As the Pentagon was laying out targets, the State Department was mapping pipelines.

U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain met with Pakistan's oil minister to discuss reviving the old Unocal deal on the third day of the bombing campaign, October 10, 2001. This was when the U.S.-aligned Northern Alliance still controlled just five percent of the country and defeat of the Taliban was still anything but guaranteed. (22) On December 31, 2001, Bush appointed Afghan-American academic Zalmay Khalilzad as his special envoy and likely future U.S. ambassador to Hamid Karzai's then nine-day-old interim government. (The Karzai regime was called "interim" before the loya jirga and "transitional" afterward.) Khalilzad was a former Unocal Corporation consultant who, as a member of the National Security Council on Persian Gulf- and Southeast Asian-related affairs, had reported to former ChevronTexaco general counsel Condoleezza Rice. (23)

The Karzai and Khalilzad appointments were understandably interpreted by Central Asia Kremlinologists as a move that signaled American support for a trans-Afghan pipeline in general and Unocal's involvement in particular. (24) Karzai, after all, is himself a former Unocal consultant. (25) In February 2002, Khalilzad traveled to Ashkhabat to sign an initial letter of intent on the pipeline with Turkmenistan's autocratic president-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov. And on March 7, 2002, Reuters reported that Karzai had gone to Islamabad to cover the Pakistani side of the deal with that country's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. (26) Two and half months later, all three countries met in Pakistan to ink a formal letter of understanding.

Will a pipeline ever be built? Probably not. At this writing, Afghanistan remains as politically and socially fractured as ever. At least seven major warlords and hundreds of minor warlords known locally as "commanders" control districts outside the control of Karzai's American-backed regime, which mainly consists of his tiny Kabul city-state. Fighting has broken out repeatedly, claiming hundreds of lives at internal borders and checkpoints separating the turf of rival warlords and with representatives of the Karzai government. No fewer than three versions of the Afghan flag fly over a nation filled with an estimated five to ten million mines, where most boys over 14 years of age carry an AK-47 and where a culture of violence, theft and hostage-taking have been both historically and culturally endemic.

Experts say that a trans-Afghan pipeline would be subject to continuous threats of sabotage committed by local warlords in the sectors through which it ran, and immense amounts of ever-increasing protection fees would have to be paid to safeguard the steady flow of fossil fuels. In addition, a large foreign -- read, American -- occupation force would be required for many years to enforce comparative law and order, and it remains to be seen whether the Bush Administration -- much less future American presidents -- will be inclined to devote substantial financial and military resources to the aftermath of our 2001 Afghan adventure. If pragmatism triumphs over ideology, it seems likely that the oil companies involved, reported to be led once again by the California-based Unocal Corporation (27), will reconsider their decision to bypass the shorter, cheaper and infinitely more workable Iranian proposal.

For the time being, however, the Bush Administration and its puppet regime in Kabul are working furiously to make this highly dubious scheme become reality. And various parties -- Russia, Japan and the Asian Development Bank -- are already committing millions of dollars to the job.

Right-wing commentators -- the same guys who previously denied the existence of any pipeline scheme -- now shrug: so what? To the victor goes the spoils, their logic goes, and if a country ever deserved to be compensated for its travails -- in this case with cheap fuel -- it's the United States. We lost more than 3,000 lives and billions of dollars in property on September 11 -- maybe an unlimited supply of 50-cent-per-gallon gas will help soothe our pain.

There is no smoking gun, no leaked White House memo, dated August 2001, signed by George W. Bush, that calls for invading Afghanistan on whatever pretext imaginable to secure it as a possible pipeline route. There is, however, a preponderance of evidence that the drive to establish an American-friendly regime in Kabul was undertaken not to protect American interests from the attacks of Islamist radicals, but to enter the "New Great Game" for Central Asian oil. This is certainly the accepted view among leaders and ordinary citizens of other Western nations, and it is one that is impossible to avoid after examining the published evidence.

The profoundly cynical Bush Administration war against Afghanistan that was waged during the fall of 2001, while body parts were still being extracted from smoldering rubble at Ground Zero, has profoundly negative implications for the United States at home and around the world. These include, but are hardly limited to the following:

1. Rather than attempt to bring the perpetrators of September 11 to justice, rather than end the reign of terror carried out over the years by Islamist extremists, the United States allowed the real criminals -- officials in the Egyptian, Saudi and Pakistani governments who tolerated and worked with Islamic Jihad and their allies -- to get away, as it let bin Laden and Al Qaeda operatives escape. These people and these groups will kill again, and the Bush Administration will be partly responsible for those deaths.

2. The U.S. was so desperate to control a key exit route for landlocked Central Asian oil that it was willing to cause the deaths of thousands of innocent Afghan civilians and remove from power the first Afghan government in two decades to bring some measure of stability and order to the country. The Muslim world, disgusted by the carnage caused by the U.S. in Afghanistan as well as our impudent coup de bombe against an attempt to create the purest Islamic state in the world, will merely experience further shudders of anti-Americanism in response to a perceived war against Islam. This will fuel the popularity and funding of radical groups bent on spreading Islamic fundamentalism.

