If you were someone who supported Bush's Afghan invasion would you have ...

[NNN0LHI]

... supported invading and occupying Canada like we did Afghanistan if Bush/Cheney had told you the masterminds of 9/11 were hiding out there?

Would you have supported that?

Don

[iamjoy]

1. Here's Another Question

Would you have supported invading Canada if they didn't let girls go to school and forced women to be covered from head to toe or risk being killed?

[tekisui]

2. Do you support invading every country with human rights violations?

[rgbecker]

3. Do you support attacking and killing US soldiers to free innocent

people being held without charges or trial at Gitmo?

Time to bring the troops home and disband the military. They are doing too much harm all across the world.

[timtom]

4. +1

[dionysus]

11. i'm not all about empire but disbanding our military would be monumentally stupid.

[geek tragedy]

5. If Canada were openly sheltering them, refusing to turn them

over, and under UN sanctions for sheltering mass-murdering terrorists, as well as committing gendercide, then maybe the analogy would make sense.

[Ian David]

6. Afghanistan offered to turn-over Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, but not to America.

We didn't need to go to war with them.

[geek tragedy]

9. Afghanistan made no offer of any kind.

The Taliban, who were never the legitimate government of Afghanistan, refused for five years to turn bin Laden over despite the demands from the UN. After 9/11, they made a series of bad faith 'offers' as delaying tactics, including a farcical 'Islamic court' trial for bin Laden that would judge him not by international law, but rather by extremist sharia law.

[Ian David]

12. My mistake- they offered him to Pakistan, not Saudi Arabia

On 4 October 2001, it is believed that the Taliban covertly offered to turn bin Laden over to Pakistan for trial in an international tribunal that operated according to Islamic Sharia law, but Pakistan refused the offer.

Pakistan blocks bin Laden trial
By Patrick Bishop in Paris
Published: 12:01AM BST 04 Oct 2001

A SECRET plan to put Osama bin Laden on trial in Pakistan has been blocked after President Musharraf said he could not guarantee his safety, it was disclosed yesterday.

Suggested by the Taliban's closest allies in Pakistan, it was a last-ditch attempt to satisfy Western demands for bin Laden's surrender while averting a war and ensuring the fanatical regime's survival.

A high-level delegation led by Qazi Hussain Ahmad, head of Pakistan's most important Islamic party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, met Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, in secret on Monday. Omar agreed that bin Laden should be taken to Pakistan, where he would be held under house arrest in Peshawar.

The proposal, which had bin Laden's approval, was that within the framework of Islamic shar'ia law evidence of his alleged involvement in the New York and Washington attacks would be placed before an international tribunal. The court would decide whether to try him on the spot or hand him over to America. The secret deal was agreed after a meeting in Islamabad on Saturday at which Mulla Abdus Salaam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, and Hamid Gul, former director of Pakistan's inter-service intelligence, and Qazi were present.

More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1358464/Pakistan-blocks-bin-Laden-trial.html




Briefings & Documents Menu / Anti-war Briefings Menu / Briefing 05
8 October 2001
The Smoking Gun
The Taliban Agreed To Extradite Osama Bin Laden To Another Country

In the aftermath of 11 September, we now have a 'smoking gun'. But it is not evidence of Osama bin Laden's guilt in relation to the atrocities of 11 September. It is evidence of Government lies about the basis for the current war against Afghanistan. This is an unnecessary war.

According to the Prime Minister, it is impossible by any nonviolent means to secure the extradition from Afghanistan of the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden who the British Government holds responsible for the 11 September atrocities. This is why force has to be used to destroy bin Laden's infrastructure in Afghanistan, and to retaliate against the Taliban regime which harbours him.

But this argument is completely undermined by a report in the Daily Telegraph, which appeared on the day Tony Blair set out the Government's 'evidence' in Parliament. There are three main questions in this war: What is the evidence against bin Laden? If he is guilty, are there nonviolent methods of securing him for trial? Is the force being used by the Government legal?

<snip>


Previous Offers

The Taliban's agreement on extradition is of a piece with its position all the way through this crisis. The Taliban Information Minister, Qudrutullah Jamal, said early on, 'Anyone who is responsible for this act, Osama or not, we will not side with him. We told to give us proof that he did it, because without that how can we give him up?' (Independent, 19 Sept., p. 1) Three days later, Taliban Ambassador Zaeef said, 'We are not ready to hand over Osama bin Laden without evidence' (emphasis added, Times, 22 Sept., p. 1).

When US Secretary of State Colin Powell promised to publish a US dossier of evidence against bin Laden (an offer subsequently withdrawn), Ambassador Zaeef responded positively. 'The ambassador said it was "good news" that the US intended to produce its evidence against Mr bin Laden. This could help to solve the issue "otherwise than fighting".' (Independent, 25 Sept., p. 3)

On Sun. 30 Sept, the Taliban made another offer which was completely distorted and misrepresented by the Government and the media. The Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan said - in a quotation that appeared only in one newspaper, the Independent, and incompletely even there - 'We say if they change and talk to us, and if they present evidence, we will respect their negotiations and that might change things.' ('Bin Laden "hidden by Taleban", BBC News Online, 30 Sept.)

The Independent's front-page opened with the statement that the Taliban 'gave no indication they were prepared to hand him over.' This was flatly contradicted by the quotation eight paragraphs later of Mullah Zaeef, Taliban Ambassador: 'We are thinking of negotiation. it might change things.' (Independent, 1 Oct., p.1)

Daniel Lak of the BBC commented that it was 'unlikely' that Mullah Zaeef was simply saying that bin Laden was under Taliban protection and 'the Americans can do their worst': 'The ambassador did ask the Americans, and it almost seems in a pleading tone, to start talks with the Taleban "because this might produce a good result"' ('Analysis: Decoding Taleban's message', BBC News Online, 30 Sept., 15:52 GMT)

More:
http://www.j-n-v.org/AW_briefings/ARROW_briefing005.htm

[Captain Hilts]

7. Well, Al-Q actually was in Afghanistan, so the question is moot, and stupid. nt

[conscious evolution]

8. Is Canada preventing US oil companies

from doing business there?
If so,then we need to invade immediately.

I hope I don't need the sarcasm smily.

[SIMPLYB1980]

10. Yes actually but that was not the case.

Even DK voted for the war in Afghanistan for that reason.

[NNN0LHI]

14. And going on 9 years later all that proves is DK isn't right about everything

Doesn't it?

Don

[SIMPLYB1980]

15. According to his followers here he can do no wrong,

and is 100% right on every subject. :shrug:

[cbdo2007]

13. I still support invading and occupying Canada. For any reason.

Just seems like fun and would really open up the U.S.

[rgbecker]

16. And all our police could wear the smokey bear hats and call themselves "Mounties"!

And Lumberjacks....Oh don't you love em? Could we go to the Canadian doctors for free? That would be worth the invasion all by itself...save all this discussion about health care reform.