Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.
There is no credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind.
Joseph Conrad, Nostromo ( 1904 )
The withdrawal of British troops from Sangin area of Helmand Province in Afghanistan has been occasioned by the usual propaganda that somehow it was unquestionably all 'worth it', despite one-third of British troop deaths happening there in a decade long war in the space of the last year alone
As usual, there is almost no indication in the British media looking at what is crucially at stake.
Continually we have been told it is about a whole host of auxiliary aims that sound great on paper and yet do not add up to a convincing picture of why British soldiers are really fighting and dying in Afghanistan.
The War in Afghanistan is not centrally concerned with "The War on Terror". Al Qaida can operate as Jason Burke has suggested from anywhere in the world as a "network of networks". It has not since 2001 operated from Afghanistan.
The Taliban that NATO is fighting was never the same as the Taliban , all lumped together as "Jihadi Islamists" by messianic neoconservative propagandists for War whether New Labour's Denis MacShane or the Conservative Michael Gove and his "seamless totalitarian threat"
Even if NATO were to pull out, there is no necessary reason at all why the Taliban would suddenly sweep back into power. A civil war could ensue and the deaths of many Afghan civilians would ensue. But that is not actually the reason why the West in in Afghanistan now.
Michael Williams has maintained in
The Guardian,The presence of the British in Helmand has been a constant thorn in the side of the Taliban. The region is extremely important for the cultivation and production of narcotics and the overall weakness of our presence there encouraged the Taliban to continue their onslaught.
What White omits is that the region is extremely important as it lies across the route where the TAPI pipeline is scheduled to be built as and when the security situation is good enough for the project to commence. This is why Helmand has been a conflict hot spot. But this is not news.
The withdrawal of British troops in this part of Helmand was decided back in July in the light of the constant rise in British casualty rates inflicted by the Taliban and the fact that before this the US had to pour extra troops into the area to support the British.
It did not have the resources to hold on to this area without help and it is still unclear to the British public why this blood sacrifice was made:unless it is reported that the TAPI pipeline is set to run through Helmand and is a central part of US and NATO geostrategy.
The majority of shareholders in the Asian Development Bank that agreed to finance the TAPI pipeline project in 2008 are from the USA, Canada, Australia. Plus assorted European nations all doing their bit to advance their interests in energy diversification and promoting "Western" hegemony in Central Asia.
The centrality of the TAPI pipeline accounts for France's return to NATO in 2009 and the transformation of it into an organisation explicitly committed to energy security. There is little doubt that the war in Afghanistan has the completion of this project as a key objective.
Naturally, "public diplomacy" never stresses the TAPI pipeline as no Western nation wants to admit that the casualties, both of NATO troops and Afghans are all in the cause of a pipeline. But any look at the planned map of the TAPI pipeline shows it will go from Turmenistan through Helmand into Pakistan.
That way it curves around the mountains to the immediate east. The Taliban is obviously able to hide there and conduct raid from high positions which is why this energy corridor will have to be massively fortified and continually guarded for a number of years.
Just yesterday the final deals concerning the TAPI were signed by the mutual partners who will receive gas from it. News on the pipeline is copious in the business news. Few journalists seem willing or able to make the connections between it and the war.
As the Financial Express reported just today in Framework pact for TAPI pipeline inked
Heads of agreements for the proposed gas sales purchase agreement for the 1,680-km Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) were signed by partner countries in Ashgbat on Monday. This follows two-day deliberations of TAPI’s steering committee meeting (SCM) in the Turkmenistan capital.
Those in denial about the TAPI pipeline continually obfuscate by arguing that the TAPI does not bring gas directly to the West: it does not. But geopolitically it fits in with the need to drive a wedge between Iran, China and Russia, as well as removing the domination Russia has on the flow of gas west.
Partly, the TAPI pipeline can be seen as a move to integrate Afghanistan into the regional economy and as enlightened self interest, since a "secure and stable Afghanistan" also means that Western companies will be able to start mining the hard mineral deposits discovered in 2007.
Indeed it is a fact that US oil conglomerates have been steadily improving their position in Turkmenistan but the TAPI remains a pipe dream due to the continued fighting in Afghanistan. The surge is designed to finalise security and allow these geopolitical and energy interests to be pursued.
Little that Michael Williams argues here is backed up by solid evidence: the opium crop cannot be destroyed in Afghanistan on a permanent basis as it is simply too profitable and Western consumer demand for heroin as insatiable as oil. Reduce the supply, and the price merely increases.
