What the U.S. Wants in Afghanistan

From the start, the U.S. cloaked its motivations for going to war in Afghanistan with talk about saving ordinary people in Afghanistan–in particular, women suffering abject oppression–from the rule of the Taliban.

But a few years before, the U.S. had quietly backed the ascendance of the Taliban, in the hope that the hard-line regime would impose order– and facilitate the oil corporation Unocal’s plan to build a pipeline through the country.

No doubt, some Afghans hoped the U.S. invasion would get rid of the Taliban. But those hopes turned to bitterness and resentment as the brutality of the occupation–and the savagery of the warlords that Washington has depended on to maintain its grip–became all the more evident. . . .

What the U.S. really wants, says Tariq Ali, is "to construct an army able to suppress its own population but incapable of defending the nation from outside powers; a civil administration with no control over planning or social infrastructure, which is in the hands of Western NGOs; and a government whose foreign policy marches in step with Washington’s."