Sunday, November 08, 2009
Why the Afghanistan war ? - IT'S THE PIPELINE, STUPID
Former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who insists - probably correctly - that "CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles" asserts:
'The primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region'.
in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan's natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
"The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.
Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.
"There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, it's about oil, it's not about democracy."
IMO: Sounds reasonable.
The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says Craig Murray.
IMO: Murray is probably still somewhat miffed about losing his job, but in the past he has written at length and whilst we perhaps do not find the degree of detail provided by, say, Sibel Edmonds, his work is intriguing if at times amusingly informal and would be worth Googling at depth. Murray is still rector of the University of Dundee AFAIK and accusations by a person of his stature are surely worth considering.
In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is "endemic" to the Uzbekistan's justice system, so it would seem that at any rate the CIA may find it an adequate replacement for GITMO.
'The primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region'.
in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan's natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
"The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.
Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.
"There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, it's about oil, it's not about democracy."
IMO: Sounds reasonable.
The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says Craig Murray.
IMO: Murray is probably still somewhat miffed about losing his job, but in the past he has written at length and whilst we perhaps do not find the degree of detail provided by, say, Sibel Edmonds, his work is intriguing if at times amusingly informal and would be worth Googling at depth. Murray is still rector of the University of Dundee AFAIK and accusations by a person of his stature are surely worth considering.
In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is "endemic" to the Uzbekistan's justice system, so it would seem that at any rate the CIA may find it an adequate replacement for GITMO.
# posted by uv : 7:35 PM
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