I'm goin crazy over here! Everybody's talking about Afghanistan, and the consensus seems to be that we invaded Afghanistan "to capture Osama Bin Laden." This could not be further from the truth.
Our invasion of Afghanistan was announced in June of 2001. Read that again: June. Not October. Three months before 911, not a month after. Tempting as it might be, I won't here try to pretend to know why we invaded Afghanistan, and why we continue to bomb the poop out of them, but the fact remains: we were staging our invasion three months before 911. It is sufficiently safe to say that our invasion of Afghanistan was not a reaction to the events of 911. Stop it already. Just- stop.
Originally, I wrote this:
Our invasion of Afghanistan had nothing to do with Bin Laden, our argument was with the Taliban. Our argument, in fact, was that we wanted one of 'our' oil companies to put a pipeline through their country, and they were becoming reluctant. We said, essentially, "This will make you rich! Let us do it, or we'll do it by force. We'll give you a carpet of gold, or a carpet of bombs." Being the fundamentalists that they are, they chose their fundamentals over our money. We said, "your religious beliefs are more important than money?!?! That's unacceptable!" And we bombed them to pieces. Because, of course, our religious beliefs are not more important than money.but then, while I was vetting the 'carpet' quote, I found good evidence that no one actually ever said that. And further, basically, that our relations with Afghanistan and the Taliban are very very murky (meaning, we're doing things there that we don't even want to admit to ourselves), and have been for a while. While we do seem to be very interested in Central Asian fossil fuel resources, I keep thinking about all the other world powers who have tried to capture and hold Afghanistan.
Was Alexander the Great interested in natural gas? Were the British (in the age of cheap, abundant whale oil)? If Afghanistan is just the cheapest way for us to put a pipeline through the region without having to go through Russia, then why would the Soviets have been so interested? There's something I'm missing, here. (yes, the spoils -or in more contemporary terms, the profits).
But anyway- we were already invading Afghanistan when the two towers came down on 911. It takes months to stage an invasion. I just think it's important that we remember the correct order of events. It's important. It's important because it shows the 'war on terror' to be the lie that it always was: it was not a response to anything but the defense industry clamoring for more money. Of course Tony Blair was lying. I just hope Dick and George get brought up in trial, too. And Condi, and Alberto, and John, and Don, and Paul, and...
Oh yes, the truth will out. The truth will out.
