Taliban Still Denies 9/11 Involvement, Says Was “Excuse” for War on 20th Anniversary

[Rigby5]

haha wrong aQ didn’t exist until 88

Al Qaeda is not what bin Laden or anyone called the Arab foreign legion of the Mujahedeen.
But that is what the Pashtun Mujahedeen taught the Arab foreign legion to say, in order to ask directions back to their base camp if they got lost.
The is all "al Qaeda" means is "base camp" in Pashto.
So all the Arab foreign legion became known as al Qaeda from the very beginning, in 1979.
Al Qaeda existed 1979 as much as it did after 1988.
It was never their official name and was not used by bin Laden or anyone involved.

{...
Experts debate the notion al-Qaeda attacks were an indirect result from the American CIA's Operation Cyclone program to help the Afghan mujahideen. Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, has written that al-Qaeda and bin Laden were "a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies", and that "Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."[410]

Munir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations from 2002 to 2008, wrote in a letter published in The New York Times on January 19, 2008:

The strategy to support the Afghans against Soviet military intervention was evolved by several intelligence agencies, including the C.I.A. and Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. After the Soviet withdrawal, the Western powers walked away from the region, leaving behind 40,000 militants imported from several countries to wage the anti-Soviet jihad. Pakistan was left to face the blowback of extremism, drugs and guns.[411]

...}

 

[struth]

Kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil and would not forgive the OPEC quota debt from when Saddam was fighting Iran. Kuwait was in the wrong.

Meanwhile, the Saudis had forgiven Saddam's OPEC debt.

You know very little about the Middle East.

Israel wanted Saddam deposed. See Clean Break Strategy.

hahaa kuwait was in the wrong! haha

 

[struth]

How did Saddam ever do anything but what we told him to do?

Here are the transcripts of US ambassador to Iraq, April Glasspie, giving Saddam permission to invade Iraq.
If you don't like the link, do a search. The transcripts are the same. This was just the first hit.

{...

A Meeting Between Saddam and U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie​

Excerpts from an article by David Figrut titled: Operation Desert Storm: Outright Disinformation Scheme


On July 25, 1990, eight days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a quiet, largely unreported meeting took place between Saddam Hussein and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, which has since been destroyed by the war. The transcript of this meeting is as follows:

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I have lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?"

Saddam Hussein:

"As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we [the Iraqis] meet [with the Kuwaitis] and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death."

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"What solutions would be acceptable?"

Saddam Hussein:

"If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (which, in Saddam's view, includes Kuwait) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?"

(Pause, then Ambassador Glaspie speaks carefully)

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

(Saddam smiles.)



THE GREEN LIGHT AND THE LIMOSINE
At a Washington press conference called the next day, State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler was asked by journalists:

"Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Kuwait? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?"

to which she responded:

"I'm entirely unaware of any such protest."

On July 31st, two days before the Iraqi invasion, John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, testified to Congress that the

"United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the U.S. has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq."

Eight days later, on August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein's massed troops invaded and occupied Kuwait (ironically, this was done in a method historically similar to the American anexation of Texas). One month later in Baghdad, British journalists obtained the tape and transcript of the Hussein-Glaspie meeting on July 25, 1990. In order to verify this astounding information, they attempted to confront Ms. Glaspie as she was leaving the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Journalist 1:

"Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador?"

(Ambassador Glaspie does not respond)

Journalist 2:

"You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait), but you didn't warn him not to. You didn't tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the oppose - that America was not associated with Kuwait."

Journalist 1:

"You encouraged this aggression - his invasion. What were you thinking?"

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

"Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take ALL of Kuwait."
...}

A Meeting Between Saddam and U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie - Radio Islam

www.islam-radio.net

haha we never told i’m to torture his own people, use WMDs on his own people or invade Kuwait

 

[struth]

How could the Taliban have helped to attack us?
Afghanistan has nothing to do with any of the Saudi attackers.
Nor did the Taliban have anything to gain or any score to settle.

haha they gave aid and a place of operation. for AQ

 

[Rigby5]

hahaa kuwait was in the wrong! haha

Absolutely true.
Iraq was in great debt from the war with Iran, and could not repay debts because Kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil by slant drilling, and dumping it way below the agreed upon OPEC prices. Kuwait was in effect, bankrupting Iraq.

Even more is that the Emir of Kuwait was not really a Kuwaiti, but a member of a nomadic Bedouin tribe the British had picked to rule when they stole Kuwait from Iraq around 1890. The Bedouins had juar been hired as body guards, and had no business ruling in Kuwait.

 

[Rigby5]

haha we never told i’m to torture his own people, use WMDs on his own people or invade Kuwait

Wrong again.
It was Saddam who started the false rumor about torture.
It prevents the majority Shia from rebellion.
The western media printed an incredible series of deliberate lies about Saddam.
For example, Sports Illustrated ran an article about the Olympic volleyball team being tortured, but when the actual members of the team were questioned after the US had captured Iraq, they all said the article was entirely false, fake, made up.
The same was true with all the WMD claims.
Saddam never used WMD on civilians.
The actual incident was Hellabjah, and it was the Iranians who gassed the town.

 

[Rigby5]

haha they gave aid and a place of operation. for AQ

Again, the people who attacked the US on 9/11 had never been to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan gave them no aid or any place of operations.
The main planner for the 9/11 attack was Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and he was in Indonesia at the time.
We have his confessions.

