Who are "the Taliban"? Former US allies.

[Hannah Bell]

Lots of folks talking about the evil Taliban, so I checked out some of the leadership.

High percent of known senior leadership = graduates of the Soviet-Afghan war, fighting for the US-funded mujahideen, & at least one an acknowledged CIA asset.

I note a lot of inconsistencies in the media stories too.


Mohammed Omar:

"leader of the Taliban of Afghanistan" & former mujahideen in the anti-soviet war in afghanistan:

"The mujahideen were significantly financed and armed (and are alleged to have been trained) by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Carter<5> and Reagan administrations, the government of Saudi Arabia, Zia-ul-Haq's military regime in Pakistan, Iran, the People's Republic of China and several Western European countries. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the interagent used in the majority of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahideen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar


Although there is no evidence that the CIA directly supported the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency) provided arms to Afghans resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets.<18> Osama Bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The U.S. poured funds and arms into Afghanistan, and "by 1987, 65,000 tons of U.S.-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war."<19> FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who has been fired from the agency for disclosing sensitive information, has claimed United States was on intimate terms with Taliban and Al-Qaeda, using them to further certain goals in Central Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban


Foreign powers, including the United States, were at first supportive of the Taliban in hopes it would serve as a force to restore order in Afghanistan after years of division into corrupt, lawless warlord fiefdoms. The U.S. government, for example, made no comment when the Taliban captured Herat in 1995 and expelled thousands of girls from schools....In late 1997, American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright began to distance the U.S. from the Taliban and the next year the American-based Unocal, previously having implicitly supported the Taliban in order to build a pipeline south from Central Asia, the oil company withdrew from a major deal with the Taliban regime concerning an oil pipeline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban


Jalaluddin Haqqani/Malawi Jalaludin Haqqani

head of THE HAQQANI NETWORK...arguably the most notorious of the Taliban-linked affiliates in Afghanistan’s eastern region....Haqqani first achieved renown during the mujahideen campaign against the Soviets...

http://www.kabulcenter.org/index_files/Page1223.htm.

In the 1980s, Jalaluddin Haqqani was cultivated as a "unilateral" asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work in fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, according to an account in "The Bin Ladens," a recent book by Steve Coll. At that time, Haqqani helped and protected Osama bin Laden, who was building his own militia to fight the Soviet forces, Coll wrote.

The influential U.S. Congressman, Charlie Wilson, who helped to direct tens of millions dollars to the Afghan resistance, was so enamored of Haqqani that he referred to him as "goodness personified".

In 1995, just prior to the Taliban's occupation of Kabul, he switched his allegiance to them.
During the Taliban years in power, he served as the Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs and governor of Paktia Province....In October, 2001, Haqqani was named the Taliban's military commander...Haqqani has been accused of involvement in the 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul and the February 2009 Kabul raids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalaluddin_Haqqani


Mullah Dadullah or Dadullah Akhund

Taliban's senior military commander until his death in 2007. Dadullah lost a leg when fighting with the Mujahideen against Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadullah


Mullah Mohammad Rabbani:

one of the main founders of the Taliban movement. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979 put a stop to his education as he volunteered for the jihad ((was mujahideen).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Rabbani



Sayed Rahmatullah Hashmi

former envoy of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. As of April 2006, Yale has published the following comment on its website:

Yale has allowed Mr. Hashmi to take courses for college credit in a part-time program that does not award Yale degrees... According to the State Department, Ramatullah Hashmi was issued U.S. visas in 2004 and 2005, first on a tourist visa and then in 2005 on a student visa."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayed_Rahmatullah_Hashemi


Bashir Noorzai

Top Taliban Associate & former Mujahideen warlord...sentenced today to life in prison on heroin importation and distribution conspiracy charges. During the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, Noorzai raised his own army of Mujahideen fighters, financed and armed with drug proceeds.

