US troops in Saudi Arabia after the war for Kuwait. Why not respect the Saudi government and leave?
Until recently I didn't understand that the real money in oil is in the contracts the oil companies make with the government. Of course our government works to promote those interests and our military works to promote it's interests. Pepe Escobar's 2007 book "Liquid War" describes a long term war over
oil and gas that the US and it's allies seem to be losing. I'm against the whole thing mainly because it's
NOT in our best interest and it was done behind my back. As far as I can tell the one thing we MIGHT gain from 20 years in Afghanistan is a pipeline to INDIA? .. and China? Why don't we just pull out of there so Karzhai can make peace with the Taliban and they can both protect out precious pipeline and profit from it? Then the Taliban can stop the heroin trade like they did before and we can get it from Mexico.
Dick Cheney was the real genius with his secret "Energy Task Force", I suppose modeled after Hillary's secret "Health Care Task Force". Have you noticed you've never heard a peep from anyone who participated in either?? Now we have health care And oil nobody can afford and a President who can't negotiate successfully with even his wife!! I don't know about you but this reminds me of the time I was
3 years old and our housekeeper was cooking SPINACH with a PRESSURE COOKER. I still remember the explosion and the spinach hanging down from the ceiling. I've tried to stay out of the kitchen ever since. (Too dangerous!) Dan
GWB,
ReplyDeleteI just saw this news:
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=238562
(quote) IRNA news Agency quoted a Pakistani government official Zafar Iqbal Abdul-Qader as saying that the gas pipeline project will be completed by March 2014.
Pakistan and Iran formally signed the historic pipeline deal in Tehran on June 13, 2010, under which Iran will supply Pakistan with natural gas from mid-2014.
Under the deal, Pakistan will import from Iran 750 million cubic feet of gas daily for 25 years.
The pipeline would connect Iran’s South Pars gas field with Pakistan’s southern Balochistan and Sindh provinces.
In June, the Pakistani Prime Minister Seyed Yousuf Raza Gilani, defying a warning from Washington, promised to go ahead with a plan to import natural gas from Iran.
The pipeline was initially mooted to carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and on to India (close quote)
This is very a good description of pipelines and regional geopolitics:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/12/the_pipeline_paradox?page=0,1
"Fortunately, there is a regional alternative. U.S. interests would be better served if Turkmenistan's gas were instead directed south to the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) which would -- if built -- extend from Turkmenistan, through Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan, to Quetta in Pakistan, and on to India. TAPI, which is also supported by the United States, would contribute to the economies of all four countries, particularly Afghanistan's, which desperately needs it. More importantly, TAPI would effectively kill the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline as it would allow India to meet its energy needs without Iran. But the pipeline faces many challenges, mostly to do with lack of security in Afghanistan. If Washington is serious in its support for TAPI, it should help secure the funding for the pipeline and work with the Afghan government on creating a safe environment for the project -- as the U.S. military did in recent years in Iraq and Colombia, two similarly war-torn countries. It should also encourage Turkmenistan to direct its gas southward rather than westward."