The Strategic Value of Afghanistan to the US in the New Great Game.

With the prisoner exchange of a US soldier for five top Taliban commanders, there has been a lot of talk about whether Bergdahl was a deserter, if trading him for five seasoned 'terrorists' could be worth it and whether they could possibly pose a threat to the US and US citzens.

One thing that remains uncontested is the claim that Obama is committed to withdrawal of  the US military presence by 2016. This is quite clearly not the case.

Obama is only winding down the conventional US military forces in Afghanistan. But many US contracted mercenaries are set to stay. in 2013 it was estimated that out of 110,404 contractors still working in Afghanistan, some 33,444 are American. Hence the use of the term 'drawdown'.

The US is not withdrawing from Afghanistan until its geopolitical ambitions to create a state stable enough to ensure the construction of the TAPI pipeline is ensured. As outlined in visits to Central Asia and India in 2011 by Hillary Clinton, the New Silk Road strategy is considered a vital US interest.

The construction of the TAPI pipeline is essential if Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are to be integrated into an economic community of interest and aligned to the US more than towards global competitors such as China and regional powers that threaten US interests such as Iran.

The value of the TAPI pipeline is that it would supply gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India as a substitute for Iran's rival IP pipeline. The war aims of the US in Afghanistan dovetail with the policy of isolating and imposing sanctions upon Iran so as to curtail its influence in both Asia and the Middle East.

Though 'nation building' was dropped in around 2011, the emphasis has shifted towards trying to forge a deal between the Taliban and Kabul so as to facilitate the removal of US ground troops and push forward the New Silk Road strategy (the TAPI could not be built if the Taliban threatened it ).

The prisoner swap reflects the new calculation that if the Taliban continues to offer a threat to US interests in Afghanistan, then drones can be used against them and US troops are going to be removed from Afghanistan anyway and replaced with US trained Afghan troops.

One reason the Obama administration has focused on getting Bergdahl and US soldiers home is that it does not want to be seen as doing deals with the Taliban, a group often conflated with Al Qaida so as to provide a justification for 'staying the course' in Afghanistan as part of the global 'war on terror'.

The war in Afghanistan was never only about counter-terrorism and for the best part of the last decade it was about realising other war aims that have never been clearly outlined in public. But only the credulous believe that the US fought the war for the official reasons given or that it won't retain a military presence.

In fact, as part of the new Pivot to Asia strategy, the US is bound to preserve a substantial military presence in Afghanistan so as to counter China's rival new Silk route strategies. With China now rejecting the IP pipeline and backing TAPI, there is the danger that it could increase its influence in the 'AfPak' zone.

China's 'march west' indicates a strategy of being the dominant power on the Eurasian 'World Island' so as to gain access to energy and as a counter to the US Pivot To Asia which is mostly concerned about controlling the sea lanes and oil tanker routes from the Middle East to China.

With the US finding problems finding a base in Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have not wanted US bases in recent years), Afghanistan, with its "supersized" Bagram Air Base, will continue to be vital to check China's plans to expand its influence west.

Enclosed within Bagram, US and NATO service personnel should be relatively safe and the drones would be doing the work in attacking targets and monitoring the region from the Bagram, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Salerno bases, ones that the US has no intention of closing.

Afghanistan: Mission Not Quite Accomplished

"You have to remember that Afghanistan is an extremely poor country with a very, very troubled history but I think the purpose of our mission was always to build an Afghanistan and Afghan security forces that were capable of maintaining a basic level of security so this country never again became a haven for terrorist training camps. That has been the most important part of the mission …That is the mission, that was the mission and I think we will have accomplished that mission and so our troops can be very proud of what they have done."

Cameron might well have declared that the mission has been accomplished. The fact it is it has not because the main strategic objective of the West in Afghanistan-securing the construction of the TAPI pipeline-has not been achieved. That is why British troops are being 'drawdown' and not withdrawn.

"Afghanistanisation" is a longer term project that underlies the geopolitical strategy of ensuring that Iran is excluded from being able to export its gas eastwards through Pakistan into India, one of the world's largest markets. Thousands of Western troops and private contractors will remain after 2014.

Despite the recent thaw in relations between Washington and Tehran over Iran's nuclear programme, the US was resolute in November 2013 in refusing to exempt the IPI pipeline from sanctions and instead pushing Pakistan towards accepting the future Trans-Afghan alternative.

With British troops being withdrawn from 'combat roles'. the military and private contractors are set to stay there in order to keep the Taliban in check from attacking the TAPI pipeline's construction because this has remained the paramount interest as the idea of 'nation building' was shelved.

The process of 'drawdown' of British troops has been paralleled by the US. Replaced by private contractors and with the conflict spilling over to the south in Pakistan with drone warfare, the strategy is to keep on with 'infrastructure projects' and the pipeline that is in the West's vital interest to protect.

The importance of the TAPI pipeline lies in the strategy of energy diversification. It means Turkmen gas could be exported south beyond Russian control, preventing China exerting too much leverage ( a pipeline now goes between Turkmenistan and China ) and hemming in Iranian influence.

Opponents of the war can scoff at Cameron's claim of 'mission accomplished' because they are in the dark as to what the true objectives were. Even if the war initially really did have women's liberation, the establishment of liberal democracy and the 'war on drugs' as aims, these are now less prominent.

The reality is that Afghanistan has always been an important part of a geopolitical jigsaw and valued as a potential prize for its copious resources, expecially of lithium ( used to make batteries for everything from the mobile phones to iPads that consumers demand ).

Afghanistan is a conflict zone and a cockpit in the New Great Game for control of energy flows and the minerals needed for high tech products being played out between the West, China and Russia. The facts are established on this. US State Department officials routinely mention 'the New Silk Road'.

If we are going to talk about whether it 'was worth it', it's first necessary to understand why Afghanistan was fought for so long. It's infantile to berate 'idiot politicians' because the politicians know they could never admit the real geopolitical reasons for the war that are too complex for the children to grasp.

The Wrangle over Afghanistan's Future

Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has suspended talks on a long-term security deal to keep US troops in his country after Nato leaves in 2014, accusing Washington of duplicity in its efforts to start peace talks with the Taliban.

This wrangle proves that US troops are not being withdrawn by 2014. The oily term now used by US and British government officials is "drawdown" of troops because the main task of stabilising Afghanistan in order to facilitate the infrastructure projects ( e.g. The TAPI gas pipeline ) is not yet acheived.

One US website 'Countdown to Drawdown' gives 10 facts about the fiction of US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. This war is by no means at all over because the central geopolitical war aim of getting the TAPI pipeline secured has not been fulfilled yet.

