(re Troops there *now* - protecting a chance for a pipeline) That was merely our main initial Corporate Interest in the area. I don't believe that Interest is waning - only the appearance that it has, is being spun.
Still.. the very fact of the Texas manipulations and US policy of cooperation, subsidizing! of Taliban (til right up to 911) speaks volumes.. with just this One motive looming larger than any other (which I have ever seen claimed). This says a great deal about the tawdriness of US actual performance, the shallowness of US rationale for invoking, "the equally-ugly enemy of my enemy is my friend".
These are far from 'principled' approaches to "foreign entanglements". These are the banal motives of the Imperialist shoring up hegemony - for having the economic & military might to Insist.
And those of us who will pay any price, betray any principle - for the Right of all Muricans to drive gas-hog UAVs with subsidized cheap gasoline - are indeed the lawful prey of those who would rub 'our' noses in the actual Cost of this "cheap oil".
Ashton