Bush Gave Taliban $43 Million Four Months before 9/11

[kpete]

Bush Gave Taliban $43 Million Four Months before 9/11
by Brandon Friedman
Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 05:42:01 PM PDT

As Barack Obama begins the effort of turning America’s attention toward the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan--and as American soldiers die at the hands of Taliban militants in numbers never before seen--it’s worth drawing everyone’s attention to a piece in The Nation that VetVoice’s Chris LeJeune dug up this afternoon. It was originally published May 15, 2001--less four months before 9/11.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010604/20010522
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-US 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 United States 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 US insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/14/203232/585/...

[Solly Mack]

1. He sure did

[JDPriestly]

2. One wonders how much of the money paid to Pakistan and other

countries today is ransom intended to prevent attacks on the U.S. It may not be a formal arrangement, but kind of a sense that you can buy peace.

[Frustratedlady]

5. Weren't they paying Iraqis not to fight just recently?

I forget the details, but I know I read it somewhere on DU.

[rucognizant]

57. NO

They were trying to buy the RIGHT OF WAY TO LAY THE OIL GAS PIPELINES ACROSS AFGHANISTAN.
WHen that didn't work they had to think up another way to achieve the pipeline which DID open ( BP I think) a year or 2 ago.!
( Another reason to allow the WTT attack!)
I knew this 5 years ago.....source ? Choemsky I think.

[DCKit]

3. MIHOP much? Yikes! The tin-foil makes my brain itch. n/t

[barbtries]

18. mihop very much

we need a new investigation that WILL follow the money.

[MetaTrope]

36. Too bad Salem bin Laden isn't around to testify

Or give money to somebody's business aside from George W. Bush.

[Make7]

4. "Our aid bypasses the Taliban..." - Colin Powell

 

Humanitarian Assistance to Afghans

Secretary Colin L. Powell
Statement at Press Briefing on New U.S. Humanitarian Assistance for Afghans
Washington, DC
May 17, 2001

SECRETARY POWELL: Good morning, everyone. Afghanistan is in crisis. After more than 20 years of war, and now the third year of a devastating draught, the country is on the verge of a widespread famine. Nearly 4 million Afghans are at risk. If the international community does not take immediate action, countless deaths and terrible tragedy are certain to follow.

At the direction of President Bush, I am today announcing a package of $43 million in new humanitarian assistance for the people of Afghanistan, including 65,000 tons of wheat, $5 million in complementary food commodities, and $10 million in other livelihood and food security programs within Afghanistan. We also expect to soon announce additional assistance to Afghan refugees.

Even before this latest commitment, the United States was by far the largest provider of humanitarian assistance for Afghans. Last year, we provided about $114 million in aid. With this new package, our humanitarian assistance to date this year will reach $124 million. This includes over 200,000 tons of wheat.

We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance for Afghans, including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome.

We distribute our assistance in Afghanistan through international agencies of the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations. We provide our aid to the people of Afghanistan, not to Afghanistan's warring factions. Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it. We hope the Taliban will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support for terrorism; their violation of internationally recognized human rights standards, especially their treatment of women and girls; and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan's civil war through a negotiated settlement.

UN sanctions against the Taliban are smart sanctions and do not hurt the Afghan people, nor do these sanctions affect the flow of humanitarian assistance for Afghans. America seeks to help the neediest, wherever they may be. I call upon the international community to mobilize and respond generously to help avert this looming humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan.

Secretary General Annan and I have discussed this situation before, and I will ask for his further assistance to raise the international community's awareness about this crisis and to impress upon the international community the necessity to respond with energy and with dispatch.

Colleagues of mine from different parts of the government, as well as including the United States Agency for International Development, will be available to provide more detailed information, should you have questions.

Thank you very much.


Released on May 17, 2001

http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2001/2928.htm

-Make7

[Ian David]

6. No war for Monica! Wag the dog! Remember THAT??? n/t

[libnnc]

7. Um...

K&FUCKING Rrrrrrr



If it ain't nefarious, then 'splain please?

hmmmm?

