Did they legitimately invade after Sept 11?
People seem to equating the motives of the two wars America is currently engaged in as being one and the same. To my mind they are not comparable. Afghanistan was a country run by the Pakistani-funded Taliban, which overthrew the Northern Alliance militias (recognised by the UN as the legitimate government of Afghanistan). The Taliban aided the 9/11 attackers and refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, hence the US attacks (alongside the Northern Alliance) leading to the overthrowing of the Taliban.
I believe the war in Iraq was spawned out of a Neo-con fantasy about breaking the power of the OPEC cartel. Despite having the world's fourth largest proven oil reserves, in a relatively unexplored country, Iraq was generally constrained to pumping no more than 2 million barrels of oil a day. The Neo-con fantasy then, was that US-led coalition would take control in Iraq then finance the invasion by privatising all the oil fields. It was hoped that by increasing output to nearly 10 million barrels the world market would become flooded crushing the power of OPEC. Quite apart from the logistics involved, I believe the oil companies were not particularly keen on sabotaging their own very profitable industry.
So in my opinion, while there is enormous justification for the US involvement in Afghanistan, there is little justification for their involvement in Iraq.
The motives for attacking both Iraq and Afganistan are similar, they both have something of use, oil and a path way to more oil, via the central Asia pipe line. They were seen as unstable in ways of trade and they both surround Iran which in the eyes of the US need to be watched.
I think this notion of Afghanistan as some kind of natural resource powerhouse needs to be knocked on the head. Even if they had as much oil as Saudi Arabia, it is a much more inhospitable environment for drilling (since it is very mountaineous). It is never going to be as easy to drill there as in a desert. Under Russian control in the seventies, Russia estimated their "proven and probable" oil reserves as a paltry 100 million barrels. This compares with 115
billion proven reserves in Iraq. The Russians had plans to build a 10,000 barrel a day refinery but it never happened. Currently Afghanistan imports all of its oil requirements. The World CIA Factbook still lists its proven oil reserves as none. I have read that US geological surveys in the region post-invasion have put potential reserves at estimates variously between several hundred million and over 3 billion. How easy or viable this will be to extract is anyone's guess. If you have any reputable sources of data on Afghanistan's oil reserves please share them, as it is difficult to find reliable data.
If Afghanistan has an importance in the oil and gas world it is more likely as a pipeline route bringing oil and gas from neighbours such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Why shouldn't Iran have nuclear power?
Because President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will most likely use it to build a nuclear weapon with the intention of annihilating Israel, sparking nuclear armageddon when Israel and the United States retaliate. It's been foretold in the prophecies don't you know?
