[Marxism] Afghan-Pakistan war council in DC prepares more escalation-Empire Report

[Ralph Johansen]

Fred Feldman wrote:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/410781/afghan_pakistan_war_council

Afghan-Pakistan War Council
by Robert Dreyfuss
02/23/2009 @ 09:10am

Team Obama will be holding a war council of sorts this week, as top 
Pakistani and Afghan officials come to Washington as part of Obama's 
ongoing review of the conflict. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood 
Qureshi and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta will meet 
with, among others, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Richard Holbrooke, 
and Bruce Riedel, who's coordinating the administration's rethink. A 
whole passel of military officials from the region will be here, too.

But what's troubling so far about the administration's signals on 
Afghanistan and Pakistan is that it's all tilted toward war and 
"counterinsurgency," and there's precious little being said about 
negotiations, deal-making with the Taliban, and diplomacy.

[snip]

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It's puzzling to me that no one seems to be really asking - and 
answering - the resident elephant question - why? Aside from 
considerations of empire and obeisance more generally, Bill Blum, for 
those who haven't seen it, had this to say:

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, US oil companies have been 
vying with Russia, Iran and other energy interests for the massive, 
untapped oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet republics of 
Central Asia. The building and protection of oil and gas pipelines in 
Afghanistan, to continue farther to Pakistan, India, and elsewhere, has 
been a key objective of US policy since before the 2001 American 
invasion and occupation of the country, although the subsequent turmoil 
there has presented serious obstacles to such plans. A planned 
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has strong support from 
Washington because, amongst other reasons, the US is eager to block a 
competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from 
Iran.[5] But security for such projects remains daunting, and that's 
where the US and NATO forces come in to play.

In the late 1990s, the American oil company, Unocal, met with Taliban 
officials in Texas to discuss the pipelines.[6] Zalmay Khalilzad, later 
chosen to be the US ambassador to Afghanistan, worked for Unocal[7]; 
Hamid Karzai, later chosen by Washington to be the Afghan president, 
also reportedly worked for Unocal, although the company denies this. 
Unocal's talks with the Taliban, conducted with the full knowledge of 
the Clinton administration, and undeterred by the extreme repression of 
Taliban society, continued as late as 2000 or 2001.

As for NATO, it has no reason to be fighting in Afghanistan. Indeed, 
NATO has no legitimate reason for existence at all. Their biggest fear 
is that "failure" in Afghanistan would make this thought more present in 
the world's mind. If NATO hadn’t begun to intervene outside of Europe it 
would have highlighted its uselessness and lack of mission. “Out of area 
or out of business” it was said.

In June, the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives published a report 
saying Taliban and insurgent activity against the US-NATO presence in 
Kandahar province puts the feasibility of the pipeline project in doubt. 
The report says southern regions in Afghanistan, including Kandahar, 
would have to be cleared of insurgent activity and land mines in two 
years to meet construction and investment schedules.

"Nobody is going to start putting pipe in the ground unless they are 
satisfied that there is some reasonable insurance that the workers for 
the pipeline are going to be safe," said Howard Brown, the Canadian 
representative for the Asian Development Bank, the major funding agency 
for the pipeline.[8]ow, and put an offer on the table of a US 
withdrawal, and see what happens?

[snip]