The Planned Destruction Of The Family

Gillis Triplett:

Wake up people! Wake up pastors! Wake up men and women of God and sound the alarm! There is a hostile attack against the family and against the institution of marriage.

The things we are facing to today, the high divorce rate; the rash number of unwed single mothers; the hoards of illegitimate children; homosexuality and lesbianism, sexual perversion and the alarming high number of abortions is not some new phenomenon. It is an ingenious plot that has been in force for decades… designed to annihilate the family structure. You are about to read written proof of this clandestine conspiracy. You’ll learn about the people behind it and their fierce unwavering mission to eradicate the family. Warning: if you are easily offended: DO NOT read any further! This critical message is not for the faint at heart!

Most men and women are clueless when it comes to understanding the malicious forces arrayed against the family and marriage. They simply cannot comprehend how hell-bent some men and women are on destroying the family. Read the chilling words of Communist Lenin…

“Destroy the family and you destroy society." [1]

You need to know that Lenin had a devious plan to carryout his sinister plot and he wasn’t alone! You’ll read about his cohorts in a moment. Right now I need you to see the direct parallels of our current state of affairs to the Marxist Communism plot to eradicate the family, noted in the 1926 July issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Please read this document slowly and carefully.

The Russian Effort To Abolish Marriage

When the Bolsheviki came into power in 1917 they regarded the family, like every other "bourgeois" institution, with fierce hatred, and set out with a will to destroy it. "To clear the family out of the accumulated dust of the ages we had to give it a good shakeup, and we did," declared Madame Smidovich, a leading Communist and active participant in the recent discussion.

So one of the first decrees of the Soviet Government abolished the term "illegitimate children." This was done simply by equalizing the legal status of all children, whether born in wedlock or out of it, and now the Soviet Government boasts that Russia is the only country where there are no illegitimate children. The father of a child is forced to contribute to its support, usually paying the mother a third of his salary...

At the same time a law was passed which made divorce a matter of a few minutes, to be obtained at the request of either partner in a marriage. Chaos was the result. Men took to changing wives with the same zest which they displayed in the consumption of the recently restored forty-per-cent vodka.

"Some men have twenty wives, living a week with one, a month with another," asserted an indignant woman delegate during the sessions of the Tzik. "They have children with all of them, and these children are thrown on the street for lack of support!"

(There are three hundred thousand… shelterless children in Russia to-day, who are literally turned out on the streets. They are one of the greatest social dangers of the present time, because they are developing into professional criminals.

More than half of them are drug addicts and sex perverts.

It is claimed by many Communists that the break-up of the family is responsible for a large percentage of these children.)

The peasant villages have perhaps suffered most from this revolution in sex relations. An epidemic of marriages and divorces broke out in the country districts.

[Marriage became a game where it] was not… unusual… for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the same age to have had three or four abortions. [T]he peasants… bitterly complained: 'Abortions cover our villages with shame. Formerly we did not even hear of them.'

Many women… found marriage and childbearing a profitable occupation. They formed connections ( sexual) with the sons of well-to-do peasants and then blackmailed the father for the support of the children. In some cases peasants have been obliged to sell [everything] in order to settle such… claims. The law has created still more confusion because… women can claim support for children born many years ago.

During the winter of 1924-1925 some of the older Communists accused the younger generation… of indulging… in loose connections; they blame the girl students for practising frequent abortions… Russian women students… [noted] that love was almost the only cheap amusement left to them and demanded that they be given… free abortions that factory women enjoy… Both in the villages and in the cities the problem of the unmarried mother has become very acute and provides a severe and annoying test of Communist theories.

…Another new point was that wife and husband would have an equal right to claim support from the other… The woman would have the right to demand support for her child even if she lived with several men during the period of conception; but, in contrast to previous practice, she or the court would choose one man who would be held responsible for the support. Commissar Kursky seemed especially proud of this point because it differed so much from the 'burgeois customs' of Europe and America.

Another speaker objected to the proposed law on the ground that some women would take advantage of its liberal provisions to form connections with wealthy men and then blackmail them for alimony.[2]

[1] Lenin merely repeated what Socrates had said and what Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx put into words. Lenin set out to do just that, hoping that a new society -- with the State as the ultimate father -- could be constructed. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have seen the consequences of the experiment.

