Terxpahseyton
Nobody
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2006
- Messages
- 10,759
Today I came across an intriguing analysis of the geopolitical role of Afghanistan I just had to share here.
Beware, a wall of words is following, but the read is totally worth the time.
Beforehand my apologies if my translation is a big bumpy at times.
Source: "Der Spiegel", German weekly published news magazine
I basically always new that it was something along the lines. But to finally get my hands on a detailed analysis from a reliable source is the final substantiation I was waiting for. What really bugs me about all this are not so much the actual facts and circumstances (I became quit cynical regarding geopolitics) but that this reality is not brought forward to the people. I mean it is not a hidden secret or anything. Yet the media doesn't really care about all this by and large.
The silence of the media to all this is the real scandal to me.
Beware, a wall of words is following, but the read is totally worth the time.
Beforehand my apologies if my translation is a big bumpy at times.
Spoiler :
Illusions in times of war or what Afghanistan is really about
by Erich Follath
In these days many write with hearts' blood about Afghanistan, the war is condemned and glorified, one deplores, euphemizes, soothes. For those who see themselves as realists the fighting is justified, a last resort for the defense of Western values of liberty against the abominable Taliban, collateral damages as regrettable as unavoidable. For the others, often lead by pacifist thoughts, are those combat actions a betrayal of humanitarian ideals. In their point of view the war is a futile, untamable monster, with bomb droppings as with terroristic ambushes. And nothing, absolutely nothing could justify the loss of a human live on their eyes.
Once the protection against international terrorism is at the center of attention, we fight as passioned advocates of war really and truly claim, at the Hindu Kush, to safeguard Hildesheim [Annotation: a random German city] against the Qaida as if Afghanistan still were the headquarter of international terrorism and not long since the neighboring Pakistan, where radical Islamics openly talk about American cities being the targets, look New York, Times Square. As if the world-wide operating suicide assassins were recruited in Afghanistan and not in states like Yemen. Or they are descended of Islamic groups in the targeted countries themselves.
The conclusions couldn't be more contradictory: We have to stay much longer to sustainably help them and us! Just let's get out fast in order to prevent more harm for Germany and Afghanistan!
Regardless if bellicists or pacifists: They all are fooling themselves. They fail to recognize the underlying reasons for this war, for every war in the modern era (with the exception of the Second World War, which had actually been a fight good versus evil.) Therefor for once lets not talk about well building or prevention of terrorism, not about the rightful NATO punitive actions against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan right after the attacks of 9/11. Lets talk about geopolitics, about military basis and mineral deposits, about pipelines and routes of drugs. Cui bono: Lets talk about for what who really fights in Afghanistan.
Since the beginning of the 19th century until the start of the 20th century the trial of strength of the world powers in the strategically so important Central Asia between Pamir, the Hindu Kush and the Himalaya had been called the Big Game. Involved were most of all the British and the Russians. Fought had been with armies as with secret agents and behind the scenes dubious deals with the natives had been conducted in order to bribe them: Afghanistan, Trans-Caspian, Persia, for me they are all figures on a chessboard in the fight over world domination. said Lord Curzon, the eventual viceroy of India, about 110 years ago.
Now we are right in the middle of the Big Game, Part II. Involved are all players who currently matter in world politics: the USA and Russia, Europe and the Iran, China and India.
The West holds a vital interest to isolate and economically weaken the Iranian power holders with their dangerous mixture of religious fanaticism and hight-tech uranium enrichment. Military-wise this happens through the build-up of big bases in Qandahar and Kabul, but also in surrounding states like Kirghizia and Uzbekistan states in which Washington as London and Berlin deliberately overlook violations of human rights by repressive regimes by the way.
Further on Tehran's means of export are supposed to get limited, no petroleum and natural gas pipelines from Iranian fields shall go through Afghanistan.
According to the Western concept such pipelines have to go through the authoritarian but towards the West open-minded Turkmenistan from the Caspian Sea right across Afghanistan and then onwards to the energy-hungry Pakistan and to India: A multi-billion dollar business, but which requires political stability. Comparable plans had been pursued once before. Supported by the American foreign ministry the Californian company Unocal tried to bring off a respective deal 15 years ago. Later on it even invited Taliban leaders to Houston and paid court to them.
In the end the deal failed. Unocal got absorbed by Chevron, but neither the big industry nor Washington's political strategists nor the Russian, Chinese and Indian competitors have ever given up on the pipeline poker. New Delhi additionally engages in Afghanistan for own geopolitical considerations it wants to categorically tare Islamabad's interests and to heckle its Pakistani hereditary enemy: India has established about half a dozen diplomatic representations in Afghanistan, its spies are better informed than the Western ones.
