GENERAL MCCHRYSTAL'S TORTURE PRISONS STILL GOING STRONG IN AFGHANISTAN

Tom Eley, World Socialist - Recent media reports reveal that the US military continues to carry on torture and illegal detention in Afghanistan at a dungeon known to inmates as "the black prison." The jail, located on the Bagram Air Base next to the notorious Bagram prison north of Kabul, operates under the executive order of President Obama. After entering office, Obama ordered the closure of Central Intelligence Agency prison "black sites"-which were in fact no longer active-but exempted those prisons run by the military's Special Operations, which was headed from 2003 until 2008 by General Stanley McChrystal, now US commander of the Af-Pak theater.

US military officials recently said they had no plans to close the Afghan jail and another like it at the Balad Air Base in Iraq, which they claimed were needed to interrogate "high-value detainees."

Two teenage Afghan boys told the Washington Post that they were beaten, photographed naked, sexually humiliated, denied sleep, and held in solitary confinement by American guards at the prison this year. Interviewed at a juvenile detention center in Kabul, where they have been transferred, "the teenagers presented a detailed, consistent portrait" of the abuse they experienced, the newspaper reported. Their descriptions of the prison were confirmed by two other former prisoners.

In addition to being punched and slapped, Rashid, who the Post describes as "younger than 16," said he was forced to view pornography "alongside a photograph of his mother." He was also forced to strip naked in front of about a half-dozen US soldiers. "They touched me all over my body," he said. "They took pictures, and they were laughing and laughing. They were doing everything."

"That was the hardest time I have ever had in my life," said Rashid, who was arrested this spring. "It was better to just kill me. But they would not kill me. ... I was just crying and crying. I was too young."

On Saturday, the New York Times published interviews with three former inmates who also spoke of the black prison near Bagram. Each informant "was interviewed separately and described similar conditions," the Times notes, and "their descriptions also matched those obtained by two human rights workers who had interviewed other former detainees at the site." One of the three men was arrested months after Obama's inauguration as US president, as were the two teenage boys interviewed by the Post.

All of those interviewed by the Times and the Post maintained that they were not "Taliban." Without being charged with a crime, they were seized by US soldiers, then bound, gagged, and hooded, and taken to the "black prison."

The jail, according to the Times' sources, "consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day." The cells are small; one prisoner said his was only slightly longer than the length of his body. US soldiers throw food into the cells through slots in the door.

Prisoners are exposed to extreme cold and sleep deprivation. The teenage boys told the Post that when they attempted to sleep on the hard floor, US soldiers "shouted at them and hammered on their cells." Prisoners' only respite from this extreme solitary confinement are twice-a-day interrogations, during which some are beaten or humiliated. . .

GOING AFTER A DRY WELLSPRING OF ISLAMIC EXTREMISM

Djelloul Marbrook - CNN asked Denis McDonough, chief of staff of the President's National Security Council, a simple question. Is getting Osama bin Laden at the top of our priority list? His response was so tortured as to single-handedly discredit the President's policy.

Not only did he refuse to man up a straight answer, but in the course of a contortionary explanation he called Afghanistan the "wellspring" of Islamic extremism. And so, he concluded, sending more troops and spending money we don't have is imperative.

What is the man talking about? Even if you believe the government's official account of the 9/11 attacks on the United States you can't get around the fact that most of the attackers were Saudi Arabians.

The President himself made matters worst later in the day by referring to Afghanistan as the "epicenter" of Al Qaeda's projection of power throughout the world. Never mind all the other iterations of Al Qaeda in other parts of the world. . .

Islamic extremism is pervasive throughout the Muslim world. Its roots are many. The reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, whose teachings form the basis of the Saudi state, is a major influence. Salafi thinking-a strict interpretation of the origins and meaning of Islam-is an even more important influence on extremist thinking. Salafist groups are numerous on the Arabian peninsula, throughout North Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia.

But neither Abd al Wahhab nor Salafism can be said of themselves to be the cause of terrorism. Rather, it is the interpretation of such teachings by mullahs and imams and instructors in madrasahs that has inspired jihadist terrorism. It can't even be said that the concept of jihad by itself is the cause of terrorism. And in most cases the money behind these madrasahs is Saudi.

Poverty, hopelessness and social injustice in Muslim countries, coupled with imperialist policies in Israel and here, all have combined to incite terrorist responses. . .

If a man like McDonough can be so dead wrong, so blinkered, so waffling, how can this Bush Redux policy be trusted? If we truly believe that Islamic fundamentalism is rooted in Afghanistan, that Afghanistan is its wellspring, God help us. Salafists threaten every government in North Africa. Algeria is locked in a protracted civil war with its fundamentalists. Iran and Saudi Arabia are run by fundamentalists, and Pakistan has its own homegrown Taliban.

If McDonough believes what he told CNN, he's a dangerous man-to us, not to our enemies.

The Afghani picture is far more complicated than Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and President Obama have made out. It involves the long-running conflict between India and Pakistan, it involves their dispute over Kashmir, it involves the opium trade, tribalism, corruption, and Iranian connivance. . .

The real value of war is debt, and the real beneficiary of war is the holder of that debt, meaning banks. Is this a concept so subtle and elusive that an honest government should find itself unable to discuss it with its people? Either a government serves us or it serves the banks, and given our experience in the last 18 months it's no wonder the government doesn't want to discuss the real beneficiary of war.

Afghanistan is the playground of conspirators, each with his own agenda. And we're there to do what? To straighten everything out? To correct thousands of years of history? To resolve the Pakistani-Indian dispute, to settle the Kashmiri issue, to help Pakistan quell its own Taliban, to make a pot of tribes a modern state? What?

The concentrated efforts of Russia, China and the United States together couldn't do that, and we're going to try it alone? . . .

REPORT: OBAMA USING BLACKWATER FOR PAKISTAN ASSASSINATIONS

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091207/scahill
Stephen C. Webster, Raw Story - The Obama administration is using mercenaries with the firm formerly known as Blackwater to kidnap and assassinate high value targets in Pakistan, according to a published report.

The program, operated out of the US Joint Special Operations Command, "is so 'compartmentalized' that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence," an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the program told The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill.

Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is also allegedly involved in intelligence collection for a drone bombing campaign in the country. . .

A Blackwater spokesman told The Nation that none of its forces are operating in Pakistan. However, a "former senior executive at Blackwater" told Scahill that Xe's mercs are indeed working in Pakistan, sometimes employed by the country's government to operate alongside soldiers. The arrangement allows the Pakistani government to deny any U.S. military presence in the country, while allowing them to tap former U.S. special forces members for high-risk missions. Scahill added that the CIA is also employing the firm in parallel operations.

"Targeted killings are not the most popular thing in town right now and the CIA knows that," Scahill's source reportedly said. "Contractors and especially [Joint Special Operations Command] personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality. They're not accountable to anybody and they know that. It's an open secret, but what are you going to do, shut down JSOC?"

During the Bush administration, the JSOC was reportedly being commanded by the vice president's office, effectively making them Dick Cheney's own "executive assassination squad," according to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.

President Obama's top official on the occupation of Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, oversaw the JSOC from September 2003 to August 2008.

MIDEAST ANALYSIS

SUMS IT UP PRETTY GOOD

OBAMA CAVES TO ISRAEL ON SETTLEMENTS

Anti-War - In May, the Obama Administration was pointedly demanding that the Israeli government abandon all construction in all of its settlements, insisting that no exceptions could be tolerated and the move was a must for peace.