John Foster, a British Canadian energy economist formerly of BP and the World Bank, has written in detail on the TAPI pipeline, most recently in The Globe and Mail ( The Disconnect between Pipelines and Transparency September 3 2010 ) It is full of brilliant information and analysis free from the cant and humbug of "Liberal Interventionist" travellers.
Western politicians rarely talk openly about pipelines or trade routes. After visiting Afghanistan in May, German president Horst Köhler created a hullabaloo with a statement that linked German military deployment and trade routes. He resigned, and claimed later he was referring to sea routes, not Afghanistan.
Clearly, politicians have to be careful not to be "off message". The task of journalists should have been to clarify what has been at stake in Afghanistan. The evidence is there but so few have been prepared to ask themselves and others hard questions. There is much we still do not know. But there is no chance of getting to the truth unless people ask logical questions.
Curiously, Michael Williams's propaganda is contrasted to what some returning British military officers have been reported as saying in the
Daily Telegraph,
Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said British forces should be “very proud of the achievements they have made in one of the most challenging areas of Afghanistan”. But British military sources criticised the Americans, saying they were abandoning parts of Sangin where the locals had been won over. The move would also allow the Taliban to lay more explosive devices along Route 611, the main trade artery in Sangin. “It’s a hard pill to swallow that the Rifles put so much sweat and blood into establishing these patrol bases only for them to be dismantled by the Americans,” said a recently returned officer.
“They are trying a new approach but it was one tried by us in the past and led to troops being tied to just the outskirts of town and gave the Taliban the chance to plant IEDs virtually wherever they wanted.” Some of the forts would be handed over to Afghan forces, while others were likely to be taken over by the Taliban.
So impressed were the US with the sacrifice of 106 troops in one of the most difficult and violent parts of Afghanistan that as soon as they take over they abandon British strategy and Cameron opines that "they did not die in vain". Meaning, in accordance with doublethink, that they did.
Dirk Bruere has argued against this that,
If it's all about the TAPI pipeline why not just leave it to the most interested party in this matter - Pakistan? They had a pretty good grip on Taliban Afghanistan until the invasion.
But Pakistan is not the most interested party. It had been far more interested in the IPI pipeline, one proposed since the 1950s, as the main transit nation instead of Afghanistan, something that would give it a bargaining card with rival India next door.
The West's policy of substituting the TAPI pipeline for the IPI has been the central geopolitical goal towards which war and diplomacy has been focused in Central Asia in this New Great Game. By getting TAPI, the most interested partners Turkmenistan and the West can get India onside.
Moreover, Pakistan would be more closely integrated with Afghanistan and with Iran encircled and more greatly isolated it would mean Pakistan would have to sink its interests more firmly in with the West. The meaning of Cameron's criticism of Pakistan recently with regards "the war on terror" is "play the game".
What the West does not want is a fickle Pakistan. The illusion is that by building the TAPI pipeline that a lucrative energy corridor can be built, Russia downgraded as the main conduit for gas to the West from Turkmenistan ( hence Poland's staunch support in troops and rhetoric ) and China rivalled.
What concerns the West is that without TAPI, China would have a free hand to dominate Turkmenistan's oil and gas. Even worse, if the IPI pipeline which bypasses Afghanistan completely were built should NATO pull out, China and Russia could move closer in co-operating along with Iran.
Afghanistan is the missing piece in the geopolitical jigsaw in Central Asia and the TAPI pipeline and the $1 trillion of hard mineral resources discovered by US geologists in 2007 ( but conveniently reported in the New York Times recently to tempt regional powers to support NATO's mission ) is what's really at stake.
This is the reality whether people like it or not. Afghanistan is a colossal geopolitical gamble for Western hegemony in Central Asia. No other explanation fits with the evidence and the facts. And the truth is that NATO could be there for decades. The stakes are now too high. The children .i.e the electorate cannot be allowed to know that in the West.
...........................................................................................................................................................
Some Objections Answered
One respondent has argued,
TAPI isn't the real reason we (Britain) are still in Afghanistan. We wouldn't benefit from it. Why would we care if Turkmenistan can sell its gas for more, or if Pakistan can purchase it for less. We are there because of 9-11. Simples.
