We’re not a colonial power. No. Uh uh. We’re just pursuing the Free Market by other means. We’d be in Afghanistan to help them build Democracy even if their leading resource was broccoli.

re:By REDHORSE, June 20 at 4:06 pm:

We recently got a very clear demonstration of the
relative power of the oil and Israel lobbies—
and Israel won, hands down.

A Republican from an oil state made an outrageous apology to BP,
and was not only instantly denounced by the Democrats but also
forced by leading members of his own party to issue an immediate
and very embarrassing retraction. He also got lambasted in the
major TV and print media.

Contrast that with what happened after Israel’s flotilla murders. Congress
passed, by huge margins, bipartisan resolutions of support and praise for
Israel, and after Chuck Schumer outrageously stated that it “makes sense to
strangle Gaza economically”, no one from either party gave him any serious
grief about it, and the major media outlets ignored the incident.

ED H: Israel does have powerfull influence on American policy and their actions against the Palestinians are criminal. I just don’t feel they have they’re the devil you suggest. The oil boys got us into the fight pretty much on their own.

      Keep rockin’ and Happy Fathers Day.

Gentle readers:

Before you swallow Mr. Sirota’s “war for resources” theory, which happens to be
great cover story for what are in fact wars for Israel, please consider the fact that
when Mr. Sirota moved to D.C., he worked in the political department of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC, according to the Wikipedia
article on Mr. Sirota.

For more on how the Afghanistan occupation fits in with the Great War to Remake
the Middle East for Israel, see my post below.

Look at the map. Afghanistan borders Iran on the east side,
and Iraq borders Iran on the west side.

The American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq form
a nice set of brackets around Iran. Get the picture?

Threatening war against Iran has been the primary business
of US foreign policy for the last 6 or 7 years. The Afghanistan
occupation is part of positioning the US military to undertake
such a war.

And that war is a war for Israel—not for oil, or gold, or lithium.
Mr. Sirota, portraying the Afghan war as an undertaking that might
yield us some gold nuggets for our trouble is not the sudden
revelation of the “Big Secret”. It is in fact a cover story. Because as bad and
immoral as a “war for lithium that will make us rich” might sound to the
American public, a “war for Israel that will do us absolutely no good and make
us all a lot poorer” sounds quite a bit worse.

Yes, Mr. Sirota, the truth is even worse than a “war for resources”.

Just read in an MSNBC article where Hamid Karzai just handed over the rights to mine those mineral riches and resources to….......Japan. So, I guess our forces can pack up and come home now, since Japan just essentially volunteered to save them from the Taliban.

Speaking of war for resources, check out this story
from LeMonde;

http://worldmeets.us/lemonde0000230.shtml

We’re so f*&ked;!

The small people, as Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP Chairman would denote them, are outraged on a daily basis by the plundering of resources by the global elite. 

Why do they expect anything different from the elite?  Haven’t the small people read the “Georgia Stones?”  Haven’t they heard of the agenda of population control or “sustainable development” as they like to call it at the elite levels?  Haven’t they read all about the “human weeds” of Margaret Sanger’s writings? 

Virtually every institution of mankind is hoodwinked into carrying out the agenda of controling the population for the benefit of the powerful.  And virtually every event, planed or not, is milked to the extreme for its value in killing just a couple more “weeds”  I am absolutely convinced of that.  It explains what appears to be incompetence in the handling of natural disasters, etc. 

It is not an American phenomenon, it is a money and power phenomenon, with race, borders and political affiliations being totally secondary, but not nonexistent. 

So they are vying for opportunities at the Afghan “riches” at the highest levels, and the small people are outraged that some Afghans might show up dead in the squabble.  Did not the Taliban hang a 7 year old “spy”?  The Taliban want power for their own reasons, and they have as much regard for the small people as do the elitists. 

Unfortunately, the small people have NO champion, anywhere.  If I am mistaken about this, please let me know.

