The Black Vault

I thought we were still trying to capture Bin Laden...

http://www.thehuntingparty.org/

...talk about being behind the curve.

Capture Bin Laden? Not for a long while yet. His perpetual freedom maintains a strong justification for the allies presence in the country (apart from defeating one-time buddies of the west the Taliban).

About the Taliban being our former ally: What of it? We almost had Saddam for one, when Iran was heating up in '80-81. And Daniel Ortega, who proved too power-hungry. Allies and enemies change all the time. Germany has been an ally of the US many times, also Britain and even Russia. It depends on the situation and the time period. We've fought Germany twice, Britain we warred with for over 25 years, and we had a Cold War against the USSR for 40 years. Allies are a conditional thing, not necessarily 'lifelong friends'. There isn't a nation on Earth that won't look for help where they can get it, and all are guilty of 'sleeping with the enemy' at one time or another. If you think about it, enlisting Al-Qaeda or Taliban for a bit beats global thermonuclear war. Here, have a 500 kiloton taste:
http://zvis.com/nuclear/php/dimg.php?ivy-king,ivyking

A few links for y'all to enjoy:

http://www.hazara.net/taliban/taliban.html
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10551/

(edited by author due to a dead picture link)

Oh I know sometimes governments find it useful to cosy-up to the most unlikely of allies in the endless geopolitical chess game, but it bugs me when 'regime change' is later banded as one reason for then going to war with them.

vulcan6gun wrote:About the Taliban being our former ally: What of it? We almost had Saddam for one, when Iran was heating up in '80-81.

Almost?

The sun rises almost everyday.

Exactly what I meant, hxxx. Almost an ally.

The only suggestion otherwise I could locate is from a NY Times article written 40 years after JFK died by a Mr. Roger Morris. (You can tell by his name he's a super-spy who knows all the facts. )

I don't believe we could have pulled of an Iraq coup in 1963 for two reasons. One, the KGB would have known about it and Nikita Kruschev would have blabbed it all over the world.

Two, the US has never had effective spies. IMHO, the CIA couldn't find their collective ass with both their collective hands two times out of three, even with guard rails, GPS and laser sights.

Forget about 'Secret Agent' Pierce Brosnan. If you can picture Ralph Kramden getting screwed/screwed over in the back seat of an Isuzu econobox by some little Russian chippie and losing his career over it, you've got the US spy picture.

Are we any closer to figuring this out? Truth is I'm a wee bit more confused about this topic than when I started reading the thread.
Some think we are there for humanitarian reasons. I thought the role of the military was to smack our enemies in the mouth and make them put their heads down and give their guns up.
Some think we are there for a pipeline through Afghanistan. We already invaded one country for control of natural resources so why not. These first 2 reasons give me a mental picture of workers trying to build/rebuild while soldiers fend off the 'dogs' in the background. This does not seem like a well conceived plan at all and I hope not the case. Once the soldiers leave...
Some think we are there to stamp out the Taliban and terrorism in general. Another ill conceived plan because it'll never happen to the extent that victory can be claimed. If you think Iraq is a quagmire, imagine how far that road goes.
So I'm still left with the question of why. Maybe it is one of those reasons; maybe it's for a combination of reasons; and maybe it's for reasons so well hidden and guarded that no amount of poking and prying by us will ever reveal the truth of it. The power elite will do as the power elite does.
Meanwhile our soldiers continue to pay the price as the military/industrial complex rolls along. I hope those responsible for this mess sleep really bad at night. In reality, they probably feel no shame at all and are without a conscience, much less a guilty one, to keep them up at night.

who said we fought in afghanistan for controlling interests over the oil fields?
someone must have..fess up !

chiselray wrote:who said we fought in afghanistan for controlling interests over the oil fields?
someone must have..fess up !

Are you asking people who believed the only reason for the US-led attacks were for oil to 'fess up?

Are such people worthy of debate in your estimation? Surely any people worth engaging in debate over this matter are those who believe that oil was but one of the reasons?
(Just curious).

I'm still waiting to see the flood of gasoline from all the people who said " Its only about oil".