Envoy urged Osama's expulsion before 9/11

[sabra]

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/12419053.htm

Envoy urged Osama's expulsion before 9/11

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a U.S. diplomat assured a top official of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime that international sanctions on that country would be lifted if it expelled Osama bin Laden, newly declassified documents show.

A State Department memo dated September 2000 also said the United States did not seek to topple the Taliban despite its record of human rights abuses.

The memo was among documents obtained by the National Security Archive, a private research group based at George Washington University, under a Freedom of Information Act request. The group posted the documents on its Web site Thursday.

"The ambassador added that the U.S. was not against the Taliban, per se," and "was not out to destroy the Taliban," Ambassador William B. Milam wrote in the secret cable to Washington. Milam told the Taliban official, whose name is excised from the declassified document, that bin Laden was the main impediment to better relations between the Taliban and the United States.

[mediaman007]

1. I'll take the bait...

Yes, it was during Clinton's presidency, so I guess we can say that Clinton didn't oppose the Taliban when he had the chance.

But,

the new Bush* administration was given plenty of warning about Osama and the Taliban. They chose to send millions of dollars to the Taliban, then tried to negotiate an oil pipeline across Afghanistan prior to 911.

Some have written that the Bushies* brought on 911 when the Afghan pipeline deal fizzled.

That's my take. Have at me.

[geek tragedy]

3. The US didn't send any money to the Taliban.

It was money spent on humanitarian assistance through the UN and NGO's.

What this shows is that the Taliban had PLENTY of notice pre-911 that they had to show Osama the door, and that on 911 the time for excuses and negotiation was over.

[geek tragedy]

4. Dupe.

[sjdnb]

9. But, the Bush Admin sent $43 million in May 2001

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.

http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm

[geek tragedy]

11. This story has been debunked numerous times.

http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2003_02_23_archive.html#90385881

[leftchick]

12. yes the Enron Cheney Taliban connection

http://www.alternet.org/story/12525/

<snip>

The book "Bin Laden: the Forbidden Truth" by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasique claims that the U.S. tried to negotiate the pipeline deal with the Taliban as late as August, 2001. According to the authors, the Bush Administration attempted to get the Taliban on board and believed they could depend upon the regime to stabilize the country while the pipeline construction was underway. Bush had already indirectly given the Taliban $43 million for their supposed efforts to stamp out opium-poppy cultivation. Was this an award -- or a bribe? The circumstances make this a valid question.

Enron was unraveling at the seams, yet in early August, Kenneth Lay seemed optimistic, even exuberant. Was he whistling past the graveyard, or did he have secret information? The last meeting between U.S. and Taliban representatives took place five weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington; on that occasion, Christina Rocca, in charge of Central Asian affairs for the U.S. government, met the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan in Islamabad on August 2, 2001. Rocca said the Taliban representative, Mr. Zaeef, was aware of the strong U.S. commitment to help the Afghan people and the fact that the United States had provided $132 million in relief assistance so far that year.

[Barrett808]

2. It's well known that US oil interests were friendly to the Taliban

So it's not surprising that they'd try to finesse Osama out of the picture.

[bleedingheart]

5. That means the Clinton Administration was asking for his expulsion

cuz....a year before that....Clinton was still President....

[underpants]

6. Read the 9/11 Comission report

I am working my way through it.

The starkest thing that stands out, so far, is that there is a month by month account of what was being done across the Clinton administration (Clarke, Albright, DoD, etc.) and the inner wrangling of how to get OBL out of Afghanistan and thus an opportunity to ensnare him.

Juxtapose that with the brief passage on what ( if anything) W's administration did. The entire account of the 8 months prior to 9/11 can be summed up in "Condoleeza Rice said they were working on it too". Seriously that is about it.

[ET Awful]

7. I'll quote the 2/22/99 Newsweek article again (third time in as many days)

(transcribed by me from the original issue I have on my desk)

-----------

On the Run: Bin Laden

Where is Osama Bin Laden? Just days after U.S. officials delivered the "bluntest message yet" that Washington believed attacks by bin laden on U.S. citizens could be imminent and that the Clinton administration would hold Afghanistan "directly responsible" if they occurred, the Saudi terrorist apparently fled his sanctuary in the Taliban's spiritual capital, Kandahar. "Our guest has gone missing," said a Taliban spokesman. "We did not order him to leave; we do not know where he has gone." U.S. officials did not immediately confirm whether bin Laden had left the country, but said that at a Feb. 3 meeting, they received the most positive response so far to U.S. pressure. Washington has offered a $5 million reward for his capture for masterminding last August's bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. U.S. and Arab intelligencesources said a likely destination was Somalia, where bin Laden has connections to radical fundamentalists.

-----------

edit: Fixed date of article in title

[Windy]

10. And you should keep posting this...

and send it to any MSM organization that tries to "blame clinton" for 911 which seems to the modis operandi of the current administration....

[sjdnb]

8. From what I've read I gather

the Clinton Admin asked the Taliban something like 30 times to hand over bin Laden - while also carrying out some covert and overt military operations in an attempt to stop him/terrorism. They received a variety of responses including they had bin Laden 'contained'. There were also several attempts to eliminate bin Laden and destroy his camps. Some info is available to the public, other details are still classified.

I also read, during the time of the commission, that the release of many of the documents to the 9/11 commission was blocked by the Bush WH.

Further, Bush 'froze' the Clinton Directives, including 62 & 63 directly related to anti-terror ops (see the NewMax article (I'm surprised they haven't pulled it yet))

A few sources I've read include:
http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/terr_essay.htm


Dismantling Clinton's Scaffold of Executive Orders
Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D.
Monday, Jan. 29, 2001
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/1/29/104302.shtml

Immediately after taking the oath of office, President George W. Bush issued four executive memoranda. One of them established a 60-day freeze on the regulations hastily issued by President Bill Clinton before leaving office. The freeze on administrative rules and regulations needs to be extended and converted into a veritable machine of executive repeals not only of regulations but also of actual executive orders.

PDD-62, issued on the pretext of fighting terrorism, grants the FBI the power to maintain surveillance on Second Amendment groups and civic organizations opposed to the U.N., as well as "extremist" Christian fundamentalist groups.

PDD-63, supposedly signed to prevent unauthorized access to government computers, instead allows executive agencies to spy on the electronic communications of private citizens using the Internet.

Similar executive orders have designated national monuments in the Alaskan Wilderness Refuge and vast tracts of land in the West, including Wyoming, where private citizens have protested to no avail. With Executive Orders 13087 and 13132, President Clinton attempted to revoke our revered system of federalism and infringe on the 10th Amendment, which prevents the federal government from arrogating powers from the states granted to them by our Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution.

Our new president needs to bring to light these usurpations of power by the previous administration, and the offending PDDs and executive orders, frankly, should be immediately rescinded.

No president, Democrat or Republican, should wield such extra-constitutional power.

[wli]

13. 62 is good, 63 is bad

Bubba seems to have a mixed record.