Fact 1: It is not the case that all US troops will be removed from Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
In June 2011, President Obama announced his plan to begin the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. But the president did not say that all US troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. What he did say was 10,000 troops would be removed by the end of the summer 2011, with 23,000 additional troops leaving at the end of the summer of 2012. After that, according to the President: our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security. Notice that the President did not say that our mission in Afghanistan will end by 2014, only that it will cease to be a "combat" mission and become a "support" mission. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has since confirmed that President Obama never said US troops would be completely withdrawn by the end of 2014. What you should be asking yourself is, "what is a support mission?", "how many troops will be required for it?", and "how long will it last?" We will get to these questions shortly. First, it's important to highlight one thing:

Fact 2: There is currently no end date for the war in Afghanistan.
Nowhere in the President's June 2011 speech did he mention a deadline for the full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and no date for full withdrawal has been specified since then. In fact, the Strategic Partnership Agreement, which was struck between the United States and Afghanistan in June 2012, provides for a US military presence after 2014, although the magnitude of the presence was not specified.

On November 15, 2012, it was reported that Afghanistan and the United States had begun negotiations for a bilateral security agreement, which will govern the US military presence in Afghanistan post-2014, including how many troops are left in Afghanistan, and for how long.

Why have British newspapers not yet commissioned an article challenging the official narrative and also revealing the long term geopolitical ambitions and war aims that have been central to this war ? The Afghanista War has always primarily been about the New Great Game for energy supply routes.

US Negotiations with the Taliban are In the Pipeline.

So the US is officially set to negotiate with the Taliban,

The US is to open direct talks with Taliban leaders within days, it was revealed on Tuesday, after Washington agreed to drop a series of preconditions that have previously held back negotiations over the future of Afghanistan.

In a major milestone in the 12-year-old war, political representatives of the Taliban will shortly meet Afghan and US officials in Doha, the capital of Qatar, to discuss an agenda for what US officials called "peace and reconciliation" before further talks take place with Afghan government representatives soon after.

The move came on the day that NATO forces handed official control of nationwide security to Afghan troops. Less than 12 hours later the US confirmed that four US personnel died at Bagram air base near Kabul, in what was thought to be a mortar attack. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

None of this should have proved surprising.

The US and UK were always less interested in defeating the Taliban for 'liberal interventionist' reasons than to secure the construction of the TAPI pipeline which is set to run through Helmland where the Taliban are still dominant and most British soldiers have been killed.

Having failed to secure the pipeline route militarily, the US now seeks to revert to the previous attempts to court the Taliban that went on before the terrorist attack of September 11| 2001. US officials have even gone as far as stating that getting the Taliban to formally reject Al Qaida is only a "negotiating aim".

The constant invocation of the 'terror threat' from Afghanistan was a big lie used as a pretext to continue military attempts at 'nation building' and in practice this meant infrastructure projects such as the railway lines and the TAPI pipeline, in Hillary Clinton's words a 'New Silk Route'.

The geopolitical ambition has long been in Afghanistan to get the supply of Turkmen gas to flow south, diversifying energy routes away from Russia and offering an alternative pipeline to Pakistan instead of Iran's IP 'peace pipeline'. These are the stated objectives of US foreign policy and its representatives.

Naturally, as the Syrian crisis dominates international attention, this was a good time for Washington to open up direct peace talks with the Taliban who are virulent enemies of Iran. The securing of the TAPI pipeline is intended to block off Iranian exports eastwards.

This geostrategy is interconnected to the decision to back Sunni fundamentalists in Syria, even at the risk of furthering the conflict and benefiting Al Qaida. As with Afghanistan, the rhetoric of countering terrorism is a pretext for advancing risky strategies concerned with control of oil and gas.

This is the price to be paid for Western over dependence upon oil and gas in the Middle East and Central Asia. The ultimate bulwark against controlling the oil and gas of both regions is Iran which occupies the land bridge between the two. This accounts for the obsession with destroying the regime in Tehran.

The fact that Afghanistan War has been a resource conflict seldom gets the level of attention it needs due to liberal wish thinking and an inability to accept the terrifying reality, that with the growth of the Indian and Chinese super economies, the West is now involved in a potentially lethal power game for resources.

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It's curious how four years can make such a difference. President Obama intoned gravely in in 2009,

“We must never forget. This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.

The fact is that the Taliban were never at all that friendly to Al Qaida. In which case, it has to be explained why after the US invasion and occupation had caused Al Qaida to leave Afghanistan that Western forces remained there so long if the Taliban could have been negotiated with.

The Afghanistan War has gone through various stages of being sold through 'public diplomacy' .It was once part of a 'war on terror', 'nation building' and liberal interventionism under. Those terms were steadily dropped and the mission was portrayed as protecting Afghan women from the Taliban.

In Britain under Cameron the messianic justifications offered by New Labour functionaries went and have been replaced by rhetoric on securing Afghanistan from being a base for terrorism. If that was the case, then it is still unclear why from the war against the Taliban has gone on so long only to be reversed.

The only constant and coherent explanation for 'staying the course' for so long ( and thousands of US sponsored private contractors are remaining after 2017 ) is that the 'security' of the country was necessary to ensure the one big geopolitical war aim that makes sense-the construction of the TAPI pipeline.

Curiously, UK international aid will continue to pour into Afghanistan until 2017 when the latest reports in the Pakistani media predict that the TAPI pipeline will be finished. The Afghanistan war may have had many supposed 'justifications' that were in reality little more than rationalisations for realpolitik.

The US is not Withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2014

Resource Wars are just beginning and Iraq and Afghanistan are clear examples as might be intervention in Syria. The future will consist most likely of mercenaries being paid by Western governments to procure the pipeline routes and not bother at all with using national armies to do so because the casualty rate of 'our boys' make bad public relations for the government when advocating wars. 

2014 is not a date when British troops are 'withdrawn'. Mostly, they will be but a number will be there along with mercenaries and private contracters to whom war has been 'outsourced'. This is what is meant by politicians such as Defence Minister Philip Hammond when they use Orwellian terms such as 'drawdown' now as opposed to withdrawal.

The Fiscal Times reported ,

 '.....the military withdrawal does not mean the United States is out of the country entirely. The country is leaving tens of thousands of contractors behind.

According to the latest contractor census performed by the industry group Professional Overseas Contractors, there are currently 110,404 contractors still working in Afghanistan. Of these, 33,444 are Americans. The rest are either Afghan or from another country.

These workers do everything from serve food to cut hair to provide security. They outnumber U.S. troops by nearly 40,000. For every one American soldier, there are 1.46 contractors.  

The vast majority of these contractors are in the private security business, working for the State Department to protect diplomats. This means they are armed to kill on behalf of the U.S. government. 

Once the military leaves completely, these contractors will be responsible for training Afghan police and troops, building Afghan infrastructure, conducting development projects, and protecting workers. Under the terms of the Afghan-American strategic partnership agreement signed last summer, just a small number of U.S. troops are going to remain in the country until 2024. Much of the work currently being done by the military will be left to contractors to complete .

