A question for those who think the Afganistan War was unjustified

[leftistagitator]

I've been seeing this more and more around here lately, especially since the Ted Rall cartoon, and so I was a little curious about something. The story that I had been told about the war was that OBL orchestrated the attacks, and that Afganistan refused to turn him over from their protective custody. It would seem to me that state protection of a group launching attacks against another country would justify a war. So which part do you disagree with, that OBL was responsible for 9/11, that Afganistan was protecting him, or that Afganistan protecting the man who caused 9/11 is an act of war?

[billybob537]

1. I agree

It's Iraq I do not support!

[Mika]

2. I thought that the Afghan gov was asking for some evidence..

.. before they would agree to extradite bin Laden to the US. Pesky bastards.. going'legal' on W*'s Crime Inc and wanting evidence and all.

[GirlinContempt]

5. True dat

[Ediacara]

12. That's true

But you must realize that no amount of evidence would ever convince the Taliban that he was guilty. The US had supplied the information since 1996 or so, but to no avail.

[Mika]

21. How/why would I realize that?

They were W*'s buddies just a few days before 9-11, accepting $43 million from us for the opium crop eradication.

We never gave them a chance because we did not present one bit of evidence, so how 'must' I realize what you surmise.

All we do know is that we do know is that W*'s Crime inc accused a former business partner and his gang, and that w* issued an ultimatum and then bombed them further into the stone ages. And the Afghan heroin output is sky rocketing. And mobs/warlords still rule.

[Ediacara]

34. Uh, what does heroin output have to do with this?

What I said was the US had been asking for bin Laden since the 90s, the Taliban asked for proof he was guilty of the WTC bombing, the embasy bombing etc, proof was provided, the Taliban automatically replied, "Not good enough."

I am not sure why you think we never gave them a chance or provided any evidence, do you have any data that supports that claim?

[dpibel]

29. If you already know, why not commence bombing?

I find this rather a perplexing argument in defense of a country that so prides itself on being a moral beacon for the rest of the world.

Even if you're as sure as you can be that those naughty Talibans will just lie and sneer and jerk you around, don't you gain just a whole bunch of cred for your righteousness by calling their bluff? Then you can tell the whole world, "See! We had no choice." Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the US had many choices, and decided that bombs would be best. Again.

[DrWeird]

3. Do you support blowing up Red Cross facilities?

Because if you say not supporting the war means not wanting to catch Osama, I can say supporting the war in Afghanistan means supporting baby killing.

[leftistagitator]

13. I never said that

I presented what I have been told and asked those who disagreed what they believed. Do you believe that OBL wasn't in Afganistan, or that he was but the government wasn't tring to protect him? Or something else that I haven't thought of?

[leftistagitator]

15. dupe

.....

[movonne]

4. I never was for bombing Afganistan..I can't see killing lots of

Innocent people. Just go and get OBL, as of yet we still have not got him.

[progressiveBadger]

7. Exactly!

I think it was the way we went about it. Yes, I think we needed to go after OBL. But instead, we bombed the crap out of Afghanistan, and STILL haven't found him.

[leftistagitator]

20. So then you supported action in Afganistan

just not the way we did it? Maybe more reliance on special forces, less traditional warfare? I can see that, but it might have been a lot more difficult if we left the Taliban power structure in place and still attempted military operations. I think OBL was there, at least I have no reason to think otherwise, so him getting away was IMO more of bungling the military end of the campaign rather than the campaign's existence itself.

[freetobegay]

6. I have no qualms with the war on Afganistan

That was justified IMO even the UN thought so.

Iraq, now thats a different story.

[MrSlayer]

8. I thought it was justified until I discovered they did it themselves.

Since they used OBL as a convenient scapegoat and perpetrated the events of 9/11 themselves, Afghanistan is irrelevant and unjustified.

[DrWeird]

9. Knowing what you know now, is Afghanistan justified?

Do we have Osama?

Is the Taliban gone?

Are we safer?

Looks like the antiwar people were right. Again.