[yardwork]

8. Let's see. The U.S. gives the Taliban $43 million right before 9/11.

9/11 was caused by Osama bin Laden. Osama was in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban at the time.

Does it sound like the U.S. paid Osama bin Laden to do 9/11? That's how it sounds to me. Just sayin.

[undeterred]

9. Yeah but that's SICK.

[yardwork]

10. It was rational, if the goal was to scare the country into going along with bushco

Rather than a miserable failure, the little chimp seems to have accomplished his objectives.

[undeterred]

12. He did indeed.

But for most Americans LIHOP and MIHOP are just too evil to believe. I spent some time in the September 11 forum here recently and watched videos with survivor-eyewitness testimony. This was a hell on earth for the people in NY. I wish somebody would force Bush to confront the horror of it.

[rucognizant]

58. OF COURSE IT'S SICK!

They are SICK & EVIL....BELIEVE IT!

[Damian the LHP]

44. Illogical.

That's a startling leap of logic. Even Mario doesn't leap that far.

[yardwork]

66. "A startling leap of logic" describes the stories we've been fed since Nov 2000.

[Beam Me Up]

53. If you have any hard evidence connecting bin Ladden to 9/11 you

should get it to the FBI. Evidently, they don't have any. Just FYI.

So many things we don't have in regards to 9/11, such as an investigation that doesn't assume we know who was behind it, who paid for it or how it was accomplished from the outset.

Just sayn'

Edit html

[yardwork]

65. I'm not arguing with you.

I think it's pathetic that so many people go along with the latest breathless media scandal (flag pin!!!! New Yorker!!) while ignoring some really big, basic questions.

Like, why did we invade Iraq anyway? If Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11 why didn't we invade Pakistan, since that's where he is now. If Newsweek's reporting was correct about the supposed perps of 9/11, then why didn't we invade Saudi Arabia, since that's where they were from? These are just fundamental questions, never mind all the additional questions that emerge when we examine just these.

If W. Bush was told that bin Laden was going to attack buildings, why didn't the president do something instead of going on vacation? Why did the attorney general stop flying commercial but not tell the public? Why weren't the airlines told? Just really basic questions.

Personally, I think that I know the answer to most of them. They boil down to "Bush and Cheney and the Saudis wanted to make a whole lot of money by invading and occupying Iraq and terrorizing the rest of the world and the best way to do it was to stage a terrorist attack."

Lots of people aren't willing to go that far, but I wish they showed even the slightest intellectual curiosity about what did happen.

[Beam Me Up]

67. Nice to know we're on the same page! Thanks for your reply. n/t

[ronnie624]

71. Many fascinating questions there,

the answers to which, would doubtless be very frightening to most Americans. Perhaps it's best to not even consider that our own government could commit the implied crimes.

Thanks for the link.

[Twist_U_Up]

84. Yea Osama ordered the NORAD stand down. lol

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NMDemDist2]

13. I just send this to Countdown

wow.

[no limit]

14. I remember this. Another story the MSM has killed.

[elizfeelinggreat]

23. I remember it too

and you're right that the media did an excellent job of killing that information.

If it was addressed at all, it was one of those things that brought out the excuse "no one could have imagined".

[SpiralHawk]

15. The k and the r - for America

Never forget what BushCo Homelanderism has done to America.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

16. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) was a major supporter of the Taliban

http://www.ocweekly.com/features/features/rogue-statesm... /

He was Reagan's secret envoy to the Mujahedeen during the Russian/Afghan war of the 1980s and recalls meeting a young Osama Bin Laden after a call went out to the Islamic world to congregate in Afghanistan to assume the role of freedom fighters.

The article describes how Rohrabacher immediately started blaming the Clinton administration after September 11th for the attacks and condemned the Taliban. But his secret activities in the days just prior to the attacks on the Twin Towers were quite a different story.

"...Right-wing organizations across the nation immediately picked up on Rohrabacher's anti-Taliban, anti-Clinton statements and hailed him a "hero."

