The problem with the “Caspian Oil” theory as the motive for invading Afghanistan is that Afghanistan does not border the Caspian Sea and has no oil.
If I were an Illuminatus plotting to secure future oil supplies, wouldn’t it make sense to invade a country that had proven oil reserves (like, say, oh I don’t know…Iraq?), rather than a country that had no such reserves (like, say, Afghanistan)?
If I wanted to get my hands on that Caspian Sea oil, why would I blame 9/11 on Afghanistan rather than Azerbaijan or Iran or Turkmenistan? Or if my goal were merely to secure the flow of oil, why not Nigeria or, perhaps Iraq?
The problem with linking 9/11 to Peak Oil conspiracies is that it frankly doesn’t make sense. You start from the observable facts, that 9/11 happened, and then try to figure out how and why the Illuminati used 9/11 to secure the flow of oil.
But if I were an Illuminatus and wanted to secure the flow of oil, and were willing to kill and murder and so forth, why would I cause 9/11? How does it help? OK, it whips up hysteria against Muslims, some of whom happen to be sitting on top of a lot of oil. But that’s way too generic a goal, given that the hysteria against Muslims wasn’t used as an opportunity to attack Muslims that were actually sitting on top of any oil.
Real-life Illuminati like Dick Cheney and Rupert Murdoch and Donald Rumsfeld don’t seem to really work that way. They are clever but not super-clever. They make mistakes. They get voted out of office, or lose money, or drive drunk and crash their Cadillac. They aren’t motivated by greed or even by power but more by status or the feeling of being at the center of things. And they don’t particularly play well with each other.
So if Dick Cheney wanted to steal oil, what the fuck is he doing invading Afghanistan? Iraq, sure. “Must…steal…oil. But how? Those fools don’t realize that Afghanistan is the key to the puzzle! Mwahahahaha! I’ll destroy them all!” If Cheney thought Afghanistan was the key to the puzzle, then he was an idiot who didn’t make any attempt during his 8 years in office to exploit that key.
It looks more like he thought Iraq was the key to the puzzle. So why didn’t he blame 9/11 on Iraq from the beginning? Why didn’t they invent evidence that Iraq was responsible, like they invented evidence later that Iraq had WMDs?
This is at the top of my list of fishy things, from here:
The fact that there appears to be a whole other party involved…somewhere… in this mess to me complicates the process of assigning blame and deciding who to attack. Apparently some of the information must be important for it to inspire a bi-partisan agreement during this period.
The other fishiest thing for me is the trouble I’m having establishing the link between Al Qaeda and the Taliban prior to the Afghan invasion. I’ve been looking at some more material and can believe that now the two are working together. But for before the war, so far all I have been able to find is the assertion (without the evidence) that the Taliban was actively sheltering Bin Laden (as opposed to him being a fugitive, or the Saudis being somehow involved). Bin Laden claims the Taliban knew nothing of the planned attacks. The Taliban were involved in a civil war in the North while Bin Laden is supposedly hiding in south, in areas not particularly under anyone’s control, if anyone knows where he was at all. He even might have been in Pakistan. It isn’t clear that the Taliban could have submitted to US demands even if they wanted to. Sure, they refused the demand, but they were jerks to all non-Muslims at all times, and if they concluded they were going to be attacked no matter what, why show weakness by admitting they can’t do something?
But hey- deliver a convincing cite of the pre-911 AQ-Taliban link and I admit I would have to reconsider my suspicion of the motives for the Afghanistan War.
You are correct about the borders and the oil, however that doesn’t take Afghanistan out of the Caspian equation at all. The pipeline would stretch from Turkmenistan (which apparently is a lot more stable and friendly) through Afghanistan and into Pakistan, and maybe through to India. A link to the Persian Gulf compared to a project this size wouldn’t be a big addition.
There really was a pipeline project planned, by competing companies no less. Check out this article from 1997, and a quote:
As it turns out, the Taliban’s insular ways and general instability killed the project. But it is no fantasy.
[QUOTE=Try2B Comprehensive]
As it turns out, the Taliban’s insular ways and general instability killed the project. But it is no fantasy.
[/QUOTE]
Your cite says gas pipeline. I thought you said an oil pipeline. The proposed pipeline (that never happened) was supposed to link Turkmenistan with Pakistan…not about 1300 kilometers. This is a far cry from an oil pipeline linking the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean, which is what you were suggesting before.
