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We recently published an
article entitled, "U.S. Won't "Abandon"
Central Asia ...Central Asians, Be Warned!" (1) The article dealt with the Senate testimony last December by US Undersecretary of State for Eurasian Affairs, Elizabeth Jones. In her testimony, Ms. Jones mentioned Caspian Sea energy resources as one of the areas of interest to the US government regarding Central Asia. I commented that this might seem to confirm the idea, held by many opponents of what one might call the New World Empire, that the "cause" of the Anglo-US-German assault on Afghanistan, that "the cause was oil." I said in passing that I believed the "they're-doing-it-for-oil" explanation was wrong. A reader wrote the following:
Fair enough. Since posting my
commentary on the report of what Elizabeth Jones said
about Central Asia, we received, also from a NY-area
reader, the actual transcript of her remarks. Thus you
can now read the full transcript at Here are two excerpts from the accurate summary, which was broadcast by the Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency. Excerpt 1:
Excerpt 2:
Having posted the quotes from Ms. Jones, I noted that people who oppose the war against Afghanistan might see the familiar phrase, "Caspian Sea energy resources," and think, "Aha! This proves it!" The 'it' in question is the widespread theory that "the reason for US policy in Afghanistan [and elsewhere] is oil." The 'they-do-it-for-oil' theory relies on two assumed facts:
There are several problems with this theory. First, there is no evidence the US had to go to war to guarantee an adequate oil supply. Fidel Castro spoke about this. Some of our readers may admire Mr. Castro and some may not but surely all will concede he is a shrewd observer. Commenting on the theory that oil was "behind" the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Castro said:
Mr. Castro is right. Before 9-11 the US was in a powerful position as regards Caspian basin energy resources - indeed, according to an earlier report from Secretary Jones, the main concern of the U.S. was not getting oil but using oil-development projects to orient local States in a way that favored US geopolitical interests. Below is an excerpt from a report of some interesting statements made by Elizabeth Jones on April 11, 2001 at Harvard. She was talking about a proposed pipeline through the Caspian area (not Afghanistan) and its relation to the core U.S. strategy of promoting Turkey as a regional Imperial proxy force, strengthening its relations with Georgia, which has a pro-U.S. government, and Azerbaijan, with the goal of weakening Russian influence:
In other words, rather than being interested in Central Asia "because of oil," the U.S. was interested in oil "because of Central Asia." This follows an age-old truth: the poor seek security. The rich seek more money. But the real rulers seek power, because power gets them control of *everything* that human beings seek. Second, the theory that the U.S. went to war because the Taliban were being intransigent regarding an oil pipeline falsely assumes the Taliban were the independent rulers of Afghanistan. Actually the Taliban were
under active control of the Pakistani army and secret
police, and were funded by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia,
both of which, especially Saudi Arabia, are part of the U.S.
Empire. Indeed there is substantial evidence that the US
covert apparatus supported the Taliban for a long time.