“It’s a de facto army, a de facto military presence there. They are a de facto logistic and supply chain,” Malou Innocent, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, told The Fiscal Times. “We’re going to be relying on contractors across the board. They will be doing all of the things that go into nation building.”'

 The battle to secure the building of the TAPI pipeline will continue along with drone strikes and other means of enforcing global power without it getting too much bad publicity at home. So much for the idea that Afghanistan was a 'humanitarian intervention'. The advocates of that are stragely silent now.

Afghanistan and the TAPI Pipeline : A Discussion.

There seems to be this myth that the West's military forces are withdrawing in 2014. They are not. They are being 'drawndown', the new weasel cant term for keeping the military, though not regular troops, on the ground as part of the 'Afghanistanisation' process

With news that thousands of Afghan interpreters for the British army being allowed to settle in the UK for fear of reprisals from the Taliban it has been said that,

 ...no such escape route is on offer to the 325,000 members of Afghanistan's combined security forces, who are at vastly more risk. Most of Britain's interpreters don't live in places like Paktia. The Ministry of Defence says the majority are recruited in Kabul.

 The ANSF are still needed to protect Western geopolitical interests in Afghanistan such as the railroads and the construction of the TAPI Pipeline ( 'the new Silk Route').

A certain Mr Brownly objected stating the usual stock arguments whenever the TAPI pipeline is mentioned,

The ANSF is needed because the Taliban still exist - they always will to some extent. The point of COIN ops is to keep them at bay so that the Afghans can build a world that has no room for the Taliban in it. Where they're diminished to not much more than an Afghan equivalent of the EDL or somesuch.

Well, the ANSF is obviously needed because the Taliban still exists because they will do what they do with other infrastructure projects which is threaten to blow them up, unless they get some sort of financial remuneration.

The entire geopolitical ambition behind securing the construction of the TAPI pipeline is about 'nation building' and securing millions of dollars for reconstructing Afghanistan along with already built railroads and infrastructure projects.

A stable and more prosperous Afghanistan is in everyone's interest, especially the Afghans - they want to be a part of the wider world. If (and it's a bloody mahoosive if - for a decade, at least) TAPI ever emerges, it will bring much needed work, energy supplies and transit fees into the country.

The point is that the attempt to secure the TAPI Pipeline could very well destabilise Afghanistan even more while the Taliban continues to fight against it and because the TAPI pipeline could indeed , in theory, mean that Kabul would be able to build a state without it's involvement.

But this is precisely why the US has sought to negotiate with elements of the Taliban to try to bring them to heel and why "liberal interventionists" have gone rather cold on the war that is either not discussed properly in Parliament or else sold as being about anything other than what it has been primarily about-geopolitics.

"Public Diplomacy" , a pleasant euphemism for propaganda, has tended to emphasise that the Afghanistan War is "all about", human rights, women's rights or else other pretexts that were officially rejected by those such as David Miliband in 2009 ( i.e the "war on terror").

Then, as soon as casualties started to mount in 2010 and 2011, the new "Conservative" government started to resurrect this idea about Al Qaida or vaguely mentioned 'terrorists' being the reason to maintain troops in 2014.

This was quite simply a pretext to get public support and not debate the actual war objectives as the war dragged on.

TAPI isn't a secret or a conspiracy! It was first mooted about 20 years ago. No-one's stumped up the money for it yet though - there isn't a single metre of pipeline to protect in any of the four countries that would be involved.

It's fairly obvious to most who take an interest in the Afghanistan War, that TAPI is not a "secret or a conspiracy". Yet it a majort war objective that has barely been discussed either in importance or in it's centrality to the decision making of the USA and other NATO Powers.

The means to build the pipeline financially are already there. It is backed by the Asian Development Bank, a cousin of the World Bank and in which the majority of the financial interests are, curioisly, not in Asia but in the US, Canada, and Europe.

The fact of there not being a pipeline is to fail to understand that the gap is only between intentions and their realisation. The fact is that most British troop casualties are in Helmland where the TAPI pipeline is destined to run, should it ever get built.

It is deeply ironic that advocates of this futile war do not understand the difference between 'actual and intended consequences', to borrow Karl Popper's words, and if there is a 'conpiracy' it is the one of silence over the geopolitical significance of the TAPI pipeline beyond Afghan borders.

The most important is to complete the isolation and encirclement of Iran from the West, through curtailing Iranian influence by knocking out Assad even if it means quite obviously arming jihadists and overcoming the need for such annoyances as actual diplomacy.

From the East, the TAPI pipeline will finally be used to integrate Pakistan with India and, in so far as this geopolitical fantasy is believed to be acheivable, thus isolate Iran whose rival "peace pipeline" ( the IP ) is already being built on the Iranian side.

The TAPI pipeline is thus essential to the attempt to get "regime change" in Tehran as, the goal behind the Afghanistan conflict which will extend beyond 2014 anyway and, of course, Syria. The West's strategy is a messianic blend of Utopian wish thinking and shoddy realpolitik.

It is a convenient rationalisation that the TAPI pipeline is merely part of an enlightened policy of self interest when any mention of it as often denigrated as a "conspiracy theory" or that its only some form of infrastructure project disconnected from wider geopolitical war objectives.

A certain "Dr" Chris waded in,,

 Complete baloney. Nobody takes this pipeline seriously and the US is set to become self-sufficient in oil and gas. 

- Nobody ?

US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson has said that America wants to help Pakistan to overcome its energy crisis.

He said that they had clear a policy regarding Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project.
Pakistan and Iran have recently signed an agreement in Islamabad to complete the project while President Asif Ali Zardari has also paid a visit to the neighbouring country last week to discuss the pipeline and to extend relationships with Iranian leadership.

“We have a clear policy over Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline,” Olson said, addressing a gathering during his visit to Tarbela Dam on Tuesday.

He said that the US was in favour of Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, adding that it would also continue to help the country to reduce the energy crisis.

American’s State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell while commenting over the project on Wednesday said it is in Pakistan’s best interest to avoid any santionable activity.

Pakistan is facing a severe energy crisis which has damaged its industrial setup specially the textile industry.

“We will help Pakistan to complete Gomal Zam and Sadpara dams,” he said and added that the US wanted the Pakistanis to spend a better life.

Baloney ?

Turkmenistan, a post-Soviet Central Asian country of 5.5 million which borders Afghanistan and Iran, holds the world’s fourth-largest natural gas riches after Russia, Iran and Qatar.
British auditor Gaffney, Cline & Associates has estimated the reserves of Galkynysh, named after the Turkmen word for “renaissance,” at 13.1 trillion to 21.2 trillion cubic metres.