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3944



Rahmatullah Safi

said to have been a member of the Taliban movement.<1> ...he joined the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, a mujahideen party led by Pir Sayyed Ahmed Gailani, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As a mujahideen commander, he was based in Peshawar...As of 1998, Safi was living in London, England, but departed to Afghanistan along with Nabi Misdak to convince Mullah Omar to hand over Osama bin Laden to foreign authorities.<3> and he was considered the Taliban's European Ambassador according to a United Nations Security Council press release.<1>.

As of 2004, Safi had resigned his military commission and announced his intentions to run in the 2004 Afghan presidential election<4> (but died in 2001!!??)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahmatullah_Safi


Baitullah Mehsud

a veteran of the anti-Soviet ‘jihad’ of the 1980s (though he'd have to have been young)...Days before the Manawan attack near Lahore, on March 26, the United States government offered a $5 million reward for information on Baitullah Mehsud, describing him as a key al-Qaeda facilitator intending to attack the United States. leader of the Taliban umbrella group, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan...

....rumours of his death from kidney failure circulated....killed by US...

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/baitullah-mehsud-who-is-he-ss.



Hamid Karzai

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Western-educated Hamid Karzai served the resistance as an advisor and diplomat, winning the loyalty of the Mujahideen, or "holy warriors," who finally expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan. Karzai was deputy foreign minister in the postwar government from 1992 to 1994, but the country was soon rent by civil war as local warlords competed for power. The Taliban movement sought Karzai's support in restoring order, and offered him the post of United Nations ambassador, but he broke with the new regime when it fell under the influence of foreign terrorists.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/kar0bio-1.

Karzai was involved in helping to provide financial and military support for the Mujahideen during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan.<11> The Mujahideen were secretly supplied and funded by the United States, and Karzai was a contact for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at the time.<12>

When the Taliban emerged in mid 1990s, Karzai, like many other Afghans, was at first one of their supporters but he later broke-up with them and refused to serve as their ambassdor to the United Nations. Even after that, Karzai maintained that "there were many wonderful people in the Taliban."<14>

In an interview with the Oxford International Review on 11th February 2005, Karzai criticised the role the U.S. played in empowering the Taliban to take control in Afghanistan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Karzai

[TankLV]

1. They were mentioned in some song by Harry Belefonte...

Had a good beat and you could dance to it...

[dipsydoodle]

4. Come mister tally man tally me bananas

:rofl:

[armyowalgreens]

7. lol

[stlsaxman]

19. one of the great misquotes in pop history... like "'scuse me while i kiss this guy"

the actual line is- "Come mister Taliban, Talibi-obama"

:rofl:

[cherokeeprogressive]

41. I thought it was "scuse me while I kiss this fly" n/t

[Selatius]

2. Most of these guys are war veterans. They defeated the Red Army.

They've been fighting the US military now for eight years on their home turf, and they are not going to give up. They could probably outlast the US out on the battlefields. I don't know if we can defeat a group of people with that kind of resolve.

In the end, they are just a bunch of poorly equipped guerrilla fighters who are slowly bleeding the American war machine.

[indepat]

14. When will they (the US hierarchy) ever learn, when will they ever learn?

:shrug:

[jacko_be]

22. They will win

@ the end america would not be able to pay his war debt anymore
and the are fought the wrong way ... you can't change them
like vietnam they will win, you cant fight loyalty

[dipsydoodle]

3. Looks like

they should've chosen their friends more carefully. :sarcasm:

Doubtless this will be a lesson to others in the future.

[malaise]

6. They never learn

Ever

[Individualist]

42. No lesson learned so far

SHARANA, Afghanistan -- U.S. commanders here are enlisting some unusual allies: former mujahedeen guerrillas who battled the Russians with tactics now used by the Taliban.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6746712

[rug]

5. And likely future allies.

The war is a fraud.

[TxRider]

38. Which is why diplomacy is going to be tried with them.

Instead of just war alone.

[Are_grits_groceries]

8. The history of the Middle East

and the involvement of the US in various countries is impossible to untangle. You have known government actions, unknown government actions, actions by corporations and private citizens with or without the knowledge of the government, and Lord knows what else.

