The Great Game for Central Asian Oil

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This is certainly a great game of world domination.

I do not completely agree with your concluding paragraphs but

am willing to accept the negative while thinking positive.


Ras

Through an attempt at being provocative in rising the neorealist foreign policy of one hegemonic state is really not enough.. The central Asia dimensions of this policy and the Asia flank -- would be conducted by any state given the hegemonic power that it has at the momnet the responsibilities inmho is people power and vesting our interest within a stronger international system which can override such imperial unilateralism. Game Theory - the means and the ends at its best ...however what is lacking is substance from the South as well as the `non aligned` north for an alternative and more just international society...
If milions can be spent on liberating freedom fries then so to can these millions be utilised to eleviate world hunger, famine, disease etc etc...
the macro is a mirror image of the micro,

what sheer nonsense!.......... all these conspiracy theories don`t amount to hill of beans ........ the fact of the matter is that this is a struggle between order and disorder, between civilizaiton and primitivism, between the right to pee standing up and being forced to squat, between night robes and pants with two legs, between tooth paste and twigs, utensils and fingers, camels and bullet trains, cable tv and jumaa sermons, guilt free sex and superstition, single malt whiskey and camel whey, democracy and nepotism............ unfortunately, the white man might be able to liberate us from temporal tyrants but who will rid us of our spiritual demons ...........

World is full of viruses, bacteria, parasites and blood thisrsty animals. Some do it due to instinct and some smart animals do it to benefit from it. One thing they all share and that is the availability of fertile growth media to multiply and survive.

Afghans are one such growth media who can be fooled by anybody because they consider themselves martial and brave. It is well known fact that sex supression leads to outletting pressure in bizarre, disorderly, agressive, machsismo, risk taking and brave behavior. The sexual supression fortified with virtuous Islamic ehtics turned many tribal societies into haphazardly aggressive and made them vulnerable to the exploitation. This is the tragedy of Afghanistan. Instead of blaming Russia, Zia, America, Britain and Pitcairn Island of south pacific, they must reevealuate their own cultural/ religious practices.

They must come to understand the inherent weaknesses that made them easy pray for all kind of parasitic ideas from outside. Why are they so open to be fooled by communists, capitalists, colonialists, Islamist, wahabist, Sufist, Deobandist, monarchist etc etc. All they remember is the pride in defeating British, defeating this and defeating that. There is more to a people than just obsessed with defeating everything and everybody. Why don`t they realize that in order to inflict a minor defeat on an enemy, they are ready to lose everything -education, healthcare, roads, bridges, colleges, schools.

Afghanistan was not the only country with Russian soldiers on its soil. The Poles, Czeck, Romanians, Bulgarians, East Germans all had Russian troops and they hated them. But none of them was stupid like Afghans to sacrifice everything for kicking them out or service to religion. Plenty of Zia-likes were present in the neighboring west Europe who would have loved to see Poles, Bulgars, Hungarians and others take up arms against the Soviets. The churches would have loved it but guess what: They were not stupid like Afghans and so called ``our brave traditions``.

Despite all the current bloody history, they have not learnt any lesson. A nations/ government that can sacrifice everything just to follow one Islamic ethic - namely once a promise, always steadfast to honor that promise under all circumstances as int he case of giving refuge to Osama Bin Laden. They remained steadfast in not handing OBL to USA and in the process ost their government and brought hardships to Muslims everywhere. But promise is a promise to them. Since they have promised to defend Islam and supress sexulaity and other strict ethics, they are likely to be continue playing the role of cannon fodder for many more years to come.

Therefore, first blame Afghans, then Islam, then Zia, communists, USA, capitalists, colonialists, imperialists and neo-coloialists. The world will always be ready to spread red carpets for stupids who can not distinguish stupidity from bravery.

Mr. Taimur: You could have been excused if you had written this article at least 30 years ago. At that time there were indeed many people like you (many could be found in Lahore campuses, chain smoking bagla cigarettes which they carried inside Gold Leaf packets and carrying some book full of big Leninist words like the ones you use). So you would have been excused as being a member of that club of pseudo-intellectual weirdos.

Now, you are like a Coelocanth - the fish that everyone thought had been extinct for millions of years but which magically turned up off the coast of madagascar, still breathing bagla smoke and hot air and big words about Monopoly Capitalists, its Running Dogs, and Big Games.

The mankind is just one.

And everyone wears on top a thin layer of nationality, belief or race.

The moment these layesrs get peeled off, it is same person underneath everywhere. And we get down to the basic values of good and bad as perceived by the human conciousness.

I agree with tahmed32.

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GREAT MUSLIM SUCCESS,

The only great thing that ever happene to the muslims is that allah seem to have left oil under the ground they tread. After reading the the book and learning it by rort, all that is left is the conspiract theiries. All of the bloody damn iraqui oil, at the peak of its current production will amont to only 16 billion dollars, a small peanut in global economis terms, noting that it is 20 percet of Ge revenue and less than 2 percent of the bloody indian GDP.

