Unmitigated disaster or just another Oil War?

The price that we are paying and will continue to pay for the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan - the human tragedy in Afghanistan, global economic recession, the curtailment of civil rights, anti-western Muslim fundamentalist upheavals, escalation of terrorist attacks, opportunistic military action by Russia and Israel - is supposed to be justified by the hope of capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden. In other words, Operation "Enduring Freedom" means that the world will become a poorer, less free, and more dangerous place, apparently so that Dubbya can be presented the head of the Muslim world's popular hero on a platter on the presumption that he ordered the September 11 murders.

That Bin Laden is a terrorist in heart if not in deed goes without saying, but it is far from clear Who exactly was operationally responsible for the September 11 atrocities. When brought under close scrutiny, previous terrorist attacks against U.S. targets such as the Achille Lauro hijacking, the 1986 Munich Disco bombing, and the Lockerbie crash, revealed highly disturbing evidence of involvement by western intelligence agencies (principally the CIA and MOSSAD) and units (such as Oliver North's Iran-Contra operation). Most intelligence experts agree that the sophistication of the September 11 attacks points to one or more of the world's better governmental intelligence outfits rather than to a ragtag terrorists' association like Al Qaeda. Therefore, the moral and legal grounds for military reprisals against the Afghan regime are and will remain very debatable, and the concept of international justice will thereby suffer irreparable damage.

Unfortunately, this is only a possibly minor aspect of the senseless havoc raised by "Operation Enduring Freedom". With its ill-conceived and disingenuous military campaign against the Taliban, the U.S. is not only sowing the seeds of a global economic and political catastrophe, but is once again evading the truth about the covert intelligence operations hidden behind many terrorist attacks. It seems that the U.S. military overkill is designed to profit anyone but the U.S.: Israel's hawks are overjoyed at seeing western opinion closing ranks against Islam, Turkey's hawks are overjoyed at hearing the FBI's espousal of torture, Russia is seeing its Chechen insurgency and NATO expansion problems suddenly becoming history, whereas all that the U.S. can look forward to are body bags, a huge bill, and life in a state of siege.

But maybe there's a bright side after all. Maybe we are "misunderestimating" Dubbya's - or rather his handlers' - calculations in starting this terrible war. After all, the "Great Game" of piping Caucasian oil to the Asian market through Afghanistan is still very much in play. Father Bush also just happens to be connected to Unocal, the Aramco-wannabe of Caucasian oil. The U.S. government's ties to UNOCAL are even more substantial: George Monbiot, in his October 23 article in The Guardian entitled "America's pipe dream: A pro-western regime in Kabul should give the US an Afghan route for Caspian oil", informs us that "Unocal invited some of the leaders of the Taliban to Houston, where they were royally entertained. The company suggested paying these barbarians 15 cents for every thousand cubic feet of gas it pumped through the land they had conquered. For the first year of Taliban rule, US policy towards the regime appears to have been determined principally by Unocal's interests". A US diplomat is quoted as saying "the Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did.(...)We can live with that." Not any longer, obviously. Let's hope the U.S. can find someone else to wine and dine in Houston. As long as Unocal gets a return on its bribes to U.S. politicians, Caucasian dictators, Muslim fanatics, etc., we will know that the Afghan people did not die, and the world did not suffer, in vain. We will also know that when a U.S. Republican says "Enduring Freedom", we should understand "Enduring Bucks", and be comforted by this familiar discourse.