In fact, Rohrabacher's post-Sept. 11 finger-pointing was a fraud designed to distract attention from his own ongoing meddling in the foreign-policy nightmare. Federal documents reviewed by the Weekly show that Rohrabacher maintained a cordial, behind-the-scenes relationship with Osama bin Laden's associates in the Middle East—even while he mouthed his most severe anti-Taliban comments at public forums across the U.S. There's worse: despite the federal Logan Act ban on unauthorized individual attempts to conduct American foreign policy, the congressman dangerously acted as a self-appointed secretary of state, constructing what foreign-affairs experts call a "dual tract" policy with the Taliban.

A veteran U.S. foreign-policy expert told the Weekly, "If Dana's right-wing fans knew the truth about his actual, working relationship with the Taliban and its representatives in the Middle East and in the United States, they wouldn't be so happy." ..."


The article goes on to describe how Republican Congressman Rohrabacher, one-time Reagan right-hand man in the middle east met with the Taliban on April 10, 2001, five months before the attacks of September 11th at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha, Qatar and conducted secret talks with the advisor to Mullah Omar. The Taliban asked him for increased aid to $100 million annually and refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden who had been sought by the Clinton administration. The government of Qatar reported to Al Jazeera that it was Rohrabacher who had sought the secret meeting with the Taliban and Rohrabacher, when interviewed by Agence France Presse described the meetings as "high level". It is still unknown as to who exactly put Rohrabacher up to this meeting with the Taliban and what the details of the meeting actually involved.

[pberq]

37. How about that!

" . . .Congressman Rohrabacher, one-time Reagan right-hand man in the middle east met with the Taliban on April 10, 2001, five months before the attacks of September 11th at the Sheraton Hotel in Doha, Qatar and conducted secret talks with the advisor to Mullah Omar."

[bluesmail]

17. 'Accept our offer of gold or we will bury you in a carpet of bombs'

43 million.

[hack89]

19. The war on drugs skews everything - it needs to end. nt

[defendandprotect]

38. We need to admit that some part of corrupt US government is chest-high deep in this ....

[AzDar]

20. K & R ....

[liberalla]

21. Wow. This is an important detail...

Thanks for the post.

[windbreeze]

43. This was covered in the

LA Times...I think it was reported in the May 22, 2001 issue...I thought it was strange that it came out in the LA Times, and not in some paper in DC...and that it was announced by Colin Powell....it was purportedly an aid package for the people of Afghanistan....(however, we do know how those aid packages get through to the people in those 3rd world countries, right? considering the war lords usually control everything)...43 Million paid to the Taliban ...while Osama BinLaden was still the Taliban's leader....strange when you consider that then HE and his merry men supposedly attacked us less than 4 months later??? My questions are...do we believe he would kill the goose that lays the golden egg?? was he paid ahead of time?? have we been told a story?? or do all apply?? one further question...when 9/11 happened, it was BinLaden/The Taliban who attacked us...when did The Taliban transition into an organization called AlQuaida???..It was done slowly, little by little..until pretty soon, the Taliban was not even mentioned any longer as those being responsible...strange...but then not any stranger than Iraq being behind the attack, I guess......wb

[paparush]

22. How the FUCK does Bush** remain in office? I just don't get it.

If a Dem did this, he/she would be gutted on the Capitol steps. Disemboweled. Filleted. Bludgeoned to a bloody pulp.

If Obama doesn't mention this..if this does not become blindingly bright headline news..that Bush paid the Taliban $43M months before 9/11 (a six year old can connect the dots) I will lose all faith and hope.

[Damian the LHP]

45. Connect this.

that Bush paid the Taliban $43M months before 9/11 (a six year old can connect the dots)

Just because she can connect the dots doesn't mean she'll connect them correctly.

[followthemoney]

50. In a civilized democratic society Bush would have had to resign for ...

the good of the nation.

A democratic society would not have a person with so strong an appearance of impropriety remain in office without a vote of no confidence.