And from your cite:
And this was in 1997. I think you are seriously grasping at straws with this. The article doesn’t list the supposed proposed route, but I seriously doubt it was one that would enable a link from the CS to the IO.
As I stated in the op, this categorical debunking (assuming a participant is following properly) would be a means to end the discussion about some category of CT. It is the final nail in the coffin if you will. In my response to your counter-example I pointed out that it is a very high standard, and that a judgment may have to be made before the standard is reached.
I didn’t mean to imply that common sense is excluded, or good judgment. Heck, you could throw in ‘weighting’ of the evidence i.e. ‘Piece of data x has a 90% chance to mean this, or a 10% chance to mean that. We’re not completely sure’.
Here is a clear statement on the subject which I think will help: Categorical Debunking is a higher standard than what is required for belief.
I found categorizing the CTs a useful frame of the situation. It organizes evidence. When a certain category of evidence appears clearly to preponderate toward a particular conclusion, well then my suspicions are relieved that much and I’m better off examining another category. I have a reasonable belief, and if someone else comes along to actually categorically debunk the competing conclusions, the category is squashed altogether. No suspicion even possible after that.
In the Jack John Jane example, it really isn’t ‘somebody believes that they saw something.’ Jane was fucking John while Jack was robbing the store. She knew John didn’t do it.
I may wax philosophical, but I think it is important to remain rooted in the real world. If your enemy is a wizard who fools you into fucking a clone, your best bet is to figure out how to get on the wizard’s good side.
I think I follow you. That’s right. I’ll add- an event could be proven impossible a priori. Categories involving magic unicorns or really wild Star Trek technology just aren’t going to be considered. Brian Ekers is worried that there will be an infinite number of cases. Maybe so, but the cases will be mostly easily categorizable redundant variations that can be quickly dismissed, and the focus moved to more profitable ideas.
A category can be rendered impossible by the evidence. If you’re worried about absolute confidence or comprehensiveness of the evidence, again, we have to stay rooted in the real world. These kind of consequences render categorical debunking an ideal in many cases.
I dunno. A theory with no evidence isn’t going to hold out for long. Regarding the larger conversation, nobody seems to be presenting solid evidence for the theory that the Taliban could have turned over Bin Laden if they tried. Sometime, when the issue is a big deal, you might consider emulating my patience
Maybe there is a distinction to be made between fooled and mistaken.
But ‘the capacity for people to be fooled by incomplete evidence’ really is critical if you’re suspicious about Big Doings. If some agent (like a government) appears to be causing the evidence to be incomplete, it suggests a motive to fool people.
As for science, remember: it’s just a theory.
Yes! It is one of the things that may ‘shake out’ using this method.
ok.
This idea implies too much subjectivity. I did supply a standard of evidence. Wild scenarios that violate axiomatic principles, like the identity principle, are impossible even if cranks insist they aren’t. To argue this point further, you might as well open a ‘what is reality?’ thread.
That’s right. It relies on certainty regarding ‘proven’ and ‘impossible’. ‘Belief’ is a lower standard. Being fallible, we might as well team up and try hard in cases that are a really big deal.
I did mention good judgment- it is a product of striving for a high standard of proof.
No sign of an evil twin? That’s easy. What sign of an evil twin?
A really big deal? Good question. How about… megadeath. 1 million dead are on the line. There could be other criteria.
Absurd? Hereis an example.
A priori dismissal isn’t a matter of one person’s judgment. It is also a strict standard. Acrimony isn’t necessary. I think cranks can be at least suppressed (let’s not eliminate them though) if they can be shown to be not following along.
I guess so. But a satisfactory theory of categorical debunking isn’t really the point. If I can find the kind of evidence I’m looking for, or construct a fair enough picture, I’m sure my suspicions about our invasion of Afghanistan will be reduced to an acceptable level.
I can’t speak for xtisme, but I think the difference is that refined gasoline would not be shipped overseas to America, thus sort of ruling out any American motive. Someone may correct me if I’m mistaken, though.
But not the ‘pipeline’ you described earlier in the thread. This pipeline was for transporting gas…presumably NATURAL gas. Not oil. Those are two very different things. Also, according to the article it was for transporting gas from Turkmenistan to markets in Pakistan…not transporting oil from the Caspian Sea to the IO for transport onto the world market. Again, these are key differences.
