Peak Oil: The real reason for the war in Afghanistan – the one the controlled media won’t tell you about!
by Al Remington | December 10, 2009
Land and People by mercia
According to the corrupt politicians who infest the House of Commons and our controlled corporate media, the war in Afghanistan is about “fighting terror” and “bringing democracy to the Afghan people”. Land & People has sought to show, over the last month, that it is nothing of the sort; that the war arises out of the implications of Peak Oil (and Peak Gas). The war, far from being waged for laudable reasons, is nothing less than a sordid exercise to control the oil and gas assets of the Caspian Sea region for naked profit and to deny such to both Russia and China.
Key to the achievement of the former is the proposed construction of a multi billion dollar gas pipeline (and possible oil pipeline) that will bring the gas from the Turmen gas fields, through Afghanistan (via the Helmand Valley) to Pakistan and India, where the gas will be liquefied at the ports and transported to the West, US and Japan by sea.
Curiously, although the controlled media is beginning to drop the pretence that the war in Afghanistan is about either the “War on Terror” or “democracy” it has not, as yet, revealed the involvement of the multinational oil and gas corporations in that region or the vast profits these corporations stand to make from their proposed Trans Afghanistan Pipeline, that is – after British, American, Canadian etc troops have neutralise the “terrorist” threat to the vital pipeline asset. That future multinational corporate profits are dependent upon the blood of our service personnel is, perhaps, one truth too many for the controlled media here in Britain!
For those interested in the pipeline timeline and the reason why we have been sucked into this war of corporate greed, the following outline may prove instructive:
Pipeline timeline.
December 1991: Collapse of the Soviet Union, and the birth of Caspian Sea nations of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. 200 billion barrels of oil in the Caspian Sea region.
1995: Unocal, seeking to build a pipeline across Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (for delivery to energy hungry Asia via the Pakistani Arabian Sea coast), signed an agreement with Turkmenistan for natural gas purchasing rights for transport through a proposed pipeline. Unicol also signed an agreement with Turkmenistan for an oil pipeline.
August 6th, 1996: Unocal and Delta Oil Co. of Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Gazprom and Turkmenistan’s Turkmenrusgaz to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.
October 1997: Unocal and other oil companies formed Central Asia Gas Pipeline Ltd (CentGas) in preparation for building the trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
1997: US Congress passed a resolution declaring the Caspian and Caucasus region to be a “zone of vital American interests”.
December 1997: Unocal invited Taliban representatives to their corporate headquarters in Sugarland, Texas to discuss the pipeline project. They were thereafter invited to Washington for meetings with Clinton Administration officials.
January 1998: Unocal agreement signed between Pakistan, Turkmenistan and the Taliban to arrange funding of the gas pipeline project, with Unocal also considering a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Arabian Sea coast oil pipeline.
1998: Vice President Dick Cheney, then CEO of the giant oil services company, Halliburton, stated: “I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian”.
February 28, 1998: Unocal Vice President International Relations addressed US House of Representatives clearly stating that the Taliban government should be removed and replaced by a government acceptable to his company. He argued that creation of a 42 inch oil pipeline across Afghanistan would yield a Western profit increase of 500% by 2015.
March 1998: Unocal announced a delay in finalizing the pipeline project due to Afghanistan’s continuing civil war.
August 21st, 1998: Unocal temporarily halted development of the pipeline project following the US missile attacks against targets in Afghanistan.
November 1998: The Trade and Development Agency commissioned Enron to perform a feasibility study regarding an east-to-west route, crossing the Caspian Mountains and terminating in Turkey along the Mediterranean. (The route was later considered impractical, as it would cost an estimated $1 billion more than a route through Afghanistan.)
December 1998: Unocal issued a statement that it had withdrawn from the pipeline project on 12/4/98, noting “business reasons.”
May 15th, 2001: Regarding the placement of the Unocal Pipeline, a US Official delivered this ultimatum to the Taliban (via the Pakistani delegation acting as their interlocutors): “Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”
July 2001: Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
October 7th, 2001: Military operations with aerial bombardment began in Afghanistan.
December 22nd, 2001: The US-backed interim government headed by Hamid Karzai took office in Kabul, Afghanistan (Hamid Karzai had formerly functioned as a Unocal Corporate consultant.)
December 31st, 2001: Bush appointed Zalmay Khalilzad as his Special Envoy to Afghanistan. Zhalilzad, like Karzai had earlier functioned as a Unocal consultant, participating in 1997 talks between Unocal and Taliban officials.
February 8th, 2002: Afghanistan’s interim ruler Hamid Karzai and the Pakistan president agreed to revive plans for a trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
Feb 9th, 2002: Turkmenistan officially stated that they hoped their trans-Afghanistan route would be soon built.
May 13th, 2002:Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai to hold talks with his Pakistani and Turkmenistan counterparts regarding a pipeline from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, and through Pakistan to the coast. Mohammad Alim Razim, Afghanistan’s minister for Mines and Industries, stated Unocal was considered “the lead company” to build the pipeline.
May 30th, 2002: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan agreed to construct a gas pipeline to the Indian subcontinent.
Much more detail, including supportive reference sources, may be found by following this link:
www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm
Of course, the situation in Afghanistan, since 2002 has continued to deteriorate, meaning that ever growing numbers of Western troops are required to pacify the country, particularly in and along the proposed pipeline corridor; an example being the British presence in Helmand Province, through which a substantial part of the pipeline is planned to be constructed. In a nutshell, they can’t build their pipeline and reap the rewards until the key areas are free from the threat of “terrorism” – pipelines are notoriously easy targets.
A little detail on Unocal.
Union Oil Company of California, dba Unocal is a defunct company that was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headquartered in El Segundo, California, United States.
On August 10, 2005, Unocal merged with the Chevron Corporation and became a wholly owned subsidiary. Unocal has now ceased operations as an independent company, but continues to conduct many operations as Union Oil Company of California, a Chevron company.
Unocal was one of the key players in the CentGas consortium, an attempt to build the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline to run from the Caspian area, through Afghanistan and probably Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. One of the consultants to Unocal at that time was Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Afghanistan then to Iraq and currently to the UN.
Media mind-control.
Our service personnel are fighting and dying in Afghanistan to “combat terrorism” and for “democracy” we are deliberately misinformed. The crooked politicians and the controlled media clearly want us to believe that lie, but we now know different, don’t we! Is this why there is, apparently, a “D-Notice” on any mention of the pipeline project in the corporate media? Check this out for yourself, go to the site of any national newspaper and search for “Trans Afghanistan Pipeline” – you won’t find much, if anything! Strange that, don’t you think?
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