Li Xiaoning, deputy director general at China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation, told the Ashgabat gas congress this volume would be achieved in 2020. Since the start-up of the China-bound pipeline in December 2009, Turkmen gas exports to China have totalled almost 50 bcm, he said. Turkmen data show 2012 gas exports to China stood at 20 bcm.

Turkmenistan, which also exports smaller amounts of gas to Iran, plans to build an alternative pipeline to Afghanistan and further to Pakistan and India, which is named TAPI after the countries it will eventually cross.

Daniel Stein, senior adviser to the Bureau of Energy Resources at the U.S. Department of State, told the Ashgabat gas congress Turkmenistan needed to move faster on its pipeline projects, because instead of its natural gas China and India could import liquefied natural gas from elsewhere.

What actual research have such people done on the New Great Game ?

Why the Afghanistan War is about Great Power Geopolitics and the TAPI Pipeline.

The New Silk Route includes the TAPI Pipeline as well as the railroads. There is ample evidence, cited by Afghan energy ministers going back to 2003 ( as revealed in Lutz Kleveman's The New Great Game, that the West was in Afghanistan to secure the construction of the pipeline.
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Facts are facts. All beneficiaries of the TAPI pipeline have signed up to it: it is a stated intention to get it built and is regularly lauded by US diplomats and State Department officials.
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One document from 2011 makes this long term continuity in policy clear.
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The pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan was first proposed in the mid-1990s with the now defunct American energy company Unocal-led consortium and the Argentine company Bridas vying for signing a deal with the then Taliban regime in Kabul. However, security considerations combined with international condemnation of the Taliban regimes on women and human rights had led both the companies to pull out, leaving the project in a lurch. The idea was revived after the Taliban were unseated from Kabul. At the end of 2002, three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan) signed a new agreement. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) conducted a feasibility study and rendered the project possible in 2005. Following an approval by the Indian cabinet, India became the fourth country to join the project in 2008.

 The same document goes on to state, contrary to the unfounded and ignorant claim that TAPI was a "dead duck" by 1998 or part of some leftist "conspiracy theory"

The United States (US), for example, is propounding the project as ‘magic glue’ that will bind the warring factions and their regional proxies into an interdependent cooperative framework.The US hopes that TAPI will in all likelihood wean India away from the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline from Iran’s South Pars gas complex in the Persian Gulf. In addition to further isolating Iran,the resultant interdependence and benefits of cooperation might act as a catalyst for peace between India and Pakistan.

Now no foreign policy decision, such as NATO's involvement in Afghanistan is ever only "all about" one thing: there are multiple policy objectives, something that's difficult to explain to those who think the pipeline is about profits as opposed to energy geopolitics.

The IP Pipeline became a reality this week: yet it faces the same problems that the TAPI Pipeline faces in being the target of enemy guerilla forces ( in the IP case it's Balochistani seperatists ). So it's no more a reality until it's built than TAPI is not a mere stated intention.

The point not grasped by those who see themselves as involved in 'infrastructure projects'  and , therefore, in the know, remain ignorant about howt they dovetail with foreign policy strategies about which mere engineers may well not be well educated about.

The four governments have until this year been in dialogue about the TAPI pipeline: Pakistan has not even reneged on it's desire to remain part of the project. It has simply rejected US intimidation about accepting the IP as a violation of the sanctions policy on Iran

Intelligent Pakistani analysts who know the history of the Great Game understand the new revived one. The US is still deeply engaged in Afghanistan due to the geostrategic benefits of the TAPI Pipeline and hemming in Iranian regional influence via gas exports.

As Salman Rafi Sheikh asserts,

Dominant military presence in Afghanistan is, therefore, regarded by the Americans as vitally important for actualising US’ interests. It provides the platform through which US can threaten its potential regional rivals as well as dominate gas and oil export routes emanating from Eurasian landmass. Also, Afghanistan lies along a proposed pipe line route from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Indian Ocean; therefore, its importance in US’ 21st century grand strategy is critical. To be realistic, therefore, US’ invasion of Afghanistan has to be analysed from the perspective of US’ geo-strategic and geo-energy objectives, rather than from the US’ projected perspective of ‘elimination of global terrorists’.

The successful implementation of Silk Road Act required huge military presence in the region as well as controlled militarization of the Eurasian region as a means to securing control over oil and energy reserves and protecting pipeline routes and trade corridors.

Again, the hard evidence is there. It is possible to interpret the facts in a different manner. Yet ignorance is no basis upon which to have an intelligent discussion. Every bogus claim that raising the stegic significance of the TAPI Pipeline theory is a "conspiracy theory" is a product of a reaction to those who really do think TAPI is only about corporate profits.

Why there will be no Withdrawal of US and British troops from Afghanistan

Language is instructive. While politicians once, in the face of heavy British troop losses in Afghanistan, claimed there would be a "withdrawal" by 2014, the jargon term now being frequently used is a "drawdown" of troops. In fact, as Anatol Lieven has asserted, there will be no withdrawal from Afghanistan, the eastern front in the New Great Game to control Central Asia.

Lieven states,

“The US is not withdrawing from Afghanistan and 2014 is not really a cutoff date,” was the emphatic announcement with which Lieven began the 45-minute-long talk. “The US continues to feel threatened by Taliban because of which it will continue to retain bases and military advisors for the Afghan government. However, they have learnt to accept what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan as they were responsible for choosing the country’s administration.”

Without beating around the bush, Lieven summed up the main reason preventing the US from making a clean exit from Afghanistan – “America does not have an exit strategy.

They haven’t formulated any plan about how they will handle the next year’s presidential elections in Afghanistan either.” Lieven explained that at times, people express the fear of a civil war breaking out in Afghanistan if the Americans left. “What do you think is happening right now,” he asked. “Afghanistan has been in a state of civil war since long before the Soviets withdrew from it.”

So the War in Afghanistan will drag on for much longer. Lieven, however, tends not to emphasise the energy geopolitics behind the Fourth Afghan War-the benefits of getting the TAPI Pipeline constructed as a means of diverting Pakistan away from relying on the alternative IP Pipeline that is a popular option with a land subject to constant energy blackouts.

A Note on the Taliban.

The Taliban's shooting of  Malala Yousafzai, for standing up for the right of girls to be educated in Pakistan's northern Swat region, has been denounced by Pakistani politicians and by human rights groups across the world. As repellent as such an attack is, the idea has been put forward that the attack is one of pure pathological woman hatred and is not political.

Unfortunately, the targeting of Malala Yousafzai is political in that she exemplifies what is regarded as part of the propaganda in what is sold as a 'humanitarian war' in Afghanistan as it fans across the borders into Pakistan. The Taliban does treat women as mere chattels and baby producers but that does not mean such vicious attacks are only psychotic outbursts of violence against what they hate.

The Taliban's aim is to thwart the West's geopolitical ambitions and to derail the project to construct the TAPI pipeline. The Taliban was backed by Pakistan as a means of actually advancing this essential energy project well into the 1990s ( some say there are shady elements in Pakistan's elites that still do ).

