Except we don’t station our troops in holy places, we station them in military bases.
Well the matter is, perhaps, arguable. But in terms of the present debate, you’re missing the point entirely. The US military presence wouldn’t be in places such as Saudi Arabia–holy or unholy–if it weren’t for dependence on oil. In that respect, the editorial is, IMO, spot on. Do you doubt it? Don’t you find our energy policy inconsistent with our terrorist concerns?
You wrote: "But again, nothing happened until WTC…"
Isn’t it more correct to say that nothing happened that made a lasting impression on the popular mind until WTC?
Plenty of stuff has been happening. The oil context goes back for decades. Of course, it’s not the immediate cause of the present war, but as others have pointed out, it’s fundamental to the history of this situation. For the same reason, energy independence should be at the very top of our anti-terrorist strategy. Instead our energy policy is counterproductive.
Well, yeah, oil obviously has to do with why we’re there in an incredibly roundabout way. But using that logic, then this is a war for industrialization. After all, oil is a key ingredient to our industrialized economy and so we wouldn’t be in Saudi Arabia if we weren’t industrialized. That doesn’t change the fact that the immediate reason why we are in Afghanistan is not oil, it is terrorism.
But yes, I agree that reducing our dependence on oil for energy is a good thing, for many reasons, including security.
Actually, not the illuminati, but an actual californian company (with the participation of several other companies from various countries) indeed intended to build a pipe-line through Afghanistan (not transporting oil, but gas). I’m lazy just now but I think any websearch with the words “Afghanistan pipe-line” will turn up the name of the company. And of some others since there has been other projects of pipe-lines across Afghanistan, west-east from Iran to Pakistan, for instance.
AFAIK, the project was abandonned when Clinton ordered the bombings of some terrorist bases in Afghanistan (in 1997?).
It has been said that this pipe-line project would have been one of the reasons explaining the continued US support for the Talibans until 97.
No (or perhaps yes, but it doesn’t seem to be what interest the oil companies). But Turkmenistan, just north of it has huge reserves of gas. From the figures I read, shipping this gas out of Turkmenistan would be an extremely juicy business. Building a pipe-line through Afghanistan is only one of the possible solutions. But the only “convenient” one an american company could benefit from (others would include shipping it to Russia, China or Iran), though there is also a project which include building a pipe-line under the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaidjan, Armenia and Tukish Kurdistan. Not exactly a secure and cheap option, either.
Where is the inconsistency there? Are you saying that, in order to be consistent with the desire to not have civilians murdered by terrorists, the United States must refrain from deploying troops overseas and supporting other governments against foreign aggression?
Maybe I’m just idealistic, but I admit that I don’t understand why the U.S. and Saudi Arabia entering into a mutually agreeable deal to have some American soldiers deployed there is “inconsistent” with not wanting your citizens slaughtered. A sovereign country should be able to go about its business, whether or not it involves oil, without being subjected to terrorist attacks.
Rick I think you are misrepresenting (unintentionally) what Mandelstam meant. I think he’s just saying that the reason we are in the Middle East is because of oil. If we reduce our dependence on oil, then we can just let the ME go to pot, or at least reduce our presence there dramatically. Ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure and all that.
I was specifically responding to this sentence:
I don’t agree with him here and I’d like it explained to see if I can understand what he’s trying to say.
Pardon me, Rick, but appears you are being purposely obtuse. The question I posed to Neurotik was, “Don’t you find our energy policy inconsistent with our terrorist concerns?”
You replied:
“Where is the inconsistency there? Are you saying that, in order to be consistent with the desire to not have civilians murdered by terrorists, the United States must refrain from deploying troops overseas and supporting other governments against foreign aggression?”
I am saying no such thing. I am supporting an editorial (which you may not have read as yet) in which it is argued that an important strategy with which to prevent future civilian murder by terrorists is to pursue a different kind of energy policy. To the extent that we fail to pursue such a policy of energy independence–and to do so mainly b/c it isn’t in the interest of the same Big Oil companies that have made Bush, Cheney and their political allies fabulously wealthy–we undermine our own professed “war on terrorism.” That is all.
