Just found that whole Taliban-$43 million story is complete bull:

[originalpckelly]

Here is the CNN article which gives more detail than the New York Times Article:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/index.html

"The package includes $28 million worth of wheat from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $5 million in food commodities and $10 million in "livelihood and food security" programs, both from the U.S. Agency for International Development."

Seriously, this is the kind of bullshit I expect from the nuts on the other side, not from people on our side. Such a story with dramatic claims should be researched more thoroughly. I am embarrassed that someone would say something so false (or at least misleading) that it ranks up there with Saddam being connected to 9/11.

I must also say that the Nation should have checked into it, because they published it as well.

We are not like the right-wingers, and we should hold ourselves to a better standard.

The Aid was not given to the Taliban, the United Nations and NGOs distributed it:
"U.N. to distribute aid

While U.S. officials cited the drought as the major factor for the deepening humanitarian crisis, the members of the delegation said that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban's regime and the security problems it presents, hinders access and contributed to the situation.

Powell said the U.S. aid is administered by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, and bypasses the Taliban, "who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it."

And furthermore, this very same aid appears to have been given in 2000:
"The sum brings U.S. assistance to $124.2 million for this year, making the United States the largest Afghan donor for the second year in a row."

With the insinuations and inaccurate reporting of the NYT (a paper that I also trust deeply) I can see why so many people were mislead.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Ah, $28 mil + $5 mil + $10 mil = $43 mil?

The issue isn't the amount of money. The issue is that BushCo secretly negotiated with the Taliban, who at the time were harboring bin Laden and al CIAda terrorists.

[originalpckelly]

4. The issue is that I was falsely lead by people I trust to believe BS...

and that the aid was for the Afghan farmers who were suffering from a drought.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. And who are the Afghan 'farmers'

The Taliban who grow the poppies that BushCo likes to turn into heroin?

[BelgianMadCow]

15. I understand your feeling

and share it to a small degree, but you have to look at the entire contec-xt of who dealt when with the Taliban. It's also in that other thread.

[originalpckelly]

18. I know it would be hard for myself to make 4 million people to starve...

and I don't know how much I would like it if someone told me I was aiding and abetting the enemy.

[BelgianMadCow]

13. Ding Ding

[originalpckelly]

2. I am also upset that someone would post it without looking into it...

because I sent it into Keith. I was wrong thinking I could trust my fellow DUers to check things out and make sure they aren't bunk; I won't be making the same mistake again. I just hope that Keith doesn't use it on Countdown.

[KansDem]

14. Whether it's "foreign aid" or $$, Bush was playing "Let's Make a Deal"

...with the Taliban.

He knew Osama and members of al-Qaeda were seeking shelter there:

Oil company adviser named US representative to Afghanistan
By Patrick Martin
3 January 2002


--excerpt--

President Bush has appointed a former aide to the American oil company Unocal, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as special envoy to Afghanistan. The nomination was announced December 31, nine days after the US-backed interim government of Hamid Karzai took office in Kabul.

The nomination underscores the real economic and financial interests at stake in the US military intervention in Central Asia. Khalilzad is intimately involved in the long-running US efforts to obtain direct access to the oil and gas resources of the region, largely unexploited but believed to be the second largest in the world after the Persian Gulf.

As an adviser for Unocal, Khalilzad drew up a risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. He participated in talks between the oil company and Taliban officials in 1997, which were aimed at implementing a 1995 agreement to build the pipeline across western Afghanistan.

.....

Khalilzad only shifted his position on the Taliban after the Clinton administration fired cruise missiles at targets in Afghanistan in August 1998, claiming that terrorists under the direction of Afghan-based Osama bin Laden were responsible for bombing US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. One day after the attack, Unocal put Centgas on hold. Two months later it abandoned all plans for a trans-Afghan pipeline. The oil interests began to look towards a post-Taliban Afghanistan, and so did their representatives in the US national security establishment.


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/oil-j03.shtml

Nothing like sweetening the pot, eh?