By Paul_GA, June 18 at 3:20 pm #
That’s right, Gmonst; the mineral-wealth story could be
a total fabrication intended to trick Americans into
“staying the course”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s not a fabrication; this has been a well known fact
for 40+ years.
The timing of this story and the spin calling it “new”
is highly suspect.

If the true American History were taught in schools most would have a different perspective. Most of us that graduated believed the Native Americans welcomed us with open arms and it was only the “renegade savages” that tried to prevent our “progress” and bringing a wonderful christian religion to the heathens.

The Africans kidnapped from their Native Lands were better off living in our “Civilized christian society” Just listen to them sing as they happily worked to make white folks rich.

The South Americans benefited from the fruit companies developing efficient farming techniques and the introduction of Democracy, they happily welcomed our presence.

The Spanish American War was to run the evil Mexicans off our land. The fact that they’d lived there for thousands of years was never discussed.

The Civil War was to free the enslaved Africans and afterwards we lived happily ever after. Not to deprive the South of their economic engine of free labor.

The truth of the matter is that aggression, genocide, raping and pillaging runs throughout our history and continues to this day. I wondered why Bush/Cheney invaded Afganistan. And now we hear “they have vast mineral wealth and the Pentagon business division wants to help them develop it”.

THE PENTAGON “BUSINESS” DIVISION???

The tag line was to drive the Taliban “whom we armed to fight the Russians”, out so women could have freedom. We invaded Iraq because Saddam helped destroy the WTC and was oppressing his people, and oh yea, he gassed about 5000 Kurds back in ‘88. They would welcome us as liberators. Well we’ve liberated them alright. More than 100k liberated from life,millions liberated from their homes, and millions liberated from healthy bodies.

We simply follow the same playbook excuses for raping and pillaging. Wrapped in the flag of justice we routinely “save” suffering populations from their oppressors.

Even, if our imperial corporate/military hellsters and their shadow boys, weren’t hip deep in bloody Middle Eastern mire, we’d still have our backs against the financial wall of oil dependence and GCC.  We are held prisoner by the vicious little @#cks refusal to allow implementation of a progressive and sane energy policy. In fact American government and the people are held hostage by the refusal to allow implementation of sane financial, drug, immigration, health care, education or (name one), any policy at all. Washington is the footstool of special interest greed and beyond the occasional distribution of largesse for appearance sake doesn’t, for the people, exist at all. It is a visionless vacuum and like all vampire entities, sucks.

    We could be decades down the road but they’ve blocked every attempt at progress. Sane energy policy applied today would mean a half century to real results. We know, they aren’t going to quit, until catastrophic events bring absolute collapse of our country and culture. Then, they’ll murder us in the streets. They didn’t hesitate during Katrina. Right now they’re trying to “cool out” the Gulf spill, then, it’s business as usual. You’re on a list right now.

      Doubt it?

      Did you not witness the creation of the largest industrial/prison complex in the world? Have they not systematically looted the American economy, gutted our infrastructure and destroyed the lives and futures of millions? Is it not still underway? Picture your child in 2100 or, just go back to sleep.

      I appreciate Mr. Sirotas’ hope that perhaps things could be at least shifting toward a little more transparency. But minerals and precious metals? It doesn’t matter if they somehow fell upon the lost treasure of Kubla Khan, neither the Afghan nor the American people will see any benefit. There is no light in them. As always, the facist Bushite clerks and goons at the Company Store and Mr. Peabodys’ Coal Train are just itchin’ to haul it away.

      Do you think of the dead at all?

Afghanistan aside, Sirota slips in the “war for oil” lie about
the Iraq war, ignoring the role of Israel, of course.

Sirota writes:

“Remember, the idea that the U.S. invades countries to
pilfer natural resources was once written off as an inflammatory insult and/or
an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory, irrespective of corroborating facts (like,
say, pre-9/11 Pentagon plans to divvy up Iraqi petroleum, State Department
proposals to privatize Iraq’s oil fields and top government officials insisting
Saddam Hussein’s overthrow was “essential” to protect oil supplies).”

