Remember that the British Army fought three wars there and lost thrice. The Russians invaded more recently, in 1979 and also lost. The Americans are losing too just the way they did in Vietnam and Somalia. Is there a message there somewhere? Peasants with guns, peasants in a bad mood can beat the world's biggest, most expensive army. How do you get them annoyed? Using high tech bombers to hit wedding parties is one way. Then try shooting up mosques, children, whatever. It is easy. How do those little people win. It just takes time and courage. We may need to learn from them rather than vice versa.
Afghanistan, Big Oil And The Truth
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It has been revealed in the Indian media that efforts will be made to speed up the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project next weekend, the outcome of which could seal the fate of thousands of British and other Western troops over the coming years. The conference, to be held in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashkhabad, will be the first high-level meeting on the project for almost three years. It follows in the wake of Operation Moshtarak, the military offensive to wrest Afghanistan’s strategically important Helmand Province, through which the proposed pipeline will be built, from Taliban control.The provisional route of the proposed TAPI pipeline is alongside the highway that connects the city of Herat in northwestern Afghanistan to the city of Kandahar in the south. Much of the pipeline’s length takes it through Helmland Province. The importance of the province to the Taliban has much to do with it being that country’s centre of opium poppy production, the sale of heroin not only providing the only income for tens of thousands of local subsistence farmers and their families, but also the funding for the Taliban.
According to the media there are two crucial issues “on the table.” The first is whether Turkmenistan has the gas and oil reserves it claims; the onus being on the Turkmen authorities to provide independent certification for the extent of the gas reserves in the fields to be dedicated to the project. The second is whether the pipeline can be protected from attack from “insurgents” over its operational lifetime.
Common sense dictates that “Big Oil” will not be prepared to invest billions of dollars in the construction of the pipeline unless it is convinced that the operational life of the facility will span decades rather than years, and also that it can be successfully protected from attack. On the basis that reassurances be both offered and accepted on these key points, then a subsequent meeting, at ministerial level, between countries having an interest in the project, will be convened at an unspecified later date.......
This will be bad news for British troops and those of other nations, as the commencement of pipeline construction will inevitably require a British military presence in Afghanistan for years, if not decades, to come. This is because “Big Oil” will almost certainly insist on the presence of professional western troops to protect their multi-billion dollar investment, rather than the notoriously unreliable Afghan security forces.
On a closely related issue, it has been claimed that the US and other Western governments have put pressure on both the Indian and Pakistani governments to support the TAPI project rather that their previously favoured rival, the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) alternative. The suggested IPI pipeline involves transporting Iranian gas eastwards to meet the growing demand for energy from both Pakistan and India, but in particular the latter’s rapidly growing industrial sector. Not only is the IPI alternative considered more secure by the Indian and Pakistani governments than its TAPI rival — it not having to run through a virtual war-zone, but it would also be considerably cheaper to build. Unfortunately for these two governments, the proposal falls foul of Western strategic thinking on three counts.
(1) It will make India and Pakistan dependent upon Iran for a substantial part of their ever-growing energy needs, thus allowing Iran to exercise political influence over those countries.
(2) It will allow IPI to potentially become IPIC — with the pipeline extending further eastwards to China, making even that giant susceptible to Iranian political pressure.
(3) It also makes TAPI redundant leaving Turkmenistan with little option other than to offer its considerable gas and oil reserves to Russia and China, and with it the economic advantages that huge quantities of relatively cheap energy conveys.
The eco-political ramifications of “Big Oil” in the south central Asia region and the strategic importance of Afghanistan to the West, as the gateway for these reserves to the open sea and forward conveyance, are obvious. Despite this, the “British” media and political establishment still maintain the fiction that Afghanistan is all about “bringing democracy to the Afghan people” and about the so-called “War on Terror.”
The British National Party is alone amongst British political parties in correctly identifying the real reasons behind the conflict and taking the moral stand that the lives of British servicemen and women should not be squandered in making even bigger profits for “Big Oil’s” corporate shareholders.
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Here are the two pipelines. Anyone who thinks that hundreds of miles of pipeline can be protected just has not thought it through.
In these areas feuding is a way of life and death.
www.brusselstribunal.org/
Meyer/Pakistan0609.htm
Efforts on to revive TAPI gas pipeline project [ 11 April 2010 ]
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Efforts will be made to revive a gas pipeline project involving India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan during a meeting in Ashkhabad next month, according to a media report on Tuesday. This will be first meeting in three years to discuss the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. Experts from the four countries will meet in Turkmenistan's capital on April 17-18 to discuss the $4 billion pipeline's route and the volume of gas that Turkmenistan can supply to India and Pakistan, the Dawn newspaper quoted its sources as saying.
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The game's afoot and British troops get to guard it. Aren't we lucky? What is the pay off? The main stream media are not telling us.
