We don't want those resources going east to China, We don't want those resources going west through Russia (they have been mean, playing realpolitik with Western Europe and the Ukraine with natural gas).

That leaves south through Afghanistan.

Actually, I think it is likely that the Chinese don't want those resources going east to China- because if they did, they'd have to build a huge pipeline through eastern Central Asia and all the way across their country- including the huge, remote, sparsely populated and geographically daunting province of Sinjiang- in order to get it to their refineries, which are all located on the coast of the Yellow Sea, the easternmost border of China.

The Chinese would also need to build a lot more refining capacity- they're adding a lot right now as I'm writing this, but that's quite a crude resource.

(As for the pipeline west out of the region, it already exists- stetching from Baku in Azerbaijan to Ceyhan in Turkey. But it's already running at full capacity.

http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1058992.html )

I think the Chinese are much happier to have the US and UK companies build the pipeline for them, and transport the crude by tanker on the sea route through the Indian Ocean and up the coast to Fujian and other provinces on the southeastern coast. The successful completion of a Central Asia-transAfghanistan pipeline would be a comparative bargain, to them.

The Chinese are also content to leave the "pacification" of the region to the US armed forces. So is everyone else, as far as I can tell.

That seems to be one of the most important new roles for the USA in the 21st century- supplying mercenary armies for projects like these. At the expense of America's taxpayers, to boot. Until I see something like a proportional coalition of other NATO nations as far as troop commitments and funding on the ground in Afghanistan, that unlovely assessment looks like the obvious conclusion, to me.

We have a lot of newly accumulated bills to pay off, after all- it being the case that our national debt presently clocks in at around $12 trillion, $4.6 trillion of which was run up over the past 8 years by the administration of president George W. Bush, the still-reigning champ in that department.

One more point: just because American companies have contracts to develop overseas oil field, build pipelines, and fill tankers with the output, that does not mean that those oil supplies become the preserve of the USA and its oil demand. As former ExxonMobil chairman Lee Raymond pointed out in his testimony before Congress, oil is a global business. It's a global commodity that gets sold to whoever is best able to pay for it, and delivered from the most economically profitable location available- typically the nearest one.

That basic market logic explains why, for instance, Alaskan oil gets sold to Japan, while meantime the US purchases oil from Venezuela.

So anyone with the idea that the USA has been somehow "locking up" energy resources over the last few years in places like Iraq and Kazakhstan, in order to procure dedicated supplies intended exclusively for American energy needs, has been misinformed. That's a misconception.

From the Asia Times article I alluded to earlier (linked at my signature):

...While the United States officially insists that it is not setting up permanent bases in Afghanistan, the scale and permanency of the construction underway at Bagram seems to suggest, at the least, a very long stay. According to published reports, the new terminal facilities for the complex aren't even slated to be operational until 2011.

One of the private companies involved in hardening and building up Bagram's facilities is Contrack International, an international engineering and construction firm which, according to US government records, received more than $120 million in contracts in 2009 for work in Afghanistan. According to Contrack's website, it is, among other things, currently designing and constructing a new "entry control point" - a fortified entrance - as well as a new "ammunition supply point" facility at the base.

It is also responsible for "the design and construction of taxiways and aprons; airfield lighting and navigation aid improvements; and new apron construction" for the base's massive and expanding air operations infrastructure. The building boom at Bagram (which has received at least a modest amount of attention in the American mainstream press) is, however, just a fraction of the story of the way the US military - and Contrack International - are digging in throughout Afghanistan...

One more thing, lest you start in again:

I'm aware that the trans-Afghanistan pipeline does not yet exist. But it's long been planned with the utmost seriousness, and every intention of completion

It's location is practically dictated by the facts of physical geography- and petroleum addiction, lest we forget.