Then add to that the secret alliances among all the players and it makes a nest of vipers look less lethal.

Both Bushes put us squarely into the worst place in the world to be militarily. It was bad enough that we were meddling already in so many ways.

We still have no idea who all the players are; who is allied with who; who is double-dealing or more.

The only thing I do know is that the contractors like Halliburton are making a ton of money.

We shouldn't waste any more lives in an area that will not change at the point of a gun. They will fight, morph into whatever form works, and rely on their superior knowledge of the land and the people to ultimately win by attrition.

[Hannah Bell]

9. Benazir Bhutto instigated the formation of the Taliban?

3. When Mulla Mohammad Omar formed the Taliban in 1994 at the instance of Maj-Gen.Naserullah Babar, the Interior Minister of Benazir, to escort the cotton convoys of Mr. Asif Zirdari, her husband, from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through the Herat area of Afghanistan, Mulla Dadullah joined it and rose to be the Chief Military Commander of the Taliban's army.

http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded_files/paper2246.html.

http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers%5Cpaper27.html


Asif Ali Zardari (Urdu, Sindhi: آصف علی زرداری) (born 26 July 1955) is the 11th and current President of Pakistan and the Co-Chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Zardari is the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who twice served as Prime Minister of Pakistan. When his wife was assassinated in December 2007, he became the leader of the PPP. He is considered to be among the five richest men in Pakistan with an estimated net worth of US$1.8 billion (2005).<4>

Zardari soon came under investigation in Switzerland over alleged receipts of kickbacks from two Swiss-based companies.<13> Zardari claimed the charges were political in nature, and in 2008 Switzerland closed the case and released Zardari's frozen assets. The chief prosecutor said he had no evidence to bring Zardari to trial.<14>

When Bhutto returned to office in 1993, Zardari was released from jail and became a government minister. In 1996, after a change of government, Zadari was again arrested. From 1997 to 2004, Zardari was kept in jail on various corruption charges and accusations of murder.<15> Pakistani investigators accused Zardari and his wife Benazir for embezzling as much as US$1.5 billion from government accounts.<16> He was also accused of allegedly plotting the murder of Murtaza Bhutto, the brother of his wife Benazir Bhutto.

In 2009, President Zardari told the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) that he wished to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan Article 58 2(b) of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan to limit the powers of the President of Pakistan that had been expanded by previous administrations.<46>

The documents leave uncertain the degree of involvement by Ms. Bhutto, a Harvard graduate whose rise to power in 1988 made her the first woman to lead a Muslim country. But they trace the pervasive role of her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who turned his marriage to Ms. Bhutto into a source of virtually unchallengeable power...

In the largest single payment investigators have discovered, a gold bullion dealer in the Middle East was shown to have deposited at least $10 million into an account controlled by Mr. Zardari after the Bhutto Government gave him a monopoly on gold imports that sustained Pakistan's jewelry industry. The money was deposited into a Citibank account in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai, one of several Citibank accounts for companies owned by Mr. Zardari....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asif_Ali_Zardari.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/oct/14ppp.htm

[Democracyinkind]

10. Of course. The Bhutto family is an instrumental tie in the formal side of the network.

They were instrumental in building the Saudi bomb in Pakistan, too, with a little help from friends in Langley.

Smoke and mirrors.

She might have had to answer some tough questions about North Koreas nuke's too, if she were still alive. Some people in Langley must have been really happy when she died - since they were really pissed when Ramzi Yousef fucked up killing her in the late 80's ... One still wonders if Ramzi wasn't following American orders.... Smoke and mirrors IM QUADRAT.

[Are_grits_groceries]

11. More alliances that are part of the Middle East.

Look closely enough and some US person is probably in the shadows.

[Democracyinkind]

13. US person or US cut-out. It's a clusterfuck of smoke and mirrors.

Every new book I read about our meddling in that part of the world make me go like:

"Wait a minute" ... "I thought THAT guy was OUR friend"... "turns out he works for the other team"-..