3. Rather than take up the Iranian government on its recent overtures to thaw relations, the U.S. established a puppet regime on Iran's eastern border whose express purpose is to "freeze out" Iran. If Iran drifts away from Western-style reforms, if anti-Americanism sweeps the richest, most culturally and politically potent nation in the Middle East, the Bush Administration will certainly be to blame.

4. The U.S. has lost its moral imperative to wage war, and its bull-in-a-china-shop sort of unrepentant arrogance is now seen as a problem that needs to be addressed by the world's diplomatic community. Had the U.S. waited a respectful period before allowing Karzai to begin discussing a pipeline -- a year or two, say -- our European allies might have looked the other way as the United States spread its domination over Afghanistan and built military bases throughout the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. As it is, American intent is indecently obvious -- and Europe is far less likely to join our next oil-related conflict, whether against Iraq's Saddam Hussein or elsewhere. If we fail to secure the support of our allies when we genuinely need it, we may lose our status as a superpower -- and this will be the Bush Administration's responsibility. The geopolitical consequences of this breach are currently unknowable.

5. Russia is understandably dismayed to watch the United States building permanent military bases throughout its former Soviet republics -- Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan all have American troops stationed on their territory -- in order to safeguard American oil interests. (28) The Chinese government is worried about the establishment of an U.S. puppet state bordering its wild western underbelly, the Xinjiang Muslim Autonomous Region. It's the Cuban missile crisis all over again, but this time we're playing the role of Russia. If war with one of these nuclear superpowers somehow develops from the rash actions taken today, the Bush Administration will have been responsible.

The fundamental question is whether the trans-Afghan pipeline idea is a happy by-product of American -backed victory in its morally justified and strategically vital war in Afghanistan, or rather the culmination of a cynical ploy to kill and maim innocent people living in the world's poorest nation for the sake of securing access to cheap energy.

The answer to that question tells us what kind of leaders currently reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, what kind of people we are for allowing them to govern on our behalf and how we're likely to be perceived abroad. This last issue -- the state of our reputation overseas -- will determine the level of resentment against the United States. It will also increase the likelihood that radicals angry at American foreign policy will again target American civilians. On September 11, 2001, we became victims who enjoyed the support and best wishes of the world. We destroyed that positive image in a few months of haphazard militarism, but it's not too late to stop the clumsy bullying that got us into this mess.

Part 3: The Central Asian Oil and Gas Sweepstakes

The republics of Central Asia that became independent in 1991 -- Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan -- didn't leave the Soviet Union voluntarily. They were thrown out, ejected unceremoniously by a newly-independent, impoverished Russia no longer willing to pay enormous one-way subsidies that had been draining Moscow's coffers for years.

With the exception of the relatively democratic Kyrgyz Republic, all of what U.S. State Department insiders jokingly refer to as the "icky Stans" are governed by the former Communist Party strongmen who were appointed by Moscow to run their Soviet Socialist Republic predecessors. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan -- the Central Asian countries possessing substantial amounts of Caspian Sea oil and natural gas -- are autocratic police states with rigidly controlled state media, banned or nominal opposition parties and ferociously totalitarian policies of social control. In one of the great ironies of recent geopolitical history, Russia couldn't afford to hold on to the largest untapped oil reserves in the world, yet ended up maintaining a significant military presence only in oil-poor, impoverished, civil-war-wracked Tajikistan -- the "ickiest" of the Stans -- because the Tajik government otherwise could not control its southern border with violent, unstable Afghanistan.

In the parlance of the oil business, "proven" oil reserves are those that geologists judge to be 90 percent probable and "possible" oil reserves are considered 50 percent probable. The landlocked Caspian Sea, home to a huge sturgeon that produces most exported Russian caviar, sits on top of an estimated 10 billion barrels of proven reserves and 233 billion barrels of possible reserves -- in total, more than six percent of the world's proven oil and 40 percent of its gas reserves. (29) At the current rate of $26 per barrel, this amounts to an astonishing $6 trillion in potential gross revenues.

Compare this to Saudi Arabia, currently the world's largest oil producer, which possesses a mere 45 billion barrels of possible reserves. The Caspian region also enjoys some 293 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (30)

Caspian Sea oil and natural gas have always drawn the attention of superpowers; Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi war machine was hobbled by an Allied fuel embargo, launched a disastrous front against the Soviet Union in a desperate bid to secure Baku's (then the capital of the Azeri S.S.R., now Azerbaijan) oil rigs for the fight against England and the United States. Nowadays, the Caspian is divvied up among five countries: Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

In 1999, Kazakh drillers hit the Caspian jackpot at the remote northwestern cities of Tengiz and Kashagan. Thanks to these two strikes, the biggest in the history of oil exploration, Kazakhstan is estimated to possess 5.4 billion barrels of proven and 92 billion barrels of possible reserves (31). So while American foreign policy has always been influenced by the discovery of oil, the gigantic Kazakh strike changes everything.