Then you don't understand geopolitics. There is no "real one reason" on its own. Given the TAPI was always going to be difficult to get after it was first mooted under different guises in the 1990s, 9/11 provided a challenge and opportunity.
9/11 was an initial reason why all kinds of objectives could be justified even partly in the minds of those who saw it as a "Liberal Intervention". It does not explain why NATO is still there or why so many nations like France are there.
It's because of the TAPI pipeliles connection to geopolitics. About containing Ian and not letting China gain the upper hand in Turkmenistan. This is what geopolitics is about as opposed to purely profiteering from a pipeline.
Nothing is simple in geopolitics. The aims have consistently shifted in Afghanistan. But the glaring omission of the TAPI, admitted even on CiF just once by a think tank supporter of the Afghanistan War Chris Luehnen, is striking given its centrality in NATO geopolitics.
More generally, NATO is concerning itself more and more with energy security, something that is inveigling the Western nations ever more in to pathological struggles over resources that could become lethal in the future.
If that's not something worth discussing, then I'm not sure what else is.
Another objection,
Does anyone really believe its humanly possible to impose order in Afghanistan? (sufficient order that its possible to construct and protect a transnational gas pipeline)
Yes, the Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indian governments which have agreed to the share of the gas, as reported through Reuters today and in the Financial Express, ( Framework pact for TAPI pipeline inked )
New Delhi: Heads of agreements for the proposed gas sales purchase agreement for the 1,680-km Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) were signed by partner countries in Ashgbat on Monday. This follows two-day deliberations of TAPI’s steering committee meeting (SCM) in the Turkmenistan capital.
If they did not believe it was "humanly possible", they would not be lining up to put in place a framework for agreeing on gas purchase agreements. They would be wasting their time.
Zbigniew Brzezinski has mentioned in speeches that the TAPI pipeline is an important part of securing and stabilising Afghanistan.
We struggle to protect relatively localised bits of infrastructure in Afghanistan like hydroelectric dams. The gas pipeline was more realistic under Taliban control than with the current chaos.
Struggle they might. But the struggle is considered "worth it". Having already invested so much blood and treasure, NATO cannot simply walk away without it being known as a great loss, weakness and humiliation.
To that extent I agree partly with this,
The reason NATO is still there is simple - Pride. We have spilt all this blood and spent all this money and politicians are too embarrassed to admit they made a mistake.
Yes, but they want to guarantee their geopolitical interests before leaving if possible and the TAPI pipeline is part of that, though it is, in my opinion, an illusion.
But progressives are motivated by such illusions. They believe a War on Drugs can be won. They toy with absurd schemes to get opium farmers to exchange profitable opium for viticulture of growing juicy pomegranates.
If they cut their losses, they would have nothing to show, but also there would be a vacuum of power in Central Asia and Brzezinski argues that could be destabilising as Afghanistans varied ethic groups straddle frontiers into the neighbouring 'stans'.
Yet crucial is that foreign Great Powers vying for influence do not hold sway over the region at the expense of the West. Without Afghanistan being "secure and stable", the West cannot hope to control Central Asia, a major source of oil and gas.
Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.
Joseph Conrad Nostromo ( 1904 )
Peter Jackson argues,
.....the TAPI plan was much more feasible under a Taliban government, which is why the original deal for it was signed in 1995. The CentGas consortium that was to build and manage it began to crumble in 1998 when Unocal and Gazprom withdrew (leaving no US or Russian participation). A new deal was signed at the end of 2002 with the Karzai government.
How could it possibly be an advantage for the pipeline consortium to plan construction during a war rather than under the Taliban - a war which, on previous experience, would end up in a guerrilla battle in which a pipeline would be particularly vulnerable? See what happens in Iraq, or even in Nigeria, for examples of pipelines in war zones.
The Clinton administration with Bill Richardson at the hem of energy politics wanted to do a deal with the Taliban and as Jason Burke suggests in Al Qaeda The True Story of Radical Islam, it was Clinton's bombing of Sudan that led the Taliban to not stop having Al Qaida in that country.
After that, the Taliban were hardly reliable partners in the way it is hoped Karzai would be and 9/11 changed that into a "regime change" possibility. The fact it has not worked out that way is hardly a reason to dismiss the TAPI pipelines position as a central geopolitical and strategic aim.
Ariel Cohen of The Heritage Foundation is, along with Brzezinski, a mainstream voice in Washington who has helped to frame policy. The desire to block off Iran, diversify gas from Russia, link together the TAPI nations, and challenge Chinese dominance is all there in a paper written in 2008.
