Re: the game's afoot

Since I last posted critiques of various "oil conspiracy theories" I ran
into a story (www.rwor.org/a/v23/1120-29/1125/oil_afghanistan.htm) that
identifies Turkmenistan as having the world's 4th largest largest natural
gas reserves, and significant oil reserves as well, and says that the
government, along with Uzbekistan, is friendly to the U.S.  Both are majority
Turkic, and so have swung behind Turkey into the pro-U.S. orbit.
Kazakstan and Tajikistan are in the Russian orbit.

This article specifies a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through
Afghanistan to Pakistan, and perhaps on into India, as a goal of U.S.
policy.  Could it be that a route runs from Turkmenistan through
Uzbekistan and then into Afghanistan?  (It's hard to keep the "stans"
straight without a map right in front of you at all times -- I have a
world map on my office wall.)  It seems that some of the Unocal conspiracy
stories, like Ted Rall's, feature Uzbekistan, but I haven't seen any
factual support for Uzbekistan as a significant source of oil or gas.  The
USSR used it as a cotton plantation, and drained the Aral Sea for
irrigation.

RH