It took less than six months for that position to be abandoned in its entirety. The hawkish Netanyahu government is now relishing a major victory over the US as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Israel, which has angrily rejected those demands, for their commitment to the peace process.

It seems that President Obama's ambition for Palestinian statehood has given way, in the face of furious anti-Obama protests across Israel, to a 180 degree turn back to the unquestioningly pro-Israel position of the past several US presidents.

Now the Palestinian Authority, once eagerly praising the Obama Administration for pressing Israel, says that Clinton is actually undermining efforts to resume the stalled talks. Since Israel has repeatly ruled out any peace talks with the PA in recent weeks, there wasn't much to undermine, but their frustration is clear.

AMERICA'S FORGOTTEN AFGHAN DISASTER

KILLER DRONES MAY VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW

AFP - US drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions, the UN's top investigator of such crimes said.

"The problem with the United States is that it is making an increased use of drones/predators (which are) particularly prominently used now in relation to Pakistan and Afghanistan," UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston told a press conference.

"My concern is that drones/predators are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law," he said. . .

"The onus is really on the United States government to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary extrajudicial executions aren't in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons," he added.

Since August 2008, around 70 strikes by unmanned aircraft have killed close to 600 people in northwestern Pakistan.

"I would like to know the legal basis upon which the United States is operating, in other words. . . who is running the program, what accountability mechanisms are in place in relation to that," Alston said.

"Secondly, what precautions the United States is taking to ensure that these weapons are used strictly for purposes consistent with international humanitarian law.

"Third, what sort of review mechanism is there to evaluate when these weapons have been used? Those are the issues I'd like to see addressed," the UN official said.

KARZAI'S BROTHER ALSO TIED TO CIA

We have previously reported the Afghan president's ties to the CIA. It seems he was not alone.

NY Times - Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country's booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.'s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai's home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America's war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

The ties to Mr. Karzai have created deep divisions within the Obama administration. The critics say the ties complicate America's increasingly tense relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who has struggled to build sustained popularity among Afghans and has long been portrayed by the Taliban as an American puppet. The C.I.A.'s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.

More broadly, some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful figure in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.

PAKISTANI SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES TO BE CLOSED

Anti-War - At least six people were killed and 42 others wounded in a pair of suicide bombings at the International Islamic University in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the latest in a rising string of attacks across the nation in the past several weeks.

The latest attack took the nation by shock, leading the government to quickly announce that it was shutting down every school and college across the entire nation. All public and private education in the nation will hence be shuttered until further notice.

This is a major change from the assorted military offensives across the last several years, where the conflict was largely restricted to a small region, and even when an attack did occur, it left most of the nation untouched.

Not so this time, as every student across the country will wake up tomorrow realizing that the war is having a direct impact on their life.

KARZAI: THE STORY THE MEDIA DOESN'T TELL YOU

Wayne Madsen, 2002 - According to Afghan, Iranian, and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the El Segundo, California-based UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan. Karzai, the leader of the southern Afghan Pashtun Durrani tribe, was a member of the mujaheddin that fought the Soviets during the 1980s. He was a top contact for the CIA and maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence Service interlocutors.

Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency's interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal, according to Middle East and South Asian sources. When one peers beyond all of the rhetoric of the White House and Pentagon concerning the Taliban, a clear pattern emerges showing that construction of the trans-Afghan pipeline was a top priority of the Bush administration from the outset. Although UNOCAL claims it abandoned the pipeline project in December 1998, the series of meetings held between U.S., Pakistani, and Taliban officials after 1998, indicates the project was never off the table.

During the late 1990s, Karzai worked with an Afghani-American, Zalmay Khalilzad, on the CentGas project. Khalilzad is President Bush's Special National Security Assistant and recently named presidential Special Envoy for Afghanistan. Interestingly, in the White House press release naming Khalilzad special envoy, no mention was made of his past work for UNOCAL. Khalilzad has worked on Afghan issues under National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, a former member of the board of Chevron, itself no innocent bystander in the future CentGas deal . . . Khalilzad's efforts complemented those of the Enron Corporation, a major political contributor to the Bush campaign. Enron, which recently filed for bankruptcy in the single biggest corporate collapse in the nation's history, conducted the feasibility study for the CentGas deal . . . A chief benefactor in the CentGas deal would have been Halliburton, the huge oil pipeline construction firm that also had its eye on the Central Asian oil reserves. At the time, Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney. After Cheney's selection as Bush's Vice Presidential candidate, Halliburton also pumped a huge amount of cash into the Bush-Cheney campaign coffers. And like oil cash cow Enron, there were Wall Street rumors in late December that Halliburton, which suffered a forty per cent drop in share value, might follow Enron into bankruptcy court.

Bill Gertz, Geostrategy, 2001 - U.S. officials said Afghanistan's new interim leader, Hamid Karzai, has a long history of contacts with both the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence service, known as ISI. The connections are said to be the reason Karzai was the candidate most acceptable to the United States and Pakistan. Karzai will head the new government over the next six months. Karzai and several brothers own a chain of restauraunts in Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore. They have residences in Quetta, Islamabad and Peshawar . . . Karzai met the late CIA Director Bill Casey when Casey made one of his numerous trips to Pakistan during the U.S. covert operation to back mujahideen rebels against the Soviet Union during the 1980s. His ties to ISI are based on connections to former ISI Director Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan and date to the early 1980s. Karzai, a moderate Msulim, and his father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, were befriended by ISI in the early 1980s.

Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun, 2001 - - Last week's much-ballyhooed Afghan "unity" conference in Germany produced precisely what this column predicted: a sham "coalition" government run by the Northern Alliance. One of the CIA's Pashtun "assets," Hamid Karzai, who represents no one but himself, was named prime minister. There was no other real Pashtun representation, though they comprise half the population . . .

FATAH WORKS OUT DRAFT DEAL WITH HAMAS

Global Post - Warring Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have drafted an agreement to end their two-year civil war. But U.S. diplomats oppose the deal. Here's why.

The planned agreement, a copy of which Global Post obtained from senior Palestinian officials this week, goes some way toward validating Hamas control of the Gaza Strip. The 25-page document in Arabic also orders Palestinian security forces, currently being trained by a U.S. general, to "respect the right of the Palestinian people to resist and to defend the homeland and the citizens," suggesting that attacks against Israeli targets won't be countered. . .

Israel is not likely to strike a deal with Fatah if it believes its "partners" in the "peace process" are making nice to Hamas.

The measures laid out in the document suggest Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has succumbed to recent domestic pressure over his handling of a U.N. report critical of Israel's tactics in the war in Gaza at the turn of the year. Abbas was criticized for dropping plans to push for hearings against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the U.N. report. He has revived those plans, but now also risks a confrontation with the U.S. over a deal that concedes much ground to the Islamist party. . .

Fatah officials say they signed the agreement already this week, though they added that the text of the deal hasn't been made public. Hamas has yet to sign the document. By Oct. 25, according to the document, Abbas will ink an order scheduling elections for June next year.

Hamas drove Abbas's Fatah faction out of the Gaza Strip by force of arms in spring 2007, when the Islamist party also controlled parliament and the prime minister's post. Since then, Abbas has ruled from Ramallah with a prime minister Hamas says is illegitimate. Both sides have tortured opponents and, according to human rights groups, Hamas has murdered Fatah supporters in Gaza.

