i just found it while i was trying to get a definition for the word "taliban"
note the date and the copyright date in particular..... Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban By Robert Scheer Published May 22, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times
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.
Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.
The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women?
At no point in modern history have women and girls been more systematically abused than in Afghanistan where, in the name of madness masquerading as Islam, the government in Kabul obliterates their fundamental human rights. Women may not appear in public without being covered from head to toe with the oppressive shroud called the burkha , and they may not leave the house without being accompanied by a male family member. They've not been permitted to attend school or be treated by male doctors, yet women have been banned from practicing medicine or any profession for that matter.
....The Taliban may suddenly be the dream regime of our own war drug war zealots, but in the end this alliance will prove a costly failure. Our long sad history of signing up dictators in the war on drugs demonstrates the futility of building a foreign policy on a domestic obsession. - - -
posted
what never ceases to amaze me is how people like strider are able see right past the facts and latch onto the propaganda...
strider stated and i COPY Hussein murdered hundreds of thousands, the current insurgency has murders thousands.
never mind that it was in a war we were SUPPORTING him in....
there is no proof that Hussein murdered that many...and i called him on it...
he still argued the point and when i show him why he's wrong? he still refuses to re-examine his belief system that is based on propaganda...
i never said hussein was a good guy, or that we should support him, but as far as i can tell? hussein will be tried for dispensing justice in the style of the region... much as Israel does and continues to do to the Palestinians...
hussein may have murdered tens of thousands, but the trial that has just started is for 182 men and boys in a TRIBE that attempted to assassinate him.... in our justice system? that is unacceptable, but in their justice system? those people KNEW EXACTLY what risks they were taking when they tried to assassinate him....
and?
i bet that in the US? the same sort of thing COULD happen given certain circumatances...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Your opening line is very interesting and I agree that many people do look right past the facts and grasp onto the propaganda. I however am not one of them.
Most of my information comes direct from the main stream media, not some left or right wing extremist websit. This information is nearly always backed up by several other news organizations. While that doesn't always guarentee it is correct, it is a lot more reliable than some of the sources I've seen listed here.
The serious propaganda is going to come from several sources, the DNC, the RNC, Al Jazera, and any number of left wing and right wing organizations. The truth normally is somewhat in between the two extremes and while I have very little respect for the mainstream media, they remain in between. The more data and references they include with their reports, the more reliable the report.
I've seen a report on a list of chemicals and biologicals sent by the US to Iraq. That was all it was yet that list proves to several of you that we provided Hussein with WMD's. That is looking past the facts.
I provided 4 different reports from 4 different agencies confirming the Hussein murders of hundreds of thousands. I don't believe that equals you showing me wrong.
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posted
I provided 4 different reports from 4 different agencies confirming the Hussein murders of hundreds of thousands. I don't believe that equals you showing me wrong.
you use the word confirming.... i showed you that NONE of those CONFIRMED anything.... they suggested that hussein had done this in strong terms...big difference...
consider this my way of trying to help you be better at due dilligence in the stock world...
this kind of interrpetation is how people lose their butts...
i am not anti-war, and i am against leaving without finishing th ejob as best we can...
but i am sickened by the propaganda that has bee used inthis fiasco....
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
You showed nothing of the sort. Several of these reports stated the numbers of confirmed mass graves. They suspected something in the neighborhood of 250 sites and to that date had located 40 some odd of them. 40 confirmed mass graves in an ongoing investigation is pretty evident that Hussein was in the mass murder scene. They continue to find the graves today, they just don't get much publicity as they are "old" news to the media. They want bombers, airstrikes, etc.
The only propaganda I've seen was the WMD's being blown way out of proportion in importance to the invasion. That was propaganda. My position based on the cease fire agreement is the only reason we needed to go in. Where have you heard a public official use that arguement. I haven't, so the claim that I am following propaganda is meaningless.
I am folowing histoy. Those who don't learn it or forget it are doomed to repeat it. Hussein invaded two nations trying to get control of their oil fields. He failed in the first, succeeded in the second. As he attacked an allie of ours which also threatened our strategic security through loss of the oil field, we forced him out and placed conditions on him. He failed to meet the conditions. We have seen most obviously in 1930's Germany what happens when you allow a nation to ignore treaty conditions. Hitler did it incrimentally and in the process, conquered two neighbors without so much as firing a shot, consolidated his power and eventually became powerfull enough to conquer most of Europe for a time. People arger that Iraq was not powerfull. Prior to the first Gulf War, they had the 5th largest military in the world. They had wealth in their oil fields and without the sanctions could rebuild. Hitler at the time of Austria and Czechoslavakia was still using cardboard tanks for training purposes. Many of the tanks he used in his blitzkrieg of Poland and France were t-35's and t-38's which were captured in large numbers as well as th factories to produce them from the Czechs.
So history says you take them out while weak to prevent problems in the future.
Again, this isn't an arguement you're seeing anywhere, so how is it I'm following propaganda?
I don't like war, I would have liked for diplomacy to have worked but it wasn't. There is a time for diplomacy and a time to act. Iraq was like a little kid, you keep telling them you are going to do something and never do it, they get emboldened and the only lesson they learn is that you aren't going to do anything. The parent was the UN.
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The kid was bribing the parent. Hussein was on the verge of getting the sanctions dropped without having ever met the conditions set upon him.
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did you read what the definition of a mass grave is???
6 OR MORE BODIES...
so the 53 confirmed sites don't prove anything about the numbers...
Tony blair is the only person saying ON RECORD there are 400,000 bodies...
however? there have been Iranians added to that count...
and i totally disagree that sadam needed to be taken out when we did...
i have always felt that we would have served our OWN interests much better by making Afghanistan a shining beacon of freedom in the mid-east instead(and captured osambinalivetoolong while we did it) instead? afghanistan is now a mockery of freedom: they are free to produce what? 2 tons of heroin a week now?????
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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