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Article: US in direct talks with Taliban
- Thread starter rpm
- Start date
The administration President Barack Obama has entered into direct, secret talks with senior Afghan Taliban officials, The New Yorker magazine reported Friday.
The talks were characterized in the story as an attempt by the Obama administration "to assess which figures in the Taliban's leadership, if any, might be willing to engage in formal Afghan peace negotiations, and under what conditions."
The talks were characterized in the story as an attempt by the Obama administration "to assess which figures in the Taliban's leadership, if any, might be willing to engage in formal Afghan peace negotiations, and under what conditions."
LazyLion
King of de Jungle
Hmmm, this should have been attempted from the start, although it is a long shot negotiating with an organisation that thinks you are the "Great Satan" and is bent on your destruction. But at least they could have found out why? 
But I'm glad the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan. They are a bunch of blood thirsty murderers, racists and misogynists. Just like Al Qaeda. Pity they could not wipe them all out.
But I'm glad the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan. They are a bunch of blood thirsty murderers, racists and misogynists. Just like Al Qaeda. Pity they could not wipe them all out.The US CIA created the Taliban in Pakistan back in 1978. They were trained to take out the 'Soviet threat' to the oil rich region back in the cold war. A region they always wanted to control and make money out of. The US provided $6 billion for building up these Islamic groups (mujaheddin factions).
The creation of the Taliban was central to Pakistan's "pan-Islamic vision, and run under Inter Services Intelligence, the intelligence wing of the Pakistani government. By 1987, 65,000 tons of weaponry had been being supplied by the US each year as long as they committed to spreading an extremely anti-democratic form of Islam known as Wahhabism. The most fundamentalist mujaheddin factions received the lion's share of arms and funds, supported by Pakistan military dictator General Zia ul Haq — with Washington's full knowledge and support.
With CIA funds, the ISI (run by Osama Bin Laden) built camps for the “trainees” inside Afghanistan. The Pakistan and Saudi state-sponsored religious sects provided “ideological” instruction. The CIA and the British SAS provided training in urban terrorism and guerilla warfare.
With the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of the PDPA government, Washington's interest in developments in Afghanistan waned. The brutal mujaheddin bandits had served their purpose as far as the US was concerned.
The CIA left the job of managing the mujaheddin to the ISI. While covert US funding for the mujaheddin officially ended in 1992, the contra factions retained huge stockpiles of US-supplied arms — including hundreds of US- and British-supplied surface-to-air missiles.
Nor were they short of funds. Since 1979, the US had turned a blind eye to the mujaheddin's massive opium trafficking and smuggling rackets, which the contras had developed in collaboration with senior officers of the Pakistan military, the ISI and Pakistan-based mafia. During all this time, religious leaders and community leaders rejected the US and UK's growing insistence to democratise their region, seeing it as a threat to their religion and way of life. At that point (1998), Washington turned against the Taliban regime and threw the first stone — with a barrage of 70 or so cruise missiles, because the Taliban refused to assist in controlling the Islamic fundamentalists it was sheltering within Afghanistan's borders, the most notorious being Bin Laden.
It's all about black gold (Oil)
The US — as it did 11 years ago before the Gulf War — is mobilising a massive military force to attack a Third World country. The US rulers are not primarily responding to the September 11 mass murders — although that provides a useful justification — just as the 1990-91 US response to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait had little to do with defending the rights of small states or stopping weapons on mass destruction.
Behind all the US rulers' pious condemnations of terrorism and TV controlled network spread tears for the 6000 victims of the September 11 attacks, the real goal of a US attack on Afghanistan will be the same as that of the Gulf War: the US rulers’ need to maintain their military and political domination over the oil-rich states of the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
Control over the oil of the former Soviet Central Asian states is also a new and increasingly important factor in US policy.
Addressing a conference in December 1996, then deputy director for intelligence at the CIA, John C. Gannon, was candid: “The area of the world where energy supplies are most abundant and at the same time most vulnerable is the Persian Gulf ... As a consequence, the US will need to ... remain engaged in the Persian Gulf to safeguard the flow of vital oil supplies ... There's no room to be complacent. It was six years ago that the United States and its allies were building up the forces and collectively spending more than $60 billion to ensure the security of oil supplies in the Gulf.”
“Energy security”, as ruling-class pundits refer to US control of the world's oil supply, is becoming a greater problem. The developed capitalist countries are becoming more dependent on Middle Eastern oil, not less. An economic recession makes the US capitalist rulers’ desire to keep and extend their control of the world's main oil reserves even more essential.
Central to US political domination of the Middle East is the existence of the imperialist colonial-settler state of Israel — Washington's key ally in the region — and the pro-US regimes in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan.