The last thing is that even in 1997 the folks who wrote the article were less than sanguine about the project ever getting off the ground (and they were right). What makes you think that things had changed sufficiently by 2001 to make Bush et al dust off this project to bring gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan? And assuming they were so silly as to do so, why did they do it in such an obviously half assed way?
At any rate, around and around it goes. It’s pretty obvious that nothing is going to convince you that the simplest explanation here is also the one that makes the most logical sense…we attacked and invaded Afghanistan because they were aiding and abbetting the group of people who had attacked us on 9/11. That whole Occam’s Razor thingy…
You keep repeating both of those things.
I came up with some evidence for a petrochemical pipeline.
I keep asking for a solid link between AQ and the Taliban pre 911. I’ve seen a lot of assertions of that, but not something like ‘Here’s this AQ guy, hanging out with this Taliban guy’.
Xtisme: Show me some proof that the Taliban was aiding and abetting AQ pre-911, instead of AQ simply hiding in the mountains. Show me that the Taliban could turn over OBL if they wanted to.
Isn’t it Ockham’s Razor, as in William of Ockham? The popular conception of that isn’t really the original, and anyway, the simplest explanation would jive with the evidence, no? Just cough up something beefier than assertions and your accusations won’t be needed.
It isn’t very far up this thread that I point out Cheney’s big interest in this region. And my link says an American company was one trying to build the pipeline. The Taliban visited America to negotiate the details.
I don’t think American motive stands ‘ruled out’ in this case.
If you want to be nitpicky, Ockham is correct, but Occam is the more common spelling. And it’s jibe. For something to jive with something else would be to dance with it.
Well, they certainly can’t be taken seriously based on what you’ve presented up until now. The pipeline that was proposed offers no support for your motives as it has no strategic importance to the US. People in the oil and gas industry will always have interests and potential projects in areas with oil and gas, but that’s a tenuous link at best unless you have some specifics to show anyone did anything as a result. It was a possible project in a difficult region, one that had serious obstacles to every being built.
You might as well say that there are some Christians in the area, and Chenney has support from the Religious Right, so there’s a motive! You are showing that there are connections, and in this world there’s always going to be connections. To show motive, a real motive, you have to go beyond this hand waving and show concrete vested interests.
To what end? Even if you could show this (and IMO it’s already been refuted by the citations provided here) it doesn’t support anything you’re trying to prove. This doesn’t provide motivation. If the Taliban couldn’t have handed him over or could have but refused to - you end up with the same result: the US invading. The motivation was to get OBL and AQ and the Taliban could either help us or get taken out.
Try2B, as I said upthread I don’t think the there was ever a question of the Taliban directly controlling Al Qaeda or vice versa. The charge always was that they provided shelter for ObL and AQ and would take no action to expel them from Afganistan and, equally, I don’t think anyone has ever argued this was not the case. This was not a story dreamed up by the Bush administration post-9/11, this was just a fact of international relations in the late 90s, well before they came to power.
As for evidence, I don’t know what you expect. The quickest Google search will bring up material showing the Taliban never denied there were AQ bases in the areas of Afganistan they controlled or that ObL was in the country. Natually there is no photograph of a Mullah Omar shaking hands and announcing their joint plans for destroying America - that’s not the sort of relationship proposed. One source you might like is UN resolution 1267 (warning: pdf) from 1999 that imposed sanctions on the Taliban for this very reason. This was passed unanimously by the UN Security Council including Russia and China - not know for their willingness to go along with American lies.
TRY2B, I’ve lurked for a while and I’m reluctant to jump in. But you’ve stated repeatedly that if there was a connection between the Taliban and OBL you could be convinced.
“Show me some proof that the Taliban was aiding and abetting AQ pre-911, instead of AQ simply hiding in the mountains.”
But if all the facts and assertion concerning 9/11 were listed from most accepted to least, the fact that AQ and OBL and linked and comfortably entrenched in Afghanistan would be at the top of the list. Hell, President Clinton, not a rightly or hawk by any means, had 80 cruise missiles fired at OBL and the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1998. I don’t know of any credible source, from News organizations to politicians to governments, that even TRIES to argue that OBL and the Taliban are joined in Afghanistan.
Your continued request for proof of this is frankly absurd. This is such a broadly accepted fact that your insistence for additional proof makes me more and more convinced that you are just trolling on this issue. Because one with even a cursory level of knowledge of global affairs in the last ten years accepts this as fact.
