Powell to Taliban:

[cymbidia]

"You cannot separate your activities from the activities of the perpetrators."

What i take this to mean is that we're not going to play *any* diplomacy games with Afghanistan, that we will hold Afghanistan as culpable in the terrorist attacks as any of the individuals involved, and that there will be harsh military reprecussions forthcoming in the immediate future.

Anyone have a different interpretation?

 

[pabloback]

the taliban is a government in name only let in place by the warring chieftans they are only recognized by 3 countries
russias mighty army stormed across their border and failed to crush them how well do you think a war will go from 100,000 miles away?
warring with people who have nothing to lose?
i want justice but tell me how?

 

[Chuckus]

Well I will just say this, if the Afghan's are responsible for this in any way or shape or form. Carpet bomb there asses from sun up to sun down until there country is beaten to a bloody pulp. When you think they are beaten to a bloody pulp, do it some more.

After the second or third wave of this, send in the boys to kick ass. Do not TIE their hands. Do it and do it with force like never before. Period.

 

[MrBates]

Chuckus....you better check with a few others, and plan on having trials for each of the Afghans, just to make *sure* that each and every one of them is guilty.

Otherwise, you might offend some of the people here.
MrB

 

[sexy-girl]

i think people are speaking from the heart which is understandable but you also need to find out the facts ... speaking for all of us (me as well)


for one the afghan people and the talaban are two completely different things ... the talaban arent even native to afghanistan it would be evil to hurt the afghan people when they've been hurt enough from 27 years of civil war


also theres nothing to bomb ... you can bomb rubble and desert ... theres barely a building standing in afghanistan


what you need to do if you find out it was the talaban and bin laden you need to enter afghanistan in precise raids that are over in matters of hours ... theres no way america or the whole of nato could invade and conquer afghanistan and they shouldnt either

 

[cymbidia]

the taliban is a government in name only let in place by the warring chieftans they are only recognized by 3 countries
russias mighty army stormed across their border and failed to crush them how well do you think a war will go from 100,000 miles away?
warring with people who have nothing to lose?
i want justice but tell me how?

Whether ot not the Taliban has been "allowed" to exist as the government of Afghanistan by warring chieftans, it is with the Taliban that the U.S. will deal - or not - on the issue of the harboring of the terrorists, either those diretcly repsonsible for the attacks this week or terrorists in general.

The Taliban is Afghanistan's government, such as it is, and whether or not anyone but a very few countries recognize them as a legal entity, they will be the ones we go to for answers in the absence of any other legal government in that country.

I ache for the innocents who will be hurt in what is undoubtedly to come but believe that the entire world will be better off - safer and more civilized - when we're all on the other side of the effort to identify, dig out, and remove ourselves of terrorists of every ilk.

I think the "war" in Afghanistan will be horrible but i believe it will be won if only because it has to be won. If we allow the terrorists to prevail, we hand the world to them now, at this juncture in history - and that's not a thing we are willing or able to do. If necessary, we have the ability to put Afghanistan, and any country that harbors/aids terrorists in the way that Afghanistan has, backinto the Stone Age. We have the ability, we have the will, and we have the determination. If they resist us, if they force our hand, we will do it.



However, there are terrorists of many colors and who live in almost every country on earth. This digging out of terrorists will be a long, slow, deadly struggle. It won't be a thing that lends itself to parades and overt displays of patriotism.

Be prepared for that.

 

[A_Jacks]

Putin has been asked to lend Russian air bases for American air strikes. There will be no ground war, just an attempt to make the Afgans miserable until they expell or hand over bin baby.

bin bin baby...

Maybe Clancy's Russia into NATO scenario will play out since the Chinese have had a hand in this too...

bin bin baby...

 

[Chuckus]

Chuckus....you better check with a few others, and plan on having trials for each of the Afghans, just to make *sure* that each and every one of them is guilty.