So, Mr. Sirota, why does the US not invade and occupy Saudi Arabia for its oil,
as it did Iraq?

The answer is, because the US has arrangements with Saudia Arabia that are far
preferable to war.

So: why couldn’t the US have made such arrangements with Iraq?

The answer is, because Israel wouldn’t allow it.

The Israel lobby successfully got the US to adopt a policy called “dual
containment” of Iraq and Iran, a policy wholly concocted by pro-Israel
ideologues whose priorities had nothing to do with oil.  Under this policy,  the
US must maintain inflexibly hostile relations with these two oil-rich rivals of
Israel forever.

Once Israel made it impossible for the US to have access to Iraq’s oil without
war, the oil industry was on board for the Iraq war, and made plans to divide
the spoils after conquest.

Israel was able to leverage US greed for oil into getting the war it wanted. The
plans are similar in the case of the planned invasion and destruction of Iran—
and the US occupations of Iran and Afghanistan, on the Eastern and Western
borders of Iran, very conveniently position our troops for that war, don’t they?

Dick Cheney is now noted for his hawkishness on Iran. But back in the 1990s,
working as an oil exec, he complained against US hostility towards Iran,
kvetching that the US govt was too “sanctions-happy”, which was hurting the
oil business.

Israel says to the oil men: “You want the oil? You’ll have to overthrow the
government first. Join our campaign to have the US destroy Iran, and then you
can have your oil.”

So the prime mover here is Israel, not the oil men.

*laughs* The perfect article to stoke the neurosis of
a million libertarians!

On a more serious note, what is you opinion of this
Afghan interpretation, as stated in that NY Times
article:

“Afghan officials have interpreted their mining
regulations in such a way that if a company is
awarded a concession to explore and then discovers
valuable minerals, the government can tender the
concession back and rebid it, undermining any
incentive for a foreign firm to actually find large
deposits…”

Good idea or bad?

We seem to turn on our despots regularly. Remember Noriega? He was our guy until the 100yr lease on the Panama Canal was about to expire and he wanted to use the income from it on his own people, well that wasn’t what he was installed to do, then voila, Reagan had to stop him from being a transit point for drugs, something he’d been doing with the support of the US, for decades. more than 4000 Panamanians were killed to arrest him and drag him back to the US and lock him up. How do we have that right? Grenada was invaded by Reagan, why I don’t know but several hundred citizens were killed.

Then comes Saddam. He was installed by the US, and we invaded Iraq twice.

The American people may think it’s okay to invade any Country at will, kill and terrorize it’s citizenry, destroy it’s towns and cities. We wave our flags and cheer our troops and are labled anti-American if we disagree.

The rest of the World counts the civilian casualties even if we don’t. The rest of the World absorbs the ragged refugees created by our aggression and as a result we are being slowly marginalized. We no longer produce anything and owe billions to Communist China and hostile Middle Eastern countries. The terrorist that took down the World Trade Center came primarily from Saudi Arabia but the TV crowd was convinced Saddam was responsible.

Our media has been muzzled. There were no pictures of the destruction and death from Bush/Cheney’s “shock and awe”. From the pictures it looked like a fireworks display. We never saw the dead and broken bodies of Iraqi citizens.

We now have 24/7 political coverage where every word uttered by politicians and fake “pundits” is amplified and regurgitated. We get opinion and outright lies. I don’t understand what’s going on with net-neutrality but I feel whatever happens with it we will be less free.

China controls the majority of rare earth metals and if theres one thing the U.S. corp-tocracy hates more than anything it is someone else having a monopoly over something they can make money with.

I’ve read somewhere not long ago of a new invention where these rare earth metals are used in some type of portable field generator providing enough cheap electricity to power a home.

This is new?

Doesn’t anybody remember Jimmy Carter declaring our willingness to go to war for Persian Gulf oil because it was “vital to our national interest” in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan?

That was in 1980!

