US envoy to Afghanistan offers amnesty to Taliban

[maddezmom]

KABUL (AFP) - US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad offered an olive branch to Taliban insurgents, calling on them to lay down their arms in return for an amnesty.



Speaking at a news briefing in Kabul, he urged the Taliban to get in contact with tribal elders and the US-led coalition "and declare their allegiance and lay down their arms and in return they will not be targeted".


Khalilzad called on Taliban militants "to lay down their arms, to stop using terror tactics. Continuation of armed resistance... is against the will of Afghan people and Islam," he said on Thursday.


The US-led coalition has more than 18,000 troops mostly hunting Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants in south and southeast Afghanistan (news - web sites), where insurgents are waging an ongoing revolt against Afghan government and US forces

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1535&ncid=731&e=7&u=/afp/20041202/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistan_us_taliban

[byronm]

1. uhhhhhh

How can this be happening?

How is a known terrorist group getting more inroads into government and politics than civil groups in these countries?

[LynnTheDem]

2. #1. bush says all Taleban are gone. Don't exist. Are no more.

#2. Oh look, another

BUSH FLIP-FLOP

[maddezmom]

3. just think, after the election farce in Iraq...Negroponte

may offer amnesty to all the insurgents. :eyes:

[NNN0LHI]

5. I think Muqtada al-Sadr is already on that program?

[rainbow4321]

7. More on shrub/Taliban/oil connection

http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html

It's also exciting to the Bush Administration. According to the authors of Bin Laden, the Hidden Truth, one of the FBI's leading counter terrorism agents, John O'Neill, resigned last year in protest over the Bush Administration's alleged obstruction of his investigation into bin Laden. (A similar complaint has been filed on behalf of another unidentified FBI Agent by the conservative Judicial Watch public interest group.) Supposedly the Bush Administration had been meeting since January 2001 with the Taliban, and was also reluctant to offend Saudi Arabians who O'Neill had linked to bin Laden. Mr. O'Neill, after leaving the FBI, assumed the position of security director at the World Trade Center, where he was killed in the 911 attacks.

As America's New War now begins focusing on other "rogue nations," UNOCAL's stars have magically aligned. About two months after the Houston parties, UNOCAL executive John Maresca addressed the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and urged support for establishment of an investor-friendly climate in Afghanistan, "... we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company." Meaning that UNOCAL's ability to construct the Afghan pipeline was a cause worthy of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Maresca's prayers have been answered with the Taliban's replacement. As reported in Le Monde, the new Afghan government's head, Hamid Karzai, formerly served as a UNOCAL consultant. Only nine days after Karzai's ascension, President Bush nominated another UNOCAL consultant and former Taliban defender, Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan

[NNN0LHI]

4. Only if they promise to use smaller stones to stone the women to death n/t

[rainbow4321]

6. They used to have "friends' in Houston, you know..

http://www.mapcruzin.com/news/war111901a.htm

12/14/1997

Oil barons court Taliban in Texas

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.
<snip>

The consortium has also agreed to start paying the Taliban immediately. The Islamic army will receive tax on every one of the million cubic feet of fuel that passes through Afghanistan every day. Unocal has also offered other inducements. Apart from giving fax machines, generators and T-shirts, it has donated £500,000 to the University of Nebraska for courses in Afghanistan to train 400 teachers, electricians, carpenters and pipefitters. Nearly 150 students are already receiving technical training in southern Afghanistan.

<snip>

It will supply two of the fastest-growing energy markets in the world: Pakistan and India. The Unocal group has one significant attraction for the Taliban - it has American government backing. At the end of their stay last week, the Afghan visitors were invited to Washington to meet government officials. The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract. The Taliban is likely to have been impressed by the American government's interest as it is anxious to win international recognition. So far, it has been recognised only by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.30A.afgh.pipe.htm



(*Editors Note | Since September 11th, 2001, there has been intense speculation regarding Bush administration negotiations with the Taliban regarding this very project prior to the attacks. American petroleum giant Unocal very much wanted this project for years, but it was stymied in 1998 after bin Laden blew up two American embassies in Africa, causing the Taliban to be diplomatically isolated. There are a number of reports that describe a reinvigoration of this pipeline plan after Bush took office, and further describe the Bush administration's negotiations with the Taliban including threats of war if the project was not allowed to pass through Afghanistan. Some say these threats, in the name of the pipeline, triggered the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban is gone, Afghan President Harmid Karzai is a former Unocal consultant, and the pipeline deal is finally done. - wrp)



Agreement On US 3.2 Billion Gas Pipeline Project Signed
PakNews.com

December 28, 2002

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan on Friday signed here a framework agreement for a US $ 3.2 billion gas pipeline project passing through the three countries. The ceremony was held at the Presidential Palace with the three leaders, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signing the document.

The framework agreement defines legal mechanism for setting up a consortium to build and operate the pipeline. According to a study by Asian Development Bank (ADB), the 1460 km pipeline would use gas reserves at Dauletabad fields in Turkmenistan, which has world's fifth largest reserves, while passing through Afghanistan into Pakistan.

The three countries had earlier signed a trilateral agreement to develop a natural gas and oil pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan in May this year, during the first trilateral summit in Islamabad. The three countries are laying great importance on the project as it could provide much needed boost to their economies.