Does anyone remember why we went into Afghanistan?

[kentuck]

Specifically?

Was it to overthrow the Taliban?

Was it to get Bin Laden?

Was it to get an oil pipeline?

Anyone remember?

I remember they were after Bin Laden at Tora Bora and he got away. Then the focus changed to the invasion of Iraq.

[ingac70]

1. It was said to be to get Osama and the Taliban....

but it was really for a pipeline ;)

[tekisui]

6. Osama, I think you mean.

[ingac70]

9. Ooops...

:dunce:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. To spend lots of money and lose another war.

And, to make a nincompoop of a president look "decisive".

[Zorra]

3. Let's just say it was to get OBL. Done. Game over, we won, lalala.

Time to end military operations in Afghanistan and bring the troops home.

[stevedeshazer]

4. The pipeline.

Remember, '...a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs...'?

Although all the above were given as reasons.

Bush and the PNACers didn't get their pony, errr pipeline, and moved almost the entire operation to Iraq.

[divvy]

5. The WTC was attacked and destroyed on 9/11/2001

George bush was president, and he knew that a terrorist organization named al Qaeda (the data base) was responsible. He had the terrorist leaders family on a plane out of the country within 24 hours. The plane with Bin Ladens family on it was only one of three airplanes known to be in the air at the time.

Bin Laden's organization (al Qaeda) is called that because it is a "data base" or a computerized list of all the people who were loyal to Osama bin Laden during the afghan war with the soviet union. They were all heroes to their countrymen. This is why it is so difficult to find and infiltrate.

The Taliban was giving the terrorist organization a safe haven in Afghanistan and allowed them to operate there in the open. Afghanistan had the largest concentration of al Qaeda members. We went there to kill them.

[WinkyDink]

10. UNOCAL. Google it.

[ET Awful]

15. Ummm . . . Al Qaeda does NOT and never has meant "the data base"

It means "the base" or "the foundation", at least according to the leader.

Bin Laden explained the origin of the term in a videotaped interview with Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni in October 2001:

"The name 'al-Qaeda' was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri established the training camps for our mujahedeen against Russia's terrorism. We used to call the training camp al-Qaeda. The name stayed.<44>"

[divvy]

16. The foundation (or base) is the people (or list of them) who were loyal

There is, in fact, a data base which contains the "foundation" or names and details about those who fought with Bin Laden

[divvy]

17. wiki knows everything

Al-Qaeda ( /ælˈkaɪdə/ al-KY-də or /ælˈkeɪdə/ al-KAY-də; Arabic: القاعدة‎, al-qāʿidah, "the base" or "the foundation"), alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida, is a global militant Islamist group founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988<6> and late 1989.<7> It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army<8> and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad.

Many Muslims from other countries assisted the various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. Some groups of these veterans have been significant factors in more recent conflicts in and around the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments.<9> These foreign fighters became known as "Afghan Arabs" and their efforts were coordinated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.

[ET Awful]

29. I like how you conveniently gloss over the exact quote from the founder of the group that I gave

which appears on the same Wiki entry you are now quoting.

[divvy]

27. French and British intelligence reference to The Data Base

I cannot show you the documents I was thinking of, but I did find a reference here:

Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1291

This is not the exact context; but it may flesh out the broader idea. It is a murky world

[ET Awful]

28. Whose word are you going to take on the origin of the name, the leader of the group, or an offiicial

of a government who was just trying to gather intelligence on them?

[divvy]

34. both can be true

Hopefully you will realize that this is less about who is right and wrong but more about different aspects of the same organization. I did not realize that my comment was not widely known. There really is a clear point where it all comes together. Information is circulated for any number of reasons.

Take seal team six for example. During the cold war, it was discovered by russia that we had seal teams one and two. We named the third one six so they would always wonder where three, four, and five were operating .....

Thank you for your comments! I was especially interested in your use of the word "we"

[Motown_Johnny]

7. to create a second front for the planned invasion of Iran

at least that was my assumption

[tekisui]

8. It was to overthrow the Taliban, as they were allegedly allowing

AQ to use the country as place of operation. That happened relatively quickly. Yet, we have continued to stay there for a decade for ever-changing and ill-defined reasons. Sometimes it is prevent a spiral of chaos, sometimes it is to disrupt AQ, sometimes it is for women and children.