Otherwise, you might offend some of the people here.
MrB

Well I am offended that we got bombed. Did Bin Laden or his supporters just *ask* people to leave the buildings who had nothing to do with it? No.

I mean no offense to people who are peaceful and live/born in/raised in any country..........but we MUST eradicate this. The people of countries have let them harbor terrorists for far too long.

 

[SoftPeaches]

I am a very peaceful person, I believe in diplomacy whenever possible. However, the terrorists that did this to us do not believe in peace or diplomacy, and neither does the Taliban, as witnessed by their horrific treatment of their people.
This is war. War is not pretty, it is not easy. Many, many, many innocent people die along with the guilty ones. That is the nature of the beast. I must be frank -- if I have to choose between whether or not innocent people die on enemy or American soil, I will choose enemy soil everytime.
Violence is the only thing our enemies understand, and we must speak their language to cease their destructive behavior. The Taliban must be destroyed. The terrorist movement, based in Islamic Fundamentalism or otherwise, must be destroyed. The price of not fighting is far greater in every way than that of making war.

 

[sexy-girl]

do you remember american launching 60 cruise missle's against bin laden that had no effect whatsoever ... he quoted to say that it stopped there monkey bar training for 2 weeks *sigh*


i know its really frustrating but undirected anger is only going to hurt innocents

 

[Chuckus]

Chuckus....you better check with a few others, and plan on having trials for each of the Afghans, just to make *sure* that each and every one of them is guilty.

Otherwise, you might offend some of the people here.
MrB

Mr B. I mean you no offense either.........but unfortunately innocent people WILL die. Period. That is too bad. Innocent people have already died in the US at the sites of these attacks.
For that I am truly sorry and saddened. I am saddened that innocent people will die. BUT remember sometimes it is a few bad apples that have spoiled the bunch. I am sure that we will have some discrimination with where we bomb and who we bomb, but innocent people will die. That is a fact of life in not so peaceful times when military power is used.

 

[A_Jacks]

God and Allah will have fun sorting them out deciding who goes to heaven, who goes to hell. A fair number will go each way on both sides.

 

[Guest]

Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
By Robert Scheer
Published May 22, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times


Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.

That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.

Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.

Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.

The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women?

At no point in modern history have women and girls been more systematically abused than in Afghanistan where, in the name of madness masquerading as Islam, the government in Kabul obliterates their fundamental human rights. Women may not appear in public without being covered from head to toe with the oppressive shroud called the burkha , and they may not leave the house without being accompanied by a male family member. They've not been permitted to attend school or be treated by male doctors, yet women have been banned from practicing medicine or any profession for that matter.

The lot of males is better if they blindly accept the laws of an extreme religious theocracy that prescribes strict rules governing all behavior, from a ban on shaving to what crops may be grown. It is this last power that has captured the enthusiasm of the Bush White House.

The Taliban fanatics, economically and diplomatically isolated, are at the breaking point, and so, in return for a pittance of legitimacy and cash from the Bush administration, they have been willing to appear to reverse themselves on the growing of opium. That a totalitarian country can effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising. But it is grotesque for a U.S. official, James P. Callahan, director of the State Department's Asian anti-drug program, to describe the Taliban's special methods in the language of representative democracy: "The Taliban used a system of consensus-building," Callahan said after a visit with the Taliban, adding that the Taliban justified the ban on drugs "in very religious terms."

Of course, Callahan also reported, those who didn't obey the theocratic edict would be sent to prison.

In a country where those who break minor rules are simply beaten on the spot by religious police and others are stoned to death, it's understandable that the government's "religious" argument might be compelling. Even if it means, as Callahan concedes, that most of the farmers who grew the poppies will now confront starvation. That's because the Afghan economy has been ruined by the religious extremism of the Taliban, making the attraction of opium as a previously tolerated quick cash crop overwhelming.

For that reason, the opium ban will not last unless the U.S. is willing to pour far larger amounts of money into underwriting the Afghan economy.

