The Obama administration hopes to keep US forces in Afghanistan in order to maintain its military bases there and control the region�™s oil and gas resources, an antiwar activist in Maine says.
�œThe real issue is, of course, the US wants to continue it maintenance of military bases in the region for an extended period of time,” said Bruce Gagnon, co-founder and coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
The real reason the US has occupied Afghanistan is to �œcontrol the distribution of oil and natural gas out of the Caspian Sea region,” Gagnon told Press TV on Wednesday.
The United States and Afghanistan are currently at loggerheads over a stalled security agreement that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign despite increasing US pressure.
The Bilateral Security Agreement would provide US troops immunity from prosecution in Afghan courts and allow thousands of US and NATO troops to stay in the country after 2014.
Karzai has said the US military must first agree to end night raids and drone strikes that have caused thousands of civilian casualties if Washington want the pact signed by the end of this year.
Gagnon thinks the security agreement between Washington and Kabul will ultimately be signed. �œThe US is doing everything possible to get President Karzai to sign this agreement and I believe it will be signed. I think there�™s a lot of theater going on right now for both countries,” he said.
Currently, the US and its allies have over 80,000 troops, some 46,000 of them Americans, on the ground in Afghanistan. The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 under the pretext of �œwar on terror”.
AHT/ARA
Source: Press TV