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Once the Soviets were pushed out, the Taliban emerged and Colonel Imam, then serving as a Pakistani consular official in Afghanistan, provided critical support to their bid to rule the country, Western officials said.
. . . the ISI is credited with fostering and nurturing the Taliban movement in the mid 1990s. It is also believed to have had access to bin Laden himself in the past.
Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
How does that change anything? Mullah Omar, founder of the Taliban, met with Reagan, and would later meet with Texas representatives. He was on the receiving end of a lot of aid from the USA before he was labeled an enemy. Even as late as 2002 the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden but that offer was ignored.
Originally posted by WTFover
www.reaganfoundation.org...
www.reaganfoundation.org...
Still looking for "Appendix C", which is the list of the meeting attendees...
ETA: This is how charlatans rewrite history. The meeting took place in 1983, but people have falsely stated it was two years later. There is even a news video, onto which someone has superimposed the incorrect date, as 1985.edit on 20-12-2011 by WTFover because: (no reason given)
There was no such thing as a Taliban until the Afghanistan’s civil war in the wake of Soviet troops’ withdrawal in 1989, after a decade-long occupation. But by the time their last troops withdrew in February 1989, they’d left a nation in social and economic shards, 1.5 million dead, millions of refugees and orphans in Iran and Pakistan, and gaping political vacuum that warlords attempted to fill. Afghan mujahideen warlords replaced their war with the Soviets with a civil war.
Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
reply to post by SLAYER69
So we'll continue to pretend the Taliban sprang out of the ground in 1996, they never existed prior to that, right?
It was all peaches and cream until one day the Taliban dropped out of the sky.
Mullah Omar WAS the Taliban, he didn't just wake up one day and decide to become a fundamentalist.
He led the faction that murdered off the saner part of the Mujaheddin in their civil war,
ETA: much of your argument is based on when the Taliban were diplomatically recognized as the power in Afghanistan (1996), but your ignoring how long their movement had been building.
I would hazard a guess that had the Taliban been more agreeable to our pipeline deal, that the 'war on terror' would have gone on ignoring their relationship with Bin Laden and no invasion would have been launched by the US against Afghanistan.edit on 20-12-2011 by Blackmarketeer because: (no reason given)
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-US terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush Administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the United States the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.
Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.
It was called the Reagan Doctrine. In the eyes of Reagan officials bent on rolling back the Reds everywhere, Afghanistan exemplified the phrase "communist domination." By the time the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the U.S government had lavished $3 billion in arms on the rebels, who, during the bloodiest days of the war, were downing an average of one Russian helicopter gunship per day.
"These weren’t American weapons," said Rohrabacher. "By and large, it was done with Russian equipment bought from Egypt or one of the other states that was once allied with Russia but was now friendly to us. About the only American weapons they had were the Stinger missiles."...
... the majority of U.S. military-aid recipients were unsavory, even unstable characters. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which coordinated the efforts on the ground in Afghanistan, was never very choosy about who got arms.
Roughly half the weapons the CIA supplied went to fundamentalist Afghan leader Gulbeddin Hekmatyar—"one of the most stridently anti-Western of the resistance leaders," according to Mary Ann Weaver’s May 1996 article in The Atlantic Monthly. Another arms customer was the blind Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, later convicted of involvement in the 1993 botched bombing of the World Trade Center. Oh, and Osama bin Laden, the man whom George W. Bush says was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
During the Afghan war, the Saudis were, as they are today, doing America’s bidding on the world stage. The CIA-at the behest of a White House, Congress and American media completely united in helping the Afghan rebels-was calling the shots. It is a fact Rohrabacher himself has acknowledged in the recent past.
"I witnessed this in the White House when U.S. officials in charge of the military aid program to the mujahideen permitted a large percentage of our assistance to be channeled to the most anti-Western, nondemocratic elements of the mujahideen," said Rohrabacher in an April 14, 1999, official statement on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.
Rohrabacher saw firsthand evidence to support his claim. In November 1988, having just been elected to Congress, Rohrabacher took off on his first trip to Afghanistan. The anti-Soviet war was still raging as Rohrabacher set off on a five-day hike with an armed mujahideen patrol from Pakistan into eastern Afghanistan.