Kazakhstan, a U.S. client dictatorship the size of the United States east of the Mississippi River run by the notoriously corrupt Nursultan Nazarbayev, possesses more than twice as much oil as Saudi Arabia.

During the first months after independence in 1991, the unsophisticated autocrats of Central Asia got taken for a ride by foreign investors. "Naive Turkmen officials auctioned off choice oil and gas fields for as little as $100,000 to foreign opportunity seekers," The Washington Post reports. "Among those who picked up cut-rate concessions were a Dubai car salesman, a Swedish real estate magnate and Roger E. Tamraz, the Lebanese-American entrepreneur who subsequently became entangled in a U.S. Senate investigation of his donations to the Democratic National Committee." (32)

But the leaders of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan quickly learned the value of the Caspian Sea oil beneath their windswept deserts and steppes. Beginning under the Clinton Administration and continuing under Bush-Cheney, the U.S. government has tried to help Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan and Niyazov's Turkmenistan get their oil and gas out to sea. The reasons are simple: Increased production means lower oil prices, which means less reliance on OPEC. Lower oil prices would have a positive impact on corporate profits as transportation, production and power costs inevitably fall (33). And one hardly needs an agile imagination to suspect the interest of a White House headed by former oil men in cutting deals to help their former partners and friends in Texas.

By all accounts the most direct and cheapest route to extract Caspian Sea oil is across the narrow shoulder of Iran to the Persian Gulf. But "the U.S. wants a pipeline that will help its friends in the region and freeze out its enemies -- especially the Iranians," reported Business Week in late May 2002, while Unocal Pipeline 2.0 was getting signed in Islamabad (34). This project (taken over in 1995 from Argentina's Bridas Corporation, which had conceived it in 1993) runs from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.

After the Iranian artery, this is the second-shortest route.

The Trans-Afghan Pipeline: Alive and Well

S. Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, told The New York Times' Steven Kinzer for an article published March 17, 2002: "Whoever can shape the way that pipeline map looks will shape the future of a huge part of the world. The main feature of these states is their remoteness. Pipelines are the only way they can overcome their isolation. Transit fees are real money, and who gets that real money will go a long way toward determining which of these countries succeed and which don't."

There are many pipelines slated for Caspian Sea oil, some further along than others. In rough order of desirability, they are:

1. Turkmenistan-Iran: The shortest, cheapest and safest route, from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, yet indefinitely on hold because Iran is subject to U.S. trade sanctions.

2. Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan: The project originally pushed by Unocal Corporation. A (primarily) gas pipeline that begins in southeast Turkmenistan, crosses Afghanistan from its northwest to southeast and debouches in Pakistan on the Arabian Sea. Now being developed after establishment of Karzai government in Afghanistan despite substantial danger and instability.

3. Azerbaijan-Georgia: Also called Baku-Supsa, a pipeline would carry oil and gas to the Black Sea. Tankers would carry it through the Bosphorus strait to the Mediterranean. Cost of construction through the Caucasus mountains would be high. Also, the Turkish government is concerned about oil spills in the already congested Bosphorus. (Both Kazakh and Turkmen oil and gas can be shipped by tanker to Baku across the Caspian Sea.)

4. Azerbaijan-Turkey: An alternative to Azerbaijan-Georgia, this route runs from Baku to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Even longer and more expensive than Baku-Supsa, this could run over $3 billion.

5. Azerbaijan-Russia: Baku-Novorossisk would run through lawless Chechnya into nearly-as-lawless Russia. No Central Asian leader trusts the Russians not to cut off the pipeline or divert its flow at whim.

6. Kazakhstan-China: The Chinese government has already promised the cash for this project, which will be enormous due to engineering concerns -- it crosses the Tian Shan mountain range -- and distance (5,300 miles). (35)

Kinzer wrote: "Afghanistan's main hope lies with the huge gas reserves in neighboring Turkmenistan, which other Asian nations crave. Today, the only pipelines through which Turkmen gas and oil can be exported run to Russia. American companies have been seeking to build new lines from Turkmenistan to a port from which this wealth could be shipped to other markets." (36)

In order to understand the current thinking about the trans-Afghan deal it's useful to take a look at its recent origins. On October 27, 1997, Unocal Corporation announced the formation of a six-company consortium, the Central Asia Gas Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas) to construct a $2 billion trans-Afghan pipeline across then-Taliban-held Afghanistan. According to the company's press release (37), the six lead participants in the project would have been Unocal (46.5 percent), Delta Oil Company Limited of Saudia Arabia (15 percent), the Government of Turkmenistan (7 percent), Indonesia Petroleum, Ltd. of Japan (6.5 percent), Itochu Oil Exploration Co., Ltd. of Japan (6.5 percent), Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd. of South Korea (5 percent) and the Crescent Group of Pakistan (3.5 percent). A Russian company, RAO Gazprom, indicated interest initially, but withdrew in January 1998.

As Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid has documented extensively in his seminal book "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia," Unocal representatives courted Taliban officials from 1995 through 1998, even arranging for a trip to Texas for Taliban officials in 1997. By most accounts, the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was favorably disposed toward Unocal and its proposed pipeline route.

However, shortly after terrorists (allegedly sponsored by Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization) bombed two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Bill Clinton retaliated with cruise missile attacks against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, and Al Qaeda training camps near Khost and Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, on August 21, 1998 (38). In the aftermath of these actions, Unocal immediately withdrew from the CentGas consortium, formally disbanding it in December 1998. "We met with many factions, including the Taliban, to educate them about the benefits such a pipeline could bring to this desperately poor and war-torn country, as well as to the Central Asian region," Unocal said in a statement announcing the pullout. "At no time did we make any deal with the Taliban, and, in fact, consistently emphasized that the project could not and would not proceed until there was an internationally recognized government in place in Afghanistan that fairly represented all its people. Our hope was that the project could help bring peace, stability and economic development to the Afghans, as well as develop important energy resources for the region." (39)

Though Clinton and Bush officials repeatedly tried to resurrect the deal, the Unocal project remained shelved until September 11, 2001. Those conditions -- "peace, stability and economic development" -- had yet to be achieved by any objective standard. But, by May of 2002, Unocal had obviously been satisfied.

The Return of Unocal

Afghanistan's new Minister of Mines and Industries, Mohammad Alim Razim, announced that Unocal was the "lead company" in the newly revived project. "The work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck at the coming [May 30, 2002] summit," Razim told reporters (40). He said that the Afghan government would build a new road linking Turkmenistan with Pakistan running alongside the pipeline in order to supply nearby villages with gas and to carry Afghan gas for export, and that additional construction funds would be provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and donor countries. The Afghans would collect "transit fees" amounting to one-twelfth of overall profits (41) until it would take full possession of the conduit after 30 years (42). As further consideration, Turkmen President Sapamurat Niyazov promised to add Afghan cities near the border to Turkmenistan's electrical grid and to wire Kabul itself within two years. (43)

In a development that confirms Razim's account, the Asian Development Bank's Marshuq Ali Shah announced on August 12, 2002 that the ADB had cut a check for $1.5 million for a feasibility study of the trans-Afghan pipeline and would meet on September 20, 2002 in Manila to discuss the project. "The movement is quite fast," Shah told reporters. (44)

Obviously attuned to the potential controversy surrounding its previous dalliances with the Taliban and the growing perception that George W. Bush's "war on terrorism" was little more than a cover for neo-colonialist oil exploitation, Unocal officials at first denied Razim's statement. "Unocal is not involved in any projects (including pipelines) in Afghanistan, nor do we have any plans to become involved, nor are we discussing any such projects," spokesperson Teresa Covington said (45). But she added: "I don't think it would serve me to say Œforever.'" (46) Covington also allowed her employer a rhetorical opening: "We can't make any decisions based on a snapshot of a country," Covington said. "There are several things we look for before we invest in a country: an internationally recognized government, peace and stability, and social [standards]." (47)

However, Razim's right-hand man, Deputy Minister of Mines and Industries Mohammed Ebrahim Adel, readily confirms Unocal's interest: "Naturally, Unocal is economically and technically stronger...We are sure Unocal will win, because it has big potential and can work better."

"Business has its secrets and mysteries," continued Adel, a mining engineer, wondering aloud about the oil company's reticence. "And maybe, before there is a real contract, they don't want it to be disclosed in the media." (48)

In any event, the Afghans have made clear that they're not waiting for Unocal, or for that matter the West, to start construction. Any pipeline deal will be done on a first-come, first-serve basis. On August 8, 2002, the Russian state oil company Rosneft announced that it had signed an agreement with the Afghan "Mining and Industry Ministry, under which Russian specialists will study the state of [Afghanistan's] gas fields and pipeline network over the coming month. Russian companies will finance the feasibility study and provide the Afghans with information on the work of Soviet Union specialists in Afghanistan's gas industry prior to 1988. In turn, Rosneft will participate in the development and privatization of oil and gas blocs that Afghanistan will offer in the future." (49)

Whether Unocal, Rosneft or some other company decides to move forward in Afghanistan, the Bush and Karzai Administrations are moving heaven and earth to break ground on some sort of trans-Afghan pipeline as soon as possible. And that pipeline is identical in virtually every respect to the Unocal project tabled in 1998.

As originally conceived, the four-foot pipeline would begin at Turkmenistan's Dauletabad field just north of the northwestern Afghan city of Herat. Dauletabad currently produces more than two billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. It would then run 790 miles along the Herat-to-Kandahar highway, cross the Pakistani border near Quetta and link up with an existing Pakistani pipeline system at Multan, Pakistan. The new plan, according to Pakistani oil ministry officials, is to extend the original 1998 route an additional 160 miles to the Pakistani port city of Gawadar, for a total of 950 miles. (50)

Unocal's 1998 plan had also suggested the possibility of adding a further extension from Pakistan to oil-needy India, but ongoing saber-rattling between those two countries over the Kashmiri conflict renders that prospect extremely unlikely.

