Have you noticed that the words "Afghanistan" and "oil" are never mentioned in the same sentence?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KJ08Df01.html

Stuck in Kabul, with Saigon blues again

Oct 8, 2009

By Pepe Escobar

Some things never change. It was "only" eight years ago that the George W Bush administration unleashed its mini-shock and awe over Afghanistan to, in theory, smash the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Stuck inside of Kabul with the Saigon blues again, the "overseas contingency operations" of the Barack Obama administration continue to perpetrate a myth; never shall the words "Afghanistan" and "oil" be mentioned in the same sentence.

Instead, what is played to the jaded Washington galleries is the shabby spectacle of the dance of the generals - the serpent biting its own tail of the show of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, National Security Adviser retired General Jim Jones and General Stanley McChrystal, the top man in Afghanistan. Add to it extended, "analytical" corporate media reports of the "Has Obama lost his mojo?" kind; and the grandiose "Amanpour" at George Washington University collecting platitudes from the Pentagon supremo Robert Gates-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton combo.

McChrystal wants 40,000 extra troops and he wants them now. Jones basically told McChrystal to shut up. And non-general Gates saunters around practicing contortions.

An unnamed British government spokesman has been the only source to talk about that fateful Copenhagen meeting last week between a "furious" Obama and McChrystal; the spokesman said "they agreed that further 'Afghanization', including accelerated training of the Afghan army and police, needed to be at the center of NATO's counter-insurgency efforts".

Afghanize or else

The debate over what strategy should Obama go for in Afghanistan always revolves around counter-insurgency, as in "success in Iraq"; still another myth. Armchair warriors who would flee in horror from a night al fresco in the Hindu Kush pompously state NATO could successfully apply counter-insurgency while refusing to admit the Western-supported election rigged by the President Hamid Karzai machine made the Iranian presidential election look as clean as a whistle.

[thunder rising]

1. You don't much see Afghanistan and heroin used together either

[AntiFascist]

5. I noticed CNN ran a piece this morning about poppy production...

now if only they could stress the point that poppy production rose after we invaded, instead of promoting the propaganda that it declined.

[lob1]

2. You'll never see Afganistan and effervescent in the same sentence, either.

[Engineer4Obama]

3. Neither do the words Afghanistan and pie ever appear in the same sentance

No war for PIE!

[avaistheone1]

4. You won't see this in the mainstream press.

http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/afghanistan-a-war-for-gas-and-oil-pipelines-2/

[EmeraldCityGrl]

6. Why aren't more asking "What are we fighting for."

Of course it's all about the pipeline and to a degree, saving face. Osama is dead and we have no other reason to be there. Had the initial mission been financed properly and enough troops deployed we might have built trust and credibility with the Afghan people, but that ship has sailed.