Obama Should Drop Plans For Afghan War Escalation

A “major consideration” for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was to put in office a regime favoring the oil and gas pipelines the U.S. sought running from Turkmenistan south through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea coast of Pakistan, writes Chalmers Johnson in “The Sorrows of Empire”(Owl Books).

 Oil “has been a constant motive” driving “the vast expansion of (U.S.) bases in the Persian Gulf” in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAR, Johnson says. Because Afghanistan’s Taliban regime opposed the U.S.-backed venture, its overthrow became the secret reason behind “the war on terrorism,” Johnson claims.

To build the proposed $2-billion, 918-mile natural gas pipeline and a $4-billion 1,005-mile oil pipeline UNOCAL “needed a government in Kabul it could deal with in obtaining transit rights.”

 Thus, Johnson writes, “A remarkable group of Washington insiders came together to promote the Unocal project”:

 # UNOCAL hired former President Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger to negotiate with Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

# Kissinger worked with Turkmenistan’s top consultant, none other than his own former White House aide Gen. Alexander Haig, later President Regan’s Secretary of State.

# UNOCAL also employed two well-connected Afghans to influence the Taliban in its favor, naturalized U.S. citizen Zalmay Khalilzad, and Hamid Karzai, both linked to former Afghan king Zahir Shah, then living in Pakistan. The pair later became U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and U.S.-backed President of Afghanistan, respectively.

 # President Bush first appointed Khalilzad to his National Security Council(NSC) staff, under Condoleezza Rice, and on December 31, 2001, named him “special envoy” to Afghanistan, only nine days after the Karzai government took office in Kabul.

“It should be recalled,” Johnson writes, Khalilzad joined NSC on May 23, 2001, “just in time to work on an operational order for an attack on Afghanistan.”

Johnson writes “it would appear that the attacks of September 11 provided an opportunity for the United States to act unilaterally to remove the Taliban, without assistance from Russia, India, or any other country.”

According to Boyle, even before 9/11 the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan had made “repeated offers to negotiate a solution” over “the disposition of bin Laden---as well as over the UNOCAL oil pipeline.”

Boyle said the Taliban offered to have bin Laden tried in a neutral Islamic court by Muslim judges applying the laws of Sharia; then they modified this to have him tried before some type of neutral court, which would exclude handing him over to the U.S; and finally, “even offered to try bin Laden themselves provided the United States gave them some credible evidence of his involvement in the ll September attacks, which was never done.”

Bush responded in his September 20, 2001, address “by ruling out any type of negotiations and instead issuing the Taliban government an impossible ultimatum,” Boyle said.

As President Bush put it, “tonight, the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban:  Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. (Applause.)  Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned… Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities.  (Applause.)  Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.”   Bush emphasized: “These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.  (Applause.) The Taliban must act, and act immediately.  They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.” 

Boyle said that by giving an impossible ultimatum to Afghanistan that ruled out negotiations and chose the military path, Bush ignored “12 or so multilateral conventions already on the books that deal with…international terrorism,” “many of which could have been used…to handle this matter in a lawful, effective, and peaceful manner.”

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