if Condi brings up the Taliban, the whole damn mess could boil over

[G_j]

http://www.villagevoice.com/print/issues/0414/mondo1.php

by James Ridgeway
Will Rice Stick?
If she brings up the Taliban, the whole damn mess could boil over
April 5th, 2004 5:50 PM

ASHINGTON, D.C.—Just so everyone knows she wasn't asleep at the switch, Condoleezza Rice is expected in her testimony Thursday before the 9-11 Commission to stress how the Bush administration was out to knock off the Taliban, bin Laden's support base, from the get-go. Not only did Bush want to "arm the Northern Alliance," she told Time last month, but to "find and develop relationships with southern tribes so that you could get the Taliban where it hurts."

Trying to squirm out of George W. Bush's mess by taking on the Taliban just isn't likely to do the trick for Condi. That's because the facts suggest that Bush may well have been trying to cut a deal with the Taliban, not overthrow them, loosening up U.N. aid in reward for their tough drug policy. On February 22, 2001, the Guardian (U.K.) reported that the Taliban might allow the extradition of bin Laden—at the time wanted for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa—to a third Muslim country, where a group of Islamic scholars would meet and decide what to do with him. Pakistan's interior minister, Moinuddin Haider, who met the militia's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, that February, reported, "Mullah Omar said that he was ready for religious scholars from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and a third Muslim country to collect in some place and having seen the evidence then this group would decide what is to be done to him." Haider added, "I think the new administration in America should look at the problem with a fresh approach. To break the ice they should create some flexibility in their demands also." Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf himself proposed compromise in an interview: "Between the American and the Afghan extreme stances it is possible that the United States and Afghanistan can choose another country where bin Laden can have a fair trial."

Five days after the Guardian report, the prospect of a deal was broached in the White House daily briefing for reporters conducted by then press secretary Ari Fleischer:

Q: Ari, according to India Globe, the Taliban in Afghanistan, they have offered that they are ready to hand over Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia if the United States would drop its sanctions, and they have a kind of deal that they want to make with the United States. Do you have any comments?

Fleischer: Let me take that and get back to you on that.
..more..

[jimshoes]

1. Did anyone ever follow up

on that? I would love to hear what they had to say about that.

[G_j]

3. Bush rejects Taliban's offer on handing over bin Laden.

it's hard to find much on this.


http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0WDQ/2001_Oct_22/80338926/p1/article.jhtml

Bush rejects Taliban's offer on handing over bin Laden.
Asian Political News, Oct 22, 2001

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 Kyodo

President George W. Bush on Sunday rejected an offer from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to discuss turning over Islamic militant Osama bin Laden if the United States stops air strikes against Afghanistan.

''There is no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty,'' Bush told reporters as he returned to the White House from his Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

''Turn him over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostage they hold over, destroy all the terrorist camps. There's no need to negotiate...I told them exactly what they need to do,'' Bush said.

The Bush administration believes bin Laden masterminded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. It accuses the Taliban of providing shelter to the Saudi fugitive and his al-Qaida network of terrorist groups.

At a news conference in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on Sunday, Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Haji Abdul Kabir said the Taliban would be willing to discuss handing over bin Laden to a third country, or putting him on trial in Afghanistan, if the U.S. military ends bombing and provides evidence of his involvement in the attacks on the U.S.

..more..

[jimshoes]

4. So they offered Bin Laden's head on a platter to Chimpy

and he turned them down so he could keep bombing... very interesting.

[peace4all]

13. I bet most people

forgot all about this.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Remind me again

[cosmicdot]

5. the Taliban's roving de facto lobbyist, Laili Helms

the niece of former CIA head Richard Helms ...
wonder if she knows anything ... she slipped off the radar quickly


whatever happened to those roving 'artists' who were in the US during that time?

that was a bizarre situation which, also, slipped out of sight
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j100402.html

[leesa]

6. It also might highlight the fact that we threatened to bomb them two month

before 9-11 if they didn't agree to our pipeline deal. They didn't and the rest is history.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. NeoCon's $43 million grant to the Taliban in early 2001...

<http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm>

<http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-02-02.html>

<http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/>

<http://usembassy.state.gov/islamabad/wwwh01051802.html>

Yes, indeed...the "Bush administration was out to knock off the Taliban, bin Laden's support base, from the get-go." Sure looks like it, doesn't it?

[G_j]

8. is it true that

people have been able to send emails to the 9-11 commission? I know I signed a petition that was sent to the commission.
Anyone have an address? I would like to request they ask Rice about a number these questions concerning the Taliban. I imagine the 9-11 families have brought these questions up also.

[AirAmFan]

9. You could add your questions to MSNBC's list

of questions for Rice. That could be better than submitting them directly to 9-11commission.gov , where they'd become part of a long list no one pays any attention to, See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1352293

[G_j]

10. done

thanks!

[kiahzero]

11. That money was dispersed to the UN and NGOs, not the Taliban

[G_j]

12. kick

[G_j]

14. kick

[PurityOfEssence]

15. Who's gonna bring up THE PIPELINE?

The Bushies were busy rekindling the pipeline deal from Turkmenistan while they were pussyfooting around the sticky issue of the local baddies. Because they wouldn't give the Taliban a big enough piece of the pie--typical Republican greed--the deal soured.

When somebody stands between them and lots of money, they must be destroyed.

[G_j]

16. I seriously doubt

that they will ask her directly about any of this. I suspect they will deliberately tip toe around it.