Rumsfeld's death threat to Taliban

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=47319

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: The Donald Rumsfeld cavalcade - 35 vehicles, including two Humvees and an armoured Chevvy - swept into this desert town for a two-hour visit yesterday, just enough time for the US Defence Secretary to issue a death threat to the Taliban and announce a strategy to ensure the former Afghanistan rulers never return.
Paying his first call on this city since it fell to the US-supported Northern Alliance two years ago, Mr Rumsfeld said of the Taliban fighters: "There is no doubt that those who have been defeated and removed would like to come back, but they will not have the opportunity: to the extent that they assemble in anything more than ones or twos, they'll be killed or captured", reports The Times.

The mere suggestion of a return by the Taliban has prompted the US Government to launch another drive to eliminate them from the Afghan landscape by a combination of tough military action, political and diplomatic intervention, and aid money in the areas where the fundamentalists once held sway.

With so much attention and money diverted to Iraq, even US officials admit Afghanistan has become the poor cousin when it comes to aid. Two years after the Taliban was toppled there is little sign of significant improvement to the infrastructure, something that the Taliban might try to exploit to woo back support.

Any hint that Afghanistan is not a "success story" would be bad news for President George W. Bush, who will campaign for re-election next year and will be questioned on his strategy in Iraq. The warning from Mr Rumsfeld served as a reminder that the US would have no truck with the notion that it was running out of enthusiasm for Afghanistan.
<snip>

[opihimoimoi]

1. Rummy is just guessing at the answers.

So far we control the forts and some cities. Thats it.

Osama still having Weddings and Parties, much to Rummys chagrin

[teryang]

2. Hasn't he heard?

His royal highness says that they already were destroyed forever!

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/02/news-corn.php

David Corn:

<What forced this reconsideration was a speech Bush delivered in late November to several thousand troops at Butts Army Air Field in Fort Carson, Colorado. On this occasion, Bush served up the usual rah-rah about the war on terrorism. But as he was hailing the U.S. military, he remarked, “Working with a fine coalition, our military went to Afghanistan, destroyed the training camps of al Qaeda and put the Taliban out of business forever.”>

[LibLabUK]

3. Hmm

What if they win an election?

I'm confused about this whole middle east plan of theirs... what if after bringing democracy to the ME the people choose fundamentalist governments, do we go back and rebomb them?

[pinto]

4. No mention of bin Laden

the Saudi terrorist, 9/11 underwriter, living in Afghanistan.

And that's what this was all supposed to f**kin' be about.

[catzies]

5. Flash forward: 2 years from now, Rummy in Syria, saying about Iraq

"There is no doubt that those who have been defeated and removed would like to come back, but they will not have the opportunity: to the extent that they assemble in anything more than ones or twos, they'll be killed or captured..."

Afghanistan will still have no infrastructure, and neither will Iraq when Rummy stands astride the rubble in Damascus two years hence.

[pinto]

6. Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Caucasus

and Saudi Arabia....they'll call it the horn of security, I call it their horn of plenty of oil.

[Vitruvius]

10. Err -- 2 years from now (12/05), I hope Rummy's in private life

or prison.

[cliss]

7. Can't you just visualize

Rums-filled standing in the kitchen, yelling at the cockroaches under the refrigerator: "All right you bugs, I'm gonna blast you!". And he takes the Raid and sprays a huge blue cloud that covers everything and seeps into the cupboards.

A week later, after he crunches something suspicious under his slipper as he goes for a midnight beer in the fridge, he's at it again. Out comes the raid can, and the cockroaches scurry away and crawl up into the cracks in the wall and giggle as he goes into his tirade again.

I've compared Rumsfeld to Don Quijote. This man strikes me as someone who will continue on and on with the same behaviors as he destroys everything in his path, for his little-understood "plan".

God help us from him.

[louis-t]

8. I have never seen

an administration spend so much time and energy (and tax dollars)defending its actions, accusing critics, spinning financial and war related news, assuring everyone that 'it's going great', etc. This is very suspicious by itself. Methinks they do protest way too much. This administration and its policies are a house of cards. Sooner or later, all of the salesmanship and just plain lying has to come back to haunt them (us).

[dansolo]

9. Bring it on, part 2?

Doesn't it sound like Rummy is basically issuing the same dare that Bush did before?

[tlcandie]

11. I agree Dansolo ... appears to be adding fuel to the fire ...

'Bring it On' is right and I think we will see an upswing in deaths, etc. after this little taunt.

Maybe that is their plan to get the picture back onto Afghanistan instead of Iraq? :shrug:

[straitjacket bush]

12. This would make a good archive

for the day when the U.S. gets attacked again. Rumsfeld appears to be inviting this behavior, just in time for the Nov. elections?

[radfringe]

13. "...they'll be killed or captured..."

considering Bin-Laden and Saddam are still out there - I don't think the Taliban has anything to worry about...

more bombastic rhetoric from the Baghdad-Bush corporation....