Cohen is not some fanatical voice in the wilderness. For 18 years he has been,
...working closely with Congressmen and Congressional staff members and cabinet-level Russian, Eurasian and Eastern and Central European decision makers....He has consulted for the U.S. Agency for International Development, The World Bank, the United States Government, the U.S. Senate, and Radio Liberty-Radio Free Europe. He lectured at the Central Intelligence Agency and appeared in CIA/Department of State-sponsored conferences.
He argues that the IPI pipeline is a threat to the US and calls for support for the TAPI pipeline, notwithstanding the difficulties in getting it built. The US should he insists amongst other objectives,
Support the TAPI gas pipeline to boost the energy security of India and Pakistan, reduce Russia's leverage over Europe, and strengthen the political independence of Turkmenistan. Washington should engage in intensive diplomacy to encourage the Turkmen, Afghan, Pakistani, and Indian governments to build this pipeline instead of the IPI.
Earlier he outlines why this TAPI pipeline is so important,
Some pipeline options would be less disruptive than the proposed Iran–Pakistan–India pipeline, such as the proposed TAPI pipeline. The United States has supported this export option—together with the proposed trans-Caspian pipeline—as a way to reduce Russia's leverage over Europe, strengthen the political independence of the former Soviet republics, and increase India's and Pakistan's energy security. TAPI would also help to stabilize Afghanistan by providing needed jobs to Afghans and promoting economic linkages in South and Central Asia.
Now for the last claim,
The idea of an energy-based Great Game being the reason for the UN's persistence in Afghanistan seems less likely, believe it or not, than a real reluctance to abandon the Afghani population to a re-imposition of Taliban rule.
That presupposes that its an "either-or dichotomy" between the Taliban and the rest. Is it that simple though ? Really ?
The UN certainly might have genuine humanitarian objectives. Yet whether they can co-exist with the contradictory policy of building pipelines and curtaining a pathological struggle for Afghanistan's TAPI transit fees and hard minerals is unlikely.
Even you yourself say that pipelines in Iraq cause all manner of security risks, violence and feuding.
In any case, the energy based Great Game is hardly separable from the belief that by building an energy corridor, boosting the economy without drugs and pacifying the nation with trade and commerce, that stability can be won like that. Liberal Interventionists suggest that's possible. I think it is not.
So impressed were the US with the sacrifice of 106 troops in one of the most difficult and violent parts of Afghanistan that as soon as they take over they abandon British strategy and Cameron opines that "they did not die in vain". Meaning, in accordance with doublethink, that they did.
Dirk Bruere has argued against this that,
But Pakistan is not the most interested party. It had been far more interested in the IPI pipeline, one proposed since the 1950s, as the main transit nation instead of Afghanistan, something that would give it a bargaining card with rival India next door.
The West's policy of substituting the TAPI pipeline for the IPI has been the central geopolitical goal towards which war and diplomacy has been focused in Central Asia in this New Great Game. By getting TAPI, the most interested partners Turkmenistan and the West can get India onside.
Moreover, Pakistan would be more closely integrated with Afghanistan and with Iran encircled and more greatly isolated it would mean Pakistan would have to sink its interests more firmly in with the West. The meaning of Cameron's criticism of Pakistan recently with regards "the war on terror" is "play the game".
What the West does not want is a fickle Pakistan. The illusion is that by building the TAPI pipeline that a lucrative energy corridor can be built, Russia downgraded as the main conduit for gas to the West from Turkmenistan ( hence Poland's staunch support in troops and rhetoric ) and China rivalled.
What concerns the West is that without TAPI, China would have a free hand to dominate Turkmenistan's oil and gas. Even worse, if the IPI pipeline which bypasses Afghanistan completely were built should NATO pull out, China and Russia could move closer in co-operating along with Iran.
Afghanistan is the missing piece in the geopolitical jigsaw in Central Asia and the TAPI pipeline and the $1 trillion of hard mineral resources discovered by US geologists in 2007 ( but conveniently reported in the New York Times recently to tempt regional powers to support NATO's mission ) is what's really at stake.
This is the reality whether people like it or not. Afghanistan is a colossal geopolitical gamble for Western hegemony in Central Asia. No other explanation fits with the evidence and the facts. And the truth is that NATO could be there for decades. The stakes are now too high. The children .i.e the electorate cannot be allowed to know that in the West.
