John Clark wrote:
>
> Brian Atkins <brian@posthuman.com> Wrote:
>
> > Hi John, I think you're the ignorant one in this case. I've read several
> > articles discussing proposed oil pipelines there.
>
> > http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/afghan.html
> > http://www.iacenter.org/nowar_oil.htm
>
> Yes, you're quite right, I stand corrected. There actually was some talk about building
> a pipeline, though I find the idea incredible in such a geography. I'd still be willing to bet
> a modest sum that such a thing will never get built, but I suppose stranger things have
> happened. I certainly don't think a pipe dream like that has the slightest thing to do with
> the current war. Anyway thanks for the correction and education.
>
Hmm, well it makes perfect sense to me- you've got a stash of oil there
perhaps bigger than is under Saudi Arabia, and you've got those young
needy former Soviet republics that desperately want cash. Here's another
article about it I just got today. I don't believe this is the reason
we are at war, but it is still interesting.
>Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 19:30:42 -0400
>To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
>From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
>Subject: Oil, Afghanistan and America's pipe dream
>
>Dave - I thought you and the IPers might enjoy a current Pakistani
>perspective on America's interests and goals beyond halting terrorism
>based in Afghanistan. It certainly might explain why Cheney is remaining
>invisible.
>
> >From Dawn - The Internet Version (Pakistani newspaper)
>
>http://www.dawn.com/2001/10/25/int15.htm
>
>Oil, Afghanistan and America's pipe dream
>By George Monbiot
>
>LONDON: "Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here,"
>Woodrow Wilson asked a year after the First World War ended, "that does
>not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and
>commercial rivalry?"
>
>In 1919, as US citizens watched a shredded Europe scraping up its own
>remains, the answer may well have been no. But the lessons of war never
>last for long.
>
>The invasion of Afghanistan is certainly a campaign against terrorism, but
>it may also be a late colonial adventure. British ministers have warned
>British members of parliament (MPs) that opposing the war is the moral
>equivalent of appeasing Hitler, but in some respects our moral choices are
>closer to those of 1956 than those of 1938. Afghanistan is as
>indispensable to the regional control and transport of oil in central Asia
>as Egypt was in the Middle East.
>
>Afghanistan has some oil and gas of its own, but not enough to qualify as
>a major strategic concern. Its northern neighbours, by contrast, contain
>reserves which could be critical to future global supply. In 1998, Dick
>Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil
>services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a
>region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the
>Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The
>only route which makes both political and economic sense is through
>Afghanistan.
>
><snip>
>
>
>- David
>--------------------------------------------
>WWW Page: http://www.reed.com/dpr.html
-- Brian Atkins Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:16 MDT