[2] The Atlantic Monthly; July 1926; The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage; Volume 138, No. 1; page 108-114. You can read the document in its entirety by clicking here.

Here’s how the scheme to destroy the family is mapped out:

Eliminate the sacredness of the marriage covenant from the minds of the masses. Make them believe marriage is outdated and blasé
Inspire hatred against the family unit, manhood and fatherhood
Institute no-fault divorce and encourage serial divorces
Incite rampant promiscuity, fornication and adultery
Make having illegitimate children become a common practice
Convince society that a child in the womb is not a human being
Provoke women to have abortions without regard to God or their consciences
Make true love seem like cheap amusement
Stimulate the people to confuse sex with the love
Create an environment that encourages unwed single motherhood
Inspire men to disrespect, dishonor and abuse women
Design laws that motivate women to commit paternity fraud
Incite homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual immorality and perversion
Influence men to effortlessly abandon children they sire
Most importantly, provoke a fierce relentless gender war
As you have read, what happened in 1926 was no accident and neither what is happening in our time. The high divorce rate, the mass number of unwed mothers, the rage against fatherhood, the gender war and the overt war against marriage - are all well planned attacks. Brace yourself and read how certain Americans, like their Russian counterparts, are also hell-bent on dismantling and exterminating the family.

The Planned Destruction Of The Family

The nuclear family must be destroyed , and people must find better ways of living together. ... Whatever it’s ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process. ... "Families have supported oppression by separating people into small, isolated units, unable to join together to fight for common interests. ... — Functions of the Family, Linda Gordon, WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall, 1969.

"By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God" — Gloria Steinem, editor of 'MS' magazine.

"We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage. " -- [Robin Morgan, "Sisterhood Is Powerful," (ed), 1970, p. 537]

“The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it" — Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, in Women and the New Rage, p.67

"Marriage has existed for the benefit of men; and has been a legally sanctioned method of control over women... We must work to destroy it. The end of the institution of marriage is a necessary condition for the liberation of women. Therefore it is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men." — The Declaration of Feminism , November 1971

"Only when manhood is dead - and it will perish when ravaged femininity no longer sustains it - only then will we know what it is to be free." -- [Andrea Dworkin. "The Root Cause," speech, 26 Sept. 1975, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (published in Our Blood, ch. 9, 1976).]

"The care of children ...is infinitely better left to the best trained practitioners of both sexes who have chosen it as a vocation...[This] would further undermine family structure while contributing to the freedom of women." — Kate Millet, Sexual Politics 178-179

"In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them." -- Dr. Mary Jo Bane, feminist and assistant professor of education at Wellesley College and associate director of the school's Center for Research on Woman

"Who cares how men feel or what they do or whether they suffer? They have had over 2000 years to dominate and made a complete hash of it. Now it is our turn. My only comment to men is, if you don't like it, bad luck - and if you get in my way I'll run you down." — Letter to the Editor: Women's Turn to Dominate, Signed: Liberated Women, Boronia; Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia, February 9, 1996

"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex." — Valerie Solana, SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men.)

"How will the family unit be destroyed? ... the demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively. Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare."— Female Liberation , by Roxanne Dunbar.

"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." — Robin Morgan, (editor of MS magazine)

“…[I]t is important for us to encourage women to leave their husbands and not to live individually with men... All of history must be re-written in terms of oppression of women. We must go back to ancient female religions like witchcraft" — The Declaration of Feminism , November 1971.

"God is going to change. We women... will change the world so much that He won't fit anymore." — Naomi Goldenberg, Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions (Quoted at beginning of From Father God to Mother Earth)

I pray that you comprehended what your eyes just read. This attack against the family, against the institution of marriage and against God is not a game! As you have learned, these men and women are serious about abolishing the family unit. They will stop at nothing to eradicate God, morals, marriage, manhood, womanhood, fatherhood, motherhood and husbandhood from our minds and hearts.

Their mission is to persuade the masses to engage in atheism, misogyny, misandry, domestic violence, child abandonment, child support schemes and traps, paternity fraud, serial divorces, serial abortions, sexual perversion, homosexuality and lesbianism.