This, from Kamila Shamsie in The Guardian, is not quite true,

Because the state of Pakistan allowed the Taliban to exist, and to grow in strength, Malala Yousafzai couldn't simply be a schoolgirl who displayed courage in facing down school bullies but one who, instead, appeared on talk shows in Pakistan less than a year ago to discuss the possibility of her own death at the hands of the Taliban...the Taliban exists because of political decisions dating back to the 1980s; and of course the mess that is the "war on terror" has only added to the TTP's ranks.

The Taliban exists as a force in its own right that wants to protect its part of north Pakistan and South Afghanistan but it also is there to advance an agenda whereby, without having any political role in Afghanistan, it will use the most savage force to destroy 'nation building' funded by Western involvement.

There's no need for the Taliban to invent propaganda against the American and Pakistan state (although they do) – both governments supply an excess of recruitment material for those who hate them. So if you view the Taliban simply through the prism of the war on terror and Pakistan and the United States, it's possible to think the process can be reversed; policies can be changed; everyone can stop being murderous and duplicitous

The reason is because the US is continually Drone bombing the Af-Pak frontier and most of the political elite in Pakistan seem willing to accept that if they get the aid and investment. And a large part of that is about US  realpolitik and the need to secure the region for the strategically vital TAPI pipeline.

It cannot be emphasised enough that the instability on the Af-Pak frontier has been exacerbated by the pathological conflicts over these pipeline routes. There is even some evidence that Iran is funding the Taliban, after having been against it in the 1990s, because TAPI is meant as a substitute to the IPI pipeline.

But then there's Malala Yousafzai, standing in for all the women attacked, oppressed, condemned by the Taliban. What role have women played in creating the Taliban?

None. But shoddy US realpolitik, greed for resources, political corruption and fundamentalist ideas have all come together is a poisonous whirl in a region considered strategically vital for the US to control in order to advance its hegemonic goals in Central Asia and, through throttling Iran from the east, to harm civilians.

The Afghanistan War: Pipeline, Energy Corporations and Baking Interests.

Why is the US and UK still in Afghanistan ? What are the real war objectives beneath the "Public Diplomacy" that spins this as a war of Defence" against international terrorism ? What geopolitical ambitions does the US have in Central Asia ?

The strategic significance in securing the construction of the TAPI pipeline is the ambition that underlies the West being in Afghanistan. A war to advance a pipeline seems less heroic than a war against terrorism and difficult to justify. Yet it is the reason US and British troops have stayed the course.

There is almost nothing in the Western media about this.It is not regarded as news but the TAPI pipeline is crucial to the nature of the USA's foreign policy in Central Asia and it has to be asked whether it is right that British troops be asked to die for a geostrategy that is about protecting energy supplies.

Western journalists need to set the Afghanistan War in context.Resource Struggles over access to oil and gas are set to become increasingly common with the rise of China and India and the need of the west to retain control of supplies against the competition.

Here are some facts.

1) The Aghanistan War is about energy diversification away from Russian and Chinese control of Turkmen gas.

2) The Afghanistan War is part of a strategy to block off a rival Iranian IPI pipeline by forcing the TAPI Pipeline on Pakistan.

3) The TAPI pipeline is strongly backed by the US as a way of integrating south Asian nations under Western auspices.

4) The TAPI pipeline is likely to benefit Western financial interests and energy corporations.

This is news in Asia. It is not news in Britain. It does not fit in with the narrative the public is to be fed, though many people in Britain are still at a loss to know what the war is about. Responsible journalism ought to be be probing into the TAPI pipeline and its role in the Western nation's decision to "stay the course".

The Nation reported today,

The Hindu/Business Line referred to sources close to the negotiations and Shell is amongst the companies that have expressed an interest in the project. According to reports, the project which has US backing had initially seen interest from Chinese and Russian firms. Road-shows were also held to invite financiers to the project.

According to The Hindu/Business Line, the participants included amongst others, SBI, US EXIM, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Macquarie Bank. The decision with regard to the consortium leader and investors which will be made jointly by member countries in consultation with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), is expected to be completed in a year’s time.

“The work on the network is expected to start in 2015,” The Hindu/Business Line said. ‘The pipeline is expected to be operational in 2018 and supply gas over a 30-year period.”

The Turkmen side conducted several international road shows for TAPI in September with the participation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It was reported that Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, BG Group, RWE, Petronas and other companies became familiarised with the main terms of the project implementation and expressed an intention to participate in it.

The Asian Development Bank is a cousin of the World Bank and predominantly it reflects the investments of Western nations ( despite its convenient title as an Asian bank ). The central role of the TAPI pipeline in the US and UK strategy in Afghanistan provides the missing explanation for why we are still there.

Clearly British newspapers do not think British people should know that.

Why The TAPI Pipeline is a Geopolitical Strategy not a "Conspiracy Theory"

For those in some sort of parallel universe where the TAPI Pipeline simply is not a strategic calculation within the overall war aims of the Western Powers in Afghanistan, it needs to be understood that those who support the US/NATO effort assume that the TAPI Pipeline is a vital interest ( even if hazardous ).

Alexandros Petersen wrote, ( TAPI pipeline: Bigger is not better Tuesday, June 12, 2012 )

TAPI has received strong support from the United States as part of Washington's "New Silk Road" strategy to bring development to Afghanistan through regional infrastructure connections, and as an alternative to the proposed Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline.

Petersen assumes the TAPI is an ambitious project but he does not write it off at all. He is author of the The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West and Advisor to the European Energy Security Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

TAPI must also maintain a reasonable scope. The construction of a record-breaking pipeline through a conflict zone with too many regional cooks in the kitchen is an insurmountable task. A relatively modest gas link with sound commercial underpinning and adequate security provisions may stand a chance at becoming reality.

Petersen does not want the TAPI pipeline to be "politicised" ( as if this would not happen or as if it is purely a commericial venture ) , despite the fact the insistence on the Afghan route from Turkmenistan is obviously political for those in Pakistan who would prefer the Iranian option which would provide gas four times cheaper.

The interpretations that can come from the fact of TAPI is an important strategic consideration are various. To deny that one of the main goals of Western geopolitics is to promote and facilitate the TAPI Pipeline is not. But it is difficult to sell that to the electorate in Western democracies so other narratives are sold ( "war on terror)

Newspapers and the BBC need journalism critical of the TAPI pipeline project that links it firmly in the context of the Afghan War. More transparancy is needed and the media ought to be doing its job , especially in outlining the true stakes in this war instead of those commenting only on military strategy.

