Sixteen hours ago, Associated Press published the following brief article:
Obama: Afghanistan will be neither quick nor easy
PHOENIX — President Barack Obama says U.S. troops in Afghanistan are working to secure polling places so this week’s elections can go forward and Afghans can decide their future.
Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday that the United States didn’t choose to fight in Afghanistan, but was forced to invade that country to stop future Sept. 11-type attacks at home. Obama says his new strategy recognizes that al-Qaida has moved its bases into remote areas of Pakistan and that military power alone will not win that war.
Obama says it’s important to note that the insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t happen overnight and would not be defeated overnight. Obama warned Americans that the battle there will be neither quick nor easy.
So Obama says “the United States didn’t choose to fight in Afghanistan, but was forced to invade that country to stop future Sept. 11-type attacks at home”.
That is bullshit!
The fact of the matter, as stated in this August 18 article in The Debate, is that “America has wanted a new government in Afghanistan since at least 1998, three years before the attacks on 11 September 2001. The official report from a meeting of the U.S. Government’s foreign policy committee on 12 February 1998, available on the U.S. Government website, confirms that the need for a West-friendly government was recognised long before the War on Terror that followed September 11th”:
“The U.S. Government’s position is that we support multiple pipelines… The Unocal pipeline is among those pipelines that would receive our support under that policy. I would caution that while we do support the project, the U.S. Government has not at this point recognized any governing regime of the transit country, one of the transit countries, Afghanistan, through which that pipeline would be routed. But we do support the project.” [ U.S. House of Reps., "U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics", 12 Feb 1998 ]
“The only other possible route [for the desired oil pipeline] is across, Afghanistan which has of course its own unique challenges.” [ "U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics", 12 Feb 1998 ]
“CentGas can not begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan Government is in place.” [ "U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics", 12 Feb 1998 ]
Secondly, US military action began long before the World Trade Center fell as the TIMELINE, published in The Debate clearly shows.
So when Obama says that the US “was forced to invade that country to stop future Sept. 11-type attacks at home”, he is simply CHATTING SHIT.
The real reason why we are in Afghanistan is oil. As Jon Flanders writes in jonGas, Oil and Afghanistan, :
Most of us know that the Middle East is a center of activity for world oil production. Some of us have heard about the Caspian Sea, and the touted possibilities for great oil resources there. But few would think that rocky, war torn Afghanistan might be part of this energy production picture.Yet it most certainly is. And the information about Afghanistan’s role is readily available on the World Wide Web to anyone who wants to investigate. Indeed, much of the information comes from US government sources like the Voice of America.
One wonders whether President Obama has known this all along and is just keeping mum about it for reasons best know to himself, or whether he is a singularly incurious guy who doesn’t do his homework and simply doesn’t get it.
