In an INN World Report interview today about his book — “The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia” — Lutz Kleveman said that the infamous Afghan pipeline plans are being “dusted off.”
Then, I spotted this April 12 Al-Jazeera article: “Disputed Afghan pipeline reviewed.” . . . More below . . .
I certainly hope that Jerome A Paris and others weigh in but, from the Al-Jazeera article today, it looks like the project is a go and is backed by the Bush administration:
Afghanistan’s Minister for Mines, Mir Muhammad Sediq, made the comment on Tuesday after attending a meeting in Islamabad to review the 1680km Afghan-Turkmen pipeline project.
The project has been on hold since the 1990s when the Taliban came to power. Since US-led forces ousted their government in late 2001, the $3.5 billion project has been revived and has gained Washington’s support.
The pipeline would tap into natural gas wells at Turkmenistan’s huge Dauletabad-Donmez field, which holds more than 2.83 trillion cubic metres (100 trillion cubic feet) in gas reserves. …
The article goes on to quote Pakistani officials who are confident that Pakistan is able to “protect the Afghan-Turkmen gas pipeline” and that officials have no problem with India’s partnership in the plan.
I watch INN World Report every day on Free Speech TV via DISH. INN World Report is also aired on public access stations across the country. The latter portion of the half-hour news show is devoted to an in-depth interview or clip from a documentary. Yesterday and today, INN World Report interviewed Lutz Kleveman, who is promoting the paperback edition of his book, “The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia.”
Of greatest interest on the book’s Web site is the interactive map of Central Asia — “The New Great Game territory.” If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you can click various options — Countries, Oil and Gas Reserves, Planned Oil Pipeline, Planned Gas Pipeline, and U.S. and British military bases — to add features to the map.
Your reactions?
Postscript: Kleveman has authored articles on “blood diamonds” for Newsweek and The Daily Telegraph, on Iraq for The Independent and other publications, and on Central Asia’s oil, gas and pipelines for The Nation and the Telegraph.
chant softly to yourself, “there is no pipeline, there is no LNG, there is no oil.”
😉
The official gov page still states that there is no pipeline. So clearly any talk of a pipeline is a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory.
Bush and Khalilzad’s connections to this pipeline are (hopefully) well known already.
I just wanted to add that it was a real shame what Clinton allowed Jesse Jackson to do w/r/t the RUF, especially Foday Sankoh and that horrific “peace deal” signed in Benin.
And where blood diamonds and Liberia and Sierra Leone are involved, our new best pal Viktor Bout can’t be too far behind.
I know it won’t be well-liked here, but I’ll say it anyway. Jesse Jackson (Sr.) is a fraud and a crook of the worst order. Anyone liberal or Democratic needs to divest themselves of this parasite for once and for all. I wonder how many mutilated limbs will be laid at his doorstep when he’s called upstairs for his judgement.
Pax
Jesse’s reading of Green Eggs and Ham is one of my favorites.
I know nothing about the Benin peace deal or Jesse’s participation in it. Could you give us a link, or if you’ve written about this, maybe a link to your article?
Hey, I’ve met JJ, he’s an extremely charming man. I too was also quite moved by his SNL GE&H reading when DR. S died. I’ve always wanted an mp3 of that.
But the RUF and CT and Foday Sankoh and how JJ was involved is truly tragic. And I’m sorry to say this but I think Clinton sent JJ over there as his “special ambassador” for domestic reasons, not because it was the right thing to do, because it wasn’t. And Clinton wasn’t stupid, just sometimes he DID stupid things as we all know.
I wish I could point you to an article I’ve written, but this was all before my time, before I started blogging. I was living in Israel at the time and email didn’t even exist – we had to use those funny blue papers you folded three times to send letters overseas.
Anyone else remember those? I wonder if they still have them…
Pax
Did they have the lovely little airmail logo on them? Those were special.
(My daughter and I saw JJ speak at the Univ. of Washington in Fall 2000. JJ was there on Al Gore’s behalf. He was incredible. Inspirational, dynamic, caring. )
Yes, our new ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad:
Our New Ambassador to Iraq: The Oil Viceroy by me … which includes info about his work for UnoCal “negotiating with the Taliban over a pipeline [across] Afghanistan in the 1990s.”