For those who warble on about TAPI being a "conspiracy theory", it is curious that leading figures in Washington would seem to back up the fact that the pipeline is strategically valuable and that if Afghanistan had remained unstable or a haven for Al Qaida, it would have no chance of being built. Victoria Nuland, a State Department 'spokesperson', said this on May 23 2012,

"Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI gas pipeline) is a perfect example of energy diversification, energy integration done right. We are very strong supporters of the TAPI pipeline. We congratulate the (four) countries that signed (the agreement on) it..We consider it a very positive step forward and sort of a key example of what we're seeking with our New Silk Road Initiative, which aims at regional integration to lift all boats and create prosperity across the region....I frankly don't know whether we have commercial involvement in this, but we have been supportive politically and we stand by to be supportive in other ways if asked,"

This directly and flatly contradicts the "think tank" position of Petersen, who is not a government spokesman, and who thinks that the commericial viability and not the politics of a "peace pipeline" is the main issue.

The fact is that TAPI is part of a geopolitical strategy in Central Asia and is commercially valuable, though only a conspiracy theorist would have it that the war in Afghanistan was launched to get gas or enrich Halliburton-the Michael Moore line that makes it easy to write off the TAPI pipeline as so central to the war

That isolating Iran is a strategy behind the promotion of the TAPI Pipeline ( and it could not be built without Western troops providing security ) is clearly outlined by Nuland. Robert Blake who is responsible for the region has again and again said what is expressed here,

"We have been very clear about how we feel and how the international community feels about those kinds of investments Iran has historically been unreliable as a global partner...In this case, the case of the TAPI pipeline, you've got private sector investment, you've got new transit routes, you've got people-to-people links, you've got increased trade across a region that historically has not been well-linked, where there have been historic antipathies which are now being broken down by this positive investment project that's going to give jobs, it's going to give more energy, it's going to give more technology to the people of all of these countries...If Iran wants to come back into compliance with its international obligations, the whole picture's going to look different in terms of the way we feel about investments.."

Comment is Free . Facts are Sacred. So said C P Scott of The Manchester Guardian and these words are the masthead of the online site of that newspaper today. And so it should be If the facts are even reported, of course, in the mainstream Western media.

At least those facts which are inconvenient and euphemised only as "vital interests".

Why are British Troops still in Afghanistan ?

The reason British troops are in Afghanistan is to provide the security environment for the construction of the TAPI Pipeline. This strategic war aim has little to do with corporate profits, though these are a potential beneficial spin off as recent successful bids by Western energy giants to construct it show.

As Business Recorder reports, ( TAPI gas pipeline project: Singapore, NY, London road shows ‘well received’ September 24 2012 ), the Asian Development Bank, the "Transaction Advisor" or  "TA", is there to fund the project and "gauge the market resoponse",

The New York road shows were attended by world leading IOCs such as Chevron and Exxon Mobile and leading financial institutions Citi Group and US Exim. All participants expressed a keen interest in the project. In the London Road Show, TAPI Parties met with representatives of British Petroleum, Shell, British Gas and Morgan Stanley. Invitees for upcoming shows are Mubadala Group, Macquarie, RWE and Deutsche Bank.

It should be noted that the Asian Development Bank is mostly controlled by Western interests. It is a cousin of the World Bank. Key players are the US, Australia and the UK. The bank exists to facilitate Western financial interests in Afghanistan's "nation building".

The idea this war is about " international terrorism", as Foreign Secratary Hammond claimed a few days ago is not true. The Taliban was never the same as Al Qaida and many Taliban factions even back in 2001 were hostile to it. More so today as the Taliban is only partly made up of members prominent then.

The war is for the strategic benefits of the TAPI Pipeline, curtailing Iranian gas exports to the Indian subcontinent and maintaining a stake in carving up the mineral wealth of Afghanistan against the ival attempts of China to gain concessions in mining. Afghanistan has $1trillion of Lithium reserves.

These war aims are euphemised as "International Development" , "Nation Building" or "Infrastructure Projects". The reality is that these are all interconnected with NATO geopolitical strategy, as is evident from the stated intentions of Hillary Clinton and Robert Blake to create "A New Silk Route".

The TAPI pipeline is important as part of the aim of isolating Iran. The IPI Pipeline has already been largely built on the Iranian side and would supply gas to an energy hungry Pakistan four times cheaper than from Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to the north and with less domestic discontent.

No war, the Fourth Afghan War included, is ever only "about" one thing. The importance of the Trans Afghan Pipeline was there from the outset of the War. Preventing Al Qaida from having a base in Afghanistan was also an original war aim of the Bush II administration.

As the war has dragged on and Washington becomes more concerned over Iranian ambitions, and its ability to exercise influence in the Middle East and Central Asia grows stronger as Shia movements gain power and influence, blocking a lucrative Iranian pipeline to the east has become ever more important.

The TAPI pipeline's construction would offset the need for Iranian gas exports, entrench the sanctions regime already in place and, possibly, destabilise the government in Tehran and help bring about "regime change". The alleged nuclear programme of Iran is also a consideration here.

In a nutshell, the governments of NATO nations keep giving contradictory statements as the real objectives are thought to be ones that are difficult to explain to the publics of democratic states and so the usual "politically correct" ones are given-development, women's rights, protection from terrorism etc

John Foster, a former World Bank economist and expert in energy geopolitics, has at length argued the central importance of the TAPI pipeline in "staying the course" in Afghanistan. The most detailed treatment is his seminal 'Pipeline Through a Troubled Land.

The fact that is, as British soldiers continue to be repatriated in body bags, that there is no debate in Parliament about the war aims. This makes it all the more important that those who oppose this war actually understand what the true stakes in the conflict are.

The TAPI Pipeline: How to use "Public Diplomacy" to dress up a Resource War as a "Regional Infrstructure Project"

It is curious the way that Washington's representatives often try to downplay the role of the TAPI pipeline as a central part of their geopolitical strategy for Afghanistan, as though it had arisen as a welcome initiative from the region only. As if that had nothing intentional in it as part of the USA's foreign policy.

It is true that all the states that stand to benefit from the TAPI pipeline have sought to develop 'energy independence' . What is seldom spelled out is that the independence is from Iran, one that costs far more than the dangers of building a pipeline through a war ravaged Afghanistan.

And that this has been the main strategic goal on the US and NATO in Afghanistan from the outset of war in 2001. Not women's rights. Not human rights. In so far as these were auxiliary humanitarian benefits of a successful war, they were spin offs from "nation building" and that could only be based upon recreating Afghanistan as an energy transit and transport hub.

An article from the Hindustan Times ( TAPI will support energy independence of regional countries: US, August 16 2012 ) that Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake commented recently on a trip to Central Asia, 

"We see that the TAPI gas pipeline is particularly important because it's going to join two of the most important end-points in this regional connectivity that we talk about, Turkmenistan and India."

