Time to talk: US engages the Taliban (US asks for truce)

[Lori Price CLG]

Time to talk: US engages the Taliban

Despite deposing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in quick time at the end of 2001, the United States has not been able to rid the country of the Islamic hardliners, who four years later lead an Afghan resistance that shows no signs of abating, let alone buckling.

<snip>

Reports emerged in the Pakistani media at the weekend that the US had contacted the Taliban leadership with the aim of establishing a truce in Afghanistan. The reported linkman is a Pakistani, Javed Ibrahim Paracha, but he has denied the story, saying he had never met any US officials, only US businessmen.

There is more to this story, though, according to information acquired by Asia Times Online.

<snip>

Enter Mansoor Ijaz, a US citizen of Pakistani origin with close ties to the right wing of the Republican Party. In London, with the help of British authorities, he began the peace process.

<snip>

Lori Price
http://www.legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news

[NoAmericanTaliban]

1. What happened to not negotiating with terrorist?

We already broke that when Rudolf got a life sentence instead of death.

[Lori Price CLG]

3. Well, Saddam Hussein negotiated w. a terrorist (Rumsfeld) in

1983.

I am thinking the US taxpayers are subsidizing Afghanistan's explosion in poppy production (heroin), to keep the CIA's death squad coffers full.

Lori Price

[goforit]

5. Terrorists have always been their best friends.

Especially OBL!

[Lori Price CLG]

9. Right, and no one talks about the $43mln Colin Powell gave...

to the Taliban in May 2001 (over human rights objectors).

Can you *imagine* if Bill Clinton did that, and the WTC towers were struck by the 'Taliban' (Bush bin Laden) in September of the same year??? Clinton would have already had his treason trial.

Lori Price

[jazzjunkysue]

16. We never met a dictator we didn't like.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. I bet W

is mixing himself another double while we read this. Man the hits just keep on coming.

[WhiteTara]

7. he doesn't read...but I'm sure he's mixing

that double.

[goforit]

4. Interesting. Failure of the neocons, yet they need to keep their

foot in the door.

[Canuckistanian]

6. Maybe they want to reopen the pipeline talks again

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




edited to include link

[TomInTib]

8. Just like the schoolyard bully. You're sitting on his chest and

punching him in the face.
First he says "Hey man, you're not fighting fair!"
So you punch him a few more times and he starts crying and says,
"Can we talk?"

[cosmicdot]

10. have they tried offering them 'a carpet of gold'?

:sarcasm:


http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5166


Bin Laden: The Forbidden by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie tells of the negotiations for oil pipeline rights in Afghanistan that collapsed in August 2001 after the U.S. told the Taliban: Accept our offer of a carpet of gold or you'll get a carpet of bombs.
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/bl_tft.htm

[AlCzervik]

11. Mansoor Ijaz??? Former Fox news contributor? WTF???

Al Franken wrote in "Lies" that he's involved with many oil deals and he's tres shady.

[Lori Price CLG]

12. Wow, great find, chimpsrsmarter!! Nothing about this regime...

shocks me any more.

Lori Price

[AlCzervik]

14. Check out the co. her founded and who his partners are.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Crescent_Investment_Management_LLC

[BattyDem]

15. Isn't Mansoor Ijaz the guy who started the whole story about ...

Clinton saying "no" to Sudan when they offered to turn Bin Laden over to the US?

On edit:
I knew I read it somewhere. I just found the link:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1187

SIDEBAR: Special Report’s Special Guest

For instance, when anchor Brit Hume (11/10/03) asked Ijaz if there was "evidence of any consequence" linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, Ijaz replied, "Absolutely." But the remainder of Ijaz’s answer contained nothing even vaguely suggesting such evidence. The segment ended with Ijaz criticizing Democrats for questioning the White House’s case for war.

If Ijaz’s support for official policy is central to his current role on the show, it’s not what first made him a star on Special Report (and several other Fox shows). Ijaz came into heavy rotation as a Fox guest after charging in the Los Angeles Times (12/5/01) that President Bill Clinton blew a chance to capture Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. Ijaz claims to have brokered a deal in which Sudan would have produced Osama bin Laden in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on the African country—a deal Ijaz says Clinton failed to act on.

It was a questionable claim—in fact, the September 11 Commission later found no "reliable evidence" to support it (Hearing 8, 3/23/04)—and other news outlets noted that the Clinton administration flatly denied the allegations. Salon.com reported (8/16/02) that "the Clinton administration says there was no deal and that Ijaz never had a role in diplomatic discussions,” and quoted Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger calling Ijaz’s claims “ludicrous and irresponsible." Even Clinton critic Richard Miniter, in his book Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror, saw fit to include a Clinton official's assessment of Ijaz as "a Walter Mitty living out a personal fantasy." But when Ijaz repeated his Clinton-let-Bin-Laden-get-away story on Special Report (11/6/03), Hume simply ended the segment, "Got you. Mansoor Ijaz, great to have you. Thanks very much."

[AlCzervik]

18. that would be him. I notice Faux never discolsed anything about his

business contacts or company.

[sofa king]

13. Wow, what a small world. With a punchline.

For a brief while, I was trapped in high school in southwestern Virginia, and I hung around with Mansoor Ijaz's little brother, Moji. He was a cool guy, but the Ijaz family had a rough time of it. There was the usual knuckle-dragging racism and ignorance which is inseparable from the American South--I remember one time some people got pissed off because Moji wouldn't pitch in on a pizza with pepperoni on it.

But the worst of it came when the senior Ijaz, a nuclear physicist at Virginia Tech, decided to build a seminary for Islamic students in our hometown. The story, which I have never been able to fully verify, goes like this: after a couple of years of work, it was discovered that the school's mosque was either accidentally or intentionally built facing in the wrong direction from Mecca. The school was sold; it is now a bible college. Now here's the punchline:

What did Mr. Ijaz expect, trying to build a mosque in Christiansburg, Virginia?

(You can read a particularly vile and garbled version of the story about a quarter of the way down this page.)

Okay, punchline aside, Mansoor Ijaz was also instrumental in foiling a coup attempt on then-President Benazir Bhutto. Back then, he was noted for his close ties to the Democrats, particularly Al Gore. So take his right-wing leanings with a grain of salt. Mansoor's shadiness probably crosses the aisle.

[54anickel]

17. Sh*t, US businessmen ARE US officials. They've been running this

country by proxy for years.