Even conservatives have stopped defending the war in Iraq. The sane ones, anyway. Yet the belief persists, even among the thinking/liberal half of the population, that the war against the Taliban was somehow more just, more honest, a more logical reaction to the 9/11 attacks.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
As Bob Woodward writes in “Bush At War,” Afghanistan was a dry run to Iraq in every respect–marketing, strategy, weaponry. The Bushies did Afghanistan first because they knew that, no matter how many mistakes they made, they could defeat the Taliban. At least at first.
The justifications for the war, however, were every bit as fraudulent as the WMD claims about Iraq. Pakistan, not Afghanistan, was and is the world’s HQ for Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden wasn’t in Afghanistan at the start of the war. And the Taliban repeatedly offered to turn him over in exchange for evidence that he was involved in 9/11. Bush turned them down.
Like Iraq, there’s an energy connection. The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project, as the industry trade journal Oil & Gas noted on May 3rd, is scheduled for groundbreaking in 2005:
Petroleum minister Nouraiz outlines foreign investment needs in Pakistan
By an OGJ Correspondent
KARACHI, May 3 — Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Nouraiz Shakoor, at a press conference, invited foreign investors to participate in a $1 billion oil refinery proposed for Pakistan, in exploration blocks, and in gas storage facilities at Gwadar for Balochistan Province and in storage facilities for the hilly areas of the country.
Saying there was a need for both upstream and downstream investment in Pakistan’s oil and gas sector, Nouraiz said he hoped in fiscal year 2004-05 to surpass the record $800 million provided by foreign investors in all sectors of oil and gas in Pakistan during fiscal year 2003-04.
He said the feasibility study for the $3 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan oil pipeline would be completed by June, and the project would begin by yearend 2005. Nouraiz said that a consortium of companies would be formed later this year to fund the pipeline.
The consortium is said to be led by Unocal Corp., former employer of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pet Bush Administration ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
Because the details are obscure and the story complex, I wrote a whole book–GAS WAR: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN–to tie it all together. And I vetted it the best way I know how: by sending it to all of the right-wing media that loves to to attack me. Interestingly, neither The Weekly Standard nor The National Review nor The Washington Times deemed this “consipiracy” title worthy of review, or trashing.
As Joe Bob Briggs says, check it out.