This government defers to the sovereign unitary executive while still making claims that the people are sovereign. How can anyone still buy that line?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

85. if it was New Zealand he wouldn't have stolen the election

[pnwmom]

24. Why does the article say it was published in May 2000?

That doesn't make any sense because Colin Powell wasn't in office then -- it was still the Clinton administration. So it probably was published the following year. But, since I'd like to forward this to people, I wish the date was correct.

[leftchick]

25. here is another link

How Washington Funded the Taliban

by Ted Galen Carpenter

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3556


The United States has made common cause with an assortment of dubious regimes around the world to wage the war on drugs. Perhaps the most shocking example was Washington's decision in May 2001 to financially reward Afghanistan's infamous Taliban government for its edict ordering a halt to the cultivation of opium poppies.

When the Taliban implemented a ban on opium cultivation in early 2001, U.S. officials were most complimentary. James P. Callahan, director of Asian Affairs for the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, uncritically relayed the alleged accounts of Afghan farmers that "the Taliban used a system of consensus-building" to develop and carry out the edict. That characterization was more than a little suspect because the Taliban was not known for pursuing consensus in other aspects of its rule. Columnist Robert Scheer was justifiably scathing in his criticism of the U.S. response. "That a totalitarian country can effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising," Sheer noted, but he considered it "grotesque" for a U.S. official to describe the drug-crop crackdown in such benign terms.

Yet the Bush administration did more than praise the Taliban's proclaimed ban of opium cultivation. In mid-May, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant to Afghanistan in addition to the humanitarian aid the United States had long been providing to agencies assisting Afghan refugees. Given Callahan's comment, there was little doubt that the new stipend was a reward for Kabul's anti-drug efforts. That $43 million grant needs to be placed in context. Afghanistan's estimated gross domestic product was a mere $2 billion. The equivalent financial impact on the U.S. economy would have required an infusion of $215 billion. In other words, $43 million was very serious money to Afghanistan's theocratic masters.

To make matters worse, U.S. officials were naive to take the Taliban edict at face value. The much-touted crackdown on opium poppy cultivation appears to have been little more than an illusion. Despite U.S. and UN reports that the Taliban had virtually wiped out the poppy crop in 2000-2001, authorities in neighboring Tajikistan reported that the amounts coming across the border were actually increasing. In reality, the Taliban gave its order to halt cultivation merely to drive up the price of opium the regime had already stockpiled.

Even if the Taliban had tried to stem cultivation for honest reasons, U.S. cooperation with that regime should have been morally repugnant. Among other outrages, the Taliban government prohibited the education of girls, tortured and executed political critics, and required non-Muslims to wear distinctive clothing--a practice eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany's requirement that Jews display the Star of David on their clothing. Yet U.S. officials deemed none of that to be a bar to cooperation with the Taliban on drug policy.

Even if the Bush administration had not been dissuaded by moral considerations, it should have been by purely pragmatic concerns. There was already ample evidence in the spring of 2001 that the Taliban was giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network that had bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa. For the State Department to ignore that connection and agree to subsidize the Taliban was inexcusably obtuse. Scheer was on the mark when he concluded, "The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns."

[pnwmom]

27. Thank you! n/t

[dpbrown]

64. A most excellent summary

Bush gave aid to the Taliban knowing it was harboring bin Laden. 'Nuf said.

[readmoreoften]

26. Yip.

That he did.

[windoe]

28. War on drugs indeed,

of course there have been bumper crops of opium since after 911. The scope of power and money is so great that it is understandable how difficult and dangerous it is to investigate and prosecute these crimes. I think honest America needs international help with this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/623974.stm

[Maat]

29. There's more to this.

Remember, Big Energy REALLY, REALLY wanted that transcontinental pipeline (to carry very profitable energy through Afghanistan):

"The $3 billion Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline proposal for a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan into Pakistan is moving forward."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Afghanistan#P... -

Let's just say that Mr. Maat is just a tad familiar with the idea of putting the pipeline into action (off of The Tubes, of course, for he would never disclose private information, and Big Energy's desires to do that FOR DECADES.

