Responses to "My Government Went to Afghanistan and All I Got Was This Stupid Pipeline"

I don't know how you can publish anything by Ted Rall when he has called the destruction of the World Trade Center “a class act and a wonderful achievement” and hailed Osama bin Laden as “a hero of our time.” Actually, Rall never said those things but I feel it’s perfectly fair to lie about what he believes since that’s what he did about me in “My Government Went to Afghanistan And All I Got Was This Stupid Pipeline” (with the wonderful subtitle “The Complete Truth About the U.S. Attack on Afghanistan”).

To take the most flagrant but by no means the only example, Rall says that I have argued that Bush attacked Afghanistan because he is “a well intentioned, intensely caring man determined to free the enslaved women of Afghanistan from Taliban oppression and hell-bent on justice for the victims of September 11.” OK Ted, where exactly did I say such a thing in the American Prospect piece that you cite (or anywhere else for that matter)? It’s beyond distortion or caricature, it’s simply a creation of your imagination.

He also says that I claim that “U.S. and other foreign corporations don’t do business with tyrants,” which he calls “perhaps the most absurd” thing that I argue. That is absurd and I don’t argue it. I said that American corporations have become reluctant to invest in Turkmenistan because President Niyazov is nuts, not because he’s a dictator. In fact, American corporations have been walking away from Turkmenistan for exactly the reasons I cited in the Prospect story. Rall states that U.S. corporations have invested $8 billion in Turkmenistan, when the real figure is a fraction of that amount. His source for the $8 billion is none other than Niyazov, who is quoted in a piece that Rall footnotes. The same piece quotes Niyazov as saying that foreign investment will grow to $80 billion by 2010, primarily in the textile industry. Ted probably believes that too.

I don’t have time or space to respond to the rest of Rall’s lies and distortions but if he wants to rebut an argument, he should at least faithfully summarize it.

Ken Silverstein

Rall responds:

Silverstein should reread my piece; my summary of the pipeline “debunkers’” argument clearly refers to “Silverstein and other Bush Administration defenders.” Not everything I mention in my summary of anti-pipeline arguments was argued by Silverstein, and I didn’t say that it was.

Silverstein writes that “corporations have become reluctant to invest in Turkmenistan because President Niyazov is nuts, not because he’s a dictator.” In fact, my piece quotes Silverstein directly -- I don't stuff any words into his word-processing program. The essence of his argument is patently untrue; foreign corporations ARE doing business with Turkmenistan despite its leader’s egomaniacal totalitarian tendencies. His defense -- arguing about the exact amount of that investment -- doesn’t change the fact that corporations do business with oppressive nutcases all over the world, including in Turkmenistan.

Most interestingly, Silverstein doesn’t mention the fact that my piece decimates his central thesis -- that the “war is [not] all about oil and that Afghanistan [doesn’t] hold the key to America’s energy security.” Remember, Silverstein would have us believe that the existence of the pipeline project is a “delusional” “conspiracy theory.” As I wrote, the pipeline that he says would never happen is currently in the works.

Silverstein is obviously an intelligent and articulate fellow. He's merely
wrong about the trans-Afghan pipeline.


Silverstein:

Ted Rall lied in his original story and he lies again now in his reply. He writes, “Silverstein should reread my piece; my summary of the pipeline ‘debunkers’’ argument clearly refers to ‘Silverstein and other Bush Administration defenders.’ Not everything I mention in my summary of anti-pipeline arguments was argued by Silverstein, and I didn’t say that it was.”

I did reread his piece. Here’s what he wrote:

“Silverstein and other Bush Administration defenders argue that Operation Enduring Freedom is unrelated to oil and gas pipelines: First, they assert, President Bush is a well-intentioned, intensely caring man determined to free the enslaved women of Afghanistan from Taliban oppression and hell-bent on justice for the victims of September 11.”

He clearly is asserting that I believe this drivel about Bush's motives in going to war, which I don't believe and which I never wrote in the American Prospect story. Your readers can find it at prospect.org and judge for themselves.

He also completely misrepresents my views about foreign investment in Turkmenistan. I never said no foreign companies were doing business in Turkmenistan, I said that “few Western companies [are] willing to invest in Turkmenistan, much less put up billions for a gas pipeline.” That's absolutely true, and the $8 billion figure Rall cites is an overestimation by at least $6 billion and probably more. (Nor does Rall explain why he relied on a figure from Niyazov, a completely ridiculous source. If he believes Niyazov about that number, presumably he believes him about the even dumber estimate of $80 billion in foreign investment by 2010. Maybe he'll even use that figure in an upcoming story about the huge boom in foreign investment in Turkmenistan. )

Rall didn’t decimate anything in his story other than his credibility as a reporter. I believe the pipeline project is a bad idea whose time will never come, given all the obstacles it faces. No one other than Rall, Niyzaov and Karzai actually think that it’s now “in the works.” But if I turn out to be wrong about this I'll admit it, instead of hiding behind a web of lies.

I don’t have the time or energy to tear apart the rest of Rall’s story, but I would urge your readers to see my story in the Prospect. Then they’ll be able to see what I actually wrote, instead of accepting Rall’s warped Straw Man summary. And your newspaper should stop allowing Rall to write things that any decent fact-checker could immediately spot as fabrications and distortions.

Rall:

Silverstein is repeating himself, but he still misses the point: He and I agree that a pipeline across Afghanistan will probably never be built. My thesis, however, is that Bush's ex-oil-company henchmen hope otherwise--and that that desire was a primary motivation for attacking Afghanistan.

I'm sorry if Silverstein doesn't understand the simple sentence construction I used in my summary of the apologists' argument. His lack of reading comprehension, however, is no excuse for calling me a liar.