And then always, the strange thought that we probably don't even know all the players in the game. When I started looking into this I thought of it as a traditional geopolitcal fuckup, I hadn't even heard of such players as Unocal, Far West Ltd. and Dilligence. While they might be Americans, they aren't working for America for sure, which fucks up the terminology even more.
Come to think of it, I once thought of OBL as a fundemantal Islamist... LOL.... layers and layers.....

Cutting through the bullshit becomes a tricky task when all the players bullshit intentionaly to obscure things.

"discernible reality" my ass. I hate empire.

[Are_grits_groceries]

18. There is no way to know all the players, and who is who in the game.

I always told people that the Middle East would be the worst place to intervene militarily.

Everybody is somehow on everybody's side and everybody is also working against everybody on some level. I have read enough about the alliances to know that I probably don't know very much about what is going on.

Reality is what appears at the moment, but in the next moment it has changed. There is no way to keep up.

[Democracyinkind]

20. couldn't agree more with your assesment.

[Roland99]

27. Even more tragic is mindsets like the neocons that got us into this will continue almost unabated.

for decades more.

Long Live The Beast!!


(military-industrial complex, that is)

[Hannah Bell]

17. can you spell it out? the alliances seem rather opaque.

[Democracyinkind]

23. I can only elaborate on what others have spelled out.

Bhutto and Zardari are still a mystery to me.

Mister Zardaris Swiss business ties into the remnant of the Safari Club and BCCI, but I have no clear sources on that, so there's not much useful to say.

There is a big debate on what side the Bhutto family was/is serving - something that is complicated by the fact that not all of them seem to have worked for the same team. Zardari anyhow is clearly an American stooge, Tariq Ali has written extensively on that. I have made a comment on that in another thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6744294 (first post, point 5)

Bhenazir Bhutto was instrumental in the procurement of the Saudi-Pakistani bomb. For some people, this indicates a dark alliance with the extreme factions within Pakistan, for other this proves that Bhutto was basically following orders from Langley. She was also instrumental in proliferating the bomb to North Korea, at whose behest she did that is an open question.

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_start_startseite/suchartikel/nuclear_deception_the_dangerous_relationship_between_the_united_/adrian_levy/ISBN0-8027-1684-9/ID15446434.html?jumpId=3696259

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_start_startseite/suchartikel/toedliche_plaene/egmont_r_koch/ISBN3-7466-8154-5/ID14181280.html?jumpId=3696602 (german only)

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_start_startseite/suchartikel/atomwaffen_fuer_al_qaida_aufbau_sachbuch/egmont_r_koch/ISBN3-351-02588-2/ID6108386.html?jumpId=3696602 (german only)

Under Bhutto's second term the ISI propped up the Taliban with American help and laid the foundations for them to take over the rest of the country - by the time they had achieved that civilian gov. in Pakistan fell apart and "our boy" Musharraf took over. This again raises the question of..who was she doing a favor? The Americans or the radical ISI networks? Or was she just outsmarted by people in her government?

There's so many questions about her, her father and her husband I don't even know where to start. Zardari seems to be a player on our side of the field, but I can be misled on that. Though I would have to agree with the assessment that says that when you implement policies that certain circles in the US want carried out you probably are working for or with the Americans.

Also, part of the Bhutto families have ties to players from Far West, Ltd. ... the drug-smuggling misfits that currently control to Afghanistan-Kosovo-Europe route. Is that complicity with organized crime or with a CIA blackop (Far West Ltd. is almost indistinguishable from an intel-op, and Far West players tie into BCCI/Safari Club too.

Then, last but not least, there is the strange claim Bhutto made before her death - that Osama was killed by a man she named. Some people have suggested that she just misspoke, but others pointed out that she merely confirmed something that was well known under the table for some time. But I don't know how that relates to the whole picture.

-- I probably should make a coherent thread with all these infos plus actual links once when I have time. Since most of the stuff I know about this topic is picked from books and university courses though, it is a pain in the ass to search for supporting links for every sentence.