Now it makes sense.  The real handwriting was on the wall when we recently wined, dined, feted (and slipped $1 billion smackers to) the infamous Karzai.  And just to make sure he didn’t screw us out of the lion’s share of revenue from the mineral deposits,  we attached the ends of puppet strings to all his movable parts assuring him that we would hold the other ends into perpetuity.

That’s right, Gmonst; the mineral-wealth story could be a total fabrication intended to trick Americans into “staying the course”.

I think this whole mineral story is about creating a reason to convince the American public that continuation this war is necessary and needed. 

Its more about giving the impression that a stable Afghanistan is of vital importance to Americans.  We now need to see it out or the Taliban will control the resources and fund terrorism which will harm us.  Ergo we must stay until there is no threat from the Taliban.  Not only that, but we now have a perceived way to fund the rebuilding too, with ample help from American contractors.  Its basically a way to take this sinkhole of a war and make it look like the necessary good fight with nice big silver lining.

“So when will the Pentagram and the NYT “gush” about the Afghan pipelines, Mr. Sirota?”

Excellent question, thecrow, June 18 at 8:32 am!

How little is known publicly here (quite an accomplishment by the “free press”) about the US efforts to support the heroin and opium trades, how the Taliban eliminated the crop and the US profits thereof, and why they therefore must be destroyed. The oil, the drugs, the resources… it has nothing to do with their alleged terrorism (as if the US is not the world’s leader in international state-sponsored terrorism as policy, another fact not “fit to print”), but has everything to do with ours.  The US supports corruption and drug and oil cartels around the world, creates conflict to sell US weapons and justify US invasions, puts in place easily-coerced puppets who will then give away the target nation’s resources, making the theft nice and legal.  We have met the Evil Empire, and he is us.

“If the U.S. really believes that supporting terrorists makes you as guilty as the terrorists themselves, then it would have to put on trial most of its military and political leadership over the last handful of administrations, and more.”
(Peter McClaren)

“The United States is the greatest threat to world peace, and has been for a long time, and not merely because it is the world’s only superpower. Equally important, the United States is also far more disposed to use its power than any other powerful nation currently is. Though Americans are culturally and emotionally blind to the fact, the mere intrusion of US power is, in and of itself, destabilizing.”
(T.D. Allman)

“The men and women who enlist in this country’s military [should] be told the truth that they are not protecting the United States, they are and always have been protecting corporate interests.”
(Chante Wolf)

“[The ruling elites] know who their enemies are, and their enemies are the people, the people at home and the people abroad. Their enemies are anybody who wants more social justice, anybody who wants to use the surplus value of society for social needs rather than for individual class greed, that’s their enemy.”
(Michael Parenti)

“From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.”
(William Blum)

America get out, go home and stay home!!

This is insane. Encouraging America’s greed will only
hasten its decline. The graveyard of Empires has
seduced many countries before. What folly that America
thinks its the exception.

At this point in US history, “what the public thinks” is of less than no concern to the “war corps”.  Not to worry, Mr. Sirota.

It would be interesting to see a couple legitimate polls on the public’s attitude toward more American youngsters being killed off at an early age (or driven insane) for lithium, cadmium and carborundum. (Sounds like a pop song, doesn’t it?)

What the public thinks is a mighty power held in thrall by propaganda, ignorance and lack of will power.  Too sad for words.

I can just imagine the Orc’s in Washington dancing with glee upon finally identifying a legitimate reason to be in Afghanistan. Other, than playing hide and seek with Osama Ben Laden.

It says a lot about how they view the world.

I seem to recall however, that those minerals don’t belong to us, but belong instead to the people of Afghanistan.

But maybe there’s a way around that. We could install a puppet government there. One, who would be favorable to US interests, and they could negotiate favorable contracts with US coporations, to “develop” those recources as an aid to the “peace” process.

Then, our government could further help Afghanistan, but initiating a series of no bid contracts, to favored companies, big campaign donors, and companies that provide employment to political types when they retire from government service.

Does this seem familiar to anyone?

