Why did the Busholini Regime decide to overthrow the Taliban?

[Disturbed]

Yeah, it is a serious question.

[Poppyseedman]

1. Practice run ?

[ktlyon]

2. the pipeline

follow the money

[NOLADEM]

3. Game.Set.Match.

One of the first actions of the Karzai administration was authorizing the pipeline.

[jeff30997]

8. Agreed.

[geek tragedy]

16. I'll believe Saddam had WMD before I believe that the US

invaded Afghanistan for a pipeline that nobody never bothered trying to get built.

The real answer is that we invaded Afghanistan because of 9/11 and because we had to invade Afghanistan before the Neocons could launch their war against Iraq.

[ktlyon]

18. It is being built.

gas I think?

[geek tragedy]

21. You need to secure and stabilize a country

before you can build and maintain a pipeline through it.

Does that sound like what's going on in Afghanistan?

[leesa]

24. No, but they got the right-of way to build it. That is what was holding

up the deal. They couldn't swing the deal because the Taliban were not a recognized government, therefore they installed a puppet government, recognised as legitimate by the world, so they could get the right-of way to build the gas pipeline. It's why they offered the Taliban a "carpet of gold" to step down or they would get a "carpet of bombs". It had nothing whatsoever to do with 9-11.

They also overthrew the Taliban because they had destroyed all the opium and this cut into the cash flow for our "special projects".

[geek tragedy]

25. But, if they wanted a pipeline, would they have just let

the country descend into chaos like they have?

The biggest criticism of the Bush administration is that they dropped the ball in Afghanistan and failed to stabilize.

And, it's a bit silly to suggest that the invasion of Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. If Gore were President, he would have invaded Afghanistan too.

Of course, some people will claim that the US govt was behind 9/11, but I'm not going to debate them on that point.

[ktlyon]

27. You speak for Gore? Will he run?

or do you just predict the future?
I suggest you do a search.
Before 911 Bush paid the Taliban a large amount of money to grease the wheels to a pipeline, they took the money but would not agree because they wanted a bigger percentage of the gas the would flow. George would not agree and used 911 as an excuse to take them out. They had agreed to turn over OBL to a third party.

[geek tragedy]

29. Bush didn't pay the Taliban for a pipeline--that's a myth.

90% of the American people, including 100% of Senate Democrats--including Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold-- and 99.5% of House Democrats--including Dennis Kucinich--supported the military actions in Afghanistan.

[ktlyon]

30. and that doesn't prove myth point

The administration miss represented the situation and got what they wanted. Dems where afraid not to be supportive, we were still spinning from watching the Trade Center fall. No one could not be tough and get re-elected. Period

[geek tragedy]

31. If you have evidence that the Bush administration paid the

Taliban for the right to build a pipeline, please provide it.

If you're talking about the $43 Million paid to NGO's under the auspices of UN relief efforts, however, don't bother.

[ktlyon]

33. no but I don't think this administration was being compassionate

said for relief but .....we will give you this for that ............

[Don1]

26. isn't that what the opium levels are for? n/t

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. He actually gave them plenty of opportunity to save themselves

prior to the US siding up with the "Northern Alliance" & dropping bombs. Had they surrendered Bin Laden they might still be around & prospering.

[Disturbed]

5. "Growing poppies is a sin."

Growing poppies is a sin

By Mark Harrison, TNC staff writer

The Bush Administration didn't reward the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan $43 million for destroying ancient Buddhist statues, or because the Taliban requires Hindus to wear identification tags. They weren't rewarded with U.S. tax dollars because they forbid education and medical attention to women, or because Afghanistan women are whipped if they accidentally expose their face. None of these hideous laws of the Taliban are enough to compromise the compassion of President Bush. They were rewarded with forty-three million dollars, ceremoniously granted for "drought relief" only after the Taliban declared poppy cultivation a sin.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, the "supreme leader of the faithful" of the extreme Islamic faction that has occupied most of Yugoslavia since 1996, issued the edict in July 2000. One year later, the heroin breadbasket of the world lay barren--and in its place, acres of drought-withered wheat stubble, the alternative "cash crop" that would not grow. The country's drought is in its fourth year and previously the poppy, which is relatively drought-resistant, had provided needed wages for hundreds of thousands who worked in the opium fields. According to the United Nations, more than one million people will now experience an "unbridgeable" food shortage before the end of summer. Sadly, U.S.-driven drug policies have intensified the suffering. Steven Casteel of the DEA was quoted by the Los Angeles Times: "The bad side of the ban is that it's bringing their country--or certain regions of their country--to economic ruin."

