US doesn't classify Taliban as terrorists, paper finds

[Roland99]

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_doesnt_classify_Taliban_as_terrorists_0503.html

In the latest State Department report last Friday, one item went unnoticed by the press, until now: the US doesn't classify the Taliban as terrorists -- and haven't for the last six years.

The find was made by CSMonitor.com's Tom Regan. The US does classify other groups on the US hit list as terrorists -- such as Hezbollah, al Qaeda and Hamas.

"In an article entitled 'Terrorism's Dubious "A" List,' the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reports that the religious extremist organization has never been listed as a terrorist group by the US, Britain, the EU, Canada, Australia, or any of the coalition partners, despite the fact that during its six year rule in Afghanistan, it provided save haven for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and currently is staging terrorist attacks against coalition forces and waging a national campaign of intimidation and fear," Regan notes.

"In a CFR Q&A on the Taliban, Chistopher Langdon, a defense expert at the Institute for International Strategic Studies, describes the group as "an insurgent organization that will periodically use terrorism to carry out its operations," he adds.

Hmmm...how does that affect any Taliban in Gitmo?

[rodeodance]

1. beyond strange!--other coalition countries do not do either.

"In an article entitled 'Terrorism's Dubious "A" List,' the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reports that the religious extremist organization has never been listed as a terrorist group by the US, Britain, the EU, Canada, Australia, or any of the coalition partners,

[htuttle]

2. ...and Bin Laden was never charged with involvement in 9/11

...though he IS wanted for involvement in the bombing of US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya in 1998.

His 'wanted' page doesn't mention the 9/11 attacks at all.
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

Curious, it all is.

[madrchsod]

3. the taliban are not terrorists. the al qaeda are

taliban is a fundy group of dumb asses that used the koran to further their hold over the country. the bush boys courted the taliban because big oil wanted pipelines through afganistan but the bush boys found out the taliban leaders were so dam stupid that they could`t grasp what they were being offered so the marriage was called off. invading their country is a harsh way to break off an engagement.

[madmark]

4. the taliban provided sanctuary and material assistance to al quada;

i don't know what label you want to put on that, but that's what they did.

[Orsino]

7. Apparently *'s government *does* make a distinction, after all. n/t

[Karmakaze]

9. They also offered to hand over Bin Laden if evidence was provided...

Bush refused.

The Taliban are not terrorists - terrorists attack civillian targets to further a political objective. There are no such things as "terrorist attacks against US forces". A military is a legitmate target otherwise ALL soldiers everywhere would be terrorists.

[951-Riverside]

5. Sorta describes HAMAS too

""an insurgent organization that will periodically use terrorism to carry out its operations,""

We better take HAMAS off the "turrist" list as well.

[UpInArms]

6. BBC (Dec '97) Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm

Thursday, December 4, 1997 Published at 19:27 GMT

A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan.

A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.

Unocal says it has agreements both with Turkmenistan to sell its gas and with Pakistan to buy it.

But, despite the civil war in Afghanistan, Unocal has been in competition with an Argentinian firm, Bridas, to actually construct the pipeline.

Last month, the Argentinian firm, Bridas, announced that it was close to signing a two-billion dollar deal to build the pipeline, which would carry gas 1,300 kilometres from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, across Afghanistan.

...more...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=%2Farchive%2F1997%2F12%2F14%2Fwtal14.html

Sunday 14 December 1997

THE Taliban, Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist army, is about to sign a £2 billion contract with an American oil company to build a pipeline across the war-torn country.

The Islamic warriors appear to have been persuaded to close the deal, not through delicate negotiation but by old-fashioned Texan hospitality. Last week Unocal, the Houston-based company bidding to build the 876-mile pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, invited the Taliban to visit them in Texas. Dressed in traditional salwar khameez, Afghan waistcoats and loose, black turbans, the high-ranking delegation was given VIP treatment during the four-day stay.

The Taliban ministers and their advisers stayed in a five-star hotel and were chauffeured in a company minibus. Their only requests were to visit Houston's zoo, the Nasa space centre and Omaha's Super Target discount store to buy stockings, toothpaste, combs and soap. The Taliban, which controls two-thirds of Afghanistan and is still fighting for the last third, was also given an insight into how the other half lives.

The men, who are accustomed to life without heating, electricity or running water, were amazed by the luxurious homes of Texan oil barons. Invited to dinner at the palatial home of Martin Miller, a vice-president of Unocal, they marvelled at his swimming pool, views of the golf course and six bathrooms. After a meal of specially prepared halal meat, rice and Coca-Cola, the hardline fundamentalists - who have banned women from working and girls from going to school - asked Mr Miller about his Christmas tree.

...more...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FE18Aa03.html

Taliban in Texas: Big Oil hankers for old pals

HOUSTON - The Taliban must have had a ball in this Texas city when they came to visit the control tower of Planet Oil in the late 1990s to negotiate the Trans-Afghan Pipeline (TAP). One can imagine Mullah Omar's finest, in full black-turbaned regalia, at the Houston Galleria - amid all those blond, dermatologically sublime trophy wives credit-carding their way to the Valhalla of conspicuous consumption at Saks, Macy's, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. Not
to mention all those steak houses! And all those sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) - not only Kandahar-friendly Toyota Land Cruisers but Durangos, Silverados, Pajeros, Discoveries and even BMWs!

Of course this was ages before the cluster-bombing of the Taliban back to Jurassic Park became the secret casus belli for the "war on terra" after September 11, 2001. And it was before those gas-guzzling SUVs had to deal seriously with soaring oil prices, or at least not to the heights we are seeing now. On Monday a barrel of US light crude hit US$41.65, the highest price since the New York Mercantile Exchange launched its crude-oil contract in 1983.

Between the Taliban taking over Kabul in September 1996 and the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in the summer of 2001, neither the administration of president Bill Clinton nor that of his successor, President George W Bush, ever designated Afghanistan as a terrorist or even a rogue state: the Taliban were wined and dined as long as they played the Pipelineistan game in Central Asia (see Pipelineistan revisited, December 24-25, 2003). Unocal - which had put the CentGas Pipeline Consortium in place - hired Henry Kissinger as a consultant. Unocal also hired two very well-connected Afghans: Zalmay Khalilzad, a Pashtun with a PhD from the University of Chicago and former Paul Wolfowitz aide, and Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from Kandahar. In 1996, both Khalilzad and Karzai were ultra-pro-Taliban. Karzai is now Afghanistan's US-backed ruler. Khalilzad also made splendid career moves: Bush-appointed National Security Council member (working under Condoleezza Rice), "special envoy" to Afghanistan (only nine days after the Karzai government was sworn in), and current US ambassador.

The Taliban didn't want to play ball: every time, they wanted more money and more investments for the roads and the infrastructure of their ravaged country - until an exasperated Washington decided to finish them off. This was discussed in Geneva in May 2001, at the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001, and finally at a Berlin hotel, also that July, a meeting involving US, Russian, German and Pakistani officials. Asia Times Online later learned in Islamabad that the US plan was to strike against the Taliban from bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan before October 2001. Then the terrorist attacks of September 11 happened, providing Washington the perfect excuse to go it alone.

...more...

[alfredo]

8. So could the 9-11 attack have been an act

of self defense? Preemptive war?