Taliban Told U.S. It Would Give Up Osama - in 1999
Quote:
U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to discuss terms for Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a German television documentary.
But no agreement was reached and no further negotiations took place before the suicide hijackings in 2001.
U.S. and Taliban officials met secretly in Frankfurt almost a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to discuss terms for Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden, according to a German television documentary.
But no agreement was reached and no further negotiations took place before the suicide hijackings in 2001.
Link
Nice chance to blow...
Not that I believe al Quaida would have been dead without bin Laden, but most likely the twin towers would still exist.
Comments
Originally posted by Smircle
Link
Nice chance to blow...
Not that I believe al Quaida would have been dead without bin Laden, but most likely the twin towers would still exist.
Oops
Originally posted by Cake
Jebus. Hindsight is 20/20.
Kobar Towers, 1996
Kenya/Tanzania, 1998
USS Cole, Oct 2000
WTC Vol One, 1993
Seems to me a better case for foresight, rather than hindsight.
He quoted the Taliban foreign minister, Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, as saying: "You can have him whenever the Americans are ready. Name us a country and we will extradite him."
I have to guess that it wasn't actually this easy. Or, we did ask, and they didn't follow through.
So two months before leaving office, there was a meeting where Taliban officials tried to negotiate for US recognition by offering to hand over bin laden, which not only might have been impossible, but also subject to the political motives of taliban leadership and pakistan.
This meeting likely took place as a result of the recent Cole bombing and was a way for the US to find out whether this offer was valid and what was attached to it. At the same time, an actually comprehensive plan to defeat al-qaeda was drawn up after years of work, a plan that was rejected by the Bush admin one month later as it came into office. In addition, the US was discussing with Russia plans to invade afghanistan.
The removal of the taliban was the highest priority of both adminsitrations (though for different reasons and in different ways). If anything, the fact that just two months later the Bush admin rejected the plan that was drawn up following years of bi-partisan work on terrorism and included the conclusions concerning the validity of this "offer" and instead did next to nothing pretty clearly show what happened with all this.
Not that this can be actually called a valid offer of bin laden or that acceptance of it (and subsequent recognition of the Taliban) would have done anything other than dramatically increase al-qaeda's ability to operate.
The US didn't allow the Taliban to save their face by that, and asked them to directly deliver Bin Ladin to US-forces, and to make it practically impossible, the US told them that they would have to accomplish that in a time-span of 24 hrs, which is logistically impossible.
The US wanted that war regardless of what the Taliban were ready to do, because it fitted the US-plan perfectly to gain access to the areas surrounding the kaspic sea, where experts assume that it is full of untouched oil, espescially for the transport-routes for that oil so that Russia and Iran don't get a say and profit from it.
That reminds me also of the show-diplomacy the Bush-administration presented shortly before this Iraq-war:
The Bush-administration asked Saddam Hussein to leave the country and go to exil into a country of his wish and Iraq would be spared from an invasion of US-forces.
A few days later (during which Bush feared that Saddam Hussein could accept going to exil) Bush said that regardless of Saddam Hussein's decision the US would invade Iraq nonetheless.
Like in the case of Afghanistan the US wanted that war so hard, because of oil, this time not transport-routes but regaining direct access (yes, the US once had that sort of access to Iraq's oil in the sixties, then again in the eighties (during the IraqvsIran-war), but was changed in the end of the eighties, which caused the US to start the Kuwait-freedom-war against Iraq, in the hope that Saddam Hussein would be toppled) to the second biggest oil-reserves on the planet, which would give the US control about all the oil in the middle-east: Saudi Arabia's and the small Gulf-states' oil already being under US-control.
Maybe some innocent soul wants to claim that the OPEC controls the oil. Then why is it that middle-east-oil-producers are already producing more oil than was decided by the OPEC, making the last decision to raise production for 8% just an harmonising-with-reality-decision, practically not rising any production at all.
Nightcrawler
Originally posted by Scott
Nightcrawler where do you get your lies and distortions from?
Scott
Don't
Fellowship
Originally posted by Scott
Nightcrawler where do you get your lies and distortions from?
]a_greer where do you get your lies and distortions from?