Originally posted by GoodOlDave
They're simply swallowing the rubbish these web sites are feeding them becuase these web sites have a vested interest in NOT telling them the whole story.

...if anyone walked up to you and verbally told you that the gov't faked 9/11 as an excuse to invade that worthless toilet of a country of Afghanistan...

Originally posted by Rewey
You mean that worthless country which produces 92% of the world's opium, and with big, fat oil and gas pipelines running all the way through it?

You call Afghanistan a worthless toilet, as a reason why there is no sense in 9/11 conspiracy, yet you leave out the above facts. What were you saying above about 'telling the whole story'?

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
Becuase A) the ones in charge of the opium are the local warlords, not the US. Insinuating the US is involved in opium production when the Afghans had been successfully growing opium there for the last 5,000 years on their own is absurd, and B) there are no "big fat oil and gas pipelines running all the way through it". That's an internet rumor those damned fool 9/11 conspiracy web sites keep spreading. Karzai wants a pipeline deal to bring in revenue, but the entire country is so [censored] up that noone wants to even install a storm drain there, let alone an oil pipe, as everyone knows it'll be blown up every ten minutes.

So what were YOU saying about, "not telling the whole story"?

Originally posted by Rewey
Sorry, but you’re a little off the mark here. I’ve been to Afghanistan twice in recent years – trust me, the pipeline is a done deal – has been for years. Just because it hasn’t been constructed yet means very little. I wish I could share with you some of the photos we’d taken for work. Believe me, it’s a done deal. Karzai was installed for precisely this reason. The US was even aware of his pro-Iranian stance, but knew it wouldn’t be an issue, given that the pipelines would be corporate-owned, not government-owned. This is all public record.

Also, forget what you read about the local warlords being in charge of the opium trade. In reality, they are nothing more than merchants in the field. The officials who administer the opium trade and allow the warlords to remain functioning (and therefore indirectly the Karzai administration) benefit far more greatly.

“In 2004 he [Hamid Karzai] rejected a US proposal to end poppy production in Afghanistan through aerial spraying of chemical herbicides, fearing that it would harm the economic situation of his countrymen” (Posner 2009).

Think about what that means – the ‘economic situation’ of his countrymen is that their primary export is opium. These are not the actions of a man combating ‘warlords’.

Further:

In a revealing news post by the Associated Press, published in the Texas-based Daily Times, Tuesday October 27, 2009, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai’s brother Ahmed Ali Karzai was reported working for the CIA. The story tells that Ahmed Karzai has been receiving regular payment from the CIA for his work over the past eight years.

Since Karzai is suspected of involvement in the illegal opium trade of Afghanistan, there are also reports of division within the white house over CIA’s connection with Karzai. Even President Karzai is finding himself in increasingly tense relations with the US leadership due to his brother’s connection with the opium trade.

But a serious side of the issue is the question of CIA’s own involvement in furthering opium trade through its ties with important people in Afghanistan. In the words of an American high military intelligence official in Afghanistan, this makes the US intelligence ‘backing thug’ in the Afghan crisis. Ahmed Karzai is being used by the CIA even to communicate with locals loyal to Taliban and the fact that CIA spokesman George Little has declined to offer any comment on the news story sounds like a silent confirmation of the messy things carried out by foreign intelligence agencies operating in Afghanistan.

There’s some more of the ‘full story’…

"To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11." (Tony Blair. July 17, 2002)

Bush announces opening of attacks
October 7, 2001
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said the United States opened a new front in the war against international terrorism Sunday with its attacks on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and al Qaeda terrorist camps.

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said Sunday afternoon that the United States had a "clear right to self defense" following the September 11 attacks under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.

BBC - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JULY 2001.
US 'planned attack on Taleban'
The wider objective was to oust the Taleban
By the BBC's George Arney

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.

Unocal, as you know, is one of the world's leading energy resource and project development companies…

Mr. Chairman, the Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves. Just to give an idea of the scale, proven natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day. By 2010, western companies could increase production to about 4.5 million barrels a day, an increase of more than 500 percent in only 15 years. If this occurs, the region would represent about 5 percent of the world's total oil production.

The only other possible route is across Afghanistan, which has of course its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades, and is still divided by civil war.

From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company.

The estimated cost of the project, which is similar in scope to the trans-Alaska pipeline, is about $2.5 billion.