As the Drug Enforcement Administration's Steven Casteel admitted, "The bad side of the ban is that it's bringing their country--or certain regions of their country--to economic ruin." Nor did he hold out much hope for Afghan farmers growing other crops such as wheat, which require a vast infrastructure to supply water and fertilizer that no longer exists in that devastated country. There's little doubt that the Taliban will turn once again to the easily taxed cash crop of opium in order to stay in power.

The Taliban may suddenly be the dream regime of our own war drug war zealots, but in the end this alliance will prove a costly failure. Our long sad history of signing up dictators in the war on drugs demonstrates the futility of building a foreign policy on a domestic obsession.

- - -

Robert Scheer Is a Syndicated Columnist.

 

[shadowsource]

Omigod!

I didn't know that the Bush Administration had just given the Taliban $43 million. That's very much like the friendly meeting US Ambassador April Glaspie had with Saddam Hussein just before the latter invaded Kuwait, after which the Bush Admin. said it wasn't much of a problem. Like father, like son.

 

[morninggirl5]

Prove it shadowsource.

Where the hell are the links.

 

[Problem Child]

However, there are terrorists of many colors and who live in almost every country on earth. This digging out of terrorists will be a long, slow, deadly struggle. It won't be a thing that lends itself to parades and overt displays of patriotism.

Be prepared for that.

Well said.

I too, am shocked that we are handing out money to these backward fuckers if it is indeed true. Really makes you wonder.

As to how we will kill the sponsors of terrorism, be they Afghanistan or anyone else, we will do it the same way we did it to Iraq.

We are not the Russians, and this is not 1980.

The only quesion is whether or not we really have the guts to keep up the pressure when we start losing people. I hope so.

 

[Guest]

Re: Omigod!

I didn't know that the Bush Administration had just given the Taliban $43 million. That's very much like the friendly meeting US Ambassador April Glaspie had with Saddam Hussein just before the latter invaded Kuwait, after which the Bush Admin. said it wasn't much of a problem. Like father, like son.

I suppose they did for the same reason Clinton gave them at least $100,000,000 in 2000 and $70,000,000 in 1999. American has this funny thing about humanitarian aid, regardless of how awful the powers that be may be.

 

[Guest]

Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
By Robert Scheer
Published May 22, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times




That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God.

Is this really true? Did we really give the fuckers this money. I don't know if I believe this, but if this is true, I am a fool.

 

[A_Jacks]

Sending a woman to male societies was a slap in the face. Did she say no strongly. NO. Is that a female problem. NO! is that Chaimberlainesque? YES!

We deal with everyone in our terms on our conditions. We are young, we are upstart, and we are rude.

Any Questions?

 

[lavender]

Re: Re: Omigod!

 

[WriterDom]

Did anyone on either the Right or Left suggest that Clinton's efforts to prevent young children from dying of diarrhea in Pakistan refugee camps was an effort to support a terrorist state?

I don't know the number, but millions were given. It's a shame that the troll would even make this an issue.

 

[lavender]

 

[A_Jacks]

Did you ask the Indians?

 

[lavender]

 

[morninggirl5]

Re: Omigod!

I didn't know that the Bush Administration had just given the Taliban $43 million.

Since you can't provide the information, I looked it up myself.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/index.html

Read it and you'll find that the majority of that amount was being sent in FOOD for the Afghani people and NONE of the aid was going to the Taliban.

Powell said the U.S. aid is administered by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, and bypasses the Taliban, "who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it."

Read the last paragraph. It doesn't list the amounts, but we were giving more aid to the Afghani people under Clinton as well.

The sum brings U.S. assistance to $124.2 million for this year, making the United States the largest Afghan donor for the second year in a row.

The aid was about our being humanitarian and caring for the Afghani people NOT the Taliban. Unfortunately the Taliban have placed the Afghani people in even worse jeopardy now.