Bin Laden only became a “terrorist” in US propaganda when he fell out with the Saudi royal family and called for the overthrow of Washington's Middle Eastern client states, and to bring the Islamic world back to sovereign rule by it's own people and value system.
The Taliban's Afghanistan only became a “rogue state” when it did not follow Washington's orders to put a brake on the movement of religious fanatics, that the CIA helped create, which is bent on driving the US out of the Muslim world.
The reference to oil and pipelines explains everything. Since the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, U.S. oil companies and their friends in the US State Department have been salivating at the prospect of gaining access to the huge oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea and in Central Asia.
These have been estimated as worth $4 trillion. The American Petroleum Institute calls the Caspian region "the area of greatest resource potential outside of the Middle East." And while he was still CEO of Halliburton, the world's biggest oil services company, Vice President Dick Cheney told other industry executives, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." The struggle to control these stupendous resources has given rise to what Rashid has dubbed the "new Great Game," pitting shifting alliances of governments and oil and gas consortia against one another.
Afghanistan itself has no known oil or gas reserves, but it is an attractive route for pipelines leading to Pakistan, India, and the Arabian Sea. In the mid-1990s, a consortium led by the California-based Unocal Corporation proposed a $4.5 billion oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. But this would Us democracy styled governments in Afghanistan itself. Thus began several years in which U.S. policy in the region centred on "romancing the Taliban." According to one report. for obvious reasons this did not pan out as planned. Bin Laden was the most vocal against these conditions, which gave no benefit to the inhabitants of the region.
Whatever the U.S. government's current rhetoric about the repressive nature of the Taliban regime, its long history of intervention in the region has been motivated not by concern for democracy, uplifting and rebuilding a region they destroyed in their war with Russia or human rights, but by the narrow economic and political interests of the U.S. ruling class.
The USA has a lot to answer for themselves. They are prepared to aid and support the most retrograde elements if it thought a temporary advantage would be the result. Now Washington has launched a war against its former allies based on a strategic calculation that the Taliban can no longer be relied upon to provide a stable, U.S, styled government that can serve its strategic interests. No matter what the outcome, the war is certain to lay the grounds for more "blowback" in the future, more lucrative contracts for U.S arms manufactures and billions of dollars in interest earned by private bankers who are loaning the US all this cash to keep engaged in senseless wars.
My disclaimer:
I am not a Muslim or a Taliban sympathiser. Both sides share equal guilt in this ongoing and never-ending feud over control over the Arab world. Both sides are equally responsible for the destruction of the way of life of the people of these regions and the countless innocent deaths that have occurred. My personal belief is that we have to look beyond the US government and it's allies or Bin Laden to find out what is fanning this 'War on Terrorism' and war on 'Western Imperialism'.
I don't believe they are opposites in the grader scheme of this, but opposames. If we want to get to the heart of the matter, I believe we have to follow the money trail. Who is funding all of this and making it possible to go on so long? My conclusions is that it's the private banking cartels and arms manufactures, all whom are happy to play both sides of the fence and rake in trillions of dollars as long as these two sides keep at each other's throat. These are the TRUE war criminals, terrorists and sponsors of hate. These unscrupulous and callous scum bags always escape any sort of criticism or inquiry into their part on all of this. They sit back in the shadows and rub their hands with glee each time the US goes to war, or a 'terrorist / freedom fighter' gets mad enough to blow something up.
The creation of the Taliban was central to Pakistan's "pan-Islamic vision, and run under Inter Services Intelligence, the intelligence wing of the Pakistani government. By 1987, 65,000 tons of weaponry had been being supplied by the US each year as long as they committed to spreading an extremely anti-democratic form of Islam known as Wahhabism. The most fundamentalist mujaheddin factions received the lion's share of arms and funds, supported by Pakistan military dictator General Zia ul Haq — with Washington's full knowledge and support.
With CIA funds, the ISI (run by Osama Bin Laden) built camps for the “trainees” inside Afghanistan. The Pakistan and Saudi state-sponsored religious sects provided “ideological” instruction. The CIA and the British SAS provided training in urban terrorism and guerilla warfare.
With the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of the PDPA government, Washington's interest in developments in Afghanistan waned. The brutal mujaheddin bandits had served their purpose as far as the US was concerned.
The CIA left the job of managing the mujaheddin to the ISI. While covert US funding for the mujaheddin officially ended in 1992, the contra factions retained huge stockpiles of US-supplied arms — including hundreds of US- and British-supplied surface-to-air missiles.