[me b zola]

3. So they should let Duke Cunningham out of prison

His bribes weren't in cash so they don't count. </sarc>

[eShirl]

5. I thought I remembered it being $10 million instead of $43 million.

That must be what I was thinking of.

[atreides1]

7. The Burning Question Remains

What was the reason for giving anything to the Taliban government, or do you really think that all of this aid was because the Bush administration was all about humanitarian issues?


It was still a deal for aid worth $43 million, or was that BS too?

[patcox2]

8. So it was in-kind instead of cash, we still gave them $43 million.

Colin Powell went there himself. It was rumored that he threatened them, trying to get permission for the Unocal pipeline from kazakhstan to the enron power plant in India, and that the threats actually triggered the 9/11 attacks. Thats the story according to the book published in France, Bin Laden, the Hidden Truth.

[ComerPerro]

9. Its still $43 million in aid...

[NewJeffCT]

10. Sure, it's supposedly for relief for farmers...

but, it was a dramatic change in US policy. Clinton was working to isolate the Taliban internationally, cut off their finances, possibly sanctions.

Giving them money was a big change in our policy - like tacit approval of their brand of religious fundamentalism.

[patcox2]

11. So it was in-kind, instead of cash, we still gave them $43 million.

Colin Powell went there himself. It was rumored that he threatened them, trying to get permission for the Unocal pipeline from kazakhstan to the enron power plant in India, and that the threats actually triggered the 9/11 attacks. Thats the story according to the book published in France, Bin Laden, the Hidden Truth.

[tkmorris]

12. I'm not seeing your point

We DID give 43 million in aid to a nation ruled by the Taliban. You do realize that most foreign aid does not arrive in suitcases full of 20's and 10's right?

[originalpckelly]

16. I just cannot believe people who I trust could do this. This is a sad day-

for me. :cry:

[aquart]

17. You do get that earmarked commodities are still saleable?

That money earmarked for farmers does not necessarily GET to farmers?

$43 million worth of necessities went to the Taliban for them to give away or sell or barter or use to bribe. Food for the starving? We gave them food to make them look good to their people? What a good idea.

The story was true.

[originalpckelly]

20. Yeah, and Saddam was responsible for 9/11...

I don't believe bullshit, no matter how much I like the people who are saying.

[AIJ Alom]

19. I got suckered in as well. Sorry. But there were things going on in the

1990's, such as the Taliban and Unocal in Texas, before Clinton put a stop to it.

[originalpckelly]

22. I think there is probably something to that...

but it is obviously not as powerful and outrageous as America giving the Taliban $43 million bucks.

[AIJ Alom]

23. Ah I see you are looking for the most dramatic, but sometimes the subtle

can lead us to just such an experience. Remember Condi still had this memo in hand, did nothing, and then claimed otherwise. But then again lying is a natural reflex for those who promote torture.

http://www.rawstory.com/images/clarkerice.pdf

[SoCalDem]

21. And once the aid arrived, it was duly distributed to the poor people

and all was well in the land..andall slept with full bellies and light hearts :sarcasm:

AID IS A WEAPON.. (in the hands of the corrupt governments receiving it)

Let's just say that aid arrives in a country. It is "handled" by an agency on the ground there. That agency depends on local government there to provide access and security. If they see that the aid is not reaching the intended people, they may complain, but in the end, the people in charge of the governments dole out that aid as they see fit..

$43M in aid, divvied up to military, instead of poor people, is still $43M in aid from the donor, but it's not reaching the intended people...or if some does go to them, they "know" it's really from their local benefactors (Taliban) who see to it that it gets distributed to them..

It's the SAME argument as the "faith based" crappola..

If you are hungry, food-is-food...no matter who gives it to you.. your belly does not care.

When a church gives you taxpayer-funded aid, you accept it willingly, and later when they use "church funds" to try and recruit you, you feel obligated to listen..

