Woah. The biggest news story in 2009, and I almost missed it.

[Robb]

Yolotan. We're not developing it.

Yolotan is (probably) the biggest natural gas field in Turkmenistan, and is about a 9-iron shot from the Afghanistan border. If you're talking about pipelines in Afghanistan, you're talking about the Yolotan fields.

By "we" I mean "the West" -- Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Chevron, all submitted proposals. A China-led consortium got the gig. Meaning they offered a better deal to Turkmenistan, somehow. Without troops on the ground.

This just weeks after the Turkmenistan-China pipe became operational. And we're all still talking about the vaporware that is the Af-Pak pipe.

Make no mistake: Afghanistan is again the site of a proxy war, but it's not between the U.S. and Al Qaeda. It's between China and the West, and this was Pearl Harbor. Or some similar hyperbole.

I have no idea what the next move for the West is, frankly.

[dkf]

1. Until breakthroughs in solar technology become the news of the day we are losing

[ellenfl]

6. unfortunately, china has already had the solar breakthrough.

i believe they already dominate that field.

ellen fl

[Mr Rabble]

2. Very astute analysis.

This thread, like most of actual importance here, will sink like a stone. :(

I am sure youve noticed the increased happy talk about Natural Gas in the media over the last year, so it will be curious to see this development studiously avoided.

[anigbrowl]

9. Nope. It's years out of date.

There is much less of a demand for an 'Af-Pak' pipeline than there used to be, because there's been a lot o pipeline building to western Europe, not to mention a huge increase in American domestic reserves of natural gas, partly due to new extraction techniques. A pipeline through Afghanistan was a hot item on the diplomatic agenda back at the turn of the century. Since then the supply landscape has changed radically. We are not there for the pipeline, because a pipeline through Afghanistan is no longer a necessity.

People won't like hearing that, but but I was studying central Asian pipeline planning back during the Balkan war, ie long before September 11. It's absolutely true that the possibility of a pipeline through there was an important factor in strategic planning a decade ago. But...times have changed. A lot.

[Robb]

10. You must've misunderstood, or misread.

I'm not talking about the "Af-Pak" Unocal nonsense. This is another matter.

Also, if you think new extraction technology -- and there have been at least two major advances there in the last decade, I agree -- brings North American potential reserves anywhere near the proven ones in this field, or frankly even that in the "old" fields nearer Dauletabad (that Unocal et al were after in the 1990s), you're quite mistaken.

[Fridays Child]

3. I don't even know what to think about information like this.

Our "all-volunteer" military men and women are spilling their blood in service to the American elite, and it's heart-wrenching that, for the most part, they don't have a clue. Everything they're told is fiction, a fucking deceit. I tell myself I'm a pacificist but this boils my blood. I want war, alright. Us against the powers that be--every single one of those big corporate fuckers and their media front men, too. I want to take them apart. Jesus.

[Mr Rabble]

7. You said it FC.

Honestly- at some point, even the worlds most sophisticated propaganda machine will be totally unable to pacify the rage of "the great beast" and there will be meaningful change here. It will likely not be pretty. History is littered with such scenarios, and I suspect that we are not to be immune from a repeat.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

19. yes, what you said. also, what Mr. Rabble said--

world's most sophisticated propaganda machine.

:(

[undeterred]

4. I thought it was an alternative to the tanning bed.

[StarfarerBill]

5. Perhaps Afghanistan is a stepping stone.

The next: Iran.

[Fridays Child]

11. Well, to seal up all routes to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, that would make sense.

x( :nuke:

[StarfarerBill]

12. In another thread, I wondered if Yemen could be the southern side of a box for Saudi Arabia,

with Iraq and Israel to the north, and Egypt to the west.

[Fridays Child]

13. We can only guess at the strategy.

But any educated guess has to consider military and/or economic control at least over routes, if not goods, as well.

[StarfarerBill]

14. To be honest, I couldn't imagine any other reason to be in Afghanistan and Yemen,

from a capitalist perspective (beyond military contractors, of course); their only economic virtue is their proximity to large reserves of oil and gas as well as controlling trade routes, as you rightly pointed out.

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. +2

[AdHocSolver]

15. The Chinese are turning out to be the consummate capitalists.

Early in the Iraq "war", the U.S. could have bought the Iraq army for, say, $50 billion.

However, that would be to an American capitalist the same as giving in to the wage demands of a union, if the U.S. were to "negotiate" such a settlement.

Instead, our capitalists celebrated "mission accomplished", disarmed the Iraqi army, and proceeded with the "more profitable" policy of "pacifying" the Iraqi populace.

Almost seven years, close to a trillion dollars, thousands of dead Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties later, there is still no exit from Iraq.

The Chinese people are an ancient and intelligent civilization. The American capitalists are "new comers" to the game. While the U.S. capitalists are shedding American blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Chinese, being astute business people, walk in and quietly make a deal with the local population that is profitable for both parties.

Having worked at many corporations over the years, large and small, both for-profit and (supposedly) nonprofit, it became apparent that the higher up the organization that you observed, the top executives were the most greedy, crass, vicious examples of humanity that one could imagine. Not content to merely win against their adversaries, the typical American corporate executive has an addictive need to crush any opposition with a sanctimonious, self-righteous fervor.

The Chinese have played on that American capitalist mind-set for greed and contempt for others (such as American workers and consumers) to take over our manufacturing technology and put the U.S. in debt to them for a trillion(?) dollars. While American capitalists have alienated most of the rest of the world, the Chinese come ready to negotiate, and are becoming the businessmen of choice with whom to make a deal.

[Robb]

17. Long game stuff. Good post. nt

[Wilms]

16. Plus and another thread in GD: Chinese-led group initials deal for Iraq oil field

Without firing a shot, China gains control of much of Iraq's southern oil fields

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7381696&mesg_id=7381696

[Echo In Light]

18. Thanks for posting ... shades of PNAC abound