Nor were they short of funds. Since 1979, the US had turned a blind eye to the mujaheddin's massive opium trafficking and smuggling rackets, which the contras had developed in collaboration with senior officers of the Pakistan military, the ISI and Pakistan-based mafia. During all this time, religious leaders and community leaders rejected the US and UK's growing insistence to democratise their region, seeing it as a threat to their religion and way of life. At that point (1998), Washington turned against the Taliban regime and threw the first stone — with a barrage of 70 or so cruise missiles, because the Taliban refused to assist in controlling the Islamic fundamentalists it was sheltering within Afghanistan's borders, the most notorious being Bin Laden.
It's all about black gold (Oil)
The US — as it did 11 years ago before the Gulf War — is mobilising a massive military force to attack a Third World country. The US rulers are not primarily responding to the September 11 mass murders — although that provides a useful justification — just as the 1990-91 US response to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait had little to do with defending the rights of small states or stopping weapons on mass destruction.
Behind all the US rulers' pious condemnations of terrorism and TV controlled network spread tears for the 6000 victims of the September 11 attacks, the real goal of a US attack on Afghanistan will be the same as that of the Gulf War: the US rulers’ need to maintain their military and political domination over the oil-rich states of the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
Control over the oil of the former Soviet Central Asian states is also a new and increasingly important factor in US policy.
Addressing a conference in December 1996, then deputy director for intelligence at the CIA, John C. Gannon, was candid: “The area of the world where energy supplies are most abundant and at the same time most vulnerable is the Persian Gulf ... As a consequence, the US will need to ... remain engaged in the Persian Gulf to safeguard the flow of vital oil supplies ... There's no room to be complacent. It was six years ago that the United States and its allies were building up the forces and collectively spending more than $60 billion to ensure the security of oil supplies in the Gulf.”
“Energy security”, as ruling-class pundits refer to US control of the world's oil supply, is becoming a greater problem. The developed capitalist countries are becoming more dependent on Middle Eastern oil, not less. An economic recession makes the US capitalist rulers’ desire to keep and extend their control of the world's main oil reserves even more essential.
Central to US political domination of the Middle East is the existence of the imperialist colonial-settler state of Israel — Washington's key ally in the region — and the pro-US regimes in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan.
Bin Laden only became a “terrorist” in US propaganda when he fell out with the Saudi royal family and called for the overthrow of Washington's Middle Eastern client states, and to bring the Islamic world back to sovereign rule by it's own people and value system.
The Taliban's Afghanistan only became a “rogue state” when it did not follow Washington's orders to put a brake on the movement of religious fanatics, that the CIA helped create, which is bent on driving the US out of the Muslim world.
The reference to oil and pipelines explains everything. Since the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, U.S. oil companies and their friends in the US State Department have been salivating at the prospect of gaining access to the huge oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea and in Central Asia.
These have been estimated as worth $4 trillion. The American Petroleum Institute calls the Caspian region "the area of greatest resource potential outside of the Middle East." And while he was still CEO of Halliburton, the world's biggest oil services company, Vice President Dick Cheney told other industry executives, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." The struggle to control these stupendous resources has given rise to what Rashid has dubbed the "new Great Game," pitting shifting alliances of governments and oil and gas consortia against one another.
Afghanistan itself has no known oil or gas reserves, but it is an attractive route for pipelines leading to Pakistan, India, and the Arabian Sea. In the mid-1990s, a consortium led by the California-based Unocal Corporation proposed a $4.5 billion oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. But this would Us democracy styled governments in Afghanistan itself. Thus began several years in which U.S. policy in the region centred on "romancing the Taliban." According to one report. for obvious reasons this did not pan out as planned. Bin Laden was the most vocal against these conditions, which gave no benefit to the inhabitants of the region.
Whatever the U.S. government's current rhetoric about the repressive nature of the Taliban regime, its long history of intervention in the region has been motivated not by concern for democracy, uplifting and rebuilding a region they destroyed in their war with Russia or human rights, but by the narrow economic and political interests of the U.S. ruling class.
The USA has a lot to answer for themselves. They are prepared to aid and support the most retrograde elements if it thought a temporary advantage would be the result. Now Washington has launched a war against its former allies based on a strategic calculation that the Taliban can no longer be relied upon to provide a stable, U.S, styled government that can serve its strategic interests. No matter what the outcome, the war is certain to lay the grounds for more "blowback" in the future, more lucrative contracts for U.S arms manufactures and billions of dollars in interest earned by private bankers who are loaning the US all this cash to keep engaged in senseless wars.
My disclaimer:
I am not a Muslim or a Taliban sympathiser. Both sides share equal guilt in this ongoing and never-ending feud over control over the Arab world. Both sides are equally responsible for the destruction of the way of life of the people of these regions and the countless innocent deaths that have occurred. My personal belief is that we have to look beyond the US government and it's allies or Bin Laden to find out what is fanning this 'War on Terrorism' and war on 'Western Imperialism'.