I stand by this comment.
This pipeline makes NO ECONOMIC SENSE!! People can blather about it all they want, it’s just empty talk.
I actually met Kleveman (in Baku), he is a hack, very partial (back then he was very pro-Azeri and anti- Armenian, for instance). I did not go check the articles you point to, but I would take them with a grain of salt
And the comments of Afghan and Pakistani officials in the Al-Jazeera article? Speculative?
but in late 2003, I was asked by the Ministry of Justice in Kabul to review a 100+ page draft of an agreement between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan concerning the placement and operation of the pipeline.
I did and make a number of recommendations (the first of which was to get an oil & gas lawyer – what the hell do I know about this stuff?) and raised a series of concerns. I know that it went as high as Karzai, because I received a call from his office for some clarifications.
I left Afghanistan shortly after that, so I have no idea what has happened since then.
That’s made a number…
Preview is my friend, preview is my friend…
I am sure that the Afghans and Pakistanis would love this pipe to be built, and that some international organisations (such as the Asian Development Bank) are keen to support them, but they need to support someone and no industrial sponsor in its right mind will build this pipe unless they are paid to do it, and these people (Afghanistan, Pakistan, ADB) don’t have that kind of money to throw around in a venture which, even built, would be subject to the whims of a totalitarian crackpot (the president of Turkmenistan) and his cosy arrangements with the Russians, who could still, at any time, undercut the new pipeline with their own, which exists, costs nothing and is already conencted to the Turkmen gas fields.
The Afghans can hope, but that’s it.
Agreed on Niyazov..that was one of the major concerns that I raised, as well as the cost of trying to secure the damn thing over 1300 kilometers of Afghanistan. And yes, ADB was up to their eyeballs in this.
The mere fact that that they didn’t have an O&G lawyer working on this, which is why it landed on my desk, speaks volumes about the seriousness of the effort.
But, Niyazov isn’t going to be around forever (hope springs eternal), Afghanistan will not always be a chessboard for the warlords (ever the optimist) and there IS a hell of a lot of gas under Turkmen sands. Who knows?
Well, no matter. That interactive map is fun to play with! 🙂
Where can i read more about your experiences in Afghanistan?
Uhh..never wrote any of it up. Spent 8 months working on rebuilding the legal system/infrastructure, for the Judicial Reform Commission, which was one of the entities set up in the Bonn agreements. The JRC expired with the presidential elections, and the work has presumably gone over to the mainline institutions.
Interesting times, with unbelievable amounts of work to be done, and all kinds of intrigues within the Afghan government, and among the various international players.
The folks that I worked with – Afghan and internationals – were truly terrific.
You’d have quite an audience if you ever decide to write it up … probably soon while it’s all still in your mind. Hope you do that.
Was this similar to the program that sent retired judges to Russia to help them set up their judicial system? When my daughter was small, I had a home business, writing resumes among other things, and one of my favorite clients was the former chief justice of the WA state supreme court. Yes, even he needed me to write him a resume — for a teaching post at Seattle University. The next time he came back, he’d been to Russia and was returning to help them. And he told me he knew that the CIA had set it all up … I forget exactly what he said about the CIA, just that they were involved and that he was hip to that.
No, it was most definitely not involved with the CIA…if it was, then they need to take a look at their screening process..;-) That being said, I have no doubt but that there are few government agencies who keep an eye on what we are doing.
There are several different legal reform programs around. I have heard of the one involving judges in Russia, but never ran across any of them. I have sent quite a few judges/lawyers/politicians/civil activists to the US for study tours. The ABA has run a large program in Eastern Europe, and one in Asia, which sends volunteer lawyers to a whole host of counrites to work on generalist legal issue or on specific projects. There are also multiple organizations that work on political development, elections, media access and journalist training, NGO development, etc.
It is a pretty interesting way to make a living. I get to see/live in/work in a different culture every couple of years, and travel about in the region where I am posted.
And sometimes, in small ways, you can make a difference in the lives of people. That is very, very satisfying.
I have taken a long break because of illnesses in my family, and my partner’s family, but am back looking for something interesting to occupy the next few years. Hoping for either Egypt, Vietnam, or back to Kabul, but who knows? That’s part of the attraction.