Osama already had a beard so they couldnt paint a hitler mustache
on him..which they would have done..

osama bin whats his name is not dead. he is in Las Vegas with Elvis
playing the slots.

I don't care if he is or not.

I am more concerned that Al Quieda and other origanizations with simular
agendas are rendered harmless.

or combat ineffective.

PnA said: "The Taliban was far too closely blended to really make a
distinction. "

Can you explain what you mean by 'blended'?

Thanks,
Oceans

no hes not dead... hes kicking it with george and ****.

By "blended" I mean they had many shared members, shared military and
tactical information, aided each other in whatever agendas they had at
the time, provided money to one another (bin Laden was essentially half
the funding for the Taliban)- and held one another in such high regards
that it was essentially like they were one organization.

Hell, bin Laden was considered a "war hero" to the Taliban for his work
in helping to repulse the Russians. Of course, it was our weapons and
training that gave them a chance to do that, but that's a whole other
story.


I *wish* our local and federal policing forces were as cooperative with
one another as Al Qaida and the Taliban were.

OK, I understand what you mean by 'blended.'

In fact, the Taliban and al-Qaida are separate in all fundamental ways.

The Taliban is Afghani and focused entirely on Afghanistan; al-Qaida is
international and only opportunistically based in Afghanistan.

Ethnically, the Taliban are Pashtun. They speak Pashtu. Al-Qaida is
primarily Arab, and members speak Arabic and English.

They did form an alliance of sorts, aimed at ridding Afghanistan of the
Soviet Union. The US was in a limited way also part of this alliance.
Al-Qaida went on to support the Chechnyans fight the Soviet Union and,
post-1991, the Russian Federation. As time went on, the tensions between
the Taliban and al-Qaida mounted swiftly. Al-Qaida was too secular, and
too many of Al-Qaida's members to urdan for the Taliban, who espoused a
rural fundmentalist view of Muslim religious practice. Worse, from the
Taliban's point of view, was the growing military presence of al-Qaida.
For example, al-Qaida opened up approximately fifteen large training
camps for fighters from all over the world. Foreign trainers were added
to the staff, including non-Muslim, non-Arab ones from other regions.
Al-Qaida, as one put it to me, was becoming an autonomus group within
Afghanistan. They asserted their right to bring people, munitions and
other equipment across the border free from interference or inspection
by Afghani border authorities.

You stated that the two were 'blended' in order to suggest that the
Taliban government would not have expelled bin Laden into US custody.

Thus, as you can see, it was no big jump for the Taliban, then the
dominant force in the Afghani government, to decide that Usama bin Laden
had become an embarrassment to Afghanistan and a magnet for
international post-Sept. 11 pressure. The way the US demanded the
extradition of bin Laden caused several problems and delayed the
explusion of bin Laden and his key supporters from Afghanistan. It took
some time for these issues to be straightened out. One was the issue of
Afghanistan's national sovereignty. The US after Sept. 11 too often gave
the impression that the sovereignty of other nations had become
irrelevant. Eventually, cooler heads prevailed in Washington DC, the
neocons were temporarily side-lined, and genuine discussions with the
Taliban started. The second issue was that of extradition; the US had no
extradition treaty with Afghanistan. As you know, extradition is the
legal process of one country turning over to another a wanted person.
The requesting country has to submit some evidentiary basis for the
extradition request. For a number of weeks, the US refused to do so,
stoking suspicions that the US might be scapegoating bin Laden for Sept.
11.

(continued)

Eventually, under pressure, the TAliban agreed to accede to US demands
for bin Laden, having provided the Afghani government with assurances
that bin Laden would be charged and processed legally by US authorities.
The next issue was one that the Afghani government faced internally:
under Muslim law, a Muslim community has an obligation to protect guests
who find refuge with it. Bin Laden, had been a guest in Afgahnistan,
and, as you point out, an honored one during the heady days of figthing
the USSR, and there were those in Afghanistan who thought it improper
that bin Laden could now be turned away. It took about a week for the
consensus about how to do this emerged: it was found that bin Laden had
'abused' his hospitality by engaging in actions that endangered his
Afghani hosts. Therefore, bin Laden and his key supporteres were told
that they had violated the rules of hospitality and would have to leave.
This decision was fully communicated by the Afghanis to US
representatives both in Washington and Afghanistan (which is why we know
so many of these details today). Bin Laden was told that the hospitality
would run its customary three days, and that at the end of that time bin
Laden would have to be gone.

The last question, then was the mechanics to turning him over to the US.
To make a long and intresting story short, the final decisoion was that
bin Laden would by informally 'escorted' from Kandahar to the SE border
of Afghanistan, via Taliban secured roads and border crossing, and then
bid farewell. A Pakistani SIS team would then arrest bin Laden and his
party, who would then spirit them to Quetta, where they would be turned
over to a waiting CIA team, engines running, for a flight to Germany and
on to the US.

This plan was accepted by all three parties, bin Laden was put on
three-day departure notice and all seeemd settled. Except. Except for a
White House which within hours of being briefed on what was going to
happen, suddenly announced that the 'time for diplomacy had run out,'
and that the US was now planning to attack Afghanistan.

The Pakistanis, smelling a rat threatened to pull out of the
arrangement; the Taliban did pull out. And the US doomed itself to a
losing and humiliating 'War on Terror'.

There is no doubt in my mind that this single incident proved the moment
of truth. It was a disasterous decision by the White House, and in a sea
of mistakes, stands out in my mind. It also marks the key moment at
which the Washington military and diplomatic professionals began to have
serious doubts about the competence and motives of the Bush
administration and its political appointees.

Someday someone will write a book about this, for there are far more
fascinating facts to be presented than I can do here. Stand by!

Oceans

Oceans, this is well researched and an interesting read
Thank you

Thanks, Invisible....!

Where is that photo taken? It makes my feet want to travel!

that was the best explanation of this disaster we are in and i so agree
with you.

It's Galway Bay, have been there last summer for a long weekend
and the Galway is one of the counties in Ireland where I would like to
live.

hes about as dead as Saddam Hussein.

They are both held by the US in some holding cell somewhere in the
Carribbean, suffering the habitual torture of semi-naked women serving
them equally torturously with anything their hearts desire.

With all that information they both hold,it would be against the
"national" interest to have them killed.

Listen, there was an Osama bin Laden siting this weekend. He was seen
alive with Elvis playing keno at the slots.

Well, Saddam has just told me he is now the camp commandant for
Guantanamo Bay!

Osama and Elvis are the entertainment.

It would be a grave mistake to allow these two to die.

No way are they dead.

they are not at Guantan....because the ACLU would know about it, and so
far they have not said squat.

Saddam and bin Laden in a ring...now that would be a sight. The two
hated each other. Chuck Bush in....hmmmm!



Oceans

Can we fill the arena with flesh eating ants? THAT is something I'd pay
to watch.

Thanks Horseracer. Glad to help.


Oceans

I have been researching the reasons for the Soviet Invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979, and how they were able to do it for 3 months, I am
so filled with these facts Im about to bust, Ask me Id be glad to tell
you some important facts pertaining to this part of history, and it isnt
what the Us goverment makes know freely.