I don't believe they are opposites in the grader scheme of this, but opposames. If we want to get to the heart of the matter, I believe we have to follow the money trail. Who is funding all of this and making it possible to go on so long? My conclusions is that it's the private banking cartels and arms manufactures, all whom are happy to play both sides of the fence and rake in trillions of dollars as long as these two sides keep at each other's throat. These are the TRUE war criminals, terrorists and sponsors of hate. These unscrupulous and callous scum bags always escape any sort of criticism or inquiry into their part on all of this. They sit back in the shadows and rub their hands with glee each time the US goes to war, or a 'terrorist / freedom fighter' gets mad enough to blow something up.
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LazyLion
King of de Jungle
um, yeah... do you have any links or sources for all of this speculation?
A tinfoil hat is all you need
The Obamasiah is following in his footsteps...
Jimmy the Peanut just gave the Egyptians the kiss of death by lavishing praise on the Muslim Brotherhood.
After all this is what he said about North Korea
:erm:
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@ Garyvdh
All of this is common knowledge already in the public domain. The main problem we all face is that billions of people around the world have only been hearing one side of the story for decades that they generally never dare question the facts, or look at the situation within a broader context. The 'War of Terrorism' has become a new religion of blind acceptance and unwavering devotion. I'd go a far as to say that more people on Earth think Bin Laden is a devil, than people believe Jesus is a saviour for that matter. LOL
Do a few Google searches on the facts I have presented and you will be amazed how deep the rabbit hole goes. No, I'm not talking about tin hat blogs. I'm talking about official government sources and candid speeches by people involved since the start. With time, the lies are falling apart and secrets are being reveals that paint a totally different picture. The truth will set us free.
All of this is common knowledge already in the public domain. The main problem we all face is that billions of people around the world have only been hearing one side of the story for decades that they generally never dare question the facts, or look at the situation within a broader context. The 'War of Terrorism' has become a new religion of blind acceptance and unwavering devotion. I'd go a far as to say that more people on Earth think Bin Laden is a devil, than people believe Jesus is a saviour for that matter. LOL
Do a few Google searches on the facts I have presented and you will be amazed how deep the rabbit hole goes. No, I'm not talking about tin hat blogs. I'm talking about official government sources and candid speeches by people involved since the start. With time, the lies are falling apart and secrets are being reveals that paint a totally different picture. The truth will set us free.
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@alf101
It is 'Common Knowledge' to a growing amount of people who are not prepared to blindly accept the stories as they are told in newspapers and tv.
History is written by the perceived winners or more powerful, history has been proven again and again to be filled with liars.
Unfortunately the majority of people have never questioned why bin Laden turned on the US, who trained him and armed him for decades.
They see him as a man who organised planes to fly into the twin towers. Ones we saw on every TV channel and in every newspaper on Earth.
Did we get equal opportunity to view the images of the thousands of people killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Regions by the US and their Allies? No
WHY?
It is 'Common Knowledge' to a growing amount of people who are not prepared to blindly accept the stories as they are told in newspapers and tv.
History is written by the perceived winners or more powerful, history has been proven again and again to be filled with liars.
Unfortunately the majority of people have never questioned why bin Laden turned on the US, who trained him and armed him for decades.
They see him as a man who organised planes to fly into the twin towers. Ones we saw on every TV channel and in every newspaper on Earth.
Did we get equal opportunity to view the images of the thousands of people killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Regions by the US and their Allies? No
WHY?
@alf101
Because I propose a different view based on a set of non-popularised facts out there, and a growing knowledge-base of events not congruent with 'popularised beliefs', I deserve the label some sort of whacko?
I'd like to see your views on the subject matter at hand, without shooting the messenger.
Are you capable on doing that constructively and with an open mind?
Because I propose a different view based on a set of non-popularised facts out there, and a growing knowledge-base of events not congruent with 'popularised beliefs', I deserve the label some sort of whacko?
I'd like to see your views on the subject matter at hand, without shooting the messenger.
Are you capable on doing that constructively and with an open mind?
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I dunno your beliefs seem rather popular nowadays.
seventhson
Expert Member
IT is. Every knows that the cia helped create the Taliban. they used them to fight the Russians back then.
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seventhson
Expert Member
Well you know what I mean
You're confusing the Mujahideen with the Taliban. Not the same thing. Simple mistake many make unfortunately. The Taliban did not exist in the 80s
MidnightWizard
Executive Member
OIL
Best you do some checking on just exactly where the US gets it's oil from these days ?
You might be suprised !
"Peak-Oil" -- they are discovering new deposits every second day.
Best you do some checking on just exactly where the US gets it's oil from these days ?
You might be suprised !
"Peak-Oil" -- they are discovering new deposits every second day.