voice as a prime mover. The central but unstated premise is the standard line of the socialists and communists -- America must have greedy, capitalistic reasons for all major actions, including this war.
We have fought one phony war in our history. Once the wreckage of the USS Maine was brought up a year or so ago, scientific evaluation of the explosion that sank her was equally or more consistent with a coal dust explosion inside the ship as with a bomb planted on her hull. Yet at the time the Heast newspaper chain claimed the Maine was bombed by the Spaniards, and single-handedly drove us into the Spanish-American War.
If you views the military history of the United States honestly, you DO find a number of deadly warts. The history of this pipeline story, however, demonstrates that the left-wing media insist on finding warts in EVERY military action by the United States.
Every American who honestly considers his / her reaction to their viewing of the World Trade Centers attack knows why this nation has gone to war. The bottom feeders in this chain of repetition of the "pipeline reason" simply cannot tolerate the truth, so they invent and propgate a lie. It's as simple as that.
Congressman Billybob
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"(Lefties Proved Liars)"
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TS, I'd have to say, "Not yet they ain't." Exactly what is the objective, of the "world alliance", for the near future government in Afghanastan to be? Maybe "stable"? Peace and love, George.
World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Gulf War
You're right, Im sure it's not only about the oil.
Its called Geopolitics, and power projection of influence.
Everything else is a cover story to motivate the foot soldiers and rally round the flag.
I think there is a good chance that the above statement is true. Commercial interests, and the pressure that they may have exerted on some politicians, may, in fact, have led the U.S. to misread the situation in Afghanistan.
This however, does not lead to the conclusion that we are currently bombing Afghanistan to build a pipeline. Nothing in the article above disproves that the U.S. may have been seeking to prop up the Taliban, either.
There's a million valid reasons to be against our "incursion" there, but some lefties (and folks at this site, like the Cooperites) are quite lazy when it comes to reasoning, so a bogeyman must be created to front for their emotions.
Fact: Afghanistan('s ruling regime) was harboring terrorists which, as it turned out, attacked our country, prompting us to attack back.
Fact: Afghanistan('s territory) is considered a good place to put a pipeline but the situation thus far has been deemed too unstable.
Some people draw the conclusion from these two things that somehow the war Isn't Really About The Attack, It's About The Oil. (Or even further, some will imply that the attack was allowed....) From this view, the oil pipeline need for "stability" (somehow) caused the attack and ensuing war.
But doesn't it make more sense to say that they are both caused by the same underlying factor? Both the "harboring terrorists" and "bad for a pipeline" situations are caused by the fact that Afghanistan has been ruled by a brutal theocracy. So it's not surprising that there is a correlation between the war and oil interests, but that doesn't imply that oil "caused" the war.
"Even if ways were found to get oil and gas out of Central Asia -- a task that will be expensive and difficult -- the unhappy truth is that there just isn't enough fuel there to make a significant difference."