The wretched jihadists can burn as well in their oil and get to the 72 houris, for all that I care.

The Soviet Union was an anti-imperial force?

I only thank God every day that that evil empire is gone from the Earth. Certainly, America`s actions are bad. But honestly speaking, American forces are nowhere near as brutal or disgusting as previous colonizing forces. Our own fellow Talibs, Islamists, and so on, treat people just as bad -- if not worse -- than American armies. The difference? They have more technology so they do it on a larger scale.

But the Soviet Union was pure evil, a darkness and a hole. Eliminating whole nationalities. Deporting whole peoples. Eradicating environments. Wiping out cultures and civilizations. Killing millions upon millions for the sake of stupid collectivization.

And what did it accomplish? A pitiful Russian army that took eight years to establish a tenuous hold over Chechnya, whose population is under 1 million and whose territory is 1/10 of 1 percent of Russia`s.

There will always be imperialism and there will always be war. You cannot change human nature. You can only try to create institutions to mediate and ameliorate -- much as democracies try to capture the worst aspects of human nature and reduce their influence. It`s not perfect. But what is?

Certainly NOT anything to do with Communism.

When the proletariat refuses to vote, all you will get by overthrowing the the ruling classes is a Communist dictatorship.

The same with reviving the Ottomans like another genius suggested, without an aware public and proper institutions, all you will get in return is a Saudi-style rigid monarchy.

Sitting at home refusing to build ones national insitutions but ranting against US imperialism doesnot make sense.

US imperialism didnot work with Turkey in this conflict, Turkey IS determining its own destiny instead of simply asserting its right to determine its own destiny in endless oped pieces. Perhaps the author ought to look into what Marxist theory says about this or the other guy can suggest why God is so meherban on them?

While it is in the interest of USA to pump out as much oil as possible. Oil cost $$$ to produce. Production cost is $2 in Saudi Arabia, $15 in North Sea/Siberia/Texas. So oil prices cannot go below a certain point. Otherwise a lot of world`s oil producers would lose money producing petroluem. I am sure the cost of production and transport in Central Asia is in the $10-15 range. USA pays a lot of money to foreign oil producers. The real issue is what do the elites in oil producing states do with those dollars.

Taimur:

You have given adequate references to support your theory. So I do not agree with contributors that it is a paranoic conspiracy theory. If they believe that it is then they should give references to that effect.

I believe that USA`s presence in Afghanistan will be beneficial to its people and to Pakistanis only and only if they do not over-project former communist Tajiks, Uzbeks and Royalists at the cost of Pushtoons and Iran backed Shias.

Afghanistan will only become stable when it is allowed to be govern in accordance with the requirements of Loya Jirga. Keeping Pushtoons away from power and needlessly supporting NA and handpicked war lords will only encourage resentment and resurgence of a popular revolt.

Good work Taimur.

There will be a pipeline from the CARs (Central Asian Republic) via Afghanistan to the warm waters in Pakistan and another one from Iraq to Syria via Israel.

All these pseudo-intellectuals be damned

kashaziz

``There will be a pipeline from the CARs (Central Asian Republic) via Afghanistan to the warm waters in Pakistan and another one from Iraq to Syria via Israel. ``

......... now why would anyone want to build a pipeline going west from iraq through jordan and then back up through israel to syria????? ...... how about building a pipeline from iran to india through germany ? ....... makes sense to me .......... and why do muslims dream about oil instead of semi-conductors or steel ? .... it is a rhetorical question, so don`t bother to answer.......... somehow i believe that god is punishing the ayrabs by putting oil under their sand ......... if it hadn`t been for the oil, the bedouins would have been about as relevant as the bushmen, the eskimos and the dodo birds ............. one of these days the white man will figure out how to make these darn hydrogen fuel cells work and the arabs and the arab-wannabes can go back to pounding sand, raiding caravans between mecca and jerusalem, and collecting entertainment tax during hajj ............

............ buy hybrid cars and make ayrabs and ayranians irrelevant ! ....... i wish we could move pakistan south of australia - away from the corrupting influence of the arabs and far away from the horrible heeng-eaters next door ................

hamidm2 #15 Regarding this pipeline ``from Iraq to Syria via Israel`` that Mr. Kashaziz says is the grand plan (sorry, the Great Game). You helpfully note would that this pipeline would also need to go through Jordan in order to reach Israel. I may add that in order to reach Syria from Israel it would need to go back via Jordan again. And I suppose the purpose of the Great Game is to get oil from Iraq to Syria.

And then we have this second pipeline that Kashaziz sees coming from Afghanistan to the warm waters of Pakistan. And I suppose they will be sending naswar from Afghanistan to the Arabian sea in this pipeline.

I suppose I should laugh at all this. But for some reason I wish I had a pipeline right now against which to bang my head in frustration at the kinds of idiotic posts one comes across on chowk. ;-)