“A sovereign country should be able to go about its business, whether or not it involves oil, without being subjected to terrorist attacks.”
Naturally. But if going about one’s business means interfering with the sovereignty of others, then you might well have a problem on your hands. That is, the complex question of sovereignty must also be considered from the Saudi people’s point of view.
(Preemptive Disclaimer: I do not, of course, support the terrorist activities Osama bin Laden nor believe that destroying the WTC was a morally justifiable act.)
Consider this: the present Saudi government is a repressive, croneyish, authoritarian regime. It does not enjoy popular support and is propped up by Western (which is to say mainly US) support. So who is the “sovereign” power there? If the West practices what it preaches then the people must always be sovereign. But in the case of the Saudis, popular sovereignty is squelched by an authoritarian regime that the West supports.
From this I think it should be easy to see why the presence of a foreign military power creates disgruntlement amongst an allegedly sovereign people, subject to an undemocratic regime, that has not secured their popular assent in allowing said foreign military power to station troops there.
I don’t claim to know exactly what average Saudis thought about Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait several years back. But I’m willing to bet that their view differed greatly from that of the US mainstream. As we all know by now, it’s disaffected Saudis and their counterparts in other Arab nations–people who do not enjoy the kind of rights or citizen capabilities that you and I enjoy–who sometimes end up supporting the bin Ladens of the world both directly and indirectly.
Now why would the US support an anti-democratic regime were it not for oil interests? We have so many other reasons–environmental ones–for kicking our addiction to oil. Shouldn’t this one be the clincher.
Western industrial nations have such a strong record of technological innovation. It is their crowning glory. Do you honestly believe–if government seriously supported it, that efficiency–conservation and greater development of solar/wind and other alternatives to oil couldn’t be achieved?
Oh and thanks Neurotik for the clarification (which I just saw).
I’m a grrrrl, btw.
Ah Rick, sorry for the simulpost effect. Hope the explanation is now sufficient.
The US and Europe are not only in the middle east, they are in many more places where they have interests. To say the US can isolate itself from the rest of the world is foolish. And the USA and Europe have an interest in stability in other parts of the world. that is in the interest of the US, Europe and ultimately of the countries in those areas. So yeah, this is about terrorism, stability, oil, China, free commerce, western culture, good blowjobs and many other things. Tony Benn is still a loonie though.
Yes, you can’t deny the oil link. The U.S., I have read, has been itching for a long time to oust the Taliban. And they are taking advantage of the present situation to do just that. It may be true that bin Laden was there, but bombing the country under the pretense that we’re just killing anyone who supports terrorism is ridiculous (I’m waiting for us to start bombing Syria. It’ll happen any day now, I’m sure).
The U.S. wants a secure pipeline, and that means we need a puppet government there, which is also why we are so anxious that the region may factionalize into a bunch of smaller nations. The Taliban was not really in our corner before, and I think we could not trust them with upholding bargains when times got tough. They would just threaten cutting off supply unless they got more money.
I can see how you could make a logical argument there - however, I maintain that it’s incorrect to say the current energy policy is “inconsistent with terrorist concerns.” Given that terrorists can and have acted on any one of a thousand damn fool issues, it’s possible to construct an argument that will make everything inconsistent with terrorist concerns. Indeed, many on this board have claimed an opposite argument - that NON-involvement in foreign affairs is to blame for terrorism.
Economic isolationism is not, IMHO, a reasonable avenue to take, much less for the sake of avoiding terrorism, and I do not see an inconsistency between involvement in Saudi Arabia and being concerned about terrorism. You can argue that this or that policy may or may not invite terrorism, but after all, you cannot be chased out of every foreign affairs trouble spot by the threat of violence, or else you’ll end up with closed borders. I could extend your argument to say that open immigration policies are inconsistent with terrorist concerns - after all, open immigration facilitates terrorism, as we saw on Sept 11. Yet even then I’m a huge supporter of liberal immigration policies.
We may just happen to disagree here.