It is important, of course, because it runs through Afghanistan. To use plain English to spell that out, instead of using opaque power jargon about "end points" and "connectivity" , would mean coming to close to the taboo truth: the war in Afghanistan has the completion of the pipeline as a key strategic goal.

Instead of dwelling on the Afghan part of the geopolitical jigsaw, Blake talked up the benefits to the neighbouring state,

"India, of course, has gigantic energy needs because of its fast-growing economy. They need lots of gas. I think that is what really helped drive this project. There is now a real market in India and they can afford to pay for the gas. Turkmenistan has sufficient gas to fuel this pipeline" .

Public Diplomacy requires that when Afghanistan is mentioned in relation to the TAPI pipeline, it is only as an "infrastructure project" or as part of "nation building" or, more poetically, as a "New Silk Route".

"That is also quite important to this vision that I talked earlier about for Afghanistan. So, in terms of the pipeline I think there has been good progress on what they call gas sale-purchase agreements between these countries" .

Again the disinterested tone conceals the extent to which the USA has threatened Pakistan with the dangers of sanctions and reductions in aid if it dares to go against the TAPI pipeline and plump for the cheaper and easier option of Iran's IPI Pipeline. The TAPI Pipeline is a vital interest dressed up as an infrastructure project.

"The next milestone is that there will be a road show that will take place sometime in September, at which they will begin to have concrete discussions about who is going to form and lead this consortium to actually build this pipeline. This is a crucial series of discussions that will take place," he said, adding that the American companies would also be participating in the road show.

TAPI as part of the Sanctions Policy on Iran.

The rival Pipeline to the TAPI is now targeted as part of the sanctions on Iran. After all, 10 years in Afghanistan has to be of some use and "worth it".

As the Express Tribune reports 9 The Iran Pipeline 28 March 2012 ),

'With Pakistan’s energy crisis becoming ever more grave, the need for power has never been more acute. It was heartening, then, that the president insisted that Pakistan would go ahead with both the Iran gas pipeline and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. As welcome as these words are, there is every chance that they will collide with the immovable forces of superpower politics and the threat of militancy. Of the two proposed pipeline projects, the Iran gas pipeline is by far the more viable option. It is more affordable than the TAPI pipeline and also faces less threat of being blown up by extremists. The TAPI pipeline would run through Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan and Quetta in Pakistan, which makes the chances of sabotage more of a certainty than a possibility.

'The Iran pipeline, on the other hand, faces the equally deadly American veto. The US, through Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has already floated the threat of sanctions should Pakistan go through with the proposal. The US has also been making use of back channels to put funding for the project into peril. A Chinese bank withdrew its promise of money for the pipeline after quiet US intervention'. ( my italics ).

Also reported is US interest in securing for US firms a stake in constructing the TAPI Pipeline,

'“A couple of major US oil companies are interested,” said Daniel Stein, senior advisor to the special envoy for Eurasian Energy in the United States. “We would like to see a US company involved at some point in TAPI.” He declined to name the companies. TAPI is considered to be consistent with US’s declared policy of linking Central and South Asia and diversifying export routes for Turkmen gas'...

Still No Mention of the TAPI Pipeline in Explaining the Afghanistan War.

The death of another six British troops in Afghanistan ( taking the death toll so far to 404 ) has led to the usual flurry of media concern over the war that such deaths usually occasion without any further insight being shed on it. The usual windbag editorials fail even to grasp the reality of what the war is about.

The Guardian stated today ( Dash for the Exit ),

There is every indication that the end of Britain's fourth war in Afghanistan will be as politically driven as its disastrous entry was.

It was not really "politically driven". It was caused partly by the need to act against a Taliban regime in Afghanistan that contained prominent Al Qaida terrorists ( though 9/11 was organised mostly in Europe ) and also by the need to secure Afghanistan for the West's geopolitical strategies as regards Central Asia.

The endgame is to secure the construction of the TAPI Pipeline. The reason NATO is there is that it still has yet to secure the pipeline route which is intended to run from the Dauletadbad Gas Field in Turkmenistan through both Afghanistan's and Pakistan's most volatile regions on to India.

One thing never mentioned by politicians is that TAPI runs right through Helmland where the vast majority of British troops have been killed since 2007-2008. The Taliban has to derail the pipeline project as it has no stake in the central government dominated by ethnic groups from the north.

NATO intervened on the side of the Northern alliance back in 2001 in what was a civil war in order to defeat the Pashtun dominated Taliban. It has been unable to achieve this for a number of reasons and one is that the writ of the regime in Kabul has never extended to the south of the country through which the TAPI Pipeline will run.

The official withdrawal date of troops by 2014 is merely "public diplomacy". Leading US generals have already admitted that the West will retain a presence in Afghanistan after that date. The aim is to provide security for the construction of the pipeline that is due to be completed by 2016 by optimistic estimates.

The TAPI Pipeline is significant as it means that Turkmenistan gas is diverted southwards and away from Russia which previously had a monopoly of pipeline routes westwards, of crucial concern for new NATO states in the former Eastern Europe that are wary of Russia's control over it's energy supply.

Richard Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State, made that clear in 2007: “One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan,” and to link South and Central Asia “so that energy can flow to the south. The reasons for this lie not only with Russia.

It is also essential for NATO to secure TAPI in order to block off Iranian influence to the east and the export of its gas to Pakistan and India via the rival IPI Pipeline. Not only would such a pipeline supply gas to Pakistan at four times a cheaper price, it would tend to negate the purpose of western strategy.

The first is to encircle Iran from both West ( Iraq) and the East. The TAPI Pipeline's construction means that the signatories are bound to a project that unites Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India in a community of mutual interest from which Iran is cut off and excluded.

It is a policy that dovetails with the ultimate goal of "regime change" in Iran which controls the third largest reserves of gas on the globe and copious oil. If Afghanistan is not under Western control, then other regional powers can deal directly with Iran without Western interests being considered.

This is considered particularly ominous when the US is obsessed with securing energy diversification when 60% of its oil comes from abroad. The gas from TAPI is a potential source of Liquified Natural Gas ( LNG ) and the last thing it or European states want in China to gain prominent stakes in the flow of gas.

In 2009, George Krol, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, said to Congress that a prime US interest in Central Asia was “to increase development and diversification of the region’s energy resources and supply routes.”.

The war in Afghanistan was launched in the wake of frosty relations between the US and China in 2000 at the outset of the Bush II Administration. The Shanghai Cooperation Treaty between Russia and China demonstrated that both these large land empires were prepared to collude if they deemed it necessary.

The war in Afghanistan is concerned with the conflict for hegemony in Central Asia. Whatever the auxiliary goals as regards democracy and women's rights, the TAPI Pipeline is and will remain crucial to the creation of what US diplomats and Hillary Clinton herself call "The New Silk Road".