As each excuse falls and is laid bare, the US government scrabbles to find another reason.

[kentuck]

13. I do recall we asked AQ to turn over Bin Laden to us...

I think that may have been the origin of "either you are with us or you are against us"?

[Arkansas Granny]

14. Our government gave the Taliban an ultimatum: turn over Bin Laden to the U.S.

or face invasion. I don't know if they actually had the capacity to surrender Bin Laden to us or not, but we used their refusal or inability to justify our invasion and their removal from power.

[ET Awful]

30. Mullah Omar actually said he would turn over Bin Laden if the US produced evidence proving he was

involved in the 9/11 attacks if I recall correctly.

[Bigmack]

11. I think it was/is to kill more dark people. We apparently love that. nt

[kenny blankenship]

12. It was to get something...

I forget what. A dozen eggs? I'm always forgetting to get eggs. I look in the refrigerator and I see the carton, forgetting there are only 2 eggs left inside. Maybe it wasn't eggs. Maybe we were to meet somebody there and give them a ride?

[frebrd]

18. To chase Bin Laden? ....

but not to catch him, of course, because he was too valuable where he was (as an excuse to perpetrate the Patriot Act, etc.).

[kentuck]

19. Now that Bin Laden is dead....

Aren't all the other reasons irrelevant and obsolete?

[Boojatta]

20. Wasn't it to bring them back to the stone age?

Somebody on TV identified as a likely terrorist suspect anybody who commits a fashion crime with some kind of garment that functions as a hat. I remember something about resemblance to a diaper and a fan belt.

Later, when a human being who adheres to the Sikh faith was murdered by a random TV-viewer, at least one person helpfully explained on TV what a Sikh turban looks like, to avoid any possible confusion between Sikh turbans and other kinds of hat-like garments.

[johnaries]

21. At this point, does it matter? We're there. And before we can leave

we have to make sure our leaving doesn't come back and bite us in the ass. That's what we are faced with now, regardless of how we got here.

[kentuck]

22. I think it does matter...

Bin Laden was the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He is now dead. I do not see anyone taking his place. The dangers will be out there but they will probably be in other places, not Afghanistan. Just like they alway are.

[Monarda]

23. cut deep to avoid thermal detection

via crooked timber: the power of nightmares:

http://youtu.be/5HvzR8w1z2g

[TorchTheWitch]

24. do you want the reasons we were told or the real reasons?

The real reasons are oil and money - like usual. Just before 9/11 we were best fucking friends with the Taliban and were negotiating wit them to put in a major oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Apparently, the Taliban was proving "too difficult" to deal with (just like Gaddafi became "too difficult"). It was decided that it would be ever so much easier to get rid of the "too difficult" Taliban and install a puppet government so we could have our much desired oil pipeline through the country with no hassle. And by amazing coincidence 9/11 happened which gave us the perfect reason to get busy ousting the Taliban and installing that nice and friendly pushover puppet government. Clearly, who ever came up with this brainfart of an idea didn't recall what happened to the Soviets in invading Afghanistan or the British long before them.


"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." George W. Bush, September 11, 2001

This was the main reason we were told... because of bin Laden and what happened on 9/11 it became "necessary" to punish those bad Taliban people. Nothing much was really said about "getting" bin Laden, and instead we were bombarded with media hyping the bad Taliban and how they made the women wear tents, etc.... not that we cared about such things while they were our bestest fucking friends.

[donheld]

25. What she said

[mmonk]

26. Originally to create the Soviet Union's Vietnam.

Christmas, 1979 (when they took the bait).

[rug]

31. It was more cathartic than accepting the Taliban's offer to hand over bin Laden.

[grahamhgreen]

32. IT WAS TO GET BIN LADEN AND DESTROY AL QUAEDA AFGHANISTAN. PERIOD. BOTH ARE DONE.

[SmileyRose]

33. To trick people into thinking we were doing something - PLUS

war shoveled gazillions more to the top, gave the Republicans an excuse to stomp on any laws that protect anyone other than the billionaires, plus they got to kill of millions of brown people.

Mission accomplished.