Of course, the West also tries (usually) to abide by the longstanding convention that sovereign nations have to respect the sovereignty of other nations, so it’s a less-than-easy-to-play balancing act.
I don’t know of any legal construct or precendent whereby the West could justify not respecting the soveriegnty of a foreign power merely because it’s not a democracy.
I am not about to say the U.S. is right or wrong to have troops stationed in Saudi Arabia; I think that’s beside the point.
Oh, no doubt. But oil is cheap and plentiful and remarkably efficient. It’s too convenient to break the habit just yet; until there’s an economic need to do so, oil will continue to be the fuel of choice.
I think everything I felt I wanted to say has been said here, but I do want to just add my voice.
Afghanistan doesn’t have much oil, it is true, but it is a juicy piece of territory for a pipeline from other countries in the region. The US’ interest in such a pipeline is great enough that they are willing to work with any government that takes power there in order to work a deal. Which is why, although there wasn’t a huge Taliban Fan Club in Washington, Clinton nonetheless equivocated on supporting them until the embassy bombings.
Oil is a necessary element in keeping things moving, around the world just as much as here in the US. Unfortunately, the methods the US has chosen to keep the oil flowing have been consistently undemocratic. Instead of letting the people of, say, Saudi Arabia choose their own government and entering into open and honest diplomatic negotiations with that government over the exportation of their resources, the policy has been continued support of a deeply reactionary monarchy that guarantees such exports no matter what. It was the same with Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, and the same with Iraq until Saddam Hussein tried to play with the oil market and seize Kuwait. (Who was it who said “If Kuwait grew carrots, we [the US] wouldn’t give a damn”?)
The overarching desire for an iron-clad guarantee of a safe pipeline through Afghanistan, IMO, explains the US’ military and financial support of numerous warlords and other unsavory characters during the Russian invasion (IIRC Zbigniew Brzezinksi boasted about getting involved with them several months before the invasion began), a war which of course ruined an already poor country both politically and economically. It’s why the US threw cautious support behind the Northern Alliance when they first seized control, and did the same for the Taliban when they kicked the NA out. Now, of course, the US has used the horrific events of September 11 as a pretext for going in again - with the result that civilians are again being bombed, the food airlift program is a joke - it displaced larger and more effective programs, the amount of food dropped in total before the suspension of drops wouldn’t have fed even a third of one of the refugee camps in Pakistan for a day, and the packages are similar enough to unexploded cluster bombs that they have to broadcast cautionary radio messages - and the main challenger to power is a group the US isn’t sure they want in power anyway. It’s a mess.
RickJay, you said:
I don’t know of any legal constructs either, but it seems to me Iraq is arguably a precedent.
Eternal, where have you read about the US itching to oust the Taliban? I have read there’s a giant golden cross on the moon, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Second, if the US was so eager to start dropping bombs, why did they give them a month to hand over OBL before starting the attack? Or why didn’t they start trying to oust them after the embassy bombings? In fact, there’s no evidence the government so much as supplied equipment to the Northern Alliance prior to the WTC attack, and even then, not until after the bombing began. I’m sorry, but your “oil link” theory doesn’t reflect reality, unless you can provide more factual information.
Olentzero, just out of curious, how exactly has the United States prevented the Saudis from becoming a democracy? Did the US army help to put down protests? Did they suppress activists? No, sorry, I hardly think that our not actively overthrowing the Saudi royal family equates to us actively preventing them from choosing their own government. Second, judging from the success of all those other Middle Eastern democracies throughout history, that there is no guarantee that a stable democracy would develop. There is a strong possibility that it would simply degenerate into a series of military coups and probably a theocratic government.
As for the theory that the US helped the Afghanis resist the Soviet invasion becuase of oil is one of the most incredibly ludricous things that I have heard. That must have been why we supported the Greeks, South Vietnamese, North Vietnamese in their fight against Communist insurgency and why we supported Latin American militaries dealing with leftists guerillas and governments. All because of oil. Right.