If those idiots in Mordor-on-the-Potomac really try to stay on in Afghanistan in order to get a slice (or perhaps the lion’s share) of the Afghan “mineral pie”, this country deserves the humiliation I believe it will suffer if it doesn’t withdraw ASAP.

Sirota ignores the role of Israel, of course:

“Remember, the idea that the U.S. invades countries to pilfer natural
resources was once written off as an inflammatory insult and/or an
unsubstantiated conspiracy theory, irrespective of corroborating facts (like, say,
pre-9/11 Pentagon plans to divvy up Iraqi petroleum, State Department
proposals to privatize Iraq’s oil fields and top government officials insisting
Saddam Hussein’s overthrow was “essential” to protect oil supplies).”

So, Mr. Sirota, why does the US not invade and occupy Saudi Arabia for its oil,
as it did Iraq?

The answer is, because the US has arrangements with Saudia Arabia that are far
preferable to war.

So: why couldn’t the US have made such arrangements with Iraq?

The answer is, because Israel wouldn’t allow it.

The Israel lobby came up with a policy called “dual containment”, whereby the
US must maintain inflexibly hostile relations with these two oil-rich rivals of
Israel.

Once the Israel made it impossible for the us to have access to Iraq’s oil without
war, the oil industry was on board for the Iraq war, and made plans to divide
the spoils after conquest.

Israel was able to leverage US greed for oil into getting the war it wanted. The
plans are similar in the case of the planned invasion and destruction of Iran.
Dick Cheney is now noted for his hawkishness on Iran. But back in the 1990s,
working as an oil exec, he complained against US hostility towards Iran,
kvetching that the US govt was too “sanctions-happy”, which was hurting the
oil business.

Israel says to the oil men: “You want the oil? You’ll have to overthrow the
government first. Join our campaign to have the US destroy Iran, and then you
can have your oil.”

So the prime mover here is Israel, not the oil men.

It may be the tacitly agreed excuse needed to stay there. However, removing this wealth may prove rather more difficult should the previous excuse to stay be implemented.

As a person who`s for a timocratic governance and an egalitarian society, i do not object to fascist americans fighting fascists of iraq, afgh`n, pak`n, and palestine.

After all, fascists waging wars, rumors of war, and demonization of one another had always been the norm.
Or even a glorious behavior.

And tho they are fascist fighting for control of their peoples, they are also fiercely tribal.
I am not cheering on any kind of tribalism or their present wars, but i bet lotsof of people are happy ab it.
It seems to me, the more tribal hatred, wars, occupations, demonization we have, the more innocents get maimed, killed, or dispersed.

Meanwhile, more soldiers get medals, promotions; more books are published, movies made; more flag waving, rationalizing,theorising, etc.

And more housepeople yawning; in, america, that is!
tnx

The military and civilian leaders of the 60s, when ‘support for Vietnam’ was
waining, began a media campaign shouting about the mineral ‘riches’ to be found
in Vietnam - zinc, manganese, chromite, tungsten !

Gotta kill ‘em all! Gotta have it!

The parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam become more vivid each day.

Obama’s single biggest failure: Being George Bush II - continuing Bush’s bailouts
and continuing Bush’s pointless, immoral and corrupt ‘war on terror’.

Just as it was/still is in Iraq, it will be a war crime if the exploitation of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is not 100% controlled by an Afghan government as the Nuremberg trials made crystal (not McChrystal alas) clear. Since there is no real Afghan government, the announcement by the Pentagon is 100% self-serving and reeks of a war-crime in the making.

“And just maybe
I’m to blame for all I’ve heard
I’m not sure
I’m so excited”

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/unipolar-disorder/

“our leaders are now boldly selling wars as commendable instruments of such profit-focused imperialism”

So when will the Pentagram and the NYT “gush” about the Afghan pipelines, Mr. Sirota?

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/

You mean our gems, minerals, and rare earths have been under Afghan soil all this time?  Time for the typical U.S. response:  murder, massacre, exploitation.

Those poor Afghans.