Ho Hum;Another Stupid War Of Choice

[91bravojoe]

The artificiality of Libya is covered in the first link(bottom of page 1). 3 disparate cultures jammed together by Italy into a Colonial Ugly Baby. Probably would have gotten unrested much earlier if not for the Colonel's muscle.

The haphazard treatment of AQ by this country is a damn old operational definition. The US funded and armed AQ in the 1980s. Once we pronounced ourselves satisfied in Afghanistan, the project got characteristically abandoned. 1990s attacks, especially the Cole, produced vague threats to do something. In 2001, we openly negotiated with AQ's congenial host, the Taliban, to build an oil pipeline. 9/11 changed all that. We attacked Iraq, and became AQs faithful recruiter.

Everything but coherence.

[Dayuhan]

In 2001, we openly negotiated with AQ's congenial host, the Taliban, to build an oil pipeline.

The pipeline was held out as a carrot to try to get the Taliban to dump AQ on several occasions, notably in 97-99, before the project was sidelined by US-imposed sanctions. Bit of bribery... it's been known to work on occasion, but it didn't work this time. AQ of course would have known it was going on and tried to stop it.

Despite the voluminous amounts of blather on various conspiracy-theory websites, the project was never of any economic significance to the US. It was seen purely as leverage to try to pry the Taliban into a more moderate and engaged stance by promising some revenue from transit fees. Nothing terribly unusual or inconsistent there.

[91bravojoe]

I don't think your quite listening to the music, Dayuhan. More or less adjacent to
barracks bombing and Cole bombing, it was OIL that suddenly had the US and the arch-fundamentalist Taliban feeling each other up. Supporting the perception in all the wrong corners that the US was driven by oil availability, not by any coherent point of view on Wahabiism, or the kind of pseudo-government that we would tolerate.

[Dayuhan]

I don't think your quite listening to the music, Dayuhan. More or less adjacent to
barracks bombing and Cole bombing, it was OIL that suddenly had the US and the arch-fundamentalist Taliban feeling each other up. Supporting the perception in all the wrong corners that the US was driven by oil availability, not by any coherent point of view on Wahabiism, or the kind of pseudo-government that we would tolerate.

Actually not. The pipeline would have carried natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan; wasn't oil and the US wouldn't have received it. The US was alternately trying to bribe and threaten the Taliban to drop OBL and deal with the West. Carrots and sticks, the tools of diplomacy ever since.

People will perceive what they will; there's no effective way to preempt perception and any action, or none, will fuel some perception that we don't like. At that point in time it wasn't about what we would or wouldn't tolerate, it was about trying to maneuver that government into becoming a bit more tolerable.

I see no reason why we should need a "coherent point of view on Waahhabism"; our problem, whether with governments or individuals, is what people do, not what they believe.

[Marcellinus]

dayuhan,

true the natural gas was not destined for the us. however, injecting the supply of natural gas from the dualetabad gas fields would have had an impact on the global demand of natural gas which would have been favorable to the us.

also, from what i understand, the gas pipeline from turkmenistan was just a pawn in the greater game of caspian/CAR energy production. as i understand, transporting oil from the caspian through afghanistan to ports in pakistan was a viable option than transporting it through georgia to turkish ports in the mid nineties.

seems to me that moving oil south through afghanistan would have better marginalized russia. i think that it is the hindsight of the completion of the baku-ceyhan pipeline and the deterioration of the afghan pipelines that allows you to relegate that whole expedition to carrot/stick diplomacy.

[Fuchs]

however, injecting the supply of natural gas from the dualetabad gas fields would have had an impact on the global demand of natural gas which would have been favorable to the us.

Natural gas hasn't really a global market. Most is moved through pipelines with long-term contracts. LNG tankers are rare and iirc they tend to serve on well-defined routes to supply LNG to meet long-term contracts as well.