The smoking gun of the pipeline deal was brought out into the open on the Daine Rehm Show today (12/11/01) a National Public Radio call in talk show, by a caller who ask the an assembled panel, how is Afghanistan going to sustain it self after the reconstruction money runs out.

The most significant member of the panel was Qayyum Karzai, adviser to former Afghanistan King Zahir Shah, brother to Hahmed Karzai the new interim government leader in Afghanistan, and head of Afghans for Civil Society. But the other members of the panel were just as interesting in terms of what they had to say.

Dr. Ashraf Ghani a adjunt professer at John Hopkins University and advisor to the United Nations piped up first to the caller’s question:

Dr. Ghani went straight to the heart of the question. "The first advantage with Afghanistan is location. It connects south asia to central asia to middle east. And that, at this moment, in terms of the politics of energy is going to be an extremely significant asset. Central Asia has all this energy, natural gas, petroleum, other resources, and south Asia needs it. Afghanistan is the bridge."

Ahmed Rashid a Pakistani journalist and author of Taliban:, Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia spoke of how the oil companies are anxious to get into Afghanistan and begin the process of exploiting Afghanistan’s own oil and gas deposits and pick up where the Russians had left off a decade ago.

The whole show is worth listening to just hear these individuals sell Afghanistan and the Karzai view. This url will get you to the real audio:  http://www.wamu.org/dr/