What must we do to turn the tide? We the people must:

Follow the biblical instructions recorded in II Chronicles 7:14
Cry loud and spare not! We must expose their plot, (Isaiah 58:1)
When these individuals and organizations attempt to pass laws subversive to the family and marriage, we must move swiftly to repeal and put those laws down, (See Daniel 7:25)

TV B Gone

http://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_main.php

Television Statistics
According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.


I. FAMILY LIFE
Percentage of households that possess at least one television: 99
Number of TV sets in the average U.S. household: 2.24
Percentage of U.S. homes with three or more TV sets: 66
Number of hours per day that TV is on in an average U.S. home: 6 hours, 47 minutes
Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66
Number of hours of TV watched annually by Americans: 250 billion
Value of that time assuming an average wage of S5/hour: S1.25 trillion
Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56
Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million
Number of public library items checked out daily: 3 million
Percentage of Americans who say they watch too much TV: 49


II CHILDREN
Approximate number of studies examining TV's effects on children: 4,000
Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful
conversation with their children: 3.5
Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
Percentage of day care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70
Percentage of parents who would like to limit their children's TV watching: 73
Percentage of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV
and spending time with their fathers, preferred television: 54
Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours
Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500


III VIOLENCE
Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000
Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000
Percentage of Americans who believe TV violence helps precipitate real life mayhem: 79


IV. COMMERCIALISM
Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000
Number of TV commercials seen by the average person by age 65: 2 million
Percentage of survey participants (1993) who said that TV commercials
aimed at children make them too materialistic: 92
Rank of food products/fast-food restaurants among TV advertisements to kids: 1
Total spending by 100 leading TV advertisers in 1993: $15 billion


V. GENERAL
Percentage of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising: 30
Percentage devoted to stories about crime, disaster and war: 53.8
Percentage devoted to public service announcements: 0.7
Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges: 59
Percentage who can name at least three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court: 17

Compiled by TV-Free America
1322 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036


Influence of Television

For decades, research and studies have demonstrated that heavy television-viewing may lead to serious health consequences. Now the American medical community, which has long-voiced its concerns about the nation's epidemic of violence, TV addiction and the passive, sedentary nature of TV-watching, is taking a more activist stance, demonstrated by its endorsement of National TV-Turnoff Week.

The average child will watch 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school. By age eighteen, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders. At a meeting in Nashville, TN last July, Dr. John Nelson of the American Medical Association (an endorser of National TV-Turnoff Week) said that if 2,888 out of 3,000 studies show that TV violence is a casual factor in real-life mayhem, "it's a public health problem." The American Psychiatric Association addressed this problem in its endorsement of National TV-Turnoff Week, stating, "We have had a long-standing concern with the impact of television on behavior, especially among children."

Millions of Americans are so hooked on television that they fit the criteria for substance abuse as defined in the official psychiatric manual, according to Rutgers University psychologist and TV-Free America board member Robert Kubey. Heavy TV viewers exhibit five dependency symptoms--two more than necessary to arrive at a clinical diagnosis of substance abuse. These include: 1) using TV as a sedative; 2) indiscriminate viewing; 3) feeling loss of control while viewing; 4) feeling angry with oneself for watching too much; 5) inability to stop watching; and 6) feeling miserable when kept from watching.

Violence and addiction are not the only TV-related health problems. A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey released in October 1995 found 4.7 million children between the ages of 6-17 (11% of this age group) to be severely overweight, more than twice the rate during the 1960's. The main culprits: inactivity (these same children average more than 22 hours of television-viewing a week) and a high-calorie diet. A 1991 study showed that there were an average of 200 junk food ads in four hours of children's Saturday morning cartoons.

According to William H. Deitz, pediatrician and prominent obesity expert at Tufts University School of Medicine, "The easiest way to reduce inactivity is to turn off the TV set. Almost anything else uses more energy than watching TV."

Children are not the only Americans suffering from weight problems; one-third of American adults are overweight. According to an American Journal of Public Health study, an adult who watches three hours of TV a day is far more likely to be obese than an adult who watches less than one hour.

Sometimes the problem is not too much weight; it's too little. Seventy-five percent of American women believe they are too fat, an image problem that often leads to bulimia or anorexia. Sound strange? Not when one takes into account that female models and actresses are twenty-three percent thinner than the average woman and thinner than ninety-five percent of the female population.

