Karzai or Abdullah it doesn't matter. I think they're both puppets of US policy.

[Postman]

So either way its a "win-win" for the policy of natural resource domination, whose beneficiaries are the corporate state, that is enforced by the US military industrial complex.

[KharmaTrain]

1. And Whose The Alternative?

Karzai is a corrupt warlord...so is Abdullah...so is Mullah Omar. Different interests and all puppets in their own rights. This is nor never has been a Afghan national entity...purely a bunch of lines drawn on Western maps. It's a tribal conglomeration of different ethnic groups and interests that have fallen in the crosshairs of history and external powers and values.

Other than opium poppies, I don't see what natural resource the US can or would be able to dominate in this region. There's little to no oil and even if there was it would take years and incredible expense to turn it into any kind of profitable venture. And that's providing you've paid off the right warlord(s).

Overall, Afghanistan is a "lose-lose" as it continues to suck up resources with little to show for it. The best we can expect is an uneasy truce among the various factions and to try to influence through development of common infrastructure needs not through bullets.

[Postman]

2. Weren't they eyeing up Afghanistan to run pipelines from the Caspian region?

natural gas reserves...

[KharmaTrain]

4. I Heard That Same Excuse By The Soviets In 1979

There were the chickenhawks in those days that pushed for all types of military aid to Pakistan and led to getting involved in "Charlie Wilson's War" due to the fear that the Soviets wanted to run a pipleine through Afghanistan to the sea via Pakistan. Today many of those fields are directing their oil through Russia and to the Capsian and Black Sea...the need for that pipeline is irrelevant. I've also seen reports that the establishment of such a pipeline would be all but cost prohibitive to build and then protect and maintain...over terrain worse than the Alaskan pipeline.

I just file this under wingnut dreams that never were realistic but made good talking points.

Cheers...

[IDFbunny]

3. Nobody said they weren't our puppets.

Duh. As Powell said, "you break it, you own it". If and when we leave they will revert right back to mad men which I don't think improves anything either.

[FarCenter]

5. Elections let the people vote on two candidates equally acceptable to the establishment