They would have fed you anyway, with "their" money, but as long as they can show on paper that they are not using federal money to preach, they can have it BOTH ways.. and keep a portion of "their" money to line the pockets of the preachers..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. The way foreign aid works, it's a gold mine for crooks

First of all, much of it never leaves the U.S., but goes straight into the bank accounts of government contractors who are supposedly going to build roads or dams or build a food processing plant, the food from which may feed the local population...or may be just exported back to the U.S.

Even if the motivation is pure, the government in the recipient country often takes its cut or directs aid to the people who need it least or only to their friends. Or, it may take funds intended for poor farmers or some other worthy group and use it to buy weapons or silver-plated playing card holders for the dictator.

USAID did NOT go around handing out cash payment to poor Afghan farmers.

[blogslut]

25. You trust the NYT deeply?

okay

[originalpckelly]

26. Aside from Judy Miller and Jason Blair, the NYT is the paper of record...

for a reason.

[blogslut]

27. Being the child of a newspaperman

I learned to never ever blindly believe what I read in any paper. The NYT is no exception.

[NNN0LHI]

32. They have a record all right

They consistently refer to tin pot dictators as presidents. They pretty much ignored the Holocaust as it was happening. I am afraid they are doing something similar in Iraq right now. NYT management held back the story concerning Bush's domestic spying for over a year. The list goes on.

Sorry, but the problems at the NYT run a lot deeper than Judy Miller and Jason Blair.

Don

[originalpckelly]

28. I'm sorry to have been so mad, but I hope you'll understand why I'd be...

upset. Sorry.

[blogslut]

29. It's all good.

I just hope you re-read what others were trying to tell you in this thread. Let's also not forget who the real bad guys are.

[hang a left]

30. I thought this was well known.

It is in F911 for crissakes.

[hang a left]

31. Wait a minute....

Where does the line "carpet of gold or carpet of bombs" come from??? I would say Paul Thompson's 9-11 Terror Timeline is the place to look.

[pschoeb]

33. The 43 million aid package was additional aid sent in May.

We had already given them about 140 million in aid at the beginning of 2001. So the total for 2001, pre Sept 11 was about 182 million. Even the original 140 million was higher than the 113 million given in 2000 and the 76 million given in 1999, from 1994-1998 the aid package was worth about 45 million a year.

The additional aid in May was supposedly given because of the Talibans success of cutting poppy production after making it illegal.

[hang a left]

34. July 21, 2001: US Official Threatens Possible Military Action Against Tali

July 21, 2001: US Official Threatens Possible Military Action Against Taliban by October if Pipeline Is Not Pursued

Three former American officials, Tom Simons (former US Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former Deputy Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs), and Lee Coldren (former State Department expert on South Asia) meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in a Berlin hotel. This is the third of a series of back-channel conferences called “brainstorming on Afghanistan.” Taliban representatives sat in on previous meetings, but boycotted this one due to worsening tensions. However, the Pakistani ISI relays information from the meeting to the Taliban. At the meeting, Coldren passes on a message from Bush officials. He later says, “I think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action.” Accounts vary, but former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik later says he is told by senior American officials at the meeting that military action to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan is planned to “take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.” The goal is to kill or capture both bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, topple the Taliban regime, and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place. Uzbekistan and Russia would also participate. Naik also says, “It was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.” One specific threat made at this meeting is that the Taliban can choose between “carpets of bombs” —an invasion—or “carpets of gold” —the pipeline. Naik contends that Tom Simons made the “carpets” statement. Simons claims, “It’s possible that a mischievous American participant, after several drinks, may have thought it smart to evoke gold carpets and carpet bombs. Even Americans can’t resist the temptation to be mischievous.” Naik and the other American participants deny that the pipeline was an issue at the meeting.

Entity Tags: Russia, Osama bin Laden, Karl Inderfurth, Bush administration, Tom Simons, Lee Coldren, Taliban, Niaz Naik, Mullah Omar, Uzbekistan, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence

http://www.complete911timeline.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=Carpet+of+gold+&events=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&projects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search=Go

[rinsd]

35. LOL...classic foiler

[hang a left]

36. ???