KIRKUK--
If you look at a map of the Middle East, you'll see it resembles a giant Risk board. By 'it' I mean it's the Middle East that resembles a giant Risk board, and the map of it depicts a scaled down version of that board. The map is actually about the same size as the board. Locate such a map before you read further.
You didn't? Anyway, starting in Iraq, draw a line east and south. If you don't own the map, draw the line WITH YOUR EYES. You'll move from Iraq to Iran to Afghanistan to Pakistan. The U.S. strategy is to be dominant in that contiguous block of territory. After 9-11 they waged war on Afghanistan, sending a message that Pakistan had to get on the U.S. side or they'd fry. A similar dynamic exists in Iran and Iraq. Having occupied Iraq, the U.S. has put Iran in a position to start making concessions.
With all the dots connected, those four countries - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan - form a strip of land under US influence, from the Middle East to the far east, ending at the Indian Ocean. Clearly the intent here is to build an infrastructure for distributing Iraq's oil to the far east, particularly India and China. Both with over a billion people, both starting to play in the global capitalist scene, together they have the potential to consume 5-10 times the amount of natural resources as the U.S. currently does. Hence the investment in the pipeline.
And on the day they finish constructing that oil pipeline from Iraq, into Iran and over the Kuhha-Ye Zagros, following the northern shore of the Persian Gulf, then veering north at the Strait of Hormuz, across the unpredictable sands of the afghan plain, UP through the Khyber Pass, coming within sight of the Himalayas, then heading south through Pakistan, touching on the disputed Kashmir region, ending with a big cannonball drop into the Arabian Basin of the Indian Ocean, the entrance of the pipeline back in Iraq will be dressed up with those triangular flags in primary colors, the ones often used to signal the grand opening of a The Wiz store or a used car lot, and a festive Grand Opening ribbon will be stretched across its mouth. There, on that day, a giant lubricated condom measuring 8 feet tall and 3 feet wide will be suspended upright by a crane. A mobile stairway set on wheels, like what you'd see at an airport, will be rolled to the lip of the condom, and a man will climb the stairs, wave to the crowd and slide into his latex vessel. With his feet wedged in the reservoir tip and arms carefully straightened at his sides, a second crane, or perhaps a dangerously untested prototype of the Honda ASIMO, or maybe just a couple of people, will tie a knot closing the top of the condom. Sealing the man inside.
The crane will lift him up, carry him to the mouth of the oil pipeline, the ribbon will be cut ... and the oil will begin to flow. The petrolnaut will be dropped into the pipeline... and away he'll go! Gliding effortlessly from the Middle East to the Indian Ocean.
That man's name...
Dick Cheney.
His own private transportation system, paid for with taxpayer dollars.
but the most amazing thing of all was that his journey wasn't over...
... IT WAS ONLY BEGINNING.
--K. Snarf Blatte,
October 16, 2003