---
last but not least:

Elaborating on Ramzi Yousef: Yousef was (is said to be, depending on how much of the tapes of Emad Salema you have listened to) the technical mastermind of the 93 WTC attack. Many people have suggested that he is the typical double-agent, because he is clearly not a radical muslim and he had the same kind of strange, pervasive luck in avoiding US authorities as long as he was on his bombing run. (Just like 9/11, the story of how he got into the US undetected is almost unbelievable....) They arrested him in 1995 in Pakistan.
Before he took up the New York operation, he made several plans and one actual attempt on Bhutto's life. It is unclear who ordered that, because by conventional wisdom Al Qaida was not operational at that time. Also there is no indication that Abdul Rahman, the blind sheikh and "spiritual father" of Ramzi and the 93 gang, ordered Bhutto dead. Shortly after that attempt on Bhuttos life by Ramzi she lost power and was ousted, so presumably whoever wanted to kill her put the plan off again.

You see, elaborating only adds to the confusion. And my opinion is still short of critical facts, I have a whole pile of books still unread on the subject. Any comment, objection or addition is more than welcome. This is working-knowledge, not definitive facts.

[Hannah Bell]

39. thanks, interesting. i've avoided looking into the details of this stuff because

it hurts my head.

i figured "everyone's lying" was as close as i'd get to the truth regardless! :>)

[Hannah Bell]

12. unreccers strike again! no spin but the official spin allowed!

[Democracyinkind]

16. keep up the good fight - it is needed.

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_buc_startseite/mehrvonartikel/detente_and_confrontation_american_soviet_relations_from_nixon_t/raymond_l_garthoff/ISBN0-8157-3041-1/ID4036264.html?jumpId=3591905

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_start_startseite/suchartikel/invisible_history_afghanistan_s_untold_story/paul_fitzgerald/ISBN0-87286-494-4/ID15509298.html?jumpId=3666791

http://usedmarketplace.borders.com/booksearch?binding=&mtype=&keyword=The+Emergence+of+Modern+Afghanistan&hs.x=0&hs.y=0&hs=Submit

[Hannah Bell]

43. more stories about the eeeevil taliban tonight, i see....

[NNN0LHI]

15. Don't forget Rashid Dostum. Here is the swimming pool Bush built for him with reconstruction money

http://cursor.org/stories/afghaniscam.html



Dostum's newly completed private swimming pool


A favorite U.S-supported warlord, General Rashid Dostum is, of course famous for his mansions in the north. In 2002, Dostum added an indoor swimming pool to one of them, which he inaugurated in a midnight swim with some of his U.S. Special Operations Forces buddies of A-Team Tiger 02, who helped him re-capture Mazar on November 9, 2001.

[Roland99]

24. I'm reading Jawbreaker (from Gary Berntsen). You'd think Dostum was some great military leader.

[Democracyinkind]

25. Dostum was one of the more charismatic, believable types.

Allthough that doesn't mean much in a scoiety of warlords. He was still a reckless, brutal, inhuman freak.

Massoud was the only viable option, that's why he died on September 10.

---

Great book you are reading by the way. Notice that "Rich B." in the book is the guy who let 9/11 happen. He's the one who succeeded Gary Berntsen in hunting Osama..... Letting the guy who let 9/11 happen go after Osama... the American way... By the way Rich B.'s Daddy has some (albeit undocumented) ties to the networks I mentioned in my other posts in this thread.

[Roland99]

28. Thanks. I've been on binge of books and documentaries on this again lately

Watched a series of documentaries on National Geographic lately that were rather similar to, say, The Power of Nightmares but revealed more details on specific individuals and how important their roles or actions were (both good and bad)

[Democracyinkind]

30. Anytime you run out of books ask me and I might be able to provide more.

It has positively become an obsession of mine, and I enjoy seeing someone sharing a similiar level of engagment. I might mail you later and ask what else you have read....maybe something I don't know about yet.