But what about all that Kazakh oil found in 1999, the biggest prize so far in the Central Asian oil sweepstakes? According to the U.S. Department of Energy, "Unocal had also considered building a million barrel-per-day-capacity oil pipeline that would link refineries at Charjou, Turkmenistan to Pakistan's Arabian Sea Coast via Afghanistan. Since the Charjou refinery is already linked to Russia's Western Siberian oil fields, the line could provide a possible alternative export route for regional oil products from the Caspian Sea." (51)

Though the current scheme primarily focuses on Turkmen natural gas -- because President Niyazov has fully committed to the deal -- a gas line would likely be built alongside a parallel version to carry oil from Kazakhstan, as well as possibly Uzbekistan.

Pipeline Problems

The oil-rich Kazakhs, however, are understandably skeptical about the feasibility of a trans-Afghan pipeline, viewing it more as a back-up project than the most obvious choice: a short, cheap and therefore sweet line across politically stable Iran. As Secretary of State Colin Powell listened during a state visit to Astana in late 2001, Kazakh president-for-life Nursultan Nazarbayev made his guest visibly uncomfortable as he stated his opposition to American trade sanctions against Iran: "Frankly speaking, the investors who work in the oil field consider the Iran-Persian Gulf route to be the best. This is not only my point of view, but also the opinion of several companies, including American ones. We are interested in multiple routes." (55) Kazakhstan's overall strategy is to pursue "as many pipelines as the country can handle," in order to maximize options for export. Thus the country is asking foreign oil companies to build transfer facilities through Azerbaijan, the "best" Iranian route, even the lengthy Chinese concept -- and a trans-Afghan oil pipeline, which Nazarbayev revealed is projected to be completed by 2007. (56)

The greatest obstacle to the revived "pipeline of peace" -- Karzai's term -- is, of course, that there isn't a hell of a lot of peace to go with the pipeline. "Now with the gradual return of peace and normality in Afghanistan, we are confident that this mega-project will be realized in the near future," Pakistani ruler General Pervez Musharraf stated bombastically after hosting the May 2002 oil summit in Islamabad. But "peace and normality" have hardly returned to a nation awash in mines, automatic weapons and opium poppies. Karzai's central government is under siege from warlords left out of the power-sharing deal arranged in Bonn during the fall 2001 bombing campaign. Bandits and armed rape gangs roam the streets of cities and villages (57). And even American troops are, at this writing, still coming under fire from Taliban troops who have returned to the guerrilla attacks they began against the Soviets during the 1980s (58). In addition, Afghanistan's unruly populace considers itself entitled to charge for any goods that pass through its territory; warlords and tribal chieftains would surely hold the flow of oil and gas hostage pending the receipt of ever-rising protection payments.

Some oil companies are talking about "managing an Afghan pipeline themselves, rather than letting Afghans do it, and on hiring a private security force to guard the line." (59) But that would add to the expenses. As England's Guardian newspaper wrote on May 31, "Gas analysts warn the project would be vulnerable to disruption by warlords unless it was buried deep enough in the ground, which would add considerable extra costs." (60)

Furthermore, Afghanistan's June 10 loya jirga merely established the framework for a two-year "transitional" government. There is no legal or political structure to protect foreign investments; in fact, the Karzai regime continues to enforce a pastiche of Taliban-era Sharia law, the system in which Islamic judges interpret the Koran, and civil rights guaranteed under the old monarchist constitution of 1964. In a place where judges still condemn adulterers to be stoned, securities and corporate laws are nonexistent (61). As Peter Bassett, investment manager for London-based global investment firm Brunswick Capital Management says, "From an emerging markets point of view, Afghanistan has a long ways to travel."

Finally, the greatest obstacle is the price of the Turkmen natural gas that constitutes the project's main raison d'être. Reuters cites analysts who believe that "the cost of the project means customers would have to pay more for gas than they were currently paying to make it economic." (62)

But let's assume that some intrepid oil consortium, led by Unocal or not, decides to sink billions of dollars into a trans-Afghan pipeline whose security is guaranteed by an Afghan government itself entirely dependent on the U.S. military for security. Let's say that they pay off the warlords, that the price of natural gas increases enough or that the Kazakh oil component comes through. We'll allow that they bury the pipeline so deep that no one can touch it. Then they still have to contend with the Pakistani factor.

The Institute for Afghan Studies' Farhad Ahad believes that Pakistan would hold a trans-Afghan pipeline hostage to its own interests -- which don't include access to gas or oil since the country is considered energy-independent through at least 2025. "Historically Pakistan has always meddled in Afghanistan's affairs and has never wanted to give Afghanistan access to its waters. It's a way of keeping Afghanistan dependent on Pakistan," Ahad says (63). And Pakistan's military still supports its fellow Pashtun Taliban, reducing the chances of the military junta's cooperation with the U.S.-installed Karzai.

