Why Are We Still In Afghanistan?

Many of us have been asking what seems like an obvious question: Why is the U.S. still in Afghanistan?

Poor Afghanistan. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, and the band of mercenaries, war profiteers and felons who surrounded him, illegally waged secret wars around the world, including one in Afghanistan. In order to "defeat" the Soviet Union, Reagan decided to arm and train fanatical anti-western radical Muslim groups who later developed into al Queda. Thanks again, Ronnie. War in that poor country left little but rubble for the people. In that environment of lawlessness and extreme poverty, with the armed support from the Reagan government, the fanatical religious group the Taliban eventually arose and took control.

You recall that the original justification for invading that country was the claim that the mostly-Saudi men who hijacked four airplanes on 9/11/01 had trained to do the hijacking in the country of Afghanistan. I do not recall any of the hijackers were actually citizens of Afghanistan, but just that they had stayed there, hung out with Osama bin Laden, got training about how to kill people.

As Rupert Murdoch's Whorehouse would say: "They attacked us."

The original justification was that we needed to bomb the rubble that is Afghanistan so al Queda would leave. We originally started bombing in October of 2001, over 8 years ago, and most of the available information suggests bin Laden left right around that same time. He escaped the country and went elsewhere, and took his gang with him. Maybe to Pakistan.

So why are we still in Afghanistan? There are 100,000 foreign troops waging war on the people of that country today, more than eight years after we invaded. President Obama is getting ready to send another 40,000 troops. And that doesn't include the "private contractors" like Blackwater/Xe, mercenaries and hired assassins.

Why are we still waging war against that poor country? The story keeps changing. I read somewhere that it was estimated there were around 19 members of al Queda in Afghanistan. So we need the Army and the Marines, billions of dollars of our money blown up in weapons of mass destruction we use against those poor people, because there are a handful of people who might be al Queda? That doesn't make any sense.

Then we heard that we had to stay there to defeat the "insurgents." Not al Queda anymore, but "the insurgents." Who is that? Anybody who opposes the U.S. occupying the country. Wouldn't that pretty much be everyone, except the handful of oil corporation executives we had placed in charge so they can sign contracts giving away the resources of that country?

Of course everyone knows that the oil corporations want to build pipelines across Afghanistan, to carry gas. Is that why we're there?

We got a new piece of the puzzle yesterday. According to Pinochio Karzai, Afghanistan has mineral and petrolum reserves with an estimated value of One Trillion dollars.

It also turns out that for several years now (while we refused to leave the country, despite no apparent reason for being there) the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been in that country conducting surveys for minerals and petroleum reserves, and will issue an official report in the near future. The survey that our government has been conducting has so far cost the U.S. taxpayers $17 million. And it's all been done in secret.

So that's why we're there: it isn't just rubble. There may be something of value in the ground. And if there is, the U.S. wants to be there so we can steal it. Well, not "we." The U.S. corporations can steal it. The rest of us are too busy standing in the unemployment lines to go steal other people's assets.

"KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday. " ....

"He based his assertion, he said, on a survey being carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), due to be completed in 'a couple of months'".

"The USGS, the US government's scientific agency, has been working on the 17-million dollar survey for a number of years, Karzai said. " ....

"More than 100,000 foreign troops under US and NATO command are battling the insurgents, with another 40,000 due for deployment this year. "

China has reportedly signed a contract to extract copper from a location in Afghanistan, one of the biggest copper sites in the world, and is now negotiating for a contract to mine iron. Maybe this is how the U.S. is holding off China from foreclosing on our debt: invading other countries and giving some of their resources to China.

Have you ever seen a TV commercial with black-op helicopters and drones and men in fatigues with big guns and grenades dropping from the sky, patriotic music playing in the background, and a voice-over saying: "Support the brave and heroic men and women of the United States Geologic Survey. Mapping resources throughout the world."