When the history of the Fourth Afghan War is written, historians will find the Western media replete with shallow delusions, liberal wish thinking and a complete lack of comprehension as to what was at stake. But by that time the world could be racked with resource wars that will breed terrorist blowback and consequently lead to a reduction in liberty at home.

And journalism will have failed miserably to do what it was supposed to do in free societies: to inform and educate.

The Absence of Public Dissent On the War Objectives in Afghanistan.

The omission of any stated and coherent war objectives in Afghanistan is the most sinister aspect of the way the war has become normalised. So too the way discussions about what's actually at stake are infantilised by celebrity culture and TV "awards" and trivialised by mingling the position the soldiers have been put in with prime time entertainment.

The death of 391 British troops is low by historical standards but almost every week another soldier is killed and made for bad PR about the war. So the ritual of Wootton Basset welcoming home funeral corteges was stopped and the coffins rerouted to avoid public attention and the town renamed Royal Wootton Basset.

Instead, there is the subtle propaganda inherent in interweaving the virtues of selfless military endeavour with the notion of Afghanistan as unquestionably a 'Good War' , one implanted in popular culture and entertainment through Help for Heroes Concerts and ITV's A Night of Heroes ( "the millies" ) which gives Oscar style awards for bravery.

At the same time as this entertainment extravaganza, the British government seldom makes any attempt to explain why the troops are in Afghanistan beyond vague statements about 'terrorism', even though Al Qaida has not been present in Afghanistan for a long time. Nor does it explicitly use "The War on Terror", the War on Drugs or Women's rights to sell the war any more.

The subliminal message behind The Sun sponsored awards is that support for 'our brave boys' by extension also means mean support for the mission they are on. That this should be put beyond mere politics. It's curious that this has taken place at a time when the media and politicians remain silent on the war objectives and there is virtually no coherent opposition.

A J P Taylor in The Trouble Makers wrote that dissent over British foreign policy had ensured that there was never a time between the French Revolution and World War Two when it had followed a broad line of national interest that transcended the ordinary controversies of domestic policies.

In that light never in British history has there been such a lack of principled objection to a futile war where one essential geopolitical ambition-the security of the route along which the TAPI Pipeline is planned to be constructed by 2016-is not mentioned in Parliament nor press.

The fact that Britain is part of a NATO led coalition dominated by the US tends to lead to the belief that it is a war "in the notional interest". In fact, the interests are stated in documents and press releases and 'think tank' publications as clearly being related to the TAPI Pipeline

Almost every British soldier since 2007 has been killed in the most intense fighting in Helmland. The TAPI pipeline is planned to run through this traditional low lying Taliban dominated region. Now they cannot be defeated, US Vice President has stated peace talk will happen with them.

Indeed Mr Biden even made it clear that the Taliban now must not be referred to as 'the enemy of US Interests'. No mention of NATO here nor even 'the allies or 'western'. Those interests are clearly less to do with the prospect of Al Qaida returning to Afghanistan as to the unfinished business of the TAPI Pipeline.

The soldiers are dying for a pipe dream as the strategy of building a 'pipeline of peace' that will unite all the regional powers-Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India-together is fraught with problems. Pipeline transit states are notoriously unstable.

The plan to construct a New Silk Route is intended to diversify Turkmenistan's gas away from monopoly Russian control ( hence the special interest of Central European powers such as Poland which had five troops killed yesterday ) . It is also conceived as a plan to encircle and destroy Iran economically.

The TAPI pipeline ensures that Pakistan is brought under Western influence as well as getting the supplies of gas it needs and blocking off Iran's export of gas to the east and potentially to India and even Chinese markets. Despite the fact this is causing problems in Pakistan.

The Pakistani elites are not happy at being threatened with sanctions if Pakistan opts for the IPI pipeline which would bring in Iranian gas at a price four times as cheap than would be gas the more risky TAPI pipeline. Funding and support from the Taliban thus comes from Iran and certain factions in Pakistan.

The potential for increased as opposed to diminished conflict in Central Asia and the Middle East is a result of the lack of realism inherent in NATO's botched war and one that ought to have ended with the destruction of Al Qaida's base after 9/11. As Jason Burke has pointed out, Al Qaida is a global 'network of networks' that can operate from anywhere in the world.

The TAPI project and vast mineral deposits have ensured that NATO, and hence Britain, is 'staying the course' along with other objectives that have been euphemised as "mission creep"-the War on Drugs- and others used as pretexts to stay the course-women's rights, school building, aid work etc.

Whilst the humanitarian objectives were worthy, the fact remains it has never been the reason why NATO remained as no war is ever exactly fought for one reason alone. But the idea British soldiers are risking their lives in a selfless humanitarian mission is simply untrue. They fight to protect one another from the Taliban: the organisation the US wants to cut a deal with.

The public have the right as well as a need to know why this war was fought.

The Taliban is Not an Enemy of US Interests..

The contradictory statements coming from various leading Western statesmen as regards the mission in Afghanistan are becoming more curious. From being evil 'Islamofascists', the Taliban have now been rebranded and downgraded to not being enemies of the USA.

The Daily Mail reported yesterday,

'The Taliban are not an enemy of the U.S. and should not be talked about in such terms, Joe Biden has claimed.

The vice-president said the militant Islamist group only represents an inherent threat if it allows Al-Qaeda to strike at the U.S.

In an interview with Newsweek, Mr Biden warned against labelling the Taliban as an enemy.

He said: 'That's critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests.'

Mr Biden's comments come as senior U.S. officials prepare to negotiate a peace deal with Taliban militants.

Even after a surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan has pushed the Taliban out of much of their southern stronghold, the group's intentions regarding peace talks remain unclear.

What is unclear is what US interests are. The enemy is not the enemy is it does not threaten US interests. This is a different position from the one where the Taliban are eternally evil and that defeating them is a victory for women's rights and liberal democracy.

Peace talk with the Taliban are necessary as they threaten the route through which the TAPI Pipeline is scheduled to run by 2016.

It is no coincidence that as Biden effectively admitted whilst there are no permanent enemies only permanent interests, high ranking members of the US military started to suggest they will be there beyond 2014, the 'official' withdrawal date.

In an interview with The New York Times, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan General John R. Allen avoided stating how many troops would be left in the country after 2014 nor even exactly what their function would be. The New York Times reported,

...negotiations with the government of President Hamid Karzai on a strategic partnership agreement would “almost certainly” include “a discussion with Afghanistan of what a post-2014 force will look like.”

Mr. Karzai had, “in fact, just the other day talked about his desire to have conversations with the U.S. about a post-2014 force,” the general said. “We would probably see some number of advisers, trainers, intelligence specialists here for some period of time beyond 2014.”

Could their function, indeed the whole point now of operations in Afghanistan, be primarily to train a security force capable of guarding the TAPI pipeline against terror attacks ? What interests are being served by them being there ? Were these the only permanent interests that the US had been there for all along ?