[Voice for Peace]

30. KICKING!!

[kentuck]

31. This story has been around a long time..

Although many people may not know about it.

The Bush Administration advised the Taliban that they could have a carpet of gold or a "carpet of bombs" or a very similar quote. They threatened them. Obviously, some folks did not like being threatened by Little George and then we had 9/11. Any correlation? Who knows?

[seemslikeadream]

32. THREE YEARS AGO!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...






PLEASE DIGEST: "Bush's Faustian deal with the Taliban" May 22, 2001
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


I'm not sure that Bush wasn't the cause of 9/11 ?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
5667758, The $43M and the carpets are unrelated
Posted by jmowreader on Thu Dec-22-05 11:26 AM

In 2001 (we still had an elected president in 2000), the Taliban embarked on a campaign of poppy-field eradication. This because at the time there was a massive oversupply of high-quality smack on the world market, and it was destroying Afghanistan's economy. Bush was stupid enough to believe that the Taliban were trying to fight the drug problem--they were, it just wasn't the drug problem Bush wanted fought--and granted Afghanistan $43 million in American foreign aid.

The carpets are related to a natural-gas pipeline Unocal wanted to build to exploit the gas fields in Turkmenistan. Pakistan and India need a lot of gas to fuel their emerging industrial base, and Turkmenistan has it...but to get it from point of production to point of consumption you need to build a pipeline--and the most direct route for said pipeline goes through Afghanistan. The Taliban were willing to allow the pipeline (rent on the right of way for the pipeline will bring Afghanistan much-needed foreign capital), but the price the Western consortium wanted to pay and the price the Taliban wanted to accept were too far apart. Hence, someone from the Bush administration told the Taliban, "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1550366.stm says the Bushies started assembling their coalition to take Afghanistan in the summer of 2001.

In case you're wondering what happened after that, the Bush administration installed Unocal consultant Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan, and the pipeline project (at a price acceptable to the Western oil companies) was approved.

[libodem]

33. So?

Just one more prank they get away with. Seriously, each time I learn of a new incomprehensible action these nut-jobs have taken, it's like a body blow. Then it's a slap in the face because they are 'above' the law and they get away with it. I can't stand it.

[rucognizant]

60. Imagine ........

Walking around with most of this knowledge for 6 years.........! At the very least I have some serious PTSD!

[aquart]

34. I wonder what they bought.

[TomInTib]

35. What the article DOESN'T mention is that Feith and Rice were there, and...

that Omar handed the check back after one of Rumsfield's people (Hadley?) said one of the conditions for the "aid" was a pipeline that would be built across Afghanistan and Turmenistan to the Caspian.

That's when one of the tools (Feith?) uttered the infamous "carpet your country with gold or with bombs" quote.

[Blecht]

39. Just another FOG FACT

Larry Beinart coined the term -- things that are out there that have been ignored. If anybody brings them up, they are pooh-poohed away as "old news," even though they've never been fully discussed or investigated.

<edited for clarity>

[pberq]

40. Kick & Nominated !

[Imagevision]

41. The Taliban met in Texas to negotiate Afgan pipeline deal before 9-11, didn't work out as was

portrayed in Fahrenheit 9-11. (Michael Moore got that one right)

[Winston.]

42. Al-cia Da

It's no secret that the CIA funded Bin Laden and setup what is called today Al-Qaeda in the 80s. These people are mercenaries, and mercenaries do, what they are paid to do...

[SpiralHawk]

46. GACK, another DU thread: Pakistani General met US Central Command

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Freedom of Information Act reveals Pakistani General met US Central Command

The government has disclosed documents confirming that Pakistani ISI General Ahmed -
the guy who wired $100,000 to lead hijacker Atta --

Met with a "Senior Representative from the Joint Chiefs of Staff", Centcom Commander General Tommy Franks, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Wolfowitz, Feith, other PNAC members, and probably Intelligence Committee members Graham and Goss, and others in the week before 9/11.

PDF go to link and click documents in the story: http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/07/confirmed ...