...........................................................................................................................................................
Some Objections Answered
One respondent has argued,
Then you don't understand geopolitics. There is no "real one reason" on its own. Given the TAPI was always going to be difficult to get after it was first mooted under different guises in the 1990s, 9/11 provided a challenge and opportunity.
9/11 was an initial reason why all kinds of objectives could be justified even partly in the minds of those who saw it as a "Liberal Intervention". It does not explain why NATO is still there or why so many nations like France are there.
It's because of the TAPI pipeliles connection to geopolitics. About containing Ian and not letting China gain the upper hand in Turkmenistan. This is what geopolitics is about as opposed to purely profiteering from a pipeline.
Nothing is simple in geopolitics. The aims have consistently shifted in Afghanistan. But the glaring omission of the TAPI, admitted even on CiF just once by a think tank supporter of the Afghanistan War Chris Luehnen, is striking given its centrality in NATO geopolitics.
More generally, NATO is concerning itself more and more with energy security, something that is inveigling the Western nations ever more in to pathological struggles over resources that could become lethal in the future.
If that's not something worth discussing, then I'm not sure what else is.
Another objection,
Yes, the Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indian governments which have agreed to the share of the gas, as reported through Reuters today and in the Financial Express, ( Framework pact for TAPI pipeline inked )
If they did not believe it was "humanly possible", they would not be lining up to put in place a framework for agreeing on gas purchase agreements. They would be wasting their time.
Zbigniew Brzezinski has mentioned in speeches that the TAPI pipeline is an important part of securing and stabilising Afghanistan.
Struggle they might. But the struggle is considered "worth it". Having already invested so much blood and treasure, NATO cannot simply walk away without it being known as a great loss, weakness and humiliation.
To that extent I agree partly with this,
Yes, but they want to guarantee their geopolitical interests before leaving if possible and the TAPI pipeline is part of that, though it is, in my opinion, an illusion.
But progressives are motivated by such illusions. They believe a War on Drugs can be won. They toy with absurd schemes to get opium farmers to exchange profitable opium for viticulture of growing juicy pomegranates.
If they cut their losses, they would have nothing to show, but also there would be a vacuum of power in Central Asia and Brzezinski argues that could be destabilising as Afghanistans varied ethic groups straddle frontiers into the neighbouring 'stans'.
Yet crucial is that foreign Great Powers vying for influence do not hold sway over the region at the expense of the West. Without Afghanistan being "secure and stable", the West cannot hope to control Central Asia, a major source of oil and gas.
Joseph Conrad Nostromo ( 1904 )
Peter Jackson argues,
The Clinton administration with Bill Richardson at the hem of energy politics wanted to do a deal with the Taliban and as Jason Burke suggests in Al Qaeda The True Story of Radical Islam, it was Clinton's bombing of Sudan that led the Taliban to not stop having Al Qaida in that country.
After that, the Taliban were hardly reliable partners in the way it is hoped Karzai would be and 9/11 changed that into a "regime change" possibility. The fact it has not worked out that way is hardly a reason to dismiss the TAPI pipelines position as a central geopolitical and strategic aim.
Ariel Cohen of The Heritage Foundation is, along with Brzezinski, a mainstream voice in Washington who has helped to frame policy. The desire to block off Iran, diversify gas from Russia, link together the TAPI nations, and challenge Chinese dominance is all there in a paper written in 2008.
Cohen is not some fanatical voice in the wilderness. For 18 years he has been,
He argues that the IPI pipeline is a threat to the US and calls for support for the TAPI pipeline, notwithstanding the difficulties in getting it built. The US should he insists amongst other objectives,
Earlier he outlines why this TAPI pipeline is so important,
Now for the last claim,
That presupposes that its an "either-or dichotomy" between the Taliban and the rest. Is it that simple though ? Really ?
The UN certainly might have genuine humanitarian objectives. Yet whether they can co-exist with the contradictory policy of building pipelines and curtaining a pathological struggle for Afghanistan's TAPI transit fees and hard minerals is unlikely.
Even you yourself say that pipelines in Iraq cause all manner of security risks, violence and feuding.
In any case, the energy based Great Game is hardly separable from the belief that by building an energy corridor, boosting the economy without drugs and pacifying the nation with trade and commerce, that stability can be won like that. Liberal Interventionists suggest that's possible. I think it is not.