The tension between the two factions has been a factor in the stalled peace talks with Israel. The U.S. has pushed for a deal that would end the civil conflict, though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Ramallah earlier this year that any agreement must not allow Hamas a role in Palestinian government. Since Fatah was driven out of Gaza, it has paid wages to government workers there, but ordered them to stay at home.

In repeated negotiations under the auspices of the United States' Egyptian allies, Fatah appears now to have conceded a governing role to Hamas. The agreement calls for a "joint committee" to act as a transitional government over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The committee would be staffed by Fatah and Hamas officials. . .

CANCER CASES SOUTH OF BAGHDAD SOAR

Al Jazeera - Doctors in Iraq are recording a sharp rise in the number of cancer victims south of Baghdad. Sufferers in the province of Babil have risen almost tenfold in just three years.

Locals blame depleted uranium from US military equipment used in the 2003 invasion. But the link has been difficult to prove, prompting them to demand an investigation.

In this part of Iraq, 500 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2004. That figure rose to almost 1,000 two years later. In 2008, the number of cases increased sevenfold to 7,000 diagnoses. This year, there have so far been more than 9,000 new cases . . . and the number is rising.

OBAMA JOINS ISRAEL NUKE COVERUP

Agence France Presse - Pesident Obama has reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said.

The officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, said Mr. Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May.

Under the understanding, the U.S. has not pressured Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which could require Israel to give up its estimated several hundred nuclear bombs.

Israel had been nervous that Mr. Obama would not continue the 1969 understanding because of his strong support for nonproliferation and priority on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. . .

There is no formal record of the agreement nor have Israeli nor American governments ever publicly acknowledged it. In 2007, however, the Nixon library declassified a July 19, 1969, memo from national security adviser Henry Kissinger that comes closest to articulating U.S. policy on the issue. That memo says, "While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact.". . .

A Senate staffer familiar with the May reaffirmation, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said, "What this means is that the president gave commitments that politically he had no choice but to give regarding Israel's nuclear program. However, it calls into question virtually every part of the president's nonproliferation agenda. The president gave Israel an NPT treaty get out of jail free card."

TOP WRONG BELIEFS ABOUT IRAN

Juan Cole

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the US

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of "no first strike." This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to "wipe it off the map."

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of 'no first strike' to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.

Belief: But didn't President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to 'wipe Israel off the map?'

Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that "this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

Belief: But aren't Iranians Holocaust deniers?

Actuality: Some are, some aren't. Former president Mohammad Khatami has castigated Ahmadinejad for questioning the full extent of the Holocaust, which he called "the crime of Nazism." Many educated Iranians in the regime are perfectly aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. In any case, despite what propagandists imply, neither Holocaust denial (as wicked as that is) nor calling Israel names is the same thing as pledging to attack it militarily.

Belief: Iran is like North Korea in having an active nuclear weapons program, and is the same sort of threat to the world.

Actuality: Iran has a nuclear enrichment site at Natanz near Isfahan where it says it is trying to produce fuel for future civilian nuclear reactors to generate electricity. All Iranian leaders deny that this site is for weapons production, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly inspected it and found no weapons program. Iran is not being completely transparent, generating some doubts, but all the evidence the IAEA and the CIA can gather points to there not being a weapons program. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate by 16 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed with fair confidence that Iran has no nuclear weapons research program. This assessment was based on debriefings of defecting nuclear scientists, as well as on the documents they brought out, in addition to US signals intelligence from Iran. While Germany, Israel and recently the UK intelligence is more suspicious of Iranian intentions, all of them were badly wrong about Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction and Germany in particular was taken in by Curveball, a drunk Iraqi braggart.

Belief: The West recently discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant in a mountain near Qom.

Actuality: Iran announced Monday a week ago to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun work on a second, civilian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom. There are no nuclear materials at the site and it has not gone hot, so technically Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it did break its word to the IAEA that it would immediately inform the UN of any work on a new facility. Iran has pledged to allow the site to be inspected regularly by the IAEA, and if it honors the pledge, as it largely has at the Natanz plant, then Iran cannot produce nuclear weapons at the site, since that would be detected by the inspectors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted on Sunday that Iran could not produce nuclear weapons at Natanz precisely because it is being inspected. Yet American hawks have repeatedly demanded a strike on Natanz.

Belief: The world should sanction Iran not only because of its nuclear enrichment research program but also because the current regime stole June's presidential election and brutally repressed the subsequent demonstrations.

Actuality: Iran's reform movement is dead set against increased sanctions on Iran, which likely would not affect the regime, and would harm ordinary Iranians.

Belief: Isn't the Iranian regime irrational and crazed, so that a doctrine of mutally assured destruction just would not work with them?

Actuality: Iranian politicians are rational actors. If they were madmen, why haven't they invaded any of their neighbors? Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. Israel invaded its neighbors more than once. In contrast, Iran has not started any wars. Demonizing people by calling them unbalanced is an old propaganda trick. The US elite was once unalterably opposed to China having nuclear science because they believed the Chinese are intrinsically irrational. This kind of talk is a form of racism.

GROWING THE WAR WITHOUT END

Rick Rozoff, Global Research - Over the past week U.S. newspapers and television networks have been abuzz with reports that Washington and its NATO allies are planning an unprecedented increase of troops for the war in Afghanistan, even in addition to the 17,000 new American and several thousand NATO forces that have been committed to the war so far this year.

The number, based on as yet unsubstantiated reports of what U.S. and NATO commander Stanley McChrystal and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen have demanded of the White House, range from 10,000 to 45,000. . .

An additional 45,000 troops would bring the U.S. total to 113,000. There are also 35,000 troops from some 50 other nations serving under NATO's International Security Assistance Force in the nation, which would raise combined troop strength under McChrystal's command to 148,000 if the larger number of rumored increases materializes.

As the former Soviet Union withdrew its soldiers from Afghanistan twenty years ago the New York Times reported "At the height of the Soviet commitment, according to Western intelligence estimates, there were 115,000 troops deployed." Nearly 150,000 U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan would represent the largest foreign military presence ever in the land. . .

McChrystal's evaluation also indicates that the war will not only escalate within Afghanistan but will also be stepped up inside Pakistan and may even target Iran. . .

As to who is responsible for the thirty-year disaster that is Afghanistan, McChrystal's assessment contains a sentence that may get past most readers. It is this:

"The major insurgent groups in order of their threat to the mission are: the Quetta Shura Taliban (05T), the Haqqani Network (HQN), and the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HiG)."

The last-named is the guerrilla force of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the largest recipient of hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of U.S. dollars provided by the CIA to the Peshawar Seven Mujahideen bloc fighting the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan from 1978-1992.

While hosting Hekmatyar and his allies at the White House in 1985 then President Ronald Reagan referred to his guests as "the moral equivalents of America's founding fathers."

Throughout the 1980s the CIA official in large part tasked to assist the Mujahideen with funds, arms and training was Robert Gates, now U.S. Secretary of Defense.

Last December BBC News reported: "In his book, From the Shadows, published in 1996, Mr Gates defended the role of the CIA in undertaking covert action which, he argued, helped to win the Cold War. In a speech in 1999, Mr Gates said that its most important role was in Afghanistan.

"'CIA had important successes in covert action. Perhaps the most consequential of all was Afghanistan where CIA, with its management, funnelled billions of dollars in supplies and weapons to the mujahideen, and the resistance was thus able to fight the vaunted Soviet army to a standoff and eventually force a political decision to withdraw,' he said."

Now according to McChrystal the same Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who was cultivated and sponsored by McChrystal's current boss, Gates, is in charge of one of the three groups the Pentagon and NATO are waging ever-escalating counterinsurgency operations in South Asia against.

To make matters even more intriguing, former British foreign secretary Robin Cook - as loyal a pro-American Atlanticist as exists - conceded in the Guardian on July 8, 2005 that "Bin Laden was. . . a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.". . .

Pentagon chief Gates' 27 years in the CIA, including his tenure as director of the agency from 1991-1993, is being brought to bear on the Afghan war according to the Los Angeles Times of September 19, 2009, which revealed that "The CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence 'surge' that will make its station there among the largest in the agency's history, U.S. officials say.

"When complete, the CIA's presence in the country is expected to rival the size of its massive stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those wars. Precise numbers are classified, but one U.S. official said the agency already has nearly 700 employees in Afghanistan. . .

The dramatic upsurge in CIA deployments in South Asia won't be limited to Afghanistan. Neighboring Pakistan will be further overrun by U.S. intelligence operatives also.

On September 12 a petition was filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan contesting the announced expansion of the U.S. embassy in the nation's capital. Pakistani media have been reporting that the United States plans to deploy a large number of marines with the plan to expand its embassy in Islamabad."

The challenge was organized by Barrister Zafarullah Khan, who "said that Saudi Arabia was also trying to get 700,000 acres of land in the country."

He was quoted on the day of the presentation of the petition as warning "Giving away Pakistani land to U.S. and Arab countries in this fashion is a threat for the stability and sovereignty of the country" and "further added that the purpose of giving the land to U.S. embassy was to establish an American military base. . .

Just as troops serving under NATO command in the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan now include those from almost fifty countries on five continents, so the broadening scope of the war is absorbing vaster tracts of Eurasia and the Middle East.

America's longest armed conflict since that in Indochina and NATO's first ground war threatens to not only remain the world's most dangerous conflagration but also one that plunges the 21st Century into a war without end.

OBAMA AND BAGRAM

Human rights lawyer Tina Foster talks to Spiegel about detainee abuses in the US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan and her disappointment with the Obama administration.

SPIEGEL: Right after taking office, US President Barack Obama announced his plan to close Guantanamo. It looked like he would reverse the human rights policies of the Bush administration. Will the detainees the US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan now be given legal rights?

Foster: Unfortunately, the US government did not change its position on Bagram when Obama took office. The government still claims that our clients are not entitled to any legal protections under US law. It maintains that even those individuals who they brought to Bagram from other countries, and have held without charge for more than six years, are still not entitled to speak with their attorney, and they are arguing now that they are not entitled to have their cases heard in US courts.

SPIEGEL: But there has been an important legal decision stating that detainees in Bagram have the right to legal representation.

Foster: The April 2 decision of Judge John D. Bates, a George Bush appointee, was that our clients were entitled to have their cases reviewed by the court. That was a huge success.

SPIEGEL: Is the Obama administration complying with the Bates decision in providing each detainee a representative?

Foster: Before we could present any evidence or proceed in their cases, the Obama administration appealed the decision to the court of appeals, and is now arguing that it should be overturned. The announcement was intended to generate a positive media spin on the "new" procedures at Bagram, which were announced at this time because the government's filing in the court of appeals was due the following day. If you look at the actual procedures, you will see that the detainees will not be given any legal representation. Instead, the Department of Defense is saying that it will send non-lawyer "representatives" to question the detainees and look into their cases. Those individuals are not officers of the court, and have no duty of confidentiality or loyalty to the detainee.

SPIEGEL: But what then is the difference between the Bush and Obama administrations?

Foster: There is absolutely no difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration's position with respect to Bagram detainees' rights. They have made much ado about nothing, in the hope that the courts and the public will not examine the issue more closely. . .

SPIEGEL: Can you compare the human rights situation in Bagram with that in Guantanamo?

Foster: What most people don't realize is that Bagram has always been far worse than Guantanamo. One thing that has not been stressed enough in media accounts regarding Guantanamo is that much of the abuse that the Guantanamo prisoners suffered actually happened at Bagram. Many of our former clients were subjected to sexual humiliation and assault akin to Abu Ghraib-style torture. In terms of torture and abuse, Bagram has a far worse history than Guantanamo. There are at least two detainees who died there after being tortured by US interrogators. One of them was strung up by interrogators by his wrists, and then beaten until his legs were "pulpified," according to the military's own autopsy report. Our clients who have been released more recently report exposure to extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation and other torture that is still ongoing. Bagram has always been a torture chamber -- there is no way that the United States will ever be able to rid it of that reputation unless it discontinues the practice of holding detainees incommunicado and in secret.

SPIEGEL: Major General Douglas M. Stone, who was charged to investigate Bagram, has been quoting as saying that many of the detainees in Bagram are innocent.

Foster: I think General Stone's report confirms what we have learned over the years from our clients -- most of the people at Bagram are being imprisoned unjustly. General Stone reviewed the military's own records and determined that, of the 600 current detainees at Bagram, there are 400 innocent people that the US government should not be detaining. It's obvious that the procedures that the military is using to determine who to imprison and who to release are completely flawed. What is completely baffling is why these 400 innocent individuals have not been released. It doesn't make sense to hold innocent people in our custody -- it's completely counterproductive and undermines the entire war effort.

WINNING THE HEARTS AND MINDS? DIDN'T WE TRY THAT ONCE?

Franklin C. Spinney, Counterpunch - The centerpiece of the General Stanley McChrystal's "new" counterinsurgency strategy of "clear, hold, build" is the accelerated training and expansion of the Afghan Army and Police Forces, in addition to a major increase in the size of our forces (according to some reports, by as much as 45,000 troops). The strategic goal is to establish an expanding zone of security for the Afghan people that would enable a steady build up of aid and development efforts to improve their well being with jobs, new infrastructure, new education systems, new agricultural techniques, etc., than thereby win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. McChrystal is asking the President of the United State to approve a pathway to almost certain disaster. Consider please the following:

Of course, there is nothing new in General McChrystal's strategy, it is merely a rehash of the failed oil spot (tache d'huile) strategy, first tried by French colonialist General Louis-Hubert-Gonsalve Lyautey, and then tried again under various guises, again without lasting success, by the Americans in Vietnam.

Indeed, many readers will recall that a necessary condition of our failed Vietnam strategy was the exactly same strategic determination that we could not win the hearts of minds of the indigenous population without providing the people with a competent army and a government that could protect them from the depredations of the insurgents. In Vietnam, this idea was at the center of our early involvement. . . In the end, the US-trained Vietnamese army, like the US-installed Vietnamese government, was a corrupt Potemkin-like sham, and once it became clear that both had lost the supporting prop of American firepower, both collapsed and surrendered unconditionally in April 1975, only two months after North Vietnamese launched a final offensive, which the North Vietnamese planners had assumed it would take two years to achieve victory. . .

It is now clear that General McChrystal's staff and the Pentagon are trying to maneuver Mr. Obama onto the horns of a dilemma by leaking their demands for an immediate escalation of the war, or otherwise risking defeat

Franklin “Chuck” Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon.

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT SAYS ISRAEL PROMISED HIM NO ATTACK ON IRAN

Reuters - Israel promised Russia it would not launch an attack on Iran, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview in which he described such an assault as "the worst thing that can be imagined."

Israel has hinted it could forcibly deny Iran the means to make an atomic bomb if it refuses to suspend uranium enrichment and has criticized Russia for agreeing to supply to Tehran S-300 anti-aircraft weapons that could complicate an attack.

In an interview with CNN, Medvedev denied Moscow was backing Iran but said it had the right to supply defensive weapons and said sanctions against Tehran should only be used as a last resort.

An attack would lead to "a humanitarian disaster, a vast number of refugees, Iran's wish to take revenge and not only upon Israel, to be honest, but upon other countries as well," Medvedev said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

"But my Israeli colleagues told me that they were not planning to act in this way and I trust them."

During a meeting in the Russian resort of Sochi in August, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel would not attack Iran, Medvedev said. After the meeting, Peres told journalists Medvedev had promised to reconsider a contract to sell S-300s to Iran.

"When he visited me in Sochi, Israeli President Peres said something important for us all: 'Israel does not plan to launch any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country and we will not do this'," Medvedev said.

Asked about the possible delivery of S-300s, Medvedev said Russia had the right to sell defensive weapons to Iran.

"Our task is not to strengthen Iran and weaken Israel or vice versa but our task is to ensure a normal, calm situation in the Middle East," Medvedev said.

MAJOR BRITISH TRADE UNIONS CALL FOR PARTIAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

Jerusalem Post - Britain's 6.5-million member labor federation, the Trade Union Congress, has adopted a policy calling for a consumer-led boycott and sanctions campaign against Israel at their annual conference in Liverpool. The TUC policy calls on the British Government to condemn the "Israeli military aggression and the continuing blockade of Gaza" and end arms sales to Israel, which it said reached a value of L18.8 million in 2008. It also calls for a ban on goods originated from the settlements and an end to the European Union's preferential trading terms with Israel. . . Maintaining that it was not a boycott call, Barber added: "This is not a call for a general boycott of Israeli goods and services which would hit ordinary Palestinian and Israeli workers, but targeted, consumer-led sanctions directed at businesses based in, and sustaining, the illegal settlements." The GC said that each union would interpret how to implement the boycott and encouraged affiliation to a radical anti-Israel group.

KARZAI'S DRUG BOSS BROTHER PROVIDING INTELLIGENCE TO U.S.

Jeff Stein, Spy Talk - Evidently taking a page from the Boston Irish mob - and countless crooks before him - Afghan President Hamid Karzai's younger brother has become a snitch for U.S. intelligence, according to an allegation buried deep in a Washington Post story. If true, the connection with U.S. intelligence would go a long way to explaining why Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful official in Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar Province, remains free despite a widespread consensus that he is one of Afghanistan's major drug kingpins. . . Efforts by U.S. and even Afghan counternarcotics officials to persuade President Karzai to remove his brother from Kandahar, a strategic prize for both sides in the war, second only to Kabul -- have failed.

UN REPORT: ISRAEL SHOULD FACE WAR CRIMES PROSECUTION

Independent, UK - Israel targeted "the people of Gaza as a whole" in the three-week military operation which is estimated to have killed more than 1,300 Palestinians at the beginning of this year, according to a UN-commissioned report. A UN fact-finding mission led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone said Israel should face prosecution by the International Criminal Court unless it opened independent investigations of what the report said were repeated violations of international law, "possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" during the operation.

Using by far the strongest language of any of the numerous reports criticising Operation Cast Lead, the UN mission, which interviewed victims, witnesses and others in Gaza and Geneva this summer, says that, while Israel had portrayed the war as self-defense in response to Hamas rocket attacks, it "considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole. In this respect the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support," the report said.

AFGHAN TROOP INCREASE OF THE MONTH

Washington Post - The nation's top military officer told Congress on that the U.S. war in Afghanistan "probably needs more forces" and sought to reassure lawmakers skeptical of sending additional troops that commanders were devising new tactics that would lead to victory over a resurgent Taliban. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that 2,000 to 4,000 additional military trainers from the United States and its NATO partners will be needed to "jump-start" the expansion of Afghan security forces and strongly suggested that more U.S. combat troops will be required to provide security in the short term. "A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably needs more forces," Mullen said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

MAJORITY OF U.S. FORCE IN AFGHANISTAN ARE MERCENARIES

Op Ed News - Contractors now make up 57 percent of the Pentagon's Afghanistan personnel. The highest ratio of contractors to military personnel recorded in any war in the history of the United States now exists in Afghanistan, according to a recently released report by a congressional research group. Of particular importance, the report concludes that “abuses and crimes committed by armed private security contractors and interrogators against local nationals may have undermined US efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

AF-PAK WAR VIEW DEPENDS ON AGE, GENDER

Progressive Review - According to a new Harris poll there is a major gender and age gap on the issue of Afghanistan. In fact, only 13% of women (as opposed to 37% of men) want us to commit more troops there. And while 44% of those over 55 want more troops, only 23% of those under 35 agree. Added together, less than 50% of Americans want more troops or the same level we have now.

Here are the percentages by groups of those who want more troops or the same level as now:

• 57% male
• 33% female

• 42% 18-34 year olds
  
• 51% 35-44 year olds
• 61% 45-54 year olds
• 65% 55 and older

OBAMA CAVES TO ISRAEL ON EXTREME IRAN SANCTIONS

Anti-War - In a deal scheduled to be finalized during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to London, Israel will accept a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. The deal came as a result of President Obama caving to virtually every demand made by Israel. In essence, the Israeli government will freeze new construction in the West Bank, potentially for as much as a year, while continuing ongoing construction projects. East Jerusalem will reportedly not be part of this freeze. In return, the United States will reportedly back massive new sanctions against the Iranian government and will stop criticizing the growth of the settlements. . . The ability to get those sanctions, which would in essence cut Iran entirely out of the international oil and gas market and cripple their economy, passed in the United Nations is in serious doubt. Both Russia and China have previously objected to the most harsh sanctions, and this push is likely to be no different

OBAMA ADMIN ENGAGED IN MAJOR WAR NEWS CENSORSHIP

Stars & Stripes - As more journalists seek permission to accompany U.S. forces engaged in escalating military operations in Afghanistan, many of them could be screened by a controversial Washington-based public relations firm contracted by the Pentagon to determine whether their past coverage has portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light.

U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan acknowledged to Stars and Stripes that any reporter seeking to embed with U.S. forces is subject to a background profile by The Rendon Group, which gained notoriety in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq for its work helping to create the Iraqi National Congress. That opposition group, reportedly funded by the CIA, furnished much of the false information about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction used by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.

Rendon examines individual reporters' recent work and determines whether the coverage was "positive," "negative" or "neutral" compared to mission objectives, according to Rendon officials. . .

"We have not denied access to anyone because of what may or may not come out of their biography," said Air Force Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a public affairs officer with U.S. Forces Afghanistan in Kabul. "It's so we know with whom we're working."

U.S. Army officials in Iraq engaged in a similar vetting practice two months ago, when they barred a Stars and Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division because the reporter "refused to highlight" good news that military commanders wanted to emphasize.

Professional groups representing journalists are decrying the Pentagon's screening of reporters. . .

"The whole concept of doing profiles on reporters who are going to embed with the military is alarming," said Ron Martz, president of the Military Reporters and Editors association.

TOP OFFICIALS: AFGHAN SITUATION DETERIORATING

Helene Cooper, NY Times - American military commanders with the NATO mission in Afghanistan told President Obama’s chief envoy to the region this weekend that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operate across borders. . . The possibility that more troops will be needed in Afghanistan presents the Obama administration with another problem in dealing with a nearly eight-year war that has lost popularity at home, compounded by new questions over the credibility of the Afghan government, which has just held an as-yet inconclusive presidential election beset by complaints of fraud.

Reuters - The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating along with U.S. public support for the war, Washington's top military officer said as he left open the possibility of another increase in troops. "I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over the past couple of years -- that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated," said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . A new Washington Post-ABC News poll showed a majority of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting, and just a quarter say more troops should be sent there. . . Obama already plans to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 68,000 by year's end, more than double the 32,000 the United States had there at the end of 2008. Mullen declined to comment on U.S. media reports that McChyrstal might recommend additional increases of 15,000, 25,000 or 45,000 troops.

MAJORITY SAY AFGHAN WAR NOT WORTH FIGHTING

Washington Post - A majority of Americans now see the war in Afghanistan as not worth fighting and just a quarter say more U.S. troops should be sent to the country, according to a new Washington Post- ABC News poll. . . Republicans (70 percent say it is worth fighting) and conservatives (58 percent) remain the war's strongest backers, and the issue provides a rare point of GOP support for Obama's policies. . . Among all adults, 51 percent now say the war is not worth fighting, up six points since last month and four points above the previous high, reached in February. Less than half, 47 percent, say the war is worth its costs. Those strongly opposed (41 percent) outweigh strong proponents (31 percent). Opposition to the Iraq war reached similar levels in the summer of 2004 and deteriorated further, through the 2006 midterm elections, becoming issue No. 1 in many congressional races that year.

WHY IS AFGHANISTAN SO IMPORTANT

John Foster, Toronto Star - A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.

Afghanistan is adjacent to Middle Eastern countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. And though Afghanistan may have little petroleum itself, it borders both Iran and Turkmenistan, countries with the second and third largest natural gas reserves in the world. (Russia is first.)

Turkmenistan is the country nobody talks about. Its huge reserves of natural gas can only get to market through pipelines. Until 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union and its gas flowed only north through Soviet pipelines. Now the Russians plan a new pipeline north. The Chinese are building a new pipeline east. The U.S. is pushing for "multiple oil and gas export routes." High-level Russian, Chinese and American delegations visit Turkmenistan frequently to discuss energy. The U.S. even has a special envoy for Eurasian energy diplomacy.

Rivalry for pipeline routes and energy resources reflects competition for power and control in the region. Pipelines are important today in the same way that railway building was important in the 19th century. They connect trading partners and influence the regional balance of power. Afghanistan is a strategic piece of real estate in the geopolitical struggle for power and dominance in the region.

Since the 1990s, Washington has promoted a natural gas pipeline south through Afghanistan. The route would pass through Kandahar province. In 2007, Richard Boucher, U.S. assistant secretary of state, said: "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan," and to link South and Central Asia "so that energy can flow to the south." Oil and gas have motivated U.S. involvement in the Middle East for decades. Unwittingly or willingly, Canadian forces are supporting American goals.

The proposed pipeline is called TAPI, after the initials of the four participating countries (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India). Eleven high-level planning meetings have been held during the past seven years, with Asian Development Bank sponsorship and multilateral support (including Canada's). Construction is planned to start next year. . .

Ukraine is the main gateway for gas from Russia to Europe. The United States has pushed for alternate pipelines and encouraged European countries to diversify their sources of supply. Recently built pipelines for oil and gas originate in Azerbaijan and extend through Georgia to Turkey. They are the jewels in the crown of U.S. strategy to bypass Russia and Iran.

The rivalry continues with plans for new gas pipelines to Europe from Russia and the Caspian region. . . Meanwhile, Iran is planning a pipeline to deliver gas east to Pakistan and India. Pakistan has agreed in principle, but India has yet to do so. It's an alternative to the long-planned, U.S.-supported pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.

A very big game is underway, with geopolitics intruding everywhere. U.S. journalist Steven LeVine describes American policy in the region as "pipeline-driven." Other countries are pushing for pipeline routes, too. . .

John Foster is an energy economist and author of "A Pipeline Through A Troubled Land - Afghanistan, Canada, and the New Great Energy Game," published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

THE BACK STORY

THE HIDDEN OIL WARS

A WAR ABOUT OIL. . .AND WE LOST

Peter Symonds, Bangkok Post, 2002 - A little publicized agreement signed in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad has highlighted once again the real motives behind the US military intervention into Afghanistan - access to and domination of Central Asian oil and gas. The deal between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan establishes the basis for construction of a $1.9 billion pipeline from the Turkmen natural gas fields at Daulatabad through to the south-western Pakistani port of Gawadar. A parallel oil pipeline as well as road and rail connections are also being considered, along with processing facilities at Gawadar to enable the shipment of liquefied gas. All three leaders - new Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Turkmen President Saparmurad Niyazov - anticipate substantial benefits from the project. War ravaged Afghanistan is hoping to garner at least $100 million a year in government revenue from transit fees and to create up to 10,000 jobs in the construction and maintenance of the pipeline and associated industries. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank have already indicated backing for the project.
The lion's share of the profits, however, will not go to the three countries but to the transnational energy giants that have been scrambling for ways to exploit the huge oil and gas reserves in Central Asia - the world's second largest after the Middle East. . .
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to the US oil industry are well known, but the connections do not stop there. Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan is Zalmay Khalilzad, also a key adviser to the National Security Council. In the mid-1990s, Khalilzad was the Unocal consultant hired to push through the pipeline project in Afghanistan. Ten days after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 1996, he wrote a comment in the Washington Post extolling the virtues of the pipeline for Afghanistan. But he added, referring to the Taliban: "These projects will only go forward if Afghanistan has a single authoritative government.". . .

Most of the major energy giants including Chevron Texaco, Exxon Mobil, BP and Halliburton have invested substantial sums in the region. Over the last five years, total US investment in Central Asia has risen from incidental sums to $20 billion, with the largest amounts destined for oil-rich Kazakhstan. And while it pays lip service to the "war on terrorism'', [A recent article in Business Week] pointed to the underlying purpose of the US military presence: "What is fast evolving is a policy focused on guns and oil. The guns are to protect the local regimes from Islamic radicals and to provide a staging area for attacks on Afghanistan. . . The guns, of course, will also protect the oil _ oil that Washington hopes will lessen the West's dependence on the Persian Gulf and also lift the nations of the Caucasus and Central Asia out of their grinding poverty."

BBC, 2002: Afghanistan hopes to strike a deal later this month to build a $2 billion pipeline through the country to take gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. Afghan interim ruler Hamid Karzai is to hold talks with his Pakistani and Turkmenistan counterparts later this month on Afghanistan's biggest foreign investment project, said Mohammad Alim Razim, minister for Mines and Industries told Reuters. "The work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck at the coming summit," Mr Razim said. The construction of the 850-kilometre pipeline had been previously discussed between Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, US oil company Unocal and Bridas of Argentina. The project was abandoned after the US launched missile attacks on Afghanistan in 1999. Mr Razim said US energy company Unocal was the "lead company" among those that would build the pipeline, which would bring 30bn cubic meters of Turkmen gas to market annually. Unocal - which led a consortium of companies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Japan and South Korea - has maintained the project is both economically and technically feasible once Afghan stability was secured. "Unocal is not involved in any projects (including pipelines) in Afghanistan, nor do we have any plans to become involved, nor are we discussing any such projects," a spokesman told BBC News Online.

Daniel Fisher Forbes, 2002 - It has been called the pipeline from hell, to hell, through hell. It's a 1,270-kilometer conduit, 1.2 meters in diameter, that would snake across Afghanistan to carry natural gas from eastern Turkmenistan-with 700 billion cubic meters of proven reserves-to energy-hungry Pakistan and beyond. Unocal of the U.S. and Bridas Petroleum of Argentina vied for the $1.9 billion project in the 1990s. Now, with the collapse of the Taliban, oil executives are suddenly talking again about building it. "It is absolutely essential that the U.S. make the pipeline the centerpiece of rebuilding Afghanistan," says S. Rob Sobhani, a professor of foreign relations at Georgetown University and the head of Caspian Energy Consulting. The State Department thinks it's a great idea, too. Routing the gas through Iran would be avoided, and Central Asian republics wouldn't have to ship through Russian pipelines. MORE

Larry Chin Online Journal, 2002 - For years, Enron (along with Unocal, BP Amoco, Exxon, Mobil, Pennzoil, Atlantic Richfield, Chevron, Texaco, and other oil companies) has been involved in a multi-billion dollar frenzy to extract the reserves of the three former Soviet republics, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. . . According to Alexander's Oil & Gas Connections, Enron signed a contract in 1996, giving it rights to explore 11 gas fields in Uzbekistan, a project costing $1.3 billion. The goal was to sell gas to the Russian markets, and link to Unocal's southern export pipeline crossing Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. . . Enron recently conducted feasibility studies for a $2.5 billion trans-Caspian gas pipeline to be built jointly with General Electric and Bechtel. Enron's goal was to link this pipeline to another line through Afghanistan.

As described in many accounts, notably the recently published "Osama Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth" by Jean Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasique, a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) consortium led by Unocal had plans for a 1,005 mile oil pipeline and a 918 mile natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. This project stalled because of the political instability in Afghanistan.

Former Unocal lobbyist Hamid Karzai now heads a bombed and gutted Afghanistan. Bush's US envoy is Zalmay Khalizad, another former Unocal representative, who helped draw up the plans for the original CentGas pipeline. . . If Enron had not made the mistake of collapsing, Kenneth Lay and his team would be in the thick of it. MORE

Ranjit Devraj, Asia Times, 2002 - Where the "great game" in Afghanistan was once about czars and commissars seeking access to the warm water ports of the Persian Gulf, today it is about laying oil and gas pipelines to the untapped petroleum reserves of Central Asia . . . "US influence and military presence in Afghanistan and the Central Asian states, not unlike that over the oil-rich Gulf states, would be a major strategic gain," said V R Raghavan, a strategic analyst and former general in the Indian army. Raghavan believes that the prospect of a western military presence in a region extending from Turkey to Tajikistan could not have escaped strategists who are now readying a military campaign aimed at changing the political order in Afghanistan, accused by the United States of harboring Osama bin Laden . . . [A] study by the Institute for Afghan Studies placed the total worth of oil and gas reserves in the Central Asian republics at around US$3 trillion at last year's prices. Not only can Afghanistan play a role in hosting pipelines connecting Central Asia to international markets, but the country itself has significant oil and gas deposits. During the Soviets' decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s . . . According to observers, one problem is the uncertainty over who the beneficiaries in Afghanistan would be - the opposition Northern Alliance, the Taliban, the Afghan people or indeed, whether any of these would benefit at all . . . The "coalition against terrorism" that US President George W Bush is building now is the first opportunity that has any chance of making UNOCAL's wish come true. If the coalition succeeds, Raghavan said, it has the potential of "reconfiguring substantially the energy scenarios for the 21st century." MORE

Peter Schweizer, USA Today, 2002 - Now that the war in Afghanistan is essentially over, pulling off the country's reconstruction will not be easy. . . As the United States looks toward rebuilding Afghanistan, geography may prove to be the country's best asset. North and west of Afghanistan are enormous oil and natural gas reserves in countries such as Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. The region's available but untapped energy resources are second only to those of the Middle East. Production in this area now is about 1 million barrels a day. But daily production could rise to 3.4 million barrels or more by 2010 if a way is found to get the energy onto world markets. That's where Afghanistan becomes an intriguing option. During the 1990s, several groups of international energy companies considered building a massive pipeline from Central Asia to the sea, where ships could transport the oil to the world. One option was a pipeline to Turkey via Azerbaijan. Another was a pipeline across Iran to the Persian Gulf. A third option, considered by Unocal and others, was to construct a 1,040-mile pipeline that would cross Afghanistan to the Pakistani coast. The Afghan option made the most sense geographically, but never really went anywhere because of concerns about the Taliban and political instability. But the Bush administration now has the unique opportunity to push through the Afghan option. Almost everyone would reap enormous rewards:
In Afghanistan, it would create jobs and generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually in fees. It also would help Afghanistan, which suffers from chronic energy problems but has no known oil or gas reserves, develop its coal resources. Additionally, with the relative prosperity that pipeline money could bring, many Afghans might reduce their incentives to produce illicit drugs such as opium.

Building the pipeline would help Pakistan, where an oil terminal would have to be built. Pakistan has stood firmly with us during the war on terrorism. Like Afghanistan, the country is desperately in need of economic development.

The Central Asian governments of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan would also benefit economically.
The oil pipeline would send a powerful political message to the region: The United States will support those countries that support it.

The United States would benefit from greater world energy production, which brings down prices. Lower oil prices are like a tax cut. They put more money in the pockets of U.S. consumers and businesses and strengthen the economy. MORE

Julio Godoy, Inter Press Service, 2001 - In the book "Bin Laden, la verite interdite" ("Bin Laden, the forbidden truth"), the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over obstruction. Brisard claim O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it".

The two claim the U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. They affirm that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime "as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia", from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean . . . Confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, "this rationale of energy security changed into a military one", the authors claim. "At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs'," Brisard said in an interview in Paris.

According to the book, the government of Bush began to negotiate with the Taliban immediately after coming into power in February. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad. To polish their image in the United States, the Taliban even employed a U.S. expert on public relations, Laila Helms. The authors claim that Helms is also an expert in the works of U.S. secret services, for her uncle, Richard Helms, is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The last meeting between U.S. and Taliban representatives took place in August, five weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington, the analysts maintain. MORE

Ben Aris & Ahmed Rashid, Telegraph, London - For all the talk of international alliances and the future of Afghanistan, the real game in Central Asia is control of the region's lucrative oil supply. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia has kept Central Asia's huge oil and gas reserves bottled up by restricting access to export pipelines - all of which run over Russian territory. The United States has been pushing alternative pipeline projects out of the region that do not run over Russian soil. The US National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice, assured the Kremlin last week that Washington had no designs on Central Asia even as a new oil pipeline started up, strengthening Russia's influence in the region . . . Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have some of the largest reserves of oil and gas in the world, but Russia cut them off from international markets as all their export pipelines run over Russian territory. The US tried aggressively to break the Kremlin's stranglehold over the region, but Dr Rice's comments were the strongest sign yet that Washington is prepared to concede Russia's dominance of the region . . . The war in Afghanistan may have brought an end to America's ambitions in the area as a quid pro quo for Russia's co-operation in the US-led campaign. But when peace and a stable government eventually comes to Kabul, US oil companies will be looking closely at Afghanistan because it offers the shortest route to the Gulf for Central Asia's vast quantities of untapped oil and gas. The companies have invested $30 billion in developing oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan but exporting to the West involves lengthy and expensive pipelines. Washington is currently proposing a $3 billion pipeline from Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, through Georgia, to Turkey's Mediterranean coast - a lengthy and expensive project. US companies could build a similar pipeline from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Karachi at half the cost, if the next Afghan government can guarantee its security. Russia fears that is exactly what the Americans want and, now that US troops are based in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, they will not leave. MORE

Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, London. 2001 - A new and potentially explosive Great Game is being set up and few in Britain are aware of it. There are many players: far more than the two - Russia and Britain - who were engaged a century ago in imperial rivalry in central Asia and the north-west frontier. And the object this time is not so much control of territory. It is the large reserves of oil and gas in the Caucasus, notably the Caspian basin. Pipelines are the counters in this new Great Game. There are plans for pipe-lines through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, Bulgaria, Macedonia - and Albania. Traditional rivalries between east and west are complicated by other threats - from Chechen separatists, Kurds, Albanian guerrilla groups, the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and, throughout the region, Islamic groups whose activities are causing deep concern to Moscow, Tehran and Washington alike . . . This is the region both west and east have their eyes on. It is rich in untapped oil and gas while US reserves are running down, China is desperate for more oil, and no one outside the Gulf wants to rely on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iraq - which have the biggest oil reserves.

Department Of Energy, 2001: Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems from its geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This potential includes proposed multi-billion-dollar oil and gas export pipelines through Afghanistan, although these plans have now been thrown into serious question . . . On November 29, 1999, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a report on Afghanistan which listed the country's major problems as follows: civil war (which has caused many casualties and refugees, and which has devastated the country's economy), record opium production, wide-scale human rights violations, and food shortages caused in part by drought. According to the 2000 CIA World Factbook, Afghanistan is an extremely poor, landlocked country, highly dependent on farming and livestock raising (sheep and goats). Currently, the country is experiencing a severe drought . . . The Soviets had estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at up to 5 trillion cubic feet. Afghan gas production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s. However, due to declining reserves from producing fields, output gradually fell to about 220 Mmcf/d by 1980 . . . Soviet estimates from the late 1970s placed Afghanistan's proven and probable oil and condensate reserves at 95 million barrels. Despite plans to start commercial oil production in Afghanistan, all oil exploration and development work were halted after the 1979 Soviet invasion. Afghanistan's various provinces receive refined products from neighboring countries . . . Besides oil and gas, Afghanistan also is estimated to have significant coal reserves (probable reserves of 400 million tons) . . .

John J. Maresca, Vice President Unocal in testimony before a House committee, February 12, 1998: Today we would like to focus on issues concerning this region, its resources and U.S. policy: The need for multiple pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas. The need for U.S. support for international and regional efforts to achieve balanced and lasting political settlements within Russia, other newly independent states and in Afghanistan . . . The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves, much of them located in the Caspian Sea basin itself. Proven natural gas reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil -- enough to service Europe's oil needs for 11 years. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels . . .

[An] option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. One obvious potential route south would be across Iran. However, this option is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route option is across Afghanistan, which has its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades. The territory across which the pipeline would extend is controlled by the Taliban, an Islamic movement that is not recognized as a government by most other nations. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company. In spite of this, a route through Afghanistan appears to be the best option with the fewest technical obstacles. It is the shortest route to the sea and has relatively favorable terrain for a pipeline. The route through Afghanistan is the one that would bring Central Asian oil closest to Asian markets and thus would be the cheapest in terms of transporting the oil.

Unocal envisions the creation of a Central Asian Oil Pipeline Consortium. The pipeline would become an integral part of a regional oil pipeline system that will utilize and gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The 1,040-mile-long oil pipeline would begin near the town of Chardzhou, in northern Turkmenistan, and extend southeasterly through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast on the Arabian Sea. Only about 440 miles of the pipeline would be in Afghanistan. This 42-inch-diameter pipeline will have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per day. Estimated cost of the project -- which is similar in scope to the Trans Alaska Pipeline -- is about $2.5 billion . . .

The pipeline would benefit Afghanistan, which would receive revenues from transport tariffs, and would promote stability and encourage trade and economic development. Although Unocal has not negotiated with any one group, and does not favor any group, we have had contacts with and briefings for all of them. We know that the different factions in Afghanistan understand the importance of the pipeline project for their country, and have expressed their support of it.
A recent study for the World Bank states that the proposed pipeline from Central Asia across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea would provide more favorable netbacks to oil producers through access to higher value markets than those currently being accessed through the traditional Baltic and Black Sea export routes.

Sabrina Tavernise, NY Times, 2001: Breaking a logjam that has held up Western-led oil development in Russia for years, Exxon Mobil said that it was ready to spend $4 billion over five years to develop large offshore oil and gas fields in far eastern Russia. The project, which could grow to $12 billion over its life of 30 to 40 years, will be Russia's largest single foreign investment so far. In recent months the Russian government has been passing measures to clear the way for the project, which had languished since the mid- 1990's awaiting new regulations and commitments to fixed tax rates that Exxon Mobil called vital. But the crucial new development was the warming of relations between Moscow and Washington after last month's pledge by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to support the United States in its war against terrorists in Afghanistan.

Frank Viviano, San Francisco Chronicle, 2001: Beyond American determination to hit back against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, beyond the likelihood of longer, drawn-out battles producing more civilian casualties in the months and years ahead, the hidden stakes in the war against terrorism can be summed up in a single word: oil. The map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world's principal energy sources in the 21st century. The defense of these energy resources - rather than a simple confrontation between Islam and the West - will be the primary flash point of global conflict for decades to come, say observers in the region. "You cannot discuss the violence of this region outside the context of oil, " says Vakhtang Kolbaya, deputy chairman of the parliament in the republic of Georgia. "It's at the heart of the problem." . . . The combined total of proven and estimated reserves in the region stands at more than 800 billion barrels of crude petroleum and its equivalent in natural gas. By contrast, the combined total of oil reserves in the Americas and Europe is less than 160 billion barrels, most of which, energy experts say, will have been exhausted in the next 25 years. It is inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America's Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Arco; France's Tota Fina Elf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the region. There is no avoiding such a linkage or the rising tide of anger it will produce in developing nations already convinced they are victims of a conspiratorial collaboration between global capital and U.S. military might.

OBAMA CLAIMS AF-PAK WAR IS "FUNDAMENTAL TO THE DEFENSE OF OUR PEOPLE"

Washington Times - Owning an increasingly difficult struggle in Afghanistan, President Obama told 5,000 veterans to brace for a daunting and perhaps bloody period in a war the United States has no choice but to fight. "This is not a war of choice; this is a war of necessity," Mr. Obama told a gathering of the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars, the nation's largest military veterans group. "This is not only a war worth fighting; it is fundamental to the defense of our people.". . . "The insurgency in Afghanistan didn't just happen overnight, and we wont defeat it overnight," Mr. Obama said. "This will not be quick. This will not be easy.". . . The Obama administration is in the midst of an escalation in Afghanistan, with 62,000 American troops now on Afghan soil, including 21,000 whom he dispatched as part of a "surge." The president's speech appeared in part to be aimed at preparing the country for the rough road ahead