But Afghanistan does not only have great meaning as a transit state: It posses huge untouched mineral deposits, which make the impoverished country to a potentially rich one, but which most of all promises exorbitant profits for the countries and companies extracting them. Verified are significant deposits of gold and copper, iron ore and lithium. This is the material required for mobile phones and electro cars. Also abounding sources of water is an important weapon in the by droughts plagued region: Of 80 billion cubic meters Afghanistan holds it does only need 20 billion for itself.
Up to now above all the Non-fighters among the nations profit by the war of the West against insurgents. In the province Logar American troops managed to establish enough security after all that the exploitation of copper could be started. A Chinese state company ensured itself the rights to it, invests three billion Dollars. A giant railroad network is supposed to be constructed under Peking's leadership, going through Afghanistan to Central Asia, a new Silk Road, this time on rails.
Even more astonishing is the triumph of Moscow in the new Big Game, the return of the Russians to Afghanistsan: The Rosneft-corporation has commissioned studies about the extraction of natural gas near Djarkuduk and Shbarghan. Thre Russian hydroelectric plant are on the draft, the iron ore mine Hajigak will supposedly go to Moscow in the next weeks, for 1.8 billion dollar. 142 projects build in the Soviet era and afterwards partially shut down are said to be restarted.
And then there is also a commodity which is indisputable the biggest export hit of Afghanistan and which lets the West despair: Opium.
About 90 percent of the world market of sold Heroins originates from the a country at the Hindu Kush and a big maybe the sole one chance to contain its distribution has Russia. It controls the border to Tajikistan and since recently the drug routes to Kirghistan after a possibly partially by Moscow orchestrated overthrow in Bishkek. Russia is back said the Russian state commissioner for matters of Afghanistan Wiktor Iwanow triumphant on March in Kabul during a champagne toast. Iwanow had been send to Afghanistan once before as a KGB officer 23 years ago. Now he will as Russia's chief drug fighter approach men close to Hamid Karzai who profit by the sinister business.
Maybe Iwanow would like to give cruelties of the nation's history a try. Because also this belongs to the disturbing truths of Kabul: The only time when the Afghani drug output decreased dramatically and the world was able to respire, was at the end of the inhuman reign of the Taliban. In order to demonstrate their power the Taliban strung up numerous dealers on the next tree and as a consequence decreased the opium production from 3200 to 185 tons. Though currently they have no trouble with financing themselves with profit margins of the un-Islamic drug.
To paint everything black and white doesn't work in this country and of course the deployment of the NATO-troop had and has positive effects. Yes, it is true: hundreds of thousands of girls in the countryside have a perspective for the first time in their life through schools and educational institutions (for the first time since the Soviet invasion, which tried a similar approach three decades ago). Hospitals and prototype farms are set up. But at the same time corruption massively spreads, many if not most Afghans see the strangers as occupants and lament that their personal security decreases more an more.
They don't trust the foreigners. They say that if the West really primarily was interested in the well-being of the people it would have to orientate on the Afghani Musahiban-dynasty from 1929 to 1973. When the kings respected the different tribes and their culture and when they governed the archaic country in a decentralized and fairly successful manner. When the central government in Kabul only reigned over some big cities and the security precautions in the provinces and communes were left to local powers.
But the West counts on President Hamid Karzai, accepts the electoral fraud for his benefit, tolerates the scandalous nepotism and even the tactical liaison with the so far in the underground operating butcher and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatjar, who belongs to the International Criminal Court in Den Haag according to all criteria of war crimes. Only when having central-governed Afghanistan Washington believes to accomplish its obvious primary target: to ensure military bases and pipeline routes with a reliable partner.
Danger from the Hindu Kush for Germany? Even the deputy head of the American troops in Kabul established a few weeks ago that Qaida was largely driven out of Afghanistan. Not so in Pakistan which enjoys the privileges of a especially close Nato-partnership since George W. Bush. Fight over human rights, girls' schools and Westminster-governance? Since recently also Chancellor Angela Merkel judges it as utopian to turn Afghanistan into a democracy orientated on Western standards.
