OT - I'd like to find out who's willing to replace him.

On Jun 26, 8:41*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

And BTW...when exactly did the war on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan mutate
into the war on the Taliban in Afghanistan?
I don't seem to remember any Taliban being involved in 9/11.

Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. The Taliban were governing
Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan denied the request from the
United States to extradite Osama bin Laden.

They did offer, however, to subject Osama bin Laden to an "Islamic
trial".

Some might say that in the absence of an extradition treaty, strict
and absolute respect for the sovereignity of other nations meant that
G. W. Bush should have accepted this offer. Instead, he took that
offer to be a farce, and treated Afghanistan's noncompliance with his
request as complicity, at least complicity after the fact.

I do not think he was mistaken in this.

This also answers the claim of George Soros that G. W. Bush made the
mistaken choice of treating September 11, 2001 as a military matter
rather than a police matter. The government of Afghanistan really made
that choice when it placed itself between Osama bin Laden and his
apprehension.

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:

On Jun 26, 8:41 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:


And BTW...when exactly did the war on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan mutate
into the war on the Taliban in Afghanistan?
I don't seem to remember any Taliban being involved in 9/11.


Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. The Taliