U.S Foreign Policy in Afghanistan

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Prior to September 11th many Americans did not know where the country of

Afghanistan was or the significance of the now demolished Taliban regime that

was ruling it. Ironically Afghanistan, a mountainous country located in the

heart of Central Asia, has been a main focus of the United States government

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since the Soviet invasion. Ever since then, the United States has been funding

fundamentalism in the region, either through Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, in order

to keep it under control for future United States exploitation. Due to its

strategic positioning for transportation of oil, Afghanistan, mainly through the

use of the Taliban, has been one of the many victims of United States foreign

policy.

The Soviet invasion was the United States first interference in

Afghanistans affairs. In order to stop the communist expansion through the

region, it developed the Afghan Mujaheddin (as resistance), funded and

administered by the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Government

, in the name of Jihad, or holy-war.(www.zmag.org) The United States also wanted

to keep Afghanistan from going under the control of the Soviets in order to have

access to the land for future purposes. After the war, however, the United

States left Afghanistan and the damages behind. Included in these damages were

the group of people we now know as the Taliban, a group of deracinated fanatics

bred in Pakistan. (www.newleftreview.net) The Taliban consisted of Pakistani and

Afghan children left over from the Soviet invasion that were trained in

religious schools, or ''madressas'', in Pakistan.

Acclaimed Pakistani historian and novelist Tariq Ali explains the

United States role in the creation of the Taliban.

It has to be said that the United States and Saudi Arabia were fully involved

in the funding and financing of these schools. I mean, the United States used

Saudi as a conduit to do it. (www.abc.net.au)

Contrary to popular belief, the Taliban are not true Afghans that

were born within the culture, they are merely a group of young boys that were

raised militaristically, with a strong emphasis on seventh century Islam that is

ten times more constrained than the Saudi version.(www.progressive.org) Another

Pakistani journalist captures the Talibans outlook vividly.

These boys were a world apart from the Mujaheddin whom I had got to know

during the 180s- men who could recount their tribal and clan lineages,

remember their abandoned farms and valleys with nostalgia and recounted legends

and stories from Afghan history. These boys were from a generation who had never

seen their country at peace. They had no memories of their tribes, their elders,

their neighbours, nor the complex ethnic mix of peoples they could possibly

adapt to. Their simple belief in messianic, puritan Islam was the only prop they

could hold onto which gave their lives some meaning. (Rashid,000,p. 106)

Afghanistan was recognized for its strategic positioning near the

Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan, the sources of ten percent of the worlds oil and

gas reserves, and the United States wanted to tap into

these.(www.globalresearch.ca)

The Caspian is the centre of the last great oil rush of this

century, laps across a huge mine, liquid gold. Some 00 billion bbl., or ten

percent of the earths potential oil reserves, which cost at todays prices up

to US$4 trillion. Turkmenistan has ranked the fourth largest natural gas reserve

in the world. (www.afghan.org)

For gas exporters, the prices rise as the pipeline is lengthened,

and the shortest way to get the gas and oil from the Caspian region is through

Afghanistan. (www.counterpunch.org) Afghanistan, however, was not stable enough

for the building of a pipeline, and thats why the project was postponed until

the mid-nineties, when the Pakistani and United States governments decided to

throw in the Taliban in hopes for political stability in the region. (Personal

communication, February 8, 00)

In 14, the United States State Department and Pakistans

Inter-services Intelligence agency sought to install a stable regime in

Afghanistan to enhance the prospects for Western oil pipelines. They financed,

armed and trained the Taliban in its civil war against the Northern Alliance.

(www.ccmep.org)

This following quote gives a more in- depth illustration of how the United

States gave support to the Taliban and some advantages of it.

For much of the 10s the United States supported the Talibans rise to

power, both by encouraging the involvement of US oil companies, and by

implicitly tolerating Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two of its key regional

allies, in their direct financial and military support for the Taliban. The

Taliban, which is committed to a particularly primitive version of Islam, had

the added advantage for the US of being deeply hostile to Shia Muslims in

neighbouring Iran.(www.zmag.org)

As early as 15, California- based Unocal proposed the construction

of an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan, south through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to

the Arabian Sea.( www.globalresearch.ca)

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan agreed in 17

to build a large Central Asian Gas pipeline through the less mountainous

southern parts of Afghanistan to Pakistan, and then possibly on to the growing

market of India. The Central Asian Gas Pipeline Consortium, or Centgas, was made

up of Unocal (US, 47% share), Delta Oil (Saudi Arabia, 15% share), Government of

Turkmenistan (Turkmenistan, 7% share), Itochu Oil Exploration (Japan, 6.5%

share), Indonesia Petroleum [INPEX] (Japan, 6.5%), Hyundai Engineering and

Construction (5%), and the Crescent Group (Pakistan, .5 %).(www.zmag.org)

Exactly how much the Centgas consortium agreed to pay the Taliban for transit

fees is unknown, but Unocals competitor, Argentinean- based Bridas, reportedly

offered them $1 billion in transit fees. (www.zmag.org) This following quote

explains how and why the deals were temporarily put on hold.