 

[Confederate Soldier]

Like I would believe what a terrorist has to say...

 

[basquebromance]

the biggest tragedy of 9/11 is that Pakistan knowingly harbored Osama for years and were not made to pay the price by the US

Pakistan hid Bin Laden in order to coax the US to continue the war on terror, and to keep US financial assistance flowing

 

[Rigby5]

Like I would believe what a terrorist has to say...

I heard he was waterboarded 183 times, so likely they got the truth out of him, and then some.

 

[Rigby5]

the biggest tragedy of 9/11 is that Pakistan knowingly harbored Osama for years and were not made to pay the price by the US

Pakistan hid Bin Laden in order to coax the US to continue the war on terror, and to keep US financial assistance flowing

the biggest tragedy of 9/11 is that Pakistan knowingly harbored Osama for years and were not made to pay the price by the US

Pakistan hid Bin Laden in order to coax the US to continue the war on terror, and to keep US financial assistance flowing

Since Khalid Sheik Mohammed confessed and evidence of his planning it was found, what makes you think Osama bin Laden even had a thing to do with it?
He did eventually take credit for it, but lots of people did.

 

[Confederate Soldier]

I heard he was waterboarded 183 times, so likely they got the truth out of him, and then some.

I heard that Santa Claus is real, so who knows. Maybe.

 

[bripat9643]

I don't recall the Taliban ever being involved in 9-11. We invaded Afghanistan because they were supposedly hiding bin Laden and wouldn't turn him over.

Al Queda had a base there, didn't it?

 

[Rigby5]

Al Queda had a base there, didn't it?

The meaning of al Qaeda in Pasto is "base camp".
It is what the CIA taught the Arab foreign legion of the Mujahedeen to say if they got lost and needed directions back to camp.
So there really was no organization known as al Qaeda. They were just the Saudis and other Arabs the CIA had recruited into the Mujahedeen.

 

[basquebromance]

 

[Rigby5]

If you do not allow foreigners to get a driver's license in your state, then they by law can legally use foreign driver's license to drive in the US.
So which is better?
The 9/11 highjackers were legal and had visas.
There was no need for them to have a driver's license in order to fly.
A driver's license is not necessary in order to fly.

 

[ClaireH]

The following source provides a good run down of specifics, not media interpreted half-facts. I would encourage anyone interested in anything minutely related to Afghanistan to give it a read.

I will add that the checkable details of this source are in conflict with a couple of comments that have been made in this thread.

The source comes from Muslim scholars, not exactly politicize talking points. There is also an obvious lack of any hint that Afghans support the Taliban as being a “favorite”. That is false for all non-Pashtun relatives of Taliban leaders. No way do Aghans consider it a good time to be alive as a woman or a child in Afghanistan, and certainly not for any of the minorities. They have already restarted marrying off girls at age 12 to the Taliban leaders.

“The systematic massacre of ethnic minorities included the Hazaras – the Taliban executed more than 15,000 Hazara Muslims just based on their ethnicity and sectarian differences – with the ethnic cleansing in Mazar-I-Sharif in 1998 being one of the worst massacre campaigns of the Taliban with 6000 killed.”

The History of the Taliban: A Look at Afghanistan Then and Now

To understand the current humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan today, we need to go back in history - who exactly are the Taliban, where did they co ...

themuslimvibe.com

 

[ClaireH]

The following source provides a good run down of specifics, not media interpreted half-facts. I would encourage anyone interested in anything minutely related to Afghanistan to give it a read.

I will add that the checkable details of this source are in conflict with a couple of comments that have been made in this thread.

The source comes from Muslim scholars, not exactly politicize talking points. There is also an obvious lack of any hint that Afghans support the Taliban as being a “favorite”. That is false for all non-Pashtun relatives of Taliban leaders. No way do Aghans consider it a good time to be alive as a woman or a child in Afghanistan, and certainly not for any of the minorities. They have already restarted marrying off girls at age 12 to the Taliban leaders.

“The systematic massacre of ethnic minorities included the Hazaras – the Taliban executed more than 15,000 Hazara Muslims just based on their ethnicity and sectarian differences – with the ethnic cleansing in Mazar-I-Sharif in 1998 being one of the worst massacre campaigns of the Taliban with 6000 killed.”

The History of the Taliban: A Look at Afghanistan Then and Now

To understand the current humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan today, we need to go back in history - who exactly are the Taliban, where did they co ...

themuslimvibe.com

Wanted to add a lot of this government they just announced these are men who were the leaders in the late 90s they’re just older. It is not about the “younger generation” replacing the old guard, like national media misinformed the public.

 

[Rigby5]

I was concerned abut the 15,000 dead Hazaras until I read that was really over 15 years of fighting, and that they are 4 million Hazaras in Afghanistan.

 

[ClaireH]

I was concerned abut the 15,000 dead Hazaras until I read that was really over 15 years of fighting, and that they are 4 million Hazaras in Afghanistan.

I understand your point that spreading out the killings over 15 years makes it “less impactful” if you will, but even with 400 million total Hazaras they are a targeted minority and always have been since Taliban’s inception at Kandahar from my current understanding. Is the Taliban’s hatred of Hazaras based only because they are a different ethnicity or are there multiple factors? I plan to learn more about the historical divisions among these ethnic factions but interested in your opinion.