or more on this, see "Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban to be
Slaughtered'" at So if the Taliban were being difficult in some important oil pipeline negotiations, why wouldn't the U.S. government simply put pressure on them to 'get with the program'? Why bomb the place to smithereens? And what is the hard evidence that the Taliban did *not* want a pipeline? That evidence better be pretty good because it does not make sense for the Taliban to have opposed a pipeline. Pipelines bring in lots of cash. A pipeline would have decreased the Taliban's financial dependence on Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The Taliban were extremists but they weren't fools. Moreover, we have strong evidence the Taliban did *not* resist building a pipeline. Quite the contrary. According to the Petroleum Economist of February 11, 2002, it was the Taliban which tried to get a trans-Afghan pipeline, and it was the U.S. and Unocal which jinxed the project. This can be found in an analytical article in the Petroleum Economist, entitled, "ANALYSIS; PIPELINE SURVEY; RUSSIA GOES TO MARKET." Note that the Economist is the most sophisticated journal of the oil industry. It is not read by the general public. It has zero interest in molding public opinion. Its purpose is to provide insiders with accurate information. Here's the Petroleum Economist:
Proponents of the theory that the U.S. attacked Afghanistan "because of the Afghan oil pipeline" must explain why the US establishment first took the action which made it *impossible* to build a pipeline and then attacked Afghanistan to make it *possible* to build a pipeline. Having killed the pipeline project, if the United States establishment subsequently changed its mind and decided it wanted a pipeline built after all, and if Unocal changed its mind and decided now that it wanted to build the pipeline, why wouldn't the US simply remove the sanctions which were what was preventing investors from putting up the cash to build the pipeline? Pipelines are vulnerable to attack, so going to war is the worst thing for building a pipeline. Nobody will invest money in building a pipeline in a country that is engulfed in war. But wars are tricky business. Once you start a war, especially in an area like Central Asia, it is difficult to say for sure when it will end. Afghanistan is a maze of difficult terrains, literally and figuratively. Thus the Petroleum Economist notes, in its dry way, that the war is not helping the pipeline project one bit:
Aah, premature... Moreover, this war has, predictably, destabilized a highly volatile region jam-packed with nuclear weapons. The threat of nuclear war has been increased. The U.S. would only risk nuclear war for the biggest stakes - certainly not to build a pipeline, which it could have built with no problem if instead of going to war it had lifted the sanctions against Afghanistan. The "they-are-in-Afghanistan-for-the-oil" theory has another problem. The test of theory is its usefulness in predicting events. But those who now put forward the "they are in it for the oil" theory did not predict the attack on Afghanistan. Rather, believing that "the US is motivated by oil," they predicted that, following the terrible events of 9-11, the US would launch military action in the Middle East, most likely against Iraq. I am not saying the US and Britain will not - once again- escalate their pitiless war against Iraq, a war of bombs and sanctions which has killed so many Iraqis and had the secondary but also quite harmful collateral effect of increasing world-wide political respect for the increasingly distorted leaders in Iraq. No, I am not saying the U.S. and England will definitely not escalate the war against Iraq. But please consider that, despite the predictions made by analysts who hold the "they're-in-it-for-the-oil" theory, who have been saying ever since 9-11 that an all out attack on Iraq is imminent, please note that in the eight months since 9-11 escalation against Iraq has not yet occured. This of course suggests that the threat of a massive attack on Iraq is a diversion to shift our gaze away from the central point of New World Empire interest: Central Asia. I do not wish to be unkind but really, what is left of the "they-did-it-for-the-oil" theory? It is apparently based on wrong information, asserting that the Taliban was the obstacle to an Afghan pipeline, when common sense and facts from a reliable source tell us the Taliban wanted the pipeline. It fails to consider that war is the worst thing for pipelines. Those who put forth this theory failed, every one of them, to predict the invasion of Afghanistan, arguing instead that "because-they're-in-it-for-the- oil," the U.S. government would invade the Middle East, specifically Iraq. (Though if the U.S. government really "wants oil" why not make a mutually beneficial settlement with the Iraqi government? The Iraqi leaders would come to terms with the new World Empire in two seconds flat, given the chance. They have exactly zero interest in fighting the US Empire. It is clearly the US which picked the fight.) On September 18th, Emperor's Clothes published an article we had started working on right after 9-11. In it we made some predictions based on our own hypothesis. We said the central (that is, dominant) goal of the New World Empire was to fully encircle Russia with Imperial proxy states and gradually - including the use of phony rebellions and military attrition - reduce Russia and certain other former Soviet states to shattered, totally impoverished territories under Imperial domination. That is not an arbitrary goal, born of malice. Those who run the New World Empire (centered in the U.S. establishment) are fully aware that Russia and China are the most likely potential counter weight to their power. Therefore for over a decade they have been patiently laying a noose around Russia's neck. As the gangster said in the movie, 'The Godfather," nothing personal. It's only business. Our article was entitled,