Berlin surely is the least likely to be under suspicion to fight at the Hindu Kush for military bases and sources of natural resources, though also German companies could profit one day. The partnership with Washington forbids a fast and desirable sheering off NATO solidarity. But to not even speak out strategic interests proves the cowardice towards the people. Yet no politician from Washington to Brussels dares to say what the war in Afghanistan is really about. Maybe because then many idealist from the left until the right-conservative spectrum could ask if this is really worth dying for.
by Erich Follath
In these days many write with hearts' blood about Afghanistan, the war is condemned and glorified, one deplores, euphemizes, soothes. For those who see themselves as realists the fighting is justified, a last resort for the defense of Western values of liberty against the abominable Taliban, collateral damages as regrettable as unavoidable. For the others, often lead by pacifist thoughts, are those combat actions a betrayal of humanitarian ideals. In their point of view the war is a futile, untamable monster, with bomb droppings as with terroristic ambushes. And nothing, absolutely nothing could justify the loss of a human live on their eyes.
Once the protection against international terrorism is at the center of attention, we fight as passioned advocates of war really and truly claim, at the Hindu Kush, to safeguard Hildesheim [Annotation: a random German city] against the Qaida as if Afghanistan still were the headquarter of international terrorism and not long since the neighboring Pakistan, where radical Islamics openly talk about American cities being the targets, look New York, Times Square. As if the world-wide operating suicide assassins were recruited in Afghanistan and not in states like Yemen. Or they are descended of Islamic groups in the targeted countries themselves.
The conclusions couldn't be more contradictory: We have to stay much longer to sustainably help them and us! Just let's get out fast in order to prevent more harm for Germany and Afghanistan!
Regardless if bellicists or pacifists: They all are fooling themselves. They fail to recognize the underlying reasons for this war, for every war in the modern era (with the exception of the Second World War, which had actually been a fight good versus evil.) Therefor for once lets not talk about well building or prevention of terrorism, not about the rightful NATO punitive actions against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan right after the attacks of 9/11. Lets talk about geopolitics, about military basis and mineral deposits, about pipelines and routes of drugs. Cui bono: Lets talk about for what who really fights in Afghanistan.
Since the beginning of the 19th century until the start of the 20th century the trial of strength of the world powers in the strategically so important Central Asia between Pamir, the Hindu Kush and the Himalaya had been called the Big Game. Involved were most of all the British and the Russians. Fought had been with armies as with secret agents and behind the scenes dubious deals with the natives had been conducted in order to bribe them: Afghanistan, Trans-Caspian, Persia, for me they are all figures on a chessboard in the fight over world domination. said Lord Curzon, the eventual viceroy of India, about 110 years ago.
Now we are right in the middle of the Big Game, Part II. Involved are all players who currently matter in world politics: the USA and Russia, Europe and the Iran, China and India.
The West holds a vital interest to isolate and economically weaken the Iranian power holders with their dangerous mixture of religious fanaticism and hight-tech uranium enrichment. Military-wise this happens through the build-up of big bases in Qandahar and Kabul, but also in surrounding states like Kirghizia and Uzbekistan states in which Washington as London and Berlin deliberately overlook violations of human rights by repressive regimes by the way.
Further on Tehran's means of export are supposed to get limited, no petroleum and natural gas pipelines from Iranian fields shall go through Afghanistan.
According to the Western concept such pipelines have to go through the authoritarian but towards the West open-minded Turkmenistan from the Caspian Sea right across Afghanistan and then onwards to the energy-hungry Pakistan and to India: A multi-billion dollar business, but which requires political stability. Comparable plans had been pursued once before. Supported by the American foreign ministry the Californian company Unocal tried to bring off a respective deal 15 years ago. Later on it even invited Taliban leaders to Houston and paid court to them.
In the end the deal failed. Unocal got absorbed by Chevron, but neither the big industry nor Washington's political strategists nor the Russian, Chinese and Indian competitors have ever given up on the pipeline poker. New Delhi additionally engages in Afghanistan for own geopolitical considerations it wants to categorically tare Islamabad's interests and to heckle its Pakistani hereditary enemy: India has established about half a dozen diplomatic representations in Afghanistan, its spies are better informed than the Western ones.
But Afghanistan does not only have great meaning as a transit state: It posses huge untouched mineral deposits, which make the impoverished country to a potentially rich one, but which most of all promises exorbitant profits for the countries and companies extracting them. Verified are significant deposits of gold and copper, iron ore and lithium. This is the material required for mobile phones and electro cars. Also abounding sources of water is an important weapon in the by droughts plagued region: Of 80 billion cubic meters Afghanistan holds it does only need 20 billion for itself.
