You’re acting like they knew for sure we’d go to war with them. Don’t forget, they had just visited Washington not too long before 9/11. Bush was a new President who talked a lot about during his campaign not interfering with other countries. They very likely thought he was bluffing.
Yup.
Watch the PBS Frontline “Behind Taliban Lines” (it’s on Netflix). There’s a part where a commander barks to one of his foot soldiers, through a walkie-talkie, “you guys are caring too much about your lives!”
The foot soldier shouts back, offended, “we do NOT care about our lives!”
You’re trying to use reason to understand unreasonable people, xtisme.
His dad kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. The whole world was behind us. I’m not buying that line of reasoning. It’s not like this was some minor act of terrorism we were reacting to. This was the Mother of all terrorists acts.
Just looking at your cite there, though, it doesn’t seem they were willing to simply hand him over unconditionally. By the time the planes were dropping bombs it was a bit late in the day to try and negotiate terms, don’t you think??
(I will admit I hadn’t seen that fact, however…I didn’t know that, after we started bombing them, the Taliban even tried to negotiate. I wonder how serious they were, and who ‘the Taliban’ who made this offer were)
I dunno…I went out with friends tonight and had a few drinks. I am not ready to do more research at the moment to decide if it was a shitty offer or a serious one.
Like I said, a data point. If others want to track it down fine by me.
I suppose we could also get into a debate about whether an “unconditional” demand was appropriate or not. IIRC I personally, at the time, was in no mood for “conditional” demands to be made as regarded ObL but then, usually, politics is a practice in negotiation. If the Taliban were not happy seems we could have come to terms we’d be (mostly) happy with. Or they were stalling for time. Again…I dunno…just thinking out loud.
I can’t find anything. I thought I remembered seeing pictures of them at the White House very early in the Bush presidency (before they blew up the Buddhas.) Either I’m misremembering, or failing to find it because references to them before they got “famous” are overwhelmed by post-9/11 references in every Google search I can come up with.
The Saddam/Kuwait thing was a very different situation, and even so, Bush 41 did not topple Saddam.
Googling also lead me to this:
And further Googling revealed that they did release those people, in November, 2001.
It’s not hard at all for me to believe that they were trying to call the United States’ bluff. Their stance on us has always been that we’re reluctant to fight and afraid of body counts.
Says it in my cite. Personally I have zero clue who this guy is or how much authority he had but FWIW: “The offer yesterday from Haji Abdul Kabir, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister…”
The Taleban tried twice to get rid of Osama, once after the embassy bombings, once after 9/11, but they would only hand him over to a Muslim country, not the USA. There was, in 2001 but before 9/11, a BBC documentary called “Langan Behind the Lines” in which Sean Langan travelled to Afghanistan, amongst other Islamic countries. Very informative, if you can find it.
As I recall, there was extensive negotiations between Bush Admin and the Taliban prior to 9/11 regarding pipeline building. Perhaps this is all conspiracy-stuff, I dunno. It’s discussed in this link, and studied in-depth in Vidal’s book “Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace”.
How do you know it never happened? These statements do not follow each other. We don’t recognize the Dalai Lama as the legitimate leader of Tibet and he visits all the time.
You’re being ridiculous. Saddam Hussein invaded a sovereign and extremely strategic nation, and rattled sabers at our biggest ally in the region (Saudi Arabia). He had the 4th largest army in the world and was thought to be trying to expand and consolidate power in the region under a regime that was hostile to the west. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11 and has no interest in anything outside their borders. The idea that you’re being serious is laughable.
Yeah, our relationship with the Dali Lama is just like our relationship with the Taliban, pre 9/11/01. We had a near unanimous vote in Congress to invade Afghanistan. Not so for Gulf War 1.
When come back, bring good analogy.
If you want to make a case that the Taliban were caught unawares when we invaded, do it. But don’t bring in things that you think you might have read 10 years ago, or compare them to one of the most admired men in the world.
[QUOTE=Cisco]
The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11 and has no interest in anything outside their borders. The idea that you’re being serious is laughable.
[/QUOTE]
The Taliban might have had nothing to do with 9/11, but they were clearly harboring the people who did. When we demanded that they turn those people over to us (unconditionally) they refused. At a minimum they had to know we’d at least bomb the crap out of those terrorist bases in their country, and probably attack at least military targets of the Taliban as well. Only an idiot would have thought, in light of what was going on in the US after 9/11, that we’d do nothing but sit around with our collective thumbs up our asses. Thousands of Americans were dead. WE were convinced it was AQ that did it (and by then there was pretty conclusive evidence that they had). AQ was OPENLY in Afghanistan.
I’m sorry, but if the Taliban were so stupid as to not realize that we weren’t bluffing, they were truly some of the stupidest people on earth. And I’m not buying that they were completely surprised by the fact that, failing to turn over AQ memebers and specifically ObL, that this would cause the US to retaliate.
[QUOTE=gonzomax]
The Taliban seek to control their homeland. How has OBLs death changed that? They want America to go home.
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They should, perhaps, consider disassociating themselves from all ties to AQ then…it might actually speed up the process of getting us out of there. It’s a crazy thought, I’m sure, but they might want to give it a try (and, in fact, according to the link I posted to earlier which you didn’t read, some of the Taliban factions ARE considering doing this).
So, you think the analogy between our relation ship with the Dalai Lama and our relationship with the pre-9/11 Taliban is a good one? That since we hosted the DL in the US it would make perfect sense that we would have hosted the Taliban leaders in the US?
And you ask me if I’m being serious?
Let’s just break that little baby down and see what’s what. Bro.
You said the Taliban never came here because we didn’t recognize them as a legitimate government. I pointed out that we don’t recognize the Dalai Lama either, and he comes here. Everything else you’re saying is a figment of your fragile ego’s horror at the thought of being wrong on the sdmb.
But you still haven’t (afaik) shown any actual evidence that the Taliban came to the US to talk with the government. Right? So, it’s not a very good analogy, since, in fact, there IS evidence that the Dali Lama has come to the US to talk to the government. Now…if I missed your cite, I apologize, but assuming I didn’t, that would make it a bad analogy.