"Why Washington Wants Afghanistan." It is at Note that this article was published *before* the US attacked Afghanistan. It is hard to remember, but at first it wasn't at all clear that the US planned to attack Afghanistan, or only Afghanistan. Note that at that time, columnists and politicians were threatening that the US would launch all-out war against many countries. (4) Note that the proponents of the "they're-in-it-for-the-oil" theory were all saying the US had gone insane and was about to attack everyone under the sun, particularly Iraq. When we wrote that in fact the U.S. was going to concentrate on Afghanistan, a lot of people, particularly on the "left," said we were hallucinating. Afghanistan, they said. What did the US want with Afghanistan? Note that we were 100% correct. At first the list of countries the US promised to bomb for ("harboring terrorists") was limited to Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. As we noted in our article, there was no evidence that any of these countries had ties with Osama bin Laden. In fact, the opposite was true:
We quoted Donald Rumsfeld who, on September 16th, upped the number of countries threatened with US attack to 60:
We made the following argument:
We argued that Washington would strive to bring together elements of all the various Islamic fundamentalist sects in Afghanistan into a united force under its control. Washington did not wish to destroy the Taliban. Rather, it wished to take Afghanistan into receivership, so to speak, because the Taliban was incompetent and unreliable, and the Empire needed to move NATO forces directly into the area to speed up the encirclement of Russia:
The inefficiency of the Taliban was one of the reasons Washington moved into Afghanistan. The other reason was that Russia was taking independent steps which could challenge Washington's hegemonic rule:
Since the invasion of Afghanistan, the encirclement of Russia has greatly intensified. For example, NATO has developed much closer military ties with the Central Asian Republics. There are now US 'advisers' in Georgia, a former Soviet Republic on Russia's strategic southern flank, whose government is hostile to Russia. Russian leader Vladimir Gorbachev - oh, I am so sorry, I meant Vladimir *Putin*! - has used the excuse of a supposed "united fight against terror" to isolate Russian patriots and make major concessions to Washington. As an added Imperial benefit, the supposed war on terrorism has confused some patriots in Russia and elsewhere in another way. Seeing that the U.S. *says* it wants to fight the Islamic terrorists, and having failed to organize ordinary people to defend and reclaim the social gains of the Soviet period, they toy with the "solution" of allying with Islamic fundamentalist and authoritarian Muslim states under the illusion that in this way they can build a real coalition against the New World Empire. In fact, the Islamic fundamentalist and authoritarian forces are the deadly enemies of ordinary people, pushing the most backward ideas (such as the most brutal oppression of women, violent hatred of Jews, religious tyranny, glorification of terrorism, and so on) and the most authoritarian conditions of political life. It is far better not to have allies than it is to have allies like these. In fact, the only solid basis on which to build if one would oppose the New World Empire is: the political understanding of ordinary people. Perhaps the most important people in the world - because of where they live - are the peoples of the former Soviet Union. In October we published an article
which discussed the danger that those who want to resist
the Empire would adopt the superficial political strategy
of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." That
they would support the Islamic fundamentalists (e.g.,
Islamic Jihad, Hammas, etc.) and the equally dangerous
authoritarian Muslim regimes and movements (e.g., Saddam
Hussein, Arafat) because, superficially, the Empire *seems*
to oppose them. That article is called 'Osama bin Laden, Terrorist Monster: Take Two!' at Now we see, unfortunately, that some in the former Socialist countries, who should know better, and others in the Western peace movement are making this mistake. We will discuss this more in other articles. And as for the Taliban, despite the ruthless bombing of Afghanistan, which killed so many civilians, despite the pictures released by the US military of prisoners in Guantanamo, intended to show how *ruthlessly* they were suppressing the Taliban, in fact what has happened? On October 19th we wrote:
So we predicted that much of the Taliban would be absorbed into the armies of the new Afghan puppet state. And look what was reported as early as January of this year:
The U.S. claim that it is fighting
Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan is a farce, as
demonstrated by the policy of continuing to ship Islamic