[Roland99]

36. Most of my books are still in boxes from a recent move but...

Aside from the two Tariq Ali books and Jawbreaker, I also have Al Qaeda by Jason Burke, Chain of Command by Seymour Hersh (autographed copy, no less!) plus I've read Hersh's articles in the New Yorker (The Stovepipe and Selective Intelligence), and I want to get that book on Iraq's history by Hannah Batatu that Ali referenced a lot in his Recolonisation of Iraq. There are probably a few more that I haven't yet read but since I plan on moving again in a few months, will likely remain boxed up until after the new year.

[Democracyinkind]

37. You must read Richard Labevieres "Dollars for Terror" ... It's one of my favorites on the subject.

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_start_startseite/suchartikel/dollars_for_terror_the_u_s_and_islam/richard_labeviere/ISBN1-892941-06-6/ID4085604.html;jsessionid=fdc-n0uo0zhgrx1.tc2?jumpId=3874111

Moving and liking books can be a pretty unpractical combination. I'm in horror of packing all of them up again, but eventually, I'll have to.

Also, Banking on Baghdad gives a nice overview over Iraq and multinationoals, it's a bit sketchy, but a good read, since you seem to have an interest for iraq:

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_start_startseite/suchartikel/banking_on_baghdad_inside_iraq_s_7_000_year_history_of_war_profi/edwin_r_black/ISBN0-471-77349-2/ID7013812.html?jumpId=3880654

It's a good source for the history of the red line agreement and all the other scams we pulled on them in the beginning of the century.

[Are_grits_groceries]

21. And in the beginning:

The Middle East has long been a region of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and ambitions. All of these conflicts—including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis, and the violent challenges posed by Iraq’s competing sects—are rooted in the region’s political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War.

In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all seemed possible, he delivers in this sweeping and magisterial book the definitive account of this defining time, showing how the choices narrowed and the Middle East began along a road that led to the conflicts and confusion that continue to this day.

A new afterword from Fromkin, written for this edition of the book, includes his invaluable, updated assessment of this region of the world today, and on what this history has to teach us.
http://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-20th-Anniversary/dp/0805088091/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255174429&sr=1-1

This is an excellent book that shows how the Allies began to really muck up the area. It is well-written and an easy read. What they did is astonishing, horrifying, and very short-sighted. The hubris in their character started the area on the road to the mess it is now. Of course, there has been plenty hubris by others along the way to further add to the mess.

[Roland99]

26. On the Iraq point of view is this....

Bush in Babylon, the Recolonisation of Iraq
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Bush-in-Babylon/Tariq-Ali/e/9781844675128/?itm=13


and I also recommend this:

Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Clash-of-Fundamentalisms/Tariq-Ali/e/9781859844571/?itm=1&usri=tariq+ali+clash

[Democracyinkind]

29. Go Tariq Ali !

http://www.buch.ch/shop/bch_buc_startseite/suchartikel/the_duel_pakistan_on_the_flight_path_of_american_power/tariq_ali/ISBN1-4165-6102-1/ID17642729.html?jumpId=3736547

thanks for your excellent book-links.

[Roland99]

34. I still need to add that to my library

[Orwellian_Ghost]

31. Shhh

http://www.oilempire.us/qaeda.html

http://members.shaw.ca/trogl/oilwar/

Why do you persist in disturbing my reveries of cowboys and tooth fairies?

[stray cat]

32. So Bin Laden is a good guy in your book as well? allies change especially when they try to kill you

[Democracyinkind]

33. Who said any of these are "good guys"?

the point is that our "enemies" there today are the product of our former policy. And before we don't acknowledge that fact and have an open discussion about how the US generally promotes radical islamism in order to subjugate arab nationalism we will never be able to live in peace without being haunted by the ghosts we created.

It is most decisively not a "good guy /bad guy" issue.

[G_j]

35. argh!

:argh:

post some factual, educational information around here, and you suddenly love Bin Laden.
thank goodness there at least some adults left...

[Hannah Bell]

40. kik