Taliban officials are not blind to the drug habits of the U.S. government, nor to the financial aid awarded to drug-producing countries that have said "yes" to deadly U.S. drug policies. And as sure as the opium trade continues today despite the Taliban poppy ban, the U.S. government was sure to provide drug money to the Taliban government packaged as compassion. If Afghanistan continued to produce most of the world's opium poppies, as the DEA claims, it's unlikely that the Taliban government would have received U.S. aid. Secretary of State Colin Powell welcomed the poppy ban and stipulated that the aid package is to be used primarily for emergency food and shelter. Though needed, the aid package does little to bolster the stagnant Afghani economy now deprived of its primary agricultural product.

http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/25/page12.html

[soothsayer]

12. You mean back when they met with the oil barons in Texas?

[loves_dulcinea]

14. yup. no doubt in my mind.

it's all about the money.

[CJCRANE]

6. Clarke, Powell & Blair

made them do it. They would've looked like idiots if they attacked Iraq first.

[Virginia Dare]

7. O.I.L. ...

there is a race with China and Russia to build pipelines.

[spindrifter]

9. Save the women.

[Disturbed]

10. Oil Pipeline Behind the War in Afghanistan?

Is an Oil Pipeline Behind the War in Afghanistan?

This forced UNOCAL to withdraw from its talks with the Taliban and dissolve its multinational partnership in that region. In 1999 Alexander's Gas & Oil ...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/sardi7.html

Research: "Afghanistan Oil Pipeline"

[theanarch]

17. it's actually worse than that...

...when Unocal suspended negotiations with the Taliban (b/c the Clinton Admin. wouldn't commit the State/Comm/Energy Depts. to the effort), they began investing in Junior's presidential campaign. In early 2001, the neo-con cabal began its "two track" (e.g., "shower of gold or shower of bombs") carrot and/or stick blandishments of the Taliban, who weren't interested, at least on the dictated terms. I suspect when the US diplomatic misson(s) were reduced to threatening war, the Taliban authorized al-Qaeda to proceed with 9/11, pre-empting the plain-as-day pre-emptive strike the US was planning/threatening. The rest, as they say, is history.

The anxiety among US strategic planners (e.g., Cheney's energy task force) was that the Chinese/Iranian consortium with whom Unocal was competing with would win the race to build their pipelines (natural gas as well as oil) first, and reap the greater rewards. As noted in previous posts, the first commercial contract Afghanistan (under Karzai) signed was with Kyrghikistan (sp?), Turkmenistan and Pakistan to begin construction of the pipelines...except, by then (2004?), Unocal had dropped out of the bidding, owing to the unstable security situation. So, who was the partner putting up the financing and sending in the construction teams? The same Chinese-Iranian consortium who held the original contract with Kygirkistan. And this, boys and girls, is how Junior fought a war to give our two biggest enemies in the world even greater control over "our" oil.

Trivia question: between 1995, when the Taliban-Unocal talks began, and 1999, when they ended, Unocal was allowed to send teams to Afghanistan to survey possible rights-of-way for the pipelines: guess what company got the contract to do these field surveys?

[ktlyon]

28. Halliburton?

a guess

[theanarch]

34. close but no cigar......n/t

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. From post #5 "the drug habits of the U.S. government"

.
.
.

Bush likes cocaine and booze, not opium

or maybe he does?

and wants it for himself.

George is just the idiot son of Bush 1, and the grandson of Prescott Bush who helped finance the Nazis up to 1951 -

YEAH

even after the holocaust and WW2

Nice bunch that Bush family . . .