No, but actively supporting an undemocratic, theocratic monarchy created by British mandate after the end of the First World War which does put down protests and suppress activists certainly does. The Saud family guarantees oil to the US and the oil companies. The US likes that guarantee and would prefer to keep backing a government that makes that guarantee, no matter how undemocratic or how much it lacks even the remotest tinge of a popular mandate.
And what does guarantee the development of a stable democracy, pray tell? For democracy to develop, it has to be given a chance to blossom first. The whole Middle East was carved up by British and French fiat after World War One, and the heads of government were installed. Imperialism and colonialism at its worst.
Based on what? What is it about the Middle East that seems to be a deathtrap for democracy, while here in the West it blossoms like kudzu?
:rolleyes: No, the United states took sides in Afghanistan, Greece and Vietnam (among other countries) in order to stop the spread of the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Oil - either production or exportation thereof - is a major factor as far as the Middle East is concerned, but it doesn’t follow that it’s the underlying reason for all US involvement around the globe.
Three responses, sir: Crap. Bullshit. Tommyrot.
As has already been discussed in this thread, Afghanistan itself doesn’t have much in the way of oil or natural gas itself, and its only relation to the energy business is as a pipeline route. The oil and natural gas are in the “stans” - which were part of the U.S.S.R. at the time of the Russian invasion. So, according to your theory, the U.S. was supporting groups fighting the Russians in order to secure a pipeline route from Russian territory. The US would have had to know in 1979 that the USSR would collapse in 1991 - an event that caught the US by surprise in 1991.
The US would have also had to know about the amount of oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. Admittedly, people knew there was oil in Central Asia - the USSR had been pumping oil out of the ground for decades - but the amount of the reserves (to my recollection) was only discovered during the 90s.
Do you see the problem with the conspiracy theory?
And all of this, and Tony Benn’s comments as well, ignore the simple fact that other pipelines from Central Asia already exist or are being built. here is a list and map of other actual and planned pipelines from Central Asia. Do my knowledge (no, I don’t have a cite), the list is old and at least one of the western pipeline routes has been completed. An Afghan route might be cheaper (I’m not sure of that, considering the terrain), but if the money has already been spent on western routes, it defeats the argument that the war is being fought to save money on building a future pipeline.
Add to this the fact that Russia already has sufficient pipeline infrastructure and that the main purpose of building new pipelines is to break the Russian monopoly on pipelines.
Add to this the fact that a Southern route pipeline through Afghanistan would primarly be used to supply oil to India, not the US, and we have real problems with this conspiracy theory.
This is what I get for trying to post covertly at work. I conflated two things. In 1979, the point of US involvement in Afghanistan was to keep the Russians out. Iran was already considered within the Russian sphere of influence and Afghanistan falling would have threatened India and Pakistan.
The only problem I see is labeling it a conspiracy theory. Before 1991, the point was to keep the Russians out. Now, the point is to get the oil out of the Central Asian republics while bypassing Iran and Iraq. I don’t think the US was planning ways they could get oil and gas out of Soviet Central Asia ten years before the Soviet Union went into its final crisis. But I’m still not clear on why thinking that the US involved itself directly in Afghanistan for whatever reasons over the past twenty years is a conspiracy theory.
A few paragraphs from this article in the International Socialist Review outline the argument nicely:
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Olentzero *
No problem with most of the facts in the International Socialist Review article. The argument fails when the ISR can only go so far as to say that
(emphasis mine). It could be said? If that’s as far as the ISR thinks they can go with the argument, I submit that the argument ain’t that strong. I further submit that a potential raid to capture Osama bin Laden in 2000 is not a plan by the US to overthrow the Taliban.
Ah, c’mon, Olentzero. In your earlier post, you said,
That was the hypothesis I was condemning as “conspiracy theory.” Given the level of clairvoyance necessary on the US’s part to make the hypothesis viable, I stand by my characterization.
Sua
I don’t think that even Zbiggy and the most narrow-visioned “bi-polar world” theorists of the Carter and Reagan administrations considered post-revolution Iran (they who declared the USSR the “lesser Satan” and pretty effectively destroyed the Iranian Communist party and the People’s Mujhaddin) in the Soviet sphere of influence.
Sua