One country where it's not all about oil

A letter of mine in the Ottawa Sun today:

In his letter of April 23, Albert Bertrand claims that the war in Afghanistan is about American "access to the petroleum from Central Asia." That is simply left-wing mythical nonsense.

Afghanistan has no relevance to access to central Asian oil. Most of that oil is in Kazakhstan, far to the west of Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan has no need for Afghanistan as a pipeline route.

Kazakh oil is exported via Russia and to China. It will now also be shipped, following an agreement with Azerbaijan last year, across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and onward by pipeline to a Turkish port on the eastern Mediterranean. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan equally have no need for any Afghan pipeline should they ever become major oil exporters.

Mark Collins

(The facts don't matter to some people [comment by paper's editors])