[soothsayer]

13. Should have stopped them from blowing up the Bamiyan Buddahs

We (and the whole world) should have prevented that garbage from happening. (Tho it prolly made the Buddha laugh)

[ROakes1019]

15. long story

It's a long story. Read DEVIL'S GAME by Robert Dreyfuss. For years the US supported and financed right-wing Islamists in the belief they would never accept the USSR and socialism. The Taliban formed in Pakistan and came into Afghanistan in the vacuum left when the USSR was run out of Afghanistan.

[fujiyama]

19. Forced to

by Blair in order to receive his support for invading Saddam.

Most people are forgetting that Rummy and others had little interest in going to Afghanistan. They wanted Iraq from the begining.

I'm not dismissing the gas pipeline through it (after all we know how much UNOCAL was lobbying the government over it), but Iraq was always the real prize for the thugs in office.

[nealmhughes]

20. This was revanche, pure and simple, and it eased the way to Iraq, the

"real enemy", i.e., the one where bases matter.

We were in a sense, "forced" to attack Afghanistan, or be politically impotent after the kowtowing to the Wahhabi al Qaeda clique of the Taliban got into power -- they waltzed in at our invitation, after all, assuming that Zair Shah would be back (the only known monarch ever deposed for being too liberal to my knowledge) and a nice Saudi type monarchy would ensue...

Refusal to hand over Old Sammy really was too much for any state to take. Toss in the Taliban human rights record, and voila, invasion for just cause.

It coincidentally softened the way to Baghdad and then the oil comes in where it really belongs. The pipeline theory is a red herring. It can go around, beside, under or through Afghanistan. WFC? It can go to Baku and then Turkey instead of to Karachi.

Afghanistan is like Switzerland -- very important -- but only to the Swiss and Afghans. They are hemmed into their valleys and like it that way.

I don't really care why they did it, I'm glad the MFs are gone and hope they stay in Pakistan or on the border.

[theanarch]

23. You make some good points...

...but are too quick to dismiss some larger implications/considerations. Yes, Afghanistan was a "war of choice"--the better choice being to treat 9/11 as an act of crime (instead of war), and investigate/pursue it accordingly; any Rambo-like pyrotechnics should have been kept to an absolute minimum, and limited to the most productive (asset-rich/big-score) operations...contrary to your assertion (of otherwise being "politically impotent"), this is precisely the way to send a serious message to the Taliban (trade, aid embargoes, seizure of foreign assets, diplomatic isolation, etc.) and maintain the good will of the world community, while quietly tracking down known threats, exposing networks and closing down their financial/support operations. But as we all know, diplomacy, cooperation and patience are traits totally unfamiliar to neo-cons. War was something of an imperative for a few, conveniently convergent reasons: the pipelines, certainly; a made-for-tv spectacular just in time for the mid-term elections; and a full-scale dress rehearsal for Dumbsfeld's "new model army" and dry run for the Pentagon's up-coming invasion of Iraq. Also, by knowingly pursuing a policy designed to create more "terrorists" than it kills, the domestic-political need for a boogieman to scare voters into (re-)electing Republicans for years to come was served.

As to where the pipelines run, this too is a matter of strategic consequence, not only to US mulit-nationals and the politicians they buy, but to the US's ability to conduct foreign policy.

[CollegeDUer]

22. They wanted more compliant puppets

The Taliban were resisting economic interests; they had to go.

[ComerPerro]

32. Several reasons

They were bad people, religious extremists, no doubt. And they may have indeed sheltered bin Laden.

But I think their were motivating factors in the works even before 9/11, as some have mentioned upthread.

Additionally, it was easy. A small country that Bush knew the US could run over, for an easy win right after 9/11.

Too bad he didn't actually finish the job. For someone who is so committed to "staying the course", he didn't waste any time cutting and running from the efforts in Afghanistan.


I've always said, though, that the only thing Conservatives here in the US really had against the Taliban is their religion.

I have a feeling they like everything else about it.