Access to resources motive behind Afghan war: Ex-US Marine

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ken O'Keefe, a former US Marine, in London, to discuss the new position by the US to seriously consider slowing the pace of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

O’Keefe believes the real reason behind the invasion of Afghanistan by the US was to achieve full dominance. He adds the oil reserves in the former Soviet Republics and tremendous deposits of mineral wealth in Afghanistan are also the reasons behind the invasion and the slowdown of US troops’ withdrawal from the country.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The US secretary of defense is saying that Washington is considering slowing down the pace of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. What would you make of this? What exactly does this mean?

O'Keefe: The first thing that we have to acknowledge is that the whole premise of invading Afghanistan was always a lie. The bottom line is that even the FBI acknowledged that there wasn’t evidence to indict Osama bin Laden, and ultimately the 9/11 operation that was used as the catalyst has more Israeli fingerprints on it than [those of] Osama bin Laden, the 19 hijackers. The bottom line is that if you want to invade a country, you need to at least provide an evidence to justify such an invasion. Otherwise, it would be a war of aggression, and even during the time of Nazi Germany, this was considered the supreme crime, according to the Nuremberg principles.

The whole basis of invading (Afghanistan) was a lie that gets us back to your initial question of why they are slowing down.

The real reason can be identified quite clearly in the Project for the New American Century document, rebuilding America’s defenses, where they identify the goal of full-spectrum dominance, which means to achieve total domination of air, land and space and cyber space; and in order to do that, key areas need to be secured, including Afghanistan, which is the gateway to the oil rich gas and oil reserves in the former Soviet Republics and the pipeline that was meant to be there. And also we have tremendous deposits of mineral wealth in Afghanistan as well. This is the real reason why the invasion took place, and that is why they are slowing down as it were removing people (soldiers) from there.

Press TV: What does it mean, on the one hand, we hear about the US troops withdrawing from Afghanistan, and of course, there are many who have already gone. So, was this a game to begin with on the one hand to show that they are withdrawing but now talking about slowing down?

O'Keefe: The goal really is to get it out of the news. It was becoming more and more unpopular. You have things like over 22 American service members a day committing suicide because of especially Afghanistan, but even so more Iraq.

The press is not good about this. So, what you want is for the press to go away, for people not to pay attention, and family members who have their loved ones over there. Pay the mercenaries, because that is a much more effective way. Pay the mercenaries, no one cares about them nearly as much, and ultimately get it out of the news so you can continue to control the main objectives there.

The gas pipeline hasn’t materialized to the degree that they would have liked, that’s for sure. But you still have – and this can’t be ignored – massive amounts of poppy crops, which results in massive amounts of heroin. That heroin is being delivered to all points around the globe and that heroin production is being protected by us as well. This is a multi-billion-dollar industry, which provides a huge amount of resources in the black operations market. So, this is another reason why we are not let it go – of course, you can’t say that publicly – but these are the real reasons why we are there.

AHK/JR/HJL

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