On Sunday, October 14, 2001, at 04:12 AM, Eugene Leitl wrote:

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 13 Oct 2001 14:29:45 -0400 From: Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@canada.com> To: fork <fork@xent.com> Subject: Missing details on Afghanistan: Natural Gas

Something I haven't seen appear on this list before but which may or may not be significant:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/afghan.html

"Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems from its geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. This potential includes the possible construction of oil and natural gas export pipelines through Afghanistan, which was under serious consideration in the mid-1990s. The idea has since been undermined by Afghanistan's instability.

The writer above may not "seen this appear," but it's a basic tenet of Afghan history, going back decades, centuries, and millennia. The Silk Route passed through Afghanistan, the British tried to gain access and battled the Russians in what is usually dubbed "The Great Game." The Russians wanted a warm water port. Daniel Yergin's book on the oil business some years back explained in great detail how the discovery of huge oil and gas fields in Central Asia early in the 20th century highlighted the issue of where to put a pipeline to a seaport. South through Uzbekistan and over the Khyber Pass into Pakistan and then down through the desert to the Arabian Sea was one conceived route. Another was west across Turkmenistan to Turkey to the Med was another. (For those who get their history from James Bond movies, this was covered in the last Bond movie, where the French uberbabe Sophie Marceau played a Central Asian oil magnate. Scenes were shot in Tashkent.) So, this is well-trod ground. --Tim May