It's a mission which may have some as yet unstated and very key objectives...

There was an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail yesterday which mentioned the following considerations...

Many western oil companies have known for decades that stability would give Afghanistan and its 25 million citizens a chance to tap into one of the world's major oil reserves. The Central Asian republics, with their access to the Caspian Sea, are thought to have reserves of at least 50 billion barrels of oil, with natural gas reserves that might be measured in the trillions of US dollars.

Ahmad Rashid, one of the most respected Afghan watchers, has called the turmoil a "new Great Game", a reference to the time when powers such as colonial Britain and Russia used Afghanistan as a geographic buffer and trade route.

"The scramble for oil and influence by the big powers in the Caspian has been likened to the Middle East in the 1920's," Mr. Rashid wrote in his book: Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. It [Afghanistan] "represented possibly the last unexplored and unexploited oil-bearing region in the world, and its opening up [by the breakup of the Soviet Union] generated huge excitement amongst international oil companies."

The breakaway Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan signed deals with international oil companies after the collapse of the Soviet empire a decade ago, hoping to guarantee rich futures. Afghanistan positioned itself as a transit country for the pipelines that would be needed to take the oil to tankers on the Arabian Sea. [much subsequent local warfare, however, and the nature of the Taliban regime prevented that from happening]

There is [also] the possibility that Afghanistan, a massive piece of geography that is largely unexplored after decades of war, might yield even more massive deposits of oil and natural gas, as well as gold, copper, and other minerals.

"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", notes the India Times, one of India's leading newspapers.

[The article goes on to explain that the fighting between mujahedeen and other groups in the civil war that followed the Soviets' withdrawal in 1989 virtually closed down natural gas production and facilities, and ended deals for the supply of gas to several European countries.]

[This article is BTW not anti-American or anti-western in tone whatsoever, but looks optimistically toward a new regime in Afghanistan after the current war, a regime which will open up all that oil, gas, and other stuff to be got at and fully exploited by the big international companies. Just thought I'd mention that, in case anyone thinks it's an America-bashing article. It's not.]

However, it suggests any number of hugely significant agendas for waging a long and costly war in Afghanistan, quite aside from avenging terrorist attacks or ending international terrorism. No wonder Britain and America are willing to invest in a major effort here. There are trillions of dollars at stake there, and a bunch of very big chickens are indeed coming home to roost.

Osama Bin Laden may be the Lee Harvey Oswald of the present moment...a patsy...or he may not be.

Time will tell...or maybe it won't. We still don't know for sure about Oswald, after all...and probably never will.

The article is in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Oct 22/01, page A4, the journalist is Miro Cernetig, writing from Islamabad, which I believe is in northern Pakistan.

I had to type the whole darn thing out...sigh...could not get it off the net. The parts in brackets [ ] were added by me to help clarify the rest in places.

- LH