Why are we STILL in Afghanistan???

[qwlauren35]

Is anyone discussing our numbers there? Or our reason for being there? Is anyone making a stink about it?

[devilgrrl]

1. Well, AnnThrax Coulter says it's going "SWIMMINGLY" over there....

:eyes:

[NewJeffCT]

2. Well, it's been going to hell in a handbasket there

for one reason... the Taliban has had more attacks in 2006 than in any other years since their government was displaced in late 2002.

[Robbien]

3. Shush

No one is supposed to notice Afghanistan. I expect it soon to be put on the Do Not Ask About List along with Sudan and most of Africa.

[lectrobyte]

4. Guarding the pipeline?

[MH1]

5. Because the Taliban are coming back.

There at least is a government to defend, in parts of Afghanistan, that does not treat women as the property of men.

[shadowknows69]

6. Pipeline and it helps us surround Iran

All part of the hegemony/resource war plan.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Heres why

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7005853716

December 14, 2006 5:31 a.m. EST

U.S., Russia To Explore Oil And Gas In Afghanistan


Kabul, Afghanistan (AHN) - A Russian and an American firm have forged an alliance to jointly explore Afghanistan's oil and gas resources. The Professional Construction Services Network Nevada, a U.S.-based construction and engineering firm has teamed up with Russia's Public Joint Stock Company or RUMO. snip

But the statement did not provide details on the joint venture as well as details of the production of gas and oil in northern Afghanistan. PCSN said it is proud of the partnership between the Afghan/American/Russian companies to lead Afghanistan to become self-sufficient in energy and bring better life to the Afghan people.

Surveys conducted by the former Soviet Union indicated that huge oil and gas reservoir are in Afghanistan's northern provinces.

[Spurt]

8. Because...

so far the country is only 90% fucked and we aint leaving until the task is complete.
That 100% may take some time to achieve.

[Virginia Dare]

9. Skimming the drug trade?

they don't call him "Poppy" Bush for nothin'!

:shrug:

[Beelzebud]

10. The 3 O's. Opium, Oil, and Osama.

[Jcrowley]

11. Plans for Redrawing the Middle East

Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya


“Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor

<snip>

Moreover, the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as “Russia’s Southern Tier” or the Russian “Near Abroad.”

Many Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (”Russia’s Southern Tier”) to be the vulnerable and “soft under-belly” of the Russian Federation.3

It should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The Map of the “New Middle East”
A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”

http://gothinkblog.com/?p=436#more-436

[Ms. Clio]

13. an excellent piece, thanks for the link

more:

This map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.

(snip)

It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.

(snip)


Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are “draconian” in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or “birth pang” in order to create the “New Middle East” that Washington, London, and Tel Aviv envision.

(snip)

The overhaul, dismantlement, and reassembly of the nation-states of the Middle East have been packaged as a solution to the hostilities in the Middle East, but this is categorically misleading, false, and fictitious. The advocates of a “New Middle East” and redrawn boundaries in the region avoid and fail to candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary Middle East. What the media does not acknowledge is the fact that almost all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.

Many of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division, ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States and Britain in various parts of the globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of “divide and conquer.” Other examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.



So the same people who originally drew the lines on the map now think that all they need is a new bunch of arbitrary lines to make it work for them.

[Kelly Rupert]

12. Because of the NATO mission there.

The US is only in Afghanistan as part of the joint NATO operation, designed to bring stability to the region. Unfortunately, the mandate is underfunded in both men and money, and the Taliban is making a resurgance while reconstruction has stalled.