"We at one point in that march came across a camp of tents," Rohrabacher said of his visit to Jalalabad, then under siege by the Afghan rebels. "I was told at that point I must not speak English for at least another three hours because the people in those tents were Saudi Arabians under a crazy commander named bin Laden and that bin Laden was so crazy that he wanted to kill Americans as much as he wanted to kill Russians."
Former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is one of the most controversial figures in modern Afghan history.
A former prime minister, he is remembered chiefly for his role in the bloody civil war of the 1990s.
Mr Hekmatyar is currently in a tenuous alliance with the Taliban, although both sides remain suspicious of each other.
In 2003, the US state department designated him as a terrorist, accusing him of taking part in and supporting attacks by al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
HEY MARXIST TRAITOR IN THE WHITEHOUSE:
Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
We can pretend all day the Taliban "didn't exist" until 1993, but the seeds for their formation were sown in the American imperialism and interventionism of the 80's and 90's.
Among those Reagan and Bush provided material aid to:
Profile: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is one of the most controversial figures in modern Afghan history.
A former prime minister, he is remembered chiefly for his role in the bloody civil war of the 1990s.
Mr Hekmatyar is currently in a tenuous alliance with the Taliban, although both sides remain suspicious of each other.
In 2003, the US state department designated him as a terrorist, accusing him of taking part in and supporting attacks by al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
The point of those photos and videos is to highlight the hypocrisy of the United States. We supported the Mujahedin, the Northern Alliance, the Taliban when it suited us, even when there was incontrovertible evidence of any of those factions supporting Al-Qaeda or anti-Western terrorism. George W. Bush cut a deal with the Taliban in 2001, giving them $43 million as a GIFT.
Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-US terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush Administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the United States the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.
Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.
Bush was only following the precedent set by Reagan, who dedicated more material aid to 'terror' groups than any other administration. One of his principle benefactors was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose name appears in the credits in the photo, the BBC has a profile of him here.
Reagan's outreach to radicals in Afghanistan was the Reagan Doctrine;
It was called the Reagan Doctrine. In the eyes of Reagan officials bent on rolling back the Reds everywhere, Afghanistan exemplified the phrase "communist domination." By the time the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, the U.S government had lavished $3 billion in arms on the rebels, who, during the bloodiest days of the war, were downing an average of one Russian helicopter gunship per day.
"These weren’t American weapons," said Rohrabacher. "By and large, it was done with Russian equipment bought from Egypt or one of the other states that was once allied with Russia but was now friendly to us. About the only American weapons they had were the Stinger missiles."...
Roughly half the weapons the CIA supplied went to fundamentalist Afghan leader Gulbeddin Hekmatyar—"one of the most stridently anti-Western of the resistance leaders," according to Mary Ann Weaver’s May 1996 article in The Atlantic Monthly. Another arms customer was the blind Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, later convicted of involvement in the 1993 botched bombing of the World Trade Center. Oh, and Osama bin Laden, the man whom George W. Bush says was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
During the Afghan war, the Saudis were, as they are today, doing America’s bidding on the world stage. The CIA-at the behest of a White House, Congress and American media completely united in helping the Afghan rebels-was calling the shots. It is a fact Rohrabacher himself has acknowledged in the recent past.
"I witnessed this in the White House when U.S. officials in charge of the military aid program to the mujahideen permitted a large percentage of our assistance to be channeled to the most anti-Western, nondemocratic elements of the mujahideen," said Rohrabacher in an April 14, 1999, official statement on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.
Rohrabacher saw firsthand evidence to support his claim. In November 1988, having just been elected to Congress, Rohrabacher took off on his first trip to Afghanistan. The anti-Soviet war was still raging as Rohrabacher set off on a five-day hike with an armed mujahideen patrol from Pakistan into eastern Afghanistan.
"We at one point in that march came across a camp of tents," Rohrabacher said of his visit to Jalalabad, then under siege by the Afghan rebels. "I was told at that point I must not speak English for at least another three hours because the people in those tents were Saudi Arabians under a crazy commander named bin Laden and that bin Laden was so crazy that he wanted to kill Americans as much as he wanted to kill Russians."