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What if we SUPPORTED the Taliban..?

05:17 / 03.10.01

... because more and more it looks like our allies the Northern Alliance are only less oppressive for the simple reason that they're not in power.

here's an action packed article from the village voice about them: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0140/signorile.php

We're The Great Old Ones Now

07:33 / 03.10.01

Well, we kinda did, didn't we? Before they were all Evil Flavour of the Month, way back when they were fighting the Commies...

tom-karika nukes it from orbit

11:14 / 03.10.01

I read that America built them a new sports stadium in their capital. They now use it for public floggings and executions.

Jack The Bodiless

11:48 / 03.10.01

What, like Old Trafford?

11:48 / 03.10.01

if you're gonna cite stuff like that, can you please provide links? not that i disbelieve you, but it would be good to verify that kinda stuff...

12:29 / 03.10.01

Quoted from this Salon article:

The soccer stadium was funded by international aid groups who wanted to raise the spirits of the Afghan people; instead, the Taliban is using it only for executions. One Taliban official told Shah that if the aid groups felt that the stadium should be used for soccer, they should build the Taliban an extra stadium for executions.

[ 03-10-2001: Message edited by: betty woo ]

12:32 / 03.10.01

well, i guess that executions are a more popular sport than watching men kicking a reconstructed big's bladder around....

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:15 / 03.10.01

This was in fact from an interview in that C4 program from a few months back where that reporter smuggled a camera into Afghanistan.

autopilot disengaged

14:51 / 03.10.01

what if we supported...NONE OF THE ABOVE?

quote:Last week on these pages, I suggested that the US could meet its strategic objectives in Afghanistan through peace, rather than war. The Taliban thrive on the fear of outsiders: they invoke a hostile world in the hope that people will cling to them for fear of something worse. A vast humanitarian operation could threaten their gainful isolationism and turn the population against its tormentors.

Some might argue that showering Afghanistan with food rather than bombs would create an incentive for further acts of terror. But Osama bin Laden, if he was indeed linked to the attack on New York, has no interest in the welfare of the Afghan people. Like the Taliban, the social weapons he deploys are misery and insecurity. He seeks not peace, but war. While western aggression will drive Afghans into the arms of the Taliban and their guests, western aid will divide the people from the predators.

Pakistan can continue to withdraw support from the Afghan regime and seek to engineer a bloodless coup. The US can raise the bounty on Bin Laden's capture and surrender for trial at an international tribunal. But if we seek to bludgeon Afghanistan into submission, we will lose the war on terrorism, while inadvertently slaughtering some millions of its inhabitants. We can choose, in other words, between futile genocide and productive peace. It shouldn't be too hard a choice to make.

- George Monbiot, The Guardian

what if we supported the PEOPLE?

09:26 / 04.10.01

ah yes, look -- up until just a few months before the attacks, we were giving millions to the Taliban.

from the LA TIME, May 22 2001
quote:Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

full text

09:26 / 04.10.01

actually, not, sorry.

May 17, 2001

quote: We distribute our assistance in Afghanistan through international agencies of the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations. We provide our aid to the people of Afghanistan, not to Afghanistan's warring factions. Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it. We hope the Taliban will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support for terrorism; their violation of internationally recognized human rights standards, especially their treatment of women and girls; and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan's civil war through a negotiated settlement.

full text

[ 04-10-2001: Message edited by: MJ-12 ]

09:26 / 04.10.01

Damn right, autopilot. Why the hell get bogged down with issues about factions; we may nominally be 'allies' with the Northern Alliance, but only for as long as it takes to oust the Taliban.

What if...we supported Hitler?
What if...we thought Joe Stalin was a lovely man?