Up to now above all the Non-fighters among the nations profit by the war of the West against insurgents. In the province Logar American troops managed to establish enough security after all that the exploitation of copper could be started. A Chinese state company ensured itself the rights to it, invests three billion Dollars. A giant railroad network is supposed to be constructed under Peking's leadership, going through Afghanistan to Central Asia, a new Silk Road, this time on rails.
Even more astonishing is the triumph of Moscow in the new Big Game, the return of the Russians to Afghanistsan: The Rosneft-corporation has commissioned studies about the extraction of natural gas near Djarkuduk and Shbarghan. Thre Russian hydroelectric plant are on the draft, the iron ore mine Hajigak will supposedly go to Moscow in the next weeks, for 1.8 billion dollar. 142 projects build in the Soviet era and afterwards partially shut down are said to be restarted.
And then there is also a commodity which is indisputable the biggest export hit of Afghanistan and which lets the West despair: Opium.
About 90 percent of the world market of sold Heroins originates from the a country at the Hindu Kush and a big maybe the sole one chance to contain its distribution has Russia. It controls the border to Tajikistan and since recently the drug routes to Kirghistan after a possibly partially by Moscow orchestrated overthrow in Bishkek. Russia is back said the Russian state commissioner for matters of Afghanistan Wiktor Iwanow triumphant on March in Kabul during a champagne toast. Iwanow had been send to Afghanistan once before as a KGB officer 23 years ago. Now he will as Russia's chief drug fighter approach men close to Hamid Karzai who profit by the sinister business.
Maybe Iwanow would like to give cruelties of the nation's history a try. Because also this belongs to the disturbing truths of Kabul: The only time when the Afghani drug output decreased dramatically and the world was able to respire, was at the end of the inhuman reign of the Taliban. In order to demonstrate their power the Taliban strung up numerous dealers on the next tree and as a consequence decreased the opium production from 3200 to 185 tons. Though currently they have no trouble with financing themselves with profit margins of the un-Islamic drug.
To paint everything black and white doesn't work in this country and of course the deployment of the NATO-troop had and has positive effects. Yes, it is true: hundreds of thousands of girls in the countryside have a perspective for the first time in their life through schools and educational institutions (for the first time since the Soviet invasion, which tried a similar approach three decades ago). Hospitals and prototype farms are set up. But at the same time corruption massively spreads, many if not most Afghans see the strangers as occupants and lament that their personal security decreases more an more.
They don't trust the foreigners. They say that if the West really primarily was interested in the well-being of the people it would have to orientate on the Afghani Musahiban-dynasty from 1929 to 1973. When the kings respected the different tribes and their culture and when they governed the archaic country in a decentralized and fairly successful manner. When the central government in Kabul only reigned over some big cities and the security precautions in the provinces and communes were left to local powers.
But the West counts on President Hamid Karzai, accepts the electoral fraud for his benefit, tolerates the scandalous nepotism and even the tactical liaison with the so far in the underground operating butcher and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatjar, who belongs to the International Criminal Court in Den Haag according to all criteria of war crimes. Only when having central-governed Afghanistan Washington believes to accomplish its obvious primary target: to ensure military bases and pipeline routes with a reliable partner.
Danger from the Hindu Kush for Germany? Even the deputy head of the American troops in Kabul established a few weeks ago that Qaida was largely driven out of Afghanistan. Not so in Pakistan which enjoys the privileges of a especially close Nato-partnership since George W. Bush. Fight over human rights, girls' schools and Westminster-governance? Since recently also Chancellor Angela Merkel judges it as utopian to turn Afghanistan into a democracy orientated on Western standards.
Berlin surely is the least likely to be under suspicion to fight at the Hindu Kush for military bases and sources of natural resources, though also German companies could profit one day. The partnership with Washington forbids a fast and desirable sheering off NATO solidarity. But to not even speak out strategic interests proves the cowardice towards the people. Yet no politician from Washington to Brussels dares to say what the war in Afghanistan is really about. Maybe because then many idealist from the left until the right-conservative spectrum could ask if this is really worth dying for.
Source: "Der Spiegel", German weekly published news magazine
I basically always new that it was something along the lines. But to finally get my hands on a detailed analysis from a reliable source is the final substantiation I was waiting for. What really bugs me about all this are not so much the actual facts and circumstances (I became quit cynical regarding geopolitics) but that this reality is not brought forward to the people. I mean it is not a hidden secret or anything. Yet the media doesn't really care about all this by and large.
The silence of the media to all this is the real scandal to me.