Background:
On October 6, 2001, a senior-level U.S. government official told CNN that U.S. investigators had discovered Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (Sheik Syed), using the alias "Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad" had sent about $100,000 from the United Arab Emirates to Mohammed Atta. "Investigators said Atta then distributed the funds to conspirators in Florida in the weeks before the deadliest acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that destroyed the World Trade Center, heavily damaged the Pentagon and left thousands dead. In addition, sources have said Atta sent thousands of dollars -- believed to be excess funds from the operation -- back to Saeed in the United Arab Emirates in the days before September 11. CNN later confirmed this. <1>

The 9/11 Commission's Final Report states that the source of the funds "remains unknown."

More than a month after the money transfer was discovered, the head of ISI, General Mahmud Ahmed resigned from his position. It was reported that the FBI was investigating the possibility that Gen. Ahmed ordered Saeed Sheikh to send the $100,000 to Atta <2>; there were also claims that Indian intelligence had already produced proof for the Pakistani administration that this was so.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Omar_Saeed_Sheikh


http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html

[Ichingcarpenter]

51. Thanks for adding this to the thread..

it helps to see the connections.

[McCamy Taylor]

47. I have always said ENRON is the mother of all scandals. At Salon in the Politics

forum there is a huge thread with lots of info about Enron starting at the bankruptcy.

Enron is the one that has no Article II exemption. Everyone---Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rice---was complicit. It involved domestic and foreign policy. The FERC, SEC, military planning, the works.

[underseasurveyor]

48. It's the bush legacy to aid and finance the enemy

Lil georgie is carrying on the family tradition.... BASTARDS!

I remember when this happened. I was so freaking angry but I was more than frustrated when no one seemed to care or believe it.. The transcripts of what bush said and what colin powell said were at one time on the whitehouse's website. Even after printing it out and showing to people they STILL didn't believe it. One guy told me, oh well anyone can say anything on the web doesn't make it true. Jeezus christ, I said, it's from the whitehouse's OWN website.

FUCK nobody really cared.. I shouldn't say nobody... many of us did, even BEFORE 9/11.

[Cleita]

49. Finding BushCo complicit in event leading up to 9-11 has always

seemed to me the smoking gun that should lead to impeachment. Yet, today I wonder if Congress would still give him a pass.

[Liberal Dose]

52. It was all about the pipeline. UNICOL nt

[jeff30997]

56. Sorry for asking you to forgive me but...

It was Unocal...

Is an Oil Pipeline Behind the War in Afghanistan?
-by Bill Sardi


"On February 12, 1998, John J. Maresca, vice president, international relations for UNOCAL oil company, testified before the US House of Representatives..."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHI203A.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/sardi7.html

[Liberal Dose]

73. Ack! Thanks lol

[Robb]

76. Don't forget Robbstrodamus' work...

November 2, 2001.

[jeff30997]

77. Thanks for the link.

Great article BTW,Robbstrodamus!

[robertpaulsen]

54. Oh yeah. That fact was featured prominently in Bowling for Columbine.

Worth publicizing again and again.

[redqueen]

55. Boy that liberal media... they just won't stop talking about this.

[Uncle Joe]

59. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[grasswire]

61. why are people surprised by this?

It was common knowledge then. Widely discussed on the Internets.

[mmonk]

62. Yes, they were the product of the CIA and ISI effort.

The road to 9/11 and its continued bloody aftermath began in earnest at the tail end of the Carter administration when the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI decided it would be a good idea to train and fund a coalition of groups of mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan to give the Soviet backed government of President Mohammed Najibullah more problems than it could handle. For the Pakistani military, the strategy was to provide itself with more reach and influence. For the United States, it was to create a Vietnam type of quagmire for the Soviet Union and its success began when the USSR invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Day, 1979. Ironically, this Soviet quagmire that ultimately led to the implosion of the USSR now threatens us with the same fate.

