Copied from Land and People
By Mercia

Today we return, yet again, to the subject of what is really behind the phoney “War on Terror”, in general and the war in Afghanistan, in particular. For the last month or so, we have been making it clear that the military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war by proxy in Georgia/South Ossetia, the US military presence in Kosovo and the sabre rattling over Iran is about cornering the World’s oil and gas assets, be that oil/gas fields or pipelines, in the cold light of the dawning of the epoch of Peak Oil/Gas. Of course, and for reasons that are only too obvious, the Establishment, through their bought and paid for politicians and media, would rather that we believed it was to do with “bringing democracy” and “fighting terrorism”. What utter hogwash!

One of the many benefits to be had from the Internet is that it helps to bypass the controlled media in this country by facilitating access to the world’s media, some of which is genuinely free and thus able to report the truth. Now, whereas you will never find a mention of the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline project in the “free” British media, you can find references to it in the news organs of other countries.

Today we here at Land & People would like to draw your attention to part of an article that appeared on October 8th in the Asia Times. This news outlet is based in Thailand and its online version is said to be one of the most influential, in terms of news reportage, in South-East Asia.

We quote (the emphasis is ours):

Some things never change. It was “only” eight years ago that the George W Bush administration unleashed its mini-shock and awe over Afghanistan to, in theory, smash the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Stuck inside of Kabul with the Saigon blues again, the “overseas contingency operations” of the Barack Obama administration continue to perpetrate a myth; never shall the words “Afghanistan” and “oil” be mentioned in the same sentence.

Instead, what is played to the jaded Washington galleries is the shabby spectacle of the dance of the generals – the serpent biting its own tail of the show of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, National Security Adviser retired General Jim Jones and General Stanley McChrystal, the top man in Afghanistan. Add to it extended, “analytical” corporate media . . . .

. . . The Obama-friendly crowd is saying that extra troops plus “Afghanization” will be equal to “Vietnamization”, with the likely endgame of the last Black Hawk leaving the embassy in Kabul. Obama in this case also loses in 2012 – but not necessarily.

For McChrystal, a mere drone war plus special ops in Afghanistan will lead to “Chaos-istan”. His leaked report to the Washington Post is ebullient on “securing the population”, good governance, building the Afghan army and police and turning US/NATO soldiers into robocop replicas of Mother Teresa. For McChrystal, now it’s all about hearts and minds – the Pentagon singing We Are the World.

As an exercise in obfuscation, the strategy is working wonders. Not a peep all across US corporate media about the real reasons the US, the Pentagon rather, needs to stay in Afghanistan forever; to protect the troubled Trans-Afghanistan pipeline if it ever gets built; and to encircle and spy on neighbouring strategic competitors Russia and China.

Whatever the industrial-military complex will bend Obama to do, it will look a lot like (a very expensive) Chaos-istan anyway.

Let’s repeat that: “Not a peep all across US corporate media about the real reasons the US, the Pentagon rather, needs to stay in Afghanistan forever; to protect the troubled Trans-Afghanistan pipeline if it ever gets built; and to encircle and spy on neighbouring strategic competitors Russia and China.”

Isn’t that exactly what we have been telling you for the last month or so?