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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

$6.4T into renewables and storage over the past 20 years would have decarbonized the US grid several time over, accelerated the tech curve drastically, nearly completely transitioned us to EVs, and we'd probably have decarbonized a good chunk of industry that is hard to decarbonize now.

We'd have cheaper energy than we do today, and cheaper energy forever. We could have been looking at current levels of climate change, instead of the far far bigger changes that we are now going to experience.

And why did we spend so much on these countries? It all comes back to oil and the fear of losing access to oil to power the economy.

We really should never forgive those who work for the fossil fuel industry for putting us on this timeline with their active deceipt, lies, and massive propaganda campaign. There should be no forgiveness for what they have cost us.

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Absolutely, it's a good reminder that there is a lot of behind the scenes bullshit at play in this world.

The world was screwed on this deal and while it's an absolutely humanitarian rights disaster and tragedy what's happening in Afghanistan, maybe the current Administration has worked out that it would be better to spend the money elsewhere, hopefully on tackling climate change.

I wish I were able to take this a step further and postulate the benefit cheap renewable energies would have on countries like Afghanistan.

Anybody have a good summary of what we would expect? I'm making the assumption it would be a net positive for the region.

What evidence do you have that Afghanistan was due to oil, and not due to the most direct motivations, like Taliban sheltering Al Qaeda (as they still do)? This seems like a conspiracy theory.

If you want to go there look at the acres of cultivation of opium under Taliban and then under US occupation. Ask where that exponential increase in production was spent.

What does opium have to do with oil?

I don't think opium has much to do with the initial invasion of Afghanistan, but I think that there's a pretty good argument that it has had a big effect on what has played out during the occupation. So I'm not fully sure of the relevance of the comment either.

The conspiracy theory is that much of the increased opium production funded a lot of CIA black programs.

> Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline (1997)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenistan%E2%80%93Afghanist...

The purpose of invading Afghanistan was to enact revenge for the September 11th attacks. The reasons for the attacks that directly relate to the US are:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11...

* US support for Israel (specifically Lebanon) -- support that the US gives as a strategic ally in the oil-rich Middle East. Without oil in the region, we would not be expending as much effort on this support.

* US troops in Saudi Arabia -- troops are there because of the oil

* Sanctions against Iraq -- placed there again because of oil and the annexation of Kuwait over oil.

Come on - it was not to enact "revenge". That is hyperbolic editorialization. It was because the Taliban had consistently been harboring Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, had close ties with Al Qaeda (who attacked the US), and they would have granted those same terrorists safe harbor again if left alone. The Taliban continues to maintain close ties with Al Qaeda today (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/taliban-k...), which is why handing them back Afghanistan is an incredible failure of leadership for the US. The rest of your alleged oil-motivated acts all have other motives as well, so I remain unconvinced by your overall argument.

Bush the Lesser specifically emphasized revenge in his famous petulant rant from "ground zero". Did you somehow miss this great modern American oration to which we are subjected on every 9/11 anniversary?

> US support for Israel (specifically Lebanon)

Not sure what that means? For Israel to defend themselves against Lebanon?

On the public face, the politicians talked about t-----ism and A- Q----. Behind the scenes, they're all doing things like this and getting filthy rich:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_Energy

What am I supposed to be taking away from that Wikipedia link? The words “Afghanistan” and “war” don’t appear in the article anywhere. It mentions some activity in Israel and that’s it. It feels to me like you’re mentioning a random energy company as a bogeyman, but it doesn’t actually involve any particular malicious activity.

I think the parent is talking about the fact Dick Cheney is on the advisory board among other former US government officials as seen on the linked page.

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