Don't Mention the TAPI Pipeline.

"Protecting pipelines is first and foremost a national responsibility. And it should stay like that. NATO is not in the business of protecting pipelines. But when there's a crisis, or if a certain nation asks for assistance, NATO could, I think, be instrumental in protecting pipelines on land".

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former NATO Secretary General, January 2009.

It might have been thought that the tenth anniversary of 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the subsequent decade of failed military intervention in Afghanistan would have led to a better perspective on the aims and objectives of the War in Afghanistan.

Yet ten years on most media still will not uncover the facts beneath the propaganda and explain to the public why NATO is in Afghanistan. Why British troops have died in such numbers in Helmand province. Why so many Afghans and increasingly Pakistanis have had to die.

Whilst drawing attention to the contradiction between most of Obama's stated intentions and the absence of any action in closing down Guantanamo Bay, stopping the practice of "extraordinary rendition", suspending habeus corpus in the case of "terrorist suspects", Michael Boyle in the Guardian provides no indication why.

The truth is that the "War on Terror" after 9/11 2001 was part of an attempt to exploit the attacks as a pretext to implement a foreign policy based on military intervention in lands whose occupation would lead to once and for all changes in the regime and guarantee US global hegemony.

Obama is the simply the inheritor of that foreign policy and in line with his foreign policy mentor Zbigniew Brzezinski regarded both the placement of the missile shield in Europe ( though not its complete cancellation as a project ) and the invasion of Iraq as mistakes.

Apart from that the goal of ensuring hegemony through control of oil and gas continues. Afghanistan has been interpreted consistently in the light of taking it for granted that it was about a War on Terror, Freedom for Women, Humanitarian Aid, Liberal Intervention and so on.

President Obama has in some respects proven more willing to use force against terrorist suspects than President Bush. He has increased the number of CIA-run drone strikes in the Afghanistan and Pakistan border region. These strikes, while effective in targeting militants, have killed an unknown number of civilians.

They have been waged in the shadows, without public acknowledgment and without clear lines of authority or control inside government. By expanding the number and geographic reach of these strikes – first deeper into Pakistan, then onto Yemen – the Obama administration may be inadvertently stirring hornet's nests that will generate even more terrorist attacks on the United States.

Not only has the war through Drones been enacted "in the shadows" , the pipeline of which one dare not speak its name in the mainstream media has also been cast into the shadows, despite it being mentioned explicitly by Brzezinski as a key interest and the fact the TAPI runs through Kandahar.

That's where most British troops have died in 2010. Its centrality as a NATO War aim has been studied in detail by John Foster, an eminent academic and petro-economist and seen as crucial by Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation. It is routinely mentioned as a war aim in the writings of think tanks.

Foster wrote in The Globe and Mail on 3rd September 2010 of the Disconnect between Pipelines and Transparency,

Terrorism is still touted as a reason for the Western presence in Afghanistan, but economic development is increasingly emphasized. Afghanistan occupies a strategic piece of real estate: It shares borders with Iran and Turkmenistan, two countries with immense petroleum reserves. George Krol, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, told Congress last year that one U.S. priority in Central Asia is “to increase development and diversification of the region’s energy resources and supply routes.”

A new study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Johns Hopkins University advocates that Afghanistan become a regional hub for transportation, electricity and the TAPI pipeline. An endorsement by General David Petraeus, the American commander in Afghanistan, asserts: “Sound strategy demands the use of all the instruments of power.”

The study claims: “Today, the U.S. is paying the salaries of all Afghan soldiers and civil servants.” Under these circumstances, how can the Afghan government make independent decisions? The Pentagon recently announced hard mineral discoveries in Afghanistan worth nearly $1-trillion. A spokesman said, “This is that whole economic arm that we talk about but gets very little attention.”

In March, G8 foreign ministers agreed that “military-only responses” are insufficient, and that “solutions must include support for development.” They endorsed a new initiative to facilitate infrastructure projects referenced by Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their joint declaration included the planned TAPI pipeline, but it was not mentioned publicly.

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.

Planning for the TAPI pipeline continues, despite security concerns. The Asian Development Bank, the project sponsor, is an international development bank whose members include the U.S., Canada and several other NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan.

Any bank financing for the project requires the approval of member countries. With such a heavy military presence, U.S./NATO influence on Kabul is obvious. The same countries are making military and development decisions.

TAPI is a multibillion-dollar project, and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy includes plans for 1,000 industrial units along the pipeline route. Who will provide security?

The continuation of the myth that Afghanistan and the drone attacks in Pakistan are part of a deficient and heavy handed "War on Terror" are comforting myths: the reality is that US foreign policy is about getting the TAPI pipeline built, despite the contention of Conor Foley that there was no evidence.

In fact the evidence is voluminous. The Guardian urgently needs to get columnists who will challenge the official claims about a "War on Terror" and put the record straight, so that the public really understands what is at stake in Afghanistan beyond spin, dissimulation and evasions.

Bibliography

John Foster, Afghanistan, the TAPI Pipeline, and Energy Geopolitics Journal of Energy Security March 3 2010.

John Foster, The Disconnect between Pipelines and Transparency The Globe and Mail September 3 2010.

John Foster and Millie Morton, Afghanistan, the Pipeline, and Politics The Peace Magazine April-June 2010 Volume 26.

John Foster, Pipeline Through a Troubled Land, Foreign Policy Series, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, June 19 2008