As with the proposed Central Asia oil pipeline, CentGas can not begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan Government is in place.

…The U.S. Government should use its influence to help find solutions to all of the region's conflicts.

US policy on Taliban influenced by oil
By Julio Godoy - November 20, 2001

They affirm that until August [2001], the US government saw the Taliban regime "as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia" from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean.

But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept US conditions, "this rationale of energy security changed into a military one".

"At one moment during the negotiations, the US representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs,'" Brisard said in an interview in Paris.

Thursday, 13 June, 2002
Karzai elected Afghan leader

BBC: On Wednesday, up to 70 delegates walked out of the conference, complaining that they were being denied a free vote.

Many attending the gathering said they wanted to nominate and elect former King Mohammed Zahir Shah as head of state, but he ruled himself out of the race on Monday - amid allegations that his withdrawal and that of ex-President Burhanuddin Rabbani had been engineered by the United States.

The interim government led by Mr Karzai took office under a UN-brokered deal in December, after US air attacks helped opposition forces to overthrow the Taleban.

…The U.S. Government should use its influence to help find solutions to all of the region's conflicts.

Friday, 27 December, 2002, 11:23 GMT
Central Asia pipeline deal signed

By Ian McWilliam
BBC correspondent in Kabul

An agreement has been signed in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, paving the way for construction of a gas pipeline from the Central Asian republic through Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The building of the trans-Afghanistan pipeline has been under discussion for some years but plans have been held up by Afghanistan's unstable political situation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

will begin be reposting the posts from the thread which has been closed,

Perhaps you could make it all the way to the fourth line of the OP?

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
reply to post by Rewey

---

Actually, I read your entire post. I just don't believe that MODS would close an entire post unless the OP were instigating the problems.

However, since you want to flame me, rather than just answer my question, your flame has told me all I need to know- namely that you just can't resist flaming people. You need to reconsider the way you deal with members if you wish to have people respond to your threads.
However, I fully expect that you will continue in your ways, so have a nice life.

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
All right, since you've asked...

A) Yes, Afghanistan is a toilet of a country.

Again, don’t believe just the images you see on the news. They are carefully chosen to put across a certain perspective.

Here’s an example. Here’s a shopping centre from Kabul.

Here's one from Oklahoma.

Which one looks more like a ‘toilet of a country’?

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
Whatever natural resources they had, they squandered in almost 30 years of war.

So, civil war makes a country a toilet? Don’t forget that the US had one of those too. And I ask this seriously – do you even know WHY there were decades of civil war in Afghanistan?

I’ll break it down for you. Here’s a brief summary, condensed from

In 1978 the PDPA overthrew the regime of Mohammad Daoud. The country was then renamed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Once in power, the PDPA implemented a liberal agenda. It moved to replace religious and traditional laws. Men were obliged to cut their beards, women couldn't wear a burqa, and mosques were placed off limits. It carried out an ambitious land reform, waiving farmers' debts countrywide and banning usury. The government also made a number of decrees on women’s rights, banning forced marriages, giving state recognition of women’s right to vote, and introducing women to political life.

Due to some conservatives, who preferred the strict interpretation of Islam and its restriction on women’s rights, a number of increasingly violent uprisings occurred, in an attempt to return Afghanistan to traditional Islamic rule. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was offered, and accepted, military help from the Soviet Union to stop the violent uprisings.

This ‘Soviet occupation’ was in support of Afghanistan’s democratic government, who wanted to remove the traditional Islamic rule and repression of women.

The U.S. saw the situation as a prime opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union. As part of a Cold War strategy, in 1979 the United States government began to covertly fund and train anti-government Mujahideen forces (including bin Laden) through the Pakistani secret service known as Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), with the intention of provoking Soviet intervention.

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
B) You conveniently forget that the US already Launched military action against Afghanistan under Clinton, when he ordered cruise missiles fired at Bin Laden's camps after the U.S. Cole bombing. It's only in your head that the supposed "military action" the U.S. was planning would have been anything More than that.

In Sudan, the missiles destroyed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, where 50% of Sudan's medications for both people and animals were manufactured. The Clinton Administration claimed that there was ample evidence to prove that the plant produced chemical weapons, but a thorough investigation after the missile strikes revealed that the intelligence was unreliable. (Barletta, 1998)

Originally posted by GoodOlDave
…because no matter how bad Stalin was, Hitler was worse.