[leftistagitator]

24. Was Osama there?

Wars don't become justified or unjustified after the fact, they either are when they are launched or are not. The fact that we have failed to achieve our objectives doesn't make the war unjustified, it just means that we failed. So I put it to you again, did OBL cause 9/11, was he in Afganistan, was the government Afganistan protecting him, and if they were is or is that not justification for an attack?

[porkrind]

10. The war was really retaliation against the taliban

for rejecting U.S. oil pipeline proposals. 9/11 just provided the excuse.

---

Read about the Right-Wing "Master Plan": http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-contents.html

Have you read "War is a Racket"?: http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

[leftistagitator]

32. Thank you for the links.

[WMliberal]

11. it's not realy a matter of

"Afghanistan" protecting OBL. The Taliban's hold over the countryside wasn't too much better than our own now. It was kind of like overthrowing some gang in China ca. 1920. I'm all for the overthrow of the Taliban and staying the course there. It's the Iraq war I can't stand!

[Mika]

16. The US overthrowing and occupying countries..

.. a sure way to make friends. Its worked every time :crazy:

[WMliberal]

18. Not trying to make friends

Just trying to get OBL. As for your sarcastic response, it has worked before, when sanity prevails in handling the occupation. Germany (until Dimson...) and Japan have been steadfast allies.

[Mika]

23. They surrendered

Small point.

Bombing Afghanistan didn't get OBL. And there are many stories about how the US forces 'let' OBL escape and let the Pakistani Taliban return home untouched, and then there's the W*'s allegiance with Pakistan secret service who were funding Atta, and on and on and on...

[jonnyblitz]

14. yes. what a successful war that one was.

:eyes:

[leftistagitator]

28. I didn't say it was successful, I said it was justified

and I asked people who disagreed which part of my argument they disagreed with. How do you plan to expand your cause if you won't tell others what you believe and why when they ask?

[Lone_Wolf]

17. Afghanistan, the Untold Story

It is an article by Michael Parenti

http://music.barrow.org/2002/Q2/parenti.htm

[cosmicdot]

19. "the Afghanistan War" .... did we win?

I'm not sure Osama was even alive on 911 ... with that bad kidney and all ... a dialysis machine is not something one can throw over your shoulder and plug in in your cave hidey-hole ...

I can't imagine this White House lying about everything under the sun except for the reasons to kill innocent Afghan people already in a suffering environment ... it think it was target practice; new weapons real-time testing; and a jump-start mobilization for Iraq ... I know of someone in Kansas seeing munitions on a train heading East marked with a red crescent moon ... and, that was before 911 ...

If the Taliban was so bad, and they tell us they knew Osama was in their country ... why send them $43 million in May 2001? Probably because Bush and Cheney were more interested in tax cuts for the wealthy and getting things in line for the "Energy Policy" which probably included drafting and fine tuning the PATRIOT Act ...

I guess I'm saying: I don't buy the story out of the White House. If I see valid evidence to the contrary; it might be helpful.

the negotiations for oil pipeline rights in Afghanistan that collapsed in August 2001 after the U.S. told the Taliban: Accept our offer of a carpet of gold or you'll get a carpet of bombs.

"Under the influence of United States oil companies, the government of President George W. Bush initially blocked intelligence agencies' investigations on terrorism while it bargained with the Taliban on the delivery of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim.

In the book, "Bin Laden, La Verite Interdite" (Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth), that was released recently, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Deputy Director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction.

The authors claim that O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it." The two claim that the U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia."

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/bl_tft.htm


http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=carpet+of+bombs+or+a+carpet+of+gold

[leftistagitator]

30. Thank you for the links

There's a lot of stuff there, so I've bookmarked that for later reading.

According to Clarke, Bush* didn't care about OBL before 9/11, so he would have no problems giving money to the Taliban, for the reasons you cited. The only real problem I have with your theory is that it is MIHOP, which is so big of a claim I feel it requires very solid evidence before bringing it up to the American people. Maybe * really would start a war with Afganistan for oil, but intentionally killing thousands of US citizens would be the greatest political gamble in American history. If it could be proven, it would destroy the * presidency, his family, and the repug party. Is * really so insane he would risk all that just to gain control over oil?

