Late last year in in front of army cadets at West Point President Obama announced to Americans in a nationally televised address that he had ordered the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in support of our "vital national interests" (not further defined). He also promised to commence a draw-down of US forces beginning July 2011. The president told the cadets that the mission "is clearly defined and worthy of your service".
The recent NATO conference in Lisbon has made official the rumors which have persisted for weeks, that we would not begin leaving until the end of 2014 and that was dependent upon conditions on the ground. Furthermore that our leaving would be "conditions based rather than calendar driven".
In the past diarists who dared to make statements to the effect that we are in Afghanistan for reasons other than those espoused by Obama, namely "It was from here we were attacked on 911 and it is here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak", would frequently be called out for promoting a conspiracy theory.
Meanwhile (less than 3 months ago):
Ashgabat/Moscow - Afghanistan and the Central Asian republic Turkmenistan have agreed to build a gas pipeline through Afghanistan, despite the ongoing security concerns in the country. The two countries had inked a contract in Kabul, the Moscow paper Kommersant reported on Wednesday.
The planned 1680-kilometre pipeline, which had been under discussion for more than a decade, is due to supply up to 33 billion cubic metres of gas per year from 2015, mostly to India and also to Pakistan, the report said.
Parts of the planned route cross regions currently under the control of the Islamist Taliban or rebel tribes. The ongoing tense relations between India and Pakistan pose a further threat to the project.
Turkmenistan holds the world's fourth largest gas reserves, which are also eyed by the European Union.
Earth Times - 1 September 2010
Also reported here and elsewhere if one would care to "google" the topic.
From the Journal of Energy Security 22 March 2010
As Western powers look for an end game in Afghanistan, that country’s role as a planned transit route for natural gas from Turkmenistan deserves scrutiny. The long-planned pipeline, named TAPI after the initials of the four participating countries (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India), has been prominently discussed in the Asian press but rarely mentioned in the West. The TAPI pipeline is geopolitically significant, but has major challenges that have not been widely discussed.
A Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement, signed by representatives of the four participating nations on April 25, 2008 in Islamabad, envisaged construction to start in 2010, supplying gas by 2015. The announced 1,000-mile route would follow the ancient trading route from Central to South Asia, extending from the Dauletabad gas field in Turkmenistan along the highway through Herat, Helmand and Kandahar in Afghanistan, to Quetta and Multan in Pakistan, and on to Fazilka in India. Participating countries have held numerous high-level planning meetings during the past eight years, with Asian Development Bank (ADB) sponsorship and multilateral support. When construction will start is uncertain because security in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan remains a problem.
Route map is provided in the article.
Other links:
Agreements signed for TAPI Pipeline - Pipelines International - 21 September 2010
Estimated to cost more than $US3 billion, the TAPI gas pipeline will have a total transmission capacity of 90 MMcm/d of gas. The pipeline will traverse a distance of approximately 1,680 km, including 735 km across Afghanistan and another 800 km through Pakistan.
$US 3 billion - who will get the large contracts for engineering and construction work? Anyone care to guess?
I think more people should be aware of this and I want to go on the record with it here and speculate that we won't be leaving Afghanistan any time in the foreseeable future. There is too much money to be made.
As NATO secretary general Rasmussen said: "We will stay after the transition in a supporting role... NATO is in this for the long-term".
Smedley Butler was correct. War is a Racket, and for the power elite the end justifies the means.