Sauron

No.

Not any more than the US freezing Iranian assets counts as "terrorism" against Iran. It's economic tit-for-tat.

Sauron

Try reading the article, Loren.

"We would be ready to hand him over to a third country," one that would never "come under pressure from the United States," if those two conditions were met, Deputy Prime Minister Haji Abdul Kabir said.

The offer came exactly one week after Bush ordered military strikes in Afghanistan in his campaign to eradicate terrorism. The morning of the strikes, Bush rejected a similar offer from the Taliban.

garraty

Invading Iran is a fucking brilliant idea!

Just think of it, from Israel to India you have pissed off, bombed out, young Muslim men with no jobs, no food and no water, and only one thing to blame for it: U.S. aggression.

And all this for just the low low cost of $30 billion a month!

I wonder how many sniffer dogs that would pay for to check the thousands of shipping containers (how else do these newly pissed off terrorists get a nuke into the U.S.?) that arrive on your shore everyday?

How many geiger counters?

The simple fact is that military might does absolutely fuck all when it comes to stopping terrorism, all it does is fuel it.

If the U.S. had of spent a quarter of it's Iraq invasion budget on joint police operations, or on deals to make certain Generals crack down a little harder on their populace you might have caught Bin Laden by now.

Look at the difference between Bali and 9/11, look at the reactions of the victims involved and look at how many of the organisers of both attacks have been caught, and the way in which they have been caught.

How many terrorists caught during the Afghan invasion? How many caught by Pakistani police?

And speaking of dirty bombs,
you are looking in all the wrong places, wake up and smell the cesium, it aint the Arab fanatics you should be worried about, it's the ex USSR muslim states and SE Asia that should be your concern.

But nah, go bomb Iran, considering how much safer the U.S. is after Afghanistan and Iraq bombing Iran will ensure you never have to worry about terror again!

Genghis Pwn

Garraty, the only people capable of builing a nuke are governments like that of Iran. We can chase Al Qaeda all over the planet and never catch all of them. Meanwhile, some crazed Mullah in Iran can slip them a nuke. Doesn't it make more sense to make sure that nuke never gets built in the first place?

Think about it.

Autonemesis

That's impossible. Think about it.

Genghis Pwn

Lets see. We can...

A) Try to prevent a handful of known rogue states from producing nuclear weapons that could fall into the wrong hands.

or...

B) Try to round up or kill tens of thousands of likely Islamic militant bombers willing to detontate nukes in the US.

Which one sounds more effective to you?

shome42

Read the article. Here are quotes from it:

"In Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime told reporters today that the Taliban also would require evidence that bin Laden was behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."

"We would be ready to hand him over to a third country," one that would never "come under pressure from the United States," if those two conditions were met, Deputy Prime Minister Haji Abdul Kabir said.

SOOOO.....the Taliban did not offer Osama to Bush on a silver platter as you imply. They offered him up on the condition that Bush proved he was part of 9/11 attacks.

The Taliban wanted to have a de facto trial of Osama during the bombing of Afghanistan. That's a rather ridiculous proposition, no?

Can you imagine the back and forth arguing over evidence whilst Osama is burrowing deeper into some cave???

Not to mention that there is no reason to trust the Taliban actually could or would turn over Bin Laden as they claimed.

Oh, and did I mention their offer was a little friggin late??!!!

ex-idaho, I'm no Bush fan, but your accusations of him are misleading and out of context. The Taliban's "offer" to give up Bin Laden was attached to a million strings and a blatant delaying tactic.

Oh, and they offered to hand him over to a "third country that would never come under pressure from the United States." What the hell does that mean? Iran?

Optional

No, two strings. They would have been sticking their necks out a looooooong way even by doing THAT. Handing bin Ladin over to ANYBODY for ANY REASON would have been TREMENDOUSLY unpopular, and might have gotten the government overthrown with all leaders of said government strung up on the nearest tree.

Making the two conditions that some evedince be presented that bin Ladin WAS in fact involved, and that some neutral third party country be the one to try him... AND that the offer was not made until after the first bomb had fallen, proving to everybody that the US was deadly seriuous... Was the best they could do, politically. A president that actually cared about peace and death would have at least tried to take them up on it. BushCo did not care, they wanted a war, and they GOT a war.

I'm not saying here that Afghanistan was totally unnecesary, I haven't really made up my mind still on that... But to claim that the taliban leaders acted as they did out of pure fanaticism is just inaccurate, IMO.

-me

simian

I just want to point out the way Bush seems to operate:

1. Identify the new Great Satan of the world.

2. Make claims about the Great Satan.

3. When asked to produce evidence of claims, state that to do so would endanger your sources.

4. Question the patiotism (or humanity, or goodness) of anybody who disagrees with you. State that they hate America.

5. Restate the claims about the Great Satan, as though they have been proven.

6. Repeat steps 3-5 until 3 no longer occurs.

7. Claim you were right all along.

Works for Bin Laden (I don't remember seeing any evidence from the US government, certainly not before the invasion of Afghanistan), Saddam (although there are quite a few question FINALLY being raised due to no WMDs being found), it also works for any dark-skinned people you want to hold without charging with any crime or ever taking to trial.

Here's a hint - anybody could be the next "enemy of the state" undeserving of legal representation or even knowing the charges against them.

Simian

shome42

This boils down to two things-- credibility and ability. The Taliban had neither, and the President was correct in not wasting his time in negotiations.

There's no reason to believe the Taliban were serious about their offer. First, they had no motivation to hand over Bin Laden. He's their fundy Islamic idol. Handing him over would have been against their principles and policial suicide. Plus, I really think they were convinced they could beat America in a war. Recall at the time that they considered themselves invincible after defeating the Russians. America had not proved its military ability yet. I can remember T.V. shows about Afghanstian being the burial ground of many an invading army.

As well, do you think they actually could have captured Bin Laden if they wanted to? The man has eluded the most skilled and well funded law enforcement agencies in the world for years, yet you think the Taliban could have caught him? Binny would have been long gone by the time the Taliban decided to hand him over.