by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Does it really have something to do with defeating AQ in the Maghreb? Personally I doubt.
The truth is that the area especially that is under the Islamist “control” is full of “vital” minerals, including Uranium, Lithium and others and that's what it is all about.
In previous wars very often it was about oil in the recent times but now more wars will be fought for the “possession” of the means of exploiting rare earths and minerals.
Iraq, it was claimed, has weapons of mass destruction, including nukes that could reach the UK (that was the original claim) within 45 minutes, and that was, so we were told, the reason we had to go in and get rid of Saddam Hussein. As we have found out later is that Iraq did not have any such capability at all.
Iraq was about oil for while the sanctions lasted the oil could not be gotten at. And once the US managed to lay its paws on Iraq it also managed to lay its paws on the oil, for almost nothing, with the exception of the losses of servicemen and -women and thousands of innocent Iraqis.
In Afghanistan the story if less about oil – although it has to do with it to a degree and with putting Iran into a pincer – but about rare minerals and earths, in the same way as with regards to Mali.
War, as Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC, said, is a racket and it is all about the interests of the various governments and the banks that back those governments and businesses that have the ear of the governments.
At home our governments also need those wars against terrorism as it enables them to ever more restrict the freedoms of the people at home, whether citizens or residents. All in the name of “keeping our streets safe”.
If we want to keep our streets safe from terrorism then the way to do that is to stay out of other countries' affairs and stick at our borders defending the country and dependencies but no further than that.
© 2013
