url URL date NUMBER NUMBER NUMBERtNUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER ted rall my government went to afghanistan and all i got was this stupid pipeline NUMBER summary the us begun planning courting the taliban for permission to build an oil pipeline since NUMBER we even flew mullah omar to texas to try and convince him after it was clear that wouldn t work we threatened to bomb them and begun attacking on a smaller scale for a year before NUMBER NUMBER we already planned to invade two months before the attacks while it s not clear they knew about NUMBER NUMBER it certainly provided a convenient cover for their plans three days after we started bombing we begun official work on the pipeline karzai the afghanistan president we installed who incidentally used to work for the oil company unocal and was a former talib focused on the pipeline rather than rebuilding his torn country yet the entire pipeline is unworkable because it s too expensive and will be sabotaged by warlords and pakistan bin laden was essentially a venture capitalist he funded attacks but didn t carry them out it s far more likely that an egyptian group islamic jihad carried out the attacks if we wanted to stop the terrorists we should have gone after them if we wanted to stop anti americanism we should have gone after saudi arabia and pakistan instead our bombing created the perfect opportunity for bin laden to escape nor did we bother to stabilize afghanistan the country is as ruined as ever unfortunately our government seized the moment as well not to do good or right but to take advantage of our grief of our naivete of our lust for justice and vengeance they did it to line the pockets of themselves and their friends to gain political and economic advantage for a tiny coterie of influential people in doing so they endangered the rest of us they took advantage of our ignorance about islam caspian sea oil and remote central asia i have faith that the fundamental goodness of the american people will cause them to see what was done in their name and to do something about it NUMBER URL 