The Pipeline: A Stupid Idea Whose Time Has Come

So far the most thorough and intelligent conspiracy theory "debunker" has been The American Prospect's Ken Silverstein. Silverstein and other Bush Administration defenders argue that Operation Enduring Freedom is unrelated to oil and gas pipelines:

First, they assert, President Bush is a well-intentioned, intensely caring man determined to free the enslaved women of Afghanistan from Taliban oppression and hell-bent on justice for the victims of September 11.

Second, Turkmenistan no longer needs an Afghan pipeline to carry its gas. Russia has become economically stable and reliable, and in any event there is no less demand for Turkmen gas than there was when Unocal conceived its project in 1995. (64)

Third, Turkmenistan's Niyazov "is an unstable megalomaniac...an old Communist Party hack. His portraits are ubiquitous in Turkmenistan, the country's currency bears his image, and cities, towns and businesses have been renamed after him. In his spare time, Niyazov makes grandiose plans such as building an artificial lake in the middle of the desert, issues presidential decrees on issues such as the title of a women's magazine, and erects monumental palaces. Niyazov's madness," Silverstein writes, "combined with his total control of the economy, has left few Western companies willing to invest in Turkmenistan, much less put up billions for a gas pipeline."

Fourth, Kazakhstan's desire for a pipeline has been sated by increased Russian export capacity and an American-backed plan for a so-called Baku-Novorossiisk line which would debouche on the Turkish Mediteranean coast.

Fifth, Afghanistan itself possesses no significant energy resources. Since its only value is as a conduit, the area can be bypassed in favor of a safer alternative -- across Azerbaijan and Georgia, for example.

Finally, the "debunkers" argue, Afghanistan is, and will likely remain, far too dangerous for the foreseeable future. "When you talk about pipelines, you create an atmosphere of expectation of money," Silverstein quotes Julia Nanay, a Caspian expert at the Petroleum Finance Company. "All the warlords are going to want a piece of the action." "Few people would bet on a long-term settlement to the fighting there," Silverstein concludes, "and if peace does take hold, it won't be for a long time." (65)

All but his last contention fall apart upon immediate examination.

First, neither George W. Bush nor any high-ranking member of his cabinet ever issued a statement pertaining to the status of Afghan women prior to September 11, 2001. The truth is that the U.S. government had no interest in liberating Afghan women from Taliban control; feminist groups in the U.S. found both Clinton and Bush unresponsive to their pleas for action against the Taliban. The mere suggestion that an American war would have been conducted against Afghanistan in order to liberate women is patently ridiculous. Furthermore, although it never extended formal diplomatic recognition to the Taliban, the United States government did not treat them as pariahs until the attacks in New York and Washington. In April 2001, the United States approved a $43 million United Nations payment to the Taliban as a reward for curtailing opium cultivation, and extensive informal ties linked the two governments. Informal contacts, including permitting a Taliban representative to reside in Flushing, New York, continued through September. The U.S. even allowed the Taliban to maintain an American-based website, the since-eliminated taleban.com, to disseminate news and propaganda.

Second, Niyazov has made his desire for a trans-Afghan gas pipeline abundantly clear through countless statements. On February 8, 2002, the day of Khalilzad's visit, Turkmen state television quoted Niyazov: "Peace is finally being installed in Afghanistan. And we can now build a pipeline to Pakistan across its territory." (66) Turkmenistan may not need a new deal as Silverstein asserts in a masterful bit of sophistry, but its leader certainly wants one. That, needless to say, is enough.

The third argument, that U.S. corporations don't do business with tyrants, is perhaps the most absurd. If anything, corporations and political leaders prefer dealing with autocrats over democrats; all they need is a single individual's handshake in order to finalize an agreement. Furthermore, dictators, interested in lining only their own pockets and those of their cronies, typically charge less than civic-minded leaders hoping to enrich their people and their country. The man who calls himself "Turkmenbashi" -- "Great Leader of all Turkmen Everywhere" -- is certainly a megalomaniac figure; he recently asked Turkmenistan's compliant legislature to rename the month of January "Turkmenbashi." (67) Nonetheless, his oversized ego hasn't prevented the Bank of New York, Coca-Cola, Arthur Andersen, Ford, General Electric, Halliburton (68), Hewlett-Packard, John Deere, Proctor & Gamble and Societé Général from investing more than $8 billion into Niyazov's Turkmenistan. (69)

Fourth, Kazakhstan, as we have already seen, is pursuing a pipeline-maximization strategy. While Russian malevolence may be reduced from the bad old days of the early-'90s Soviet collapse, landlocked Kazakhstan will continue to seek economic security by increasing the number of possible routes for its fuel exports, whether though Iran, China or Afghanistan -- "as many pipelines as the country can handle," in other words.