In 17, Centgas got the gas pipeline contract, but by the time it

was ready to commence work, the political situation in Afghanistan that had

looked promising in US eyes in the mid-10s had deteriorated. Civil war

continued, the Talibans cultural extremism and hostility to women had exploded

in the world media, and Afghanistan had become a major terrorist base. In August

18, the US attacked bin Ladens Afghanistan camps, and four months later,

Unocal pulled out of Centgas. The combination of instability and pressure from

the US government and attacks from shareholders and womens groups in the US was

too much.(www.zmag.org)

The United States soon found that the Taliban were not as reliable

as they thought. There were many more obstacles to overcome now that the Taliban

were in the media, shocking the world with the gruesome oppressions brought on

by their regime. United States Representative Dana Rohrbacher said regarding the

United States support of the Taliban

I am making the claim that there is and has been a covert policy by this

administration to support the Taliban movements control of Afghanistan... This

amoral or immoral policy is based on the assumption that the Taliban would bring

stability to Afghanistan and permit the building of oil pipelines from Central

Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan... I believe the administration has

maintained this covert goal and kept the Congress in the dark about its policy

of supporting the Taliban, the most anti-Western, anti-female, and anti-human

rights regime in the world. It doesnt take a genius to understand that this

policy would outrage the American people, especially Americas

women.(www.mediamonitors.net)

From this quote we can see that the United States has been hiding

intelligence about their policy towards Afghanistan even from their own

Congress.

Even though the Centgas proposal is said to have been dropped, the

series of meetings held between United States, Pakistani, and Taliban officials

after 18, indicates the project was never off the table.

(www.globalresearch.ca)

After Bushs accession to the presidency, various Taliban envoys

were received at the State Department, CIA, and National Security council. The

CIA, which appears, more than ever, to be a virtual extended family of the Bush

oil interests, facilitated a renewed approach to the

Taliban.(www.globalresearch.ca)

Ahmed Rashid states in Taliban the peculiar link between the American people

have with the Taliban regime that the likely do not even know about.

As recently as 1, U.S. taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of

every single Taliban government official, all in hopes of returning to the days

of dollar-a-gallon gas.(Rashid,000,p.175)

September 11th has caused a new turn in the United States approach

to the pipelines. The Bush administration took its opportunity to wage war

against the Taliban, and gain access to the land.(www.globalresearch.ca)

The groundwork for the current U.S. military actions in Afghanistan

was being built up for several years. What comes into focus is that the

September 11the terrorist attacks have provided a qualitatively new opportunity

for the U.S. acting particularly on behalf of giant oil companies, to

permanently entrench its military in the former Soviet Republics of Central

Asia, and the transcaucusus where there are vast oil reserves- the second

largest in the world.(www.globalresearch.ca) Conveniently enough, the now

interim Prime-Minister, Hamid Karzai, is a former Unocal executive,

Vice-President Dick Cheney was, until the end of last year, president of

Halliburton, a company that provides services for the oil industry. United

States National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was, for the past decade,

manager for Chevron, one of the largest refiners and marketers of petroleum

products in the United States.(www.globalresearch.ca)

The United States, has for the past two decades, manipulated

forces such as the Mujaheddin and the Taliban in order to gain control over oil

routes going through Afghanistan. Their primary goal has always been to gain

access to oil that will ensure their way of life for decades to come. This,

however, comes at the cost of an entire country, and the lives of many. Driven

from their homes, the people of Afghanistan have been victims of outside

interference mainly due to their countries strategic positioning in Central

Asia. Although the future of Afghanistan is uncertain, one can only hope that

some regime will come into power to stabilize Afghanistan, not for the purposes

of building oil routes, but to return Afghanistan to what it once was, a country

with a government representative of the history and culture, thats main focus

is not the transport of oil.

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