fundamentalist textbooks into that tortured country. See How well this new puppet state and army will ever function remains to be seen. An army combining all the gruesome factions of Islamic fundamentalists which Washington and Saudi Arabia have created in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1979; an army which is more like an archeological dig, with its various layers representing the various nightmares schemes of the boys in Langley, Virginia; an army which is the living expression of the agony which Brzezinski's slick schemers have inflicted on the people of Afghanistan. How well this puppet state and army will ever function remains to be seen indeed! We read in the Washington Post of a week ago that the CIA has been trying to assassinate Gulbuddin Hekmatyar:
"Go after individuals in the theater of war." What a nice, Bush-folksy way of saying "trying to murder people." To understand the horrible irony of
this, you should know that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was the Muslim fundamentalist fanatic into whose
pockets the CIA pumped much of its billions of dollars of
Afghan blood money, and who was installed as a "Prime
Minister" after the overthrow of the Afghan secular
government. For more on this go to Some news reports said that the recent unpleasantness had occurred because Mr. Hekmatyar was trying to murder Americans. Perhaps he was. Or perhaps he wasn't. Perhaps Hekmatyar heard that the CIA was trying to murder him and in proper gangster fashion, he tried to kill them first. Or maybe he and the CIA boys were trying to murder each other. Maybe 'murder' is the proper word to describe what Washington has visited upon Afghanistan. Maybe it was Murder Incorporated that set up shop in Afghanistan in 1979 when the monsters at the CIA in Langley, Virginia began trying to "draw Russia into the Afghan trap," in the process of which they turned an ancient land of wonderful people into living hell. And maybe by the time Washington finishes this latest phase of its 23 year old murderous "we're-in-it-to-destroy-Russia" Afghan nightmare, maybe by the time it's all over, the New World Empire will earnestly wish that in fact it had gone to Afghanistan only for the oil. -- Jared Israel Subscribe to our newsletter at http://emperor.vwh.net/MailList/index.php ***************************************************** For map of Central Asia, see http://www.sitara.com/central_asia_map.html 1) US
WON'T 'ABANDON' CENTRAL ASIA ...CENTRAL
ASIANS, BE WARNED!" 2) For full text of Fidel
Castro's remarks on the war in Afghanistan plus other
issues, see (3) Petroleum Economist,
February 11, 2002, Pg.12 4) 'Why Washington Wants Afghanistan,' by Jared Israel, Rick Rozoff & Nico
Varkevisser, analyzes the geo-political designs behind
the massive deception called The War On Terror" * En Français 5) What's the Target of the U.S. Move into Central
Asia? For more on the encirclement of Russia: 5a) Afghan Operation Leaves Russia 'Encircled' by US-NATO
5b) "US Military Pushes into Ex-Soviet Georgia Under Guise of Fighting Terror," by Rick Rozoff can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/rozoff/pushes.htm 6) 'Why is NATO Decimating the Balkans and Trying to Force Milosevic to Surrender?' by Jared Israel and Nico Varkevisser. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/whyisn.htm 7) Osama Bin Laden was propelled into power as part of the U.S. drive to create an Islamist terrorist movement for use, in the first instance, to crush the former Soviet Union. See the truly amazing account from the 'Washington Post,' 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy.' at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm 8) 'Osama bin Laden: Made in USA,' by Jared Israel. This article includes quotes from a New York Times piece documenting the vast sums spent creating Islamist terrorism. It can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/madein.htm 9) To read the New York
Times piece quoted in the above article, go to 'Afghan Taliban Camps Were Built by NATO,' By TIM WEINER 10) One of Washingon's most amazing uses of terrorists (amazing because of the extent of the hypocrisy involved) is against Macedonia, whose government, like that of Mr. Putin, did everything to please the American Empire. Macedonia is nevertheless - and indeed, all the more easily - now being destroyed. See "Articles Documenting Washington's Terrorist Attack on Macedonia,' at http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/listm.htm 11) Regarding bin Laden's
supposed break with the CIA, see 'Gaping Holes in the 'Washington Hates bin Laden'
Story,' by Jared Israel at 12) 'Kosovo Concentration Camps : The KLA Archipelago' Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/reporter.htm Subscribe to our newsletter at http://emperor.vwh.net/MailList/index.php Click here to email the link to this article to a friend. ======================================= Emperor's Clothes has only one source of income - your donations. We want everyone to read our articles, whether they can afford to contribute money or not. But if you can contribute, please do; we are able to continue based on your help. To keep Emperor's Clothes publishing please send whatever contributions you can! $20, $50, $100, $500 $1000, whatever you can afford. Every penny will be used to get articles to more people. (But whether or not you make a donation, please continue reading Emperor's Clothes!)
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