Post cold war imperial ambitions of the U.S. have pushed the Middle East and Central Asia into intolerable peril for these regions the U.S. desires to control for unmatched hegemony. Benazir Bhutto knowing the true nature of the mujahideen coalition even down to each leader of each group and what they were capable of, warned George H.W. Bush in June of 1989, "Mr. President, I fear we have created a Frankenstein that will come back to haunt us" according to her book. The United States, blinded by the Wolfowitz doctrine, has not seen the warning signs until too late. It did not see bin Laden’s rebellion among its jihad network. It did not see the intransigence of the Taliban government concerning the price it wanted to extract for the Unocal oil pipeline through Afghanistan or the refusal to hand over bin Laden. Washington then had to become allied to Iran and Russia’s friends, the Northern Alliance, to topple what it created. Afterward, with former Unocal representative Hamid Karzai in charge in Kabul, the U.S. has underestimated the staying power and resurgence of its old creation, the Taliban and al Qaeda. Unfortunately also, Washington did not properly read the stability status of its friend Musharraf and the military dictatorship, the imbalance of funding the military, and the social imbalance that resulted. It did not see or want to see the still close relationships or ties the resurgent Taliban has with some in Pakistan’s military dictatorship as well with many in the population of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Now with the province in increasing Taliban control and the provincial capital of Peshawar in the crosshairs, the Bush administration’s pretense of protecting us from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Islamic militants seems even more absurd. The United States was going to counter this situation by having Benazir Bhutto step back into the political process, but given the confluence of Pakistan’s U.S. backed military dictatorship with its old rebellious tools of a resurgent Taliban and mujahideen groups, her life and the plan were struck short. The plan of having her back in power whereby U.S. military assets would be allowed in the provincial area to remove the threat are gone. That leaves the U.S. with the destabilizing option of military strikes without Pakistani approval and yet another U.S. attack on a nation’s sovereignty. In the midst of this clear and present danger, the Bush administration along with its allies in both parties of Congress and Israel, are pushing for the destabilization of Iran with the possibility of air strikes in order to continue the Milton Friedman utopia dream for the Persian Gulf States, and in spite of the fact Iran has not attacked another country directly in the modern era of history






http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/6/123449/0822/844/...

[SunDrop23]

63. 9/11 was an inside job. (n/t)

[Damian the LHP]

78. No it wasn't.

Read some real information, not breathless PCT garbage.

[McCamy Taylor]

68. It wasn't the drug war. It was so the Taliban would let Enron build a gas pipeline.

They invaded Afghanistan when the Taliban decided not to let Enron build the gas pipeline. The plans for the Afghanistan invasion were drawn up before 9/11.

[johnnie]

69. I thought most people knew this

But we whack-jobs are typically brushed aside if we bring stuff like this up. Too many people are too intelligent to believe this crap.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

70. so Bush actually sponsored the terrorists?

so he paid $40 million for them to blow up the WTC and the Pentagon?

[Name removed]

79. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

81. you seem Bush friendly?

[Twist_U_Up]

83. go back to sleep.

[opihimoimoi]

72. The Trail of Blunders is indeed long with many pot holes, gates, and ambushes.

[liberalla]

74. Kick

again

[onoclea]

75. Another part of the Afghanistan story

that happened, but is rarely recalled, is the offer by the ruling Taliban prior to the US invasion to turn over Osama if we provided proof of his responsibility in the WTC attack.

[tyon517izhere]

80. ARE U KIDDING?!!!

43 MILLION!!? WHILE I had to chose from spending 70$ EVERY week in gas then to set aside the money to plan a summer vacation that seem to can't BE fund for my children. Please go to YES TO DEMOCRACY .COM A new found network site contending with masses of anti democrat/ anti Obama pro fox
groups. Join and spread the word. GOD blessed you all.Thanks

[Twist_U_Up]

82. 911 was an inside job. Never forget it.

just sayin

[AlienGirl]

86. Kicking--and I was outraged when he did that!

[Quantess]

87. Oh, nice.

K&R

[Bolo Boffin]

88. It was completely made up of humanitarian food aid

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.ai... /

$28 million of wheat
$5 million of food commodities
$10 million in food programs through the UN

Total: $43 million.

There are better issues out there to hit Bush with.