Fifth, northern Afghanistan does possess fossil fuel reserves of its own. Along with fellow journalists I saw oil rigs lining the highway east of Taloqan in Takhar Province; they were functioning even during the November-December 2001 bombings. Russia's Rosneft states that, based on Soviet-era data collected during the 1980s, Afghanistan "has substantial reserves of light low-sulfur oil amounting to 95 million barrels and up to 5 trillion cubic feet of possible natural gas reserves worth around $22 billion." (70)

The Guardian summarizes the remaining argument as follows: "Few believe Afghanistan is secure enough to take such an expensive project. Most provinces are still ruled by rival warlords who often owe fickle allegiance to the government in Kabul. Any pipeline that is on or near the surface would be vulnerable to attack." (71) As Silverstein says:

No major energy firm has expressed any interest in working with the three countries. Even Unocal has stated forthrightly that it has abandoned its old project and that its priorities have shifted outside of Central Asia. "The fact that Karzai, Niyazov, and the Pakistanis have agreed to build a pipeline is meaningless," says Robin Bhatty, an independent energy analyst whose focus is the Caspian region. "None of them have the money or skills to build the thing, and no international firm will be involved given the availability of already-built pipelines and alternative routes." A January 2002 Associated Press story quoted New York business analyst Jeffrey Rogers as saying he couldn't imagine any major corporation making a significant investment in Afghanistan. "It's just not the kind of risk anyone is prepared to take right now," he said. "I can't imagine they will take a risk like that for some time." (72)

Of course, the three nations involved signed their memorandum of understanding just over three months ago on May 31, 2002, so it's a little early to discount the possibility that they will ultimately obtain financing. The Asian Development Bank has already spent money on a feasibility study. And the availability of alternative routes doesn't affect planners in government and energy companies who are looking for additional capacity. But the overall argument is well-taken: the idea of a trans-Afghan pipeline is ill-considered, absurdly premature and probably constitutes financial suicide. It's a big world -- why would anyone sink hard-earned billions into Afghanistan?

Because, as The Guardian admits in the same article, the pipeline dream "is too good to resist." And whether or not the three despots and their American sponsors succeed at making Afghanistan safe for the trans-Afghan pipeline, it's impossible to ignore their intent: they are working hard to make the pipeline a reality.

Afghanistan was just as much of a miserable, war-torn mess back in 1998 as it is today; Unocal and its partners were nonetheless interested in running a pipeline across its territory. Now that the United States has committed itself to an indefinite military presence, is it really so farfetched to think that some Western energy company will take the plunge again? Those who dismiss the pipeline motive as a half-baked "conspiracy theory" argue that people, and companies, always behave in an intelligent manner consistent with their self-interest. History, however, confirms the Turkmen saying: There are limits to wisdom, but there is no limit to foolishness. The trans-Afghan pipeline is a stupid idea, but it's a stupid idea whose time has come.

PART 4: The "War on Terrorism" Before September 11

"To term the war in Afghanistan a Œcolonial adventure' is to ignore the thousands of civilians who died in terrorist attacks on September 11 and to ignore an unprecedented attack on the nerve center of the U.S. military." -- World Press magazine (73)

"President Bush and Vice President Cheney, as former oilmen, certainly understand the importance of the pipeline projects, but these are surely only part of a complex set of factors being weighed by the administration." -- Brendan Nyhan, SpinSanity.com (74)

"Considerations of economic and political influence will undoubtedly play a part in western strategies in Afghanistan. It would be strange if they did not. But the argument that these are the main motivations behind U.S. actions, not the desire to stamp out international terrorism, will probably find support mainly among those who already have a fondness for conspiracy theories." -- Malcolm Haslett, BBC News (75)

Bush, these writers say, did not attack Afghanistan for oil -- at least not solely for oil. What other "complex factors" played a role in the decision to start dropping bombs on innocent civilians?

For a week or two after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans -- including President Bush and his administration -- operated in a haze of shock and confusion. The name of Osama bin Laden was bandied around as a likely suspect, as it often had been after such events, but no one knew what to do next. Insofar as we know, no group had yet claimed responsibility for the destruction of the World Trade Center and the murders of 3,000 Americans (76). According to Bush, no demands had been issued and no requests for changes in policy had been received.

Although Secretary of State Colin Powell and some Pakistani officials initially promised to present proof that the attacks had been planned and carried out by Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization, the closest solid evidence of culpability materialized after the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, in the form of a video cassette showing bin Laden discussing his foreknowledge -- hardly the same as direct responsibility -- of the strikes against New York and Washington.

Rather than an actual terrorist himself, bin Laden has historically acted as Islamist terrorism's biggest "venture capitalist": other organizations pitch him ideas for various operations in the hope of obtaining funding (77). The September 11 attacks were probably no different; while bin Laden may have funded some or all of the attack (that would explain the part of the video in which he says he knew that the attack was coming), another organization probably conceived of the plan, recruited its operatives and gave the signal to go ahead. Although 15 of the 19 hijackers possessed Saudi passports, the common link between Mohammad Atta and his partners was their Egyptian ethnicity -- and membership in Islamic Jihad, an Egyptian group responsible for the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat and the Luxor Temple massacre. Islamic Jihad, based in Egypt, probably carried out 9-11.