Porn stats - can this be shut off too?
The truth is that the United States is completely addicted to pornography.

Did you know that.....

*89% of porn is created in America?

*$2.84 billion in revenue was generated from U.S. porn sites in 2006?

*89 dollars is spent on porn every single second of the day?

*260 new porn sites go online every day?

*Porn revenue is larger than all of the COMBINED revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises in the United States?

*A survey of "Promise Keeper" men revealed that 53% of them had viewed pornography in the last week?

*The number of pornographic websites is over 4.2 million (12% of the total websites in the world), and that those websites get over 40 million visits per day?

*25% of all search engine requests are related to porn?

*More than 70% of all men between the ages of 18 and 34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month?

Matthew Hoh’s resignation letter

Resignation reminds me of Ram Bahadur Bomjon. He is constantly restraining himself from his lower appetites and renouncing worldly endeavors. If its true that he fasts and meditates for 96 consecutive hours on a regular basis then he is almost totally resigned from the world.

Anyway, the "terrorists" aren't targeting Amish people. Amish people don't fuck with anyone. They too have pretty much resigned from society.


Ambassador Nancy J. Powell
Director General of the Foreign Service and
Director of Human Resources
U.S. Department of State
2201 C. Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Ambassador Powell:

It is with great regret and disappointment I submit my resignation from my appointment as a Political Officer in the Foreign Service and my post as the Senior Civilian Representative for the U.S. Government in Zabul Province. I have served six of the previous ten years in service to our country overseas, to include deployment as a U.S. Marine officer and Department of Defense civilian in the Euphrates and Tigris River Valleys of Iraq in 2004-2005 and 2006-2007. I did not enter into this position lightly or with any undue expectations nor did I believe my assignment would be without sacrifice, hardship or difficulty. However, in the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan, in both Regional Commands East and South, I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end. To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.

This fall will mark the eighth year of U.S. combat, governance and development operations within Afghanistan. Next fall, the United States’ occupation will equal in length the Soviet Union’s own physical involvement in Afghanistan. Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.

If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah’s reign, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police unites that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. The Afghan government’s failings particularly when weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and dollars, appear legion and metastatic:

* Glaring corruption and unabashed graft;
* President whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts;
* A system of prvincial and district leaders constituted of local power brokers, opportunists and strongmen allied to the United States solely for, and limited by, the value of our USAID and CERP contracts and whose own political and economic interests stand nothing to gain from any positive or genuine attempts at reconciliation; and
* The recent election process dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter turnout, which has created an enormous victory for our enemy who now claims a popular boycott and will call into question worldwide our government’s military, economic and diplomatic support for an invalid and illegitimate Afghan government.

Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency’s true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology.

I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons. However, again, to follow the logic of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan, not Afghanistan. More so, the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries. Finally, if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate and increase our commitment to and involvement in Mexico.

Eight years into war, no nation has ever known as more dedicated, well trained, experienced and disciplined military as the U.S. Armed Forces. I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. Military has received in Afghanistan. The tactical proficiency and performance of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines is unmatched and unquestioned. However, this is not the European or Pacific theaters of World War II, but rather is a war for which our leaders, uniformed civilian and elected, have inadequately prepared and resourced our men and women. Our forces, devoted and faithful, have been committed to conflict in an indefinite and unplanned manner that has become a cavalier, politically expedient and Pollyannaish misadventure. Similarly, the United State has a dedicated and talented cadre of civilians, both U.S. government employees and contractors, who believe in and sacrifice for their mission, but have been ineffectually trained and led with guidance and intent shaped more by the political climate in Washington, D.C. than in Afghan cities, villages, mountains and valleys.

“We are spending oursleves into oblivion” a very talented and intelligent commander, one of America’s best, briefs every visitor, staff delegation and senior officer. We are mortgaging our Nation’s economy on a war, which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realized not in years, after billions more spent, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a national treasury for such success and victory.