[NNadir]

22. There was no independent investigation of the WTC attacks.

The "proof" of OBL's involvement has involved from the very beginning the Bush administration's "say so." The Bush administration, in case no one has noticed, is populated with bald faced liars with a particular agenda, an agenda that mostly involves oil.

We know that the attackers were Saudi, but very little else. If it were proven with systematic evidence that OBL was the culprit, there might be a case for war.

In any case, the terrorists responsible for the WTC, are on the backburner in any case. The support of the entire planet for the United States has been squandered. The point is moot.

[markomalley]

25. Before any operations are considered, we must...

first ask ourselves what we did to provoke the attacks. In any case of military conflict where we were involved, at least in the past 100 years, we did something to bring it on ourselves --
-- with the Spanish war, we started it based upon a canard to justify expansionist Imperialism
-- with WWI, we got involved in a war where we had no business (the US was not threatened, only old imperialistic European empires)
-- with WWII, we cut off Japanese supplies of raw materials needed to fuel their economy -- had we dealt honestly with them, they probably would never have attacked us -- and the European theater involvement was based primarily upon Roosevelt's treachery and violating pure neutrality
-- with Korea, we were projecting a conflict with another superpower onto a third world country that should have been allowed to settle their own problems internally
-- with Vietnam, the same held true
-- with the Cold War, it was our imperialistic goals of ruling the world (as manifested by our immoral buildup of nuclear weaponry and our interference with various liberation movements) that made the USSR feel threatened and forced their reaction to us
-- with Iraq War I, we propped up a racist, sexist, theocractic monarchy to protect the interests of the "seven sisters"

We need to ask ourselves...which of our policies made these people feel threatened enough to attack at the symbolic center of our economic might and the symbolic center of our military might.

No, the rape of Afghanistan was not an appropriate response -- changes internally would have been the only proper response.

I just hope that the next president has the wisdom to see this and the courage to do something about it.

[bobbyboucher]

26. Oh pulease, the Taliban

couldn't have turned over bin Laden if he was there, and I'm not sure he was. Bin Laden is a hero in Afganistan, not only with the Taliban fundies, but with the war lords in the mountains because of his help during the Soviet era invasion.

We invaded Afganistan in order to secure a nice wide swath for a pipeline to relieve the Caspian Sea region of its natural gas.

Wake up and smell the stink.

[Darranar]

27. But...

the US provided no evidence that he was responsible for the attacks.

What would be the reaction to a request for the US to turn over Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes in Iraq?

[Minstrel Boy]

31. The Taliban themselves warned Bush about 9/11:

"Weeks before the terrorist attacks on 11 September, the United States and the United Nations ignored warnings from a secret Taliban emissary that Osama bin Laden was planning a huge attack on American soil."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=331115

Then, after 9/11, the Taliban agreed to extradite bin Laden to Pakistan, where he would be held under house arrest and face an international tribunal, which would decide whether to try him or hand him over to the US. According to the British papers the Mirror and the Telegraph, bin Laden had agreed to the conditions. Musharraf vetoed the plan, likely under pressure from Bush, saying he couldn't guarantee bin Laden's safety.

"The US Ambassador to Pakistan was notified in advance of the proposal and the mission to put it to the Taliban. Later, a US official said that 'casting our objectives too narrowly' risked 'a premature collapse of the international effort if by some lucky chance Mr bin Laden was captured'." (John Pilger, in The Mirror, Nov 17, 2001 http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/PIL111C.html)

One of Bush's wars? It was founded on a lie.

[bigtree]

33. Where were they protecting him?

Where was bin Laden? Did the Bush cabal tell us the truth about the refusal of the Taliban to 'turn him over'? I read the defiance that eventually came from the Taliban but I have little confidence that they were sheltering him. More likely compatriots in Pakistan were hiding him.

This is where I divert from the actions of Bush there:

If the citizens were so oppressed by the Taliban then why did the U.S. hold them complicit and bomb the cities?

How were we able to determine who, out of the thousands killed, was actually complicit in the 9-11 attack?

Why do we still refuse to hold the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia accountable for their countrymen's support of bin Laden?