Some of the aforementioned articles state:

"The other member of the Bushian foreign policy
triumvirate, Dick Cheney, plays a different if by no
means subordinate role. As a former Secretary of Defense, now the president of the Halliburton Company, the biggest provider of products and services to the petroleum industry, Cheney represents the alliance of Big Oil money and the military-industrial complex. After presiding over the Defense Department, Cheney graduated to the world of big business, where he became President of Halliburton. Under Cheney's leadership. Halliburton has expanded the range of services its offers and has spent about $1 billion acquiring companies with different niche specialties. The company bought Landmark Graphics Corp., in 1996, a company that makes software for seismic evaluations of petroleum reservoirs. Last year, it
gobbled up Numar Corp.: their software enables drillers
to analyze subsurface rock formations in newly drilled
wells using magnetic resonance imaging. The recent acquisition of the Dresser Company means that Halliburton has acquired strong engineering capabilities and drilling systems to complement its strength in energy sector construction and maintenance. Reemerging onto the political stage, Cheney is playing a major role in what may become the biggest and most profitable deal of his private sector career the coming war for oil in the troubled Transcaucasus. WHOSE NATIONAL INTEREST? With his links to Texas oil barons, and his political connections, Cheney is gearing up with the rest of the oil industry to cash in on the Great Caspian Oil Bonanza. Cheney has been
in the forefront of the effort to repeal US legislation
that forbids foreign aid to undemocratic regimes such as the government of Azerbaijan. That central Asian nation, ruled by a neo-Stalinist dictator, is where a good deal of the oil is located; it is also a key link in the oil companies' scheme to build a trans-Balkan/Transcaucasian oil pipeline to bring its product to market in Western Europe. Can anyone doubt that "a quarrel among faraway peoples about whom we know nothing" in that tumultuous region will suddenly involve "vital" US "national interests"? As Russian troops fight Islamic rebels in Dagestan, and the Armenians and Azeris call for the US and/or NATO to intervene, the prospect of George Dubya in the White House begins to take on a distinctly ominous aspect. THEORY AND PRACTICE It used to be, not so long ago, that the interface of corporate interests and US foreign policy was far subtler. In these decadents days of imperial excess, however, there is a pagan shamelessness in the unseemly spectacle of revolving doors between corporate and government institutions. A man like Cheney, who segues so rapidly and easily from chief warmaker to chief executive officer of a major international corporation, is the perfect symbol of the Republican foreign policy establishment in the age of George Dubya. If Wolfowitz is the chief theoretician of this mercantilist dogma that equates
untapped oil fields with "the national interest," then Cheney is its chief practitioner and among the most
successful. GETTING TO THE ROOT OF THE MATTER The oil companies envision a pipeline that will carry their product across Eastern Europe to customers in the West and the Albanian end of that trans-Balkan route is already being taken care of. It was the Houston engineering firm of Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, that won the contract to build barracks not only in Bosnia, but also in Kosovo and Albania; they were one of the biggest direct beneficiaries of the war. As Wolfowitz was signing newspaper ads demanding the introduction of US ground troops into Kosovo, Halliburton was busy building and outfitting the Albanian staging areas. FOLLOW THE MONEY The neoconservative intellectuals, like Wolfowitz, expend millions of words to prove and reprove the necessity of their policies, of the inevitability of perpetual war for perpetual peace, while second-and-third tier activists like William Kristol proclaim the virtues of a "benevolent world hegemony." But in the end it boils down to such vulgar matters as Halliburton's profit margins and the price of oil. In an era in which wars are fought in the name of vague and improbable ideals, such as "human rights" and "multiculturalism," it is a safe bet to follow the money. It works almost every time."

"Afghanistan. Under President Reagan's leadership,
America helped Afghan patriots expel an occupying Soviet army, thereby hastening the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War. In recent years, the Taliban militia led by fundamentalist zealots has seized control of most of the country, destroying the secular system and driving Afghan women to suicide and despair. And yet, the Taliban has won a measure of international recognition, arguing that they have brought stability."

"....the next U.S. president stands at a crossroads.
He can seek an accommodation with the Taliban, perhaps even persuade them through commercial incentives to expel the renegade Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist horde. Or he can assert American principles and leadership and advance American interests, by helping freedom fighters in Afghanistan return that country to secular rule."

"The stakes in Afghanistan are larger than generally
thought. A stable, free Afghanistan presents an ideal
export route for the land-locked petroleum resources of Turkmenistan, which has more than 1 trillion cubic meters of proven natural gas reserves. Until now, Turkmenistan has been blocked by Russia and frustrated by Iran. Its only option today is to build an expensive 4,000 mile-long pipeline to China and return its vast petroleum reserves to Communist control. A better alternative is a pipeline through Afghanistan. But it cannot be built until that country has a stable government that guarantees basic freedoms to its people."

Check World Maps:
http://www.worldpress.org/6worldmap.htm

Here are some older articles citing the connection with
building an oil pipeline in the region:

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/publications/AFGHANConflict.htm

http://www.arab.net/arabview/article.asp?artID=35%20

http://www.iran.org/news/wt_001222.htm

Now what about the tariffs against the Canadian Lumber industry, contrary to NAFTA? Is this an attempt to force us to build a pipeline through our territory from the ANWR? I think it is. Bush and Cheney want to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to support their anticipated 60% growth in energy consumption over the next 20 years. And if Canada does not build a pipeline? More sanctions! Or perhaps the Bush gov't wants to bankrupt us first to ensure our cooperation?

They say Afghanistan's people are illiterate. Well
perhaps North American citizens are not reading into this issue enough either!

Perhaps I will go to bed now. :-(