I realize the emotion and tone of my letter and ask you excuse any ill temper. I trust you understand the nature of this war and the sacrifices made by so many thousands of families who have been separated from loved ones deployed in defense of our Nation and whose homes bear the fractures, upheavals and scars of multiple and compounded deployments. Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead haves sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made. As such, I submit my resignation.
Sincerely,

MATTHEW P. HOH
Senior Civilian Representative
Zabul Province, Afghanistan

Dalton Fury dropping knowledge


From some dude's blog:

Anyone who's read the book “Charlie Wilson's War” by George Crile or watched the movie by the same name, would know by now, that we – the CIA – turned primitive but fierce Afghan tribesmen into techno-holy warriors, armed to their teeth, to fight the Soviets during their 10-year occupation of Afghanistan. In the end the Russians left, the Soviet Union crumbled, the Berlin wall fell – Afghanistan was “the straw that broke the camel's back”, it helped brake the USSR economically. The US soon turned its back on Afghanistan and funding to help rebuild Afghanistan was cut off under Clinton – despite Charlie Wilson's best efforts – in 1993.

Under the umbrella of the CIA's program to assist the Afghan mujahideen, various loosely-aligned Afghan opposition groups, in their fight against the Soviet occupiers (and the then communist Afghan government), Afghanistan became a gathering place for Islamist volunteer jihadists from all over the world. Afghan commanders on the CIA's payroll included Pakistan's former intelligence chief Hamid Gul and Jalaluddin Haqani, the host to Rep. Charlie Wilson on several of his visits to Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was one of those volunteer-jihadists and a major financier of the mujahideen groups. He was frequently found in the same area as Haqani.

Robin Cook, former leader of the British House of Commons and Foreign Secretary from 1997-2001, wrote in The Guardian on Friday, July 8, 2005,

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.

After the tragedy of 9/11/2001, many of the CIA's former allies, who had received bags of US taxpayer money each month became top targets of the US forces in Afghanistan. When we turned our backs on Afghanistan and cut off funding, the Taliban, one of the many mujahideen fractions – this one backed by Pakistan – rushed in and rapidly filled the vacuum.

It is worth noting, that the Afghan mujahideen did attribute their victory over the Soviet military to Allah,not the support, weaponry and billions of US taxpayer dollars (think education, healthcare, infrastructure here at home etc.) provided by the CIA. In fact many began to see the US – lone super power by now – as a threat. From the book “Charlie Wilson's War”: “As early as the Gulf War, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, long the main recipient of CIA weaponry, articulated his belief that the United States was seeking world domination and control of Muslim oil”.

Why is the land of Afghanistan somehow critical?

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAPI) is a proposed natural gas pipeline being developed by the Asian Development Bank. The pipeline was designed to transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan's Southern region around Kandahar into Pakistan and then to India.

The original project started in March 1995 when an inaugural memorandum of understanding between the governments of Turkmenistan and Pakistan for a pipeline project was signed. In August 1996, the Central Asia Gas Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas) consortium for construction of a pipeline, led by U.S. oil company, Unocal was formed. On October 27, 1997, CentGas was incorporated in formal signing ceremonies in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan by several international oil companies along with the Government of Turkmenistan. In January 1998, the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan signed an agreement that allowed the proposed project to proceed. In June 1998, Russian Gazprom relinquished its 10% stake in the project. Unocal withdrew from the consortium on December 8, 1998. The pipeline negotiations with the Taliban run Afghan government broke down definitively in August of 2001. The Toronto's Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin wrote at the time, “Washington was furious, leading to speculation it might take out the Taliban. After 9/11, the Taliban, with good reason, were removed — and pipeline planning continued with the Karzai government. U.S. forces installed bases near Kandahar, where the pipeline was to run. A key motivation for the pipeline was to block a competing bid involving Iran, a charter member of the ‘axis of evil.'”

With the Taliban out of the picture, a new deal, a Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement to build a U.S.-backed $7.6 billion pipeline was signed on December 27, 2002 by the leaders of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan (now US-backed Karzai government) and Pakistan. In 2005, the Asian Development Bank submitted the final version of a feasibility study.

However, since 2003 and the beginning of the Iraq war, the Taliban was slowly able to regroup and re-surge and are now in control of most of Southern Afghanistan. Construction of the Turkmen part was supposed to start in 2006, but the overall feasibility is questionable since the southern part of the Afghan pipeline section runs through territory around Kandahar, which continues to be under de facto Taliban control. The project has essentially stalled. It is once again time to clear out the Taliban so the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project can come to fruition. That is what our brave men and women are fighting for. After all, most if not all wars are fought for economic reasons if you bother to look close enough.