"In the late 1990s, writes Washington reporter Bill Blum in his "Anti-Empire Report, "the American oil company, Unocal, met with Taliban officials in Texas to discuss the pipelines" Unocal's talks with the Taliban, conducted with the full knowledge of the Clinton administration"continued as late as 2000 or 2001. Adds Paul Craig Roberts writing in the December Rock Creek Free Press of Washington, D.C., the U.S./U.K. military aggression in Afghanistan "had to do with the natural gas deposits in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Roberts explains:
"The Americans wanted a pipeline that bypassed Russia and Iran and went through Afghanistan. To insure this, an invasion was necessary. The idiot American public could be told that the invasion was necessary because of 9/11 and to save them from ˜terrorism,' and the utter fools would believe the lie. The war, Roberts continued, is to guard the pipeline route. "It's about money, it's about energy, it's not about democracy.
According to an AP dispatch of November 26th, "The president promised this week to ˜finish the job' begun eight years ago"but liberal Democrats already are lining up against it (escalation), in part because of the also-surging cost---up to $75 billion a year. Describing the war in workplace terminology makes it sound as if Obama is running a personnel agency that was dispatching workers to build some public works, not as though he is continuing President George Bush's illegal war.
Apparently, only escalation in Afghanistan was considered by Obama. As The Washington Post reported last December, "standing at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the United States is making a ˜sustained commitment' to that country, one that will last ˜some protracted period of time.' The story goes on to discuss $300 million in new construction at just one base, including a new power plant, electrical and water distribution systems, and housing for 1,500 personnel. Gates hardly would have made a "sustained commitment if Obama planned to withdraw. And every day the war goes on while Obama mulls his options is a day of victory for the hawks.
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