Islamic Jihad is led by Ayman Zawahri, who is thought to have been bin Laden's right-hand man in Afghanistan. Many of its members belong to Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, the countries most closely associated with the origin, political support and funding for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks are, respectively, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarek has long tolerated the presence of Islamic Jihad and could provide the United States with intelligence that would lead to the capture of the 19 hijackers' coconspirators. Extremists affiliated with the Saudi Arabian government provided funding to bin Laden that found its way to the 9-11 plotters. And Pakistan remains the world's nerve center for anti-American jihad. Musharraf, after all, came to power as a pivotal ally of the Taliban. (78)

Afghanistan served as a back lot for Pakistani-based jihadi groups. It was a failed state where Muslim extremists from Chechnya, Xinjiang, Palestine and elsewhere traveled to obtain training. It also provided safe haven to Osama bin Laden, a likely financier for 9-11. But bombing Afghanistan was like bombing Yale to get even with George W. Bush; the alumni had already left. And even killing Osama bin Laden -- though the U.S. made little serious effort to do so -- would not have brought justice or vengeance to those who conceived and carried out 9-11.

A war on terrorism would be a logical response to September 11. One has yet to begin. What has been called a "war on terrorism" has in truth been an attack on domestic dissent and basic Constitutional guarantees in the United States and a dangerous military expansion in the form of wars against Afghanistan and Iraq and the installation of new U.S. bases everywhere from the Philippines to Kyrgyzstan. Where a serious effort to safeguard the U.S. and its people was needed, the Bush Administration has indulged itself in a brazen right-wing power grab analogous to the malicious reign of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

In retrospect, the drive against Al Qaeda and bin Laden's Taliban hosts in Afghanistan seems like a foregone conclusion, a logical military response to what leaders called an "act of war." But in the first days after the attacks, this was not the case. After intelligence officers convinced administration officials of Al Qaeda's role, several scenarios were considered by the U.S. government:

1. Negotiating with the Taliban government for bin Laden's extradition and prosecution. (79)

2. Dispatching elite ground commandos into Afghanistan to search for bin Laden and his lieutenants, with the goal of either killing or arresting him. (80)

3. Shutting down bank accounts and other financial conduits that permit Islamist groups to fund operations against the West. (81)

These courses of action all offered various advantages and disadvantages. Though the Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden (despite the absence of diplomatic relations with, much less an extradition treaty with, the United States) upon presentation of proof of his complicity, it is likely that American officials didn't possess more than circumstantial evidence at the time. Had such evidence been available, after all, it would probably have been released in order to counter widespread Arab criticism of the U.S. Those familiar with bin Laden know that he funds operations that other groups propose. As a rule, bin Laden neither plans, nor carries out, terrorist operations.

The second option would have involved high risk with little chance of success; despite periodic actions U.S. intelligence operations had generally failed to invest in Afghanistan and Central Asia, in effect dooming a ground operation to failure. (Even now, the United States relies on maps derived from Soviet-era cartographers to conduct its operations.) In fact, ground movements in the anti-Taliban war were largely entrusted to Afghan soldiers of the Northern Alliance and Eastern Shuria, the forces who allowed the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership to escape into Pakistan.

Finally, the financial option stood little chance of success. Too many Islamic regimes, such as those of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, are sympathetic to the fundamentalists to ever cut off the money supply entirely. Besides, many of these groups rely on alternate forms of money transfer, such as maintaining one-person "banks" who keep credit/debit "balances" as needed, which can't be controlled through any wire-transfer network. In addition, some assets were converted into fungible gold and diamonds. By the summer of 2002, Western officials conceded that Al Qaeda assets had not been seized in significant amounts. (82)

The reason I reference these pre-bombing options is to remind us that, in fact, the bombing campaign was anything but inevitable. Quite the contrary: the administration rushed Congress and its allies in the media into declaring a "war on terrorism," the first strike of which would be an air campaign designed to help Afghanistan's Northern Alliance to seize power in Kabul. Ironically, those bombs created the chaos that allowed Osama bin Laden and his cohort Mullah Mohammed Omar to escape, not through the Tora Bora mountains into Pakistan's tribal areas as reported, but far more likely into Pakistani Kashmir and from there anywhere his immense wealth could spirit him (83). The Northern Alliance took power, only to lose much of it in a U.S.-brokered deal to a Pashtun former Talib, Hamid Karzai.

If the goal of American military action had been to close terrorist training camps and madrassas where anti-American propaganda was disseminated, it would not have attacked Afghanistan, but rather the greatest sources of funding and personnel for anti-American jihad: the extreme, corrupt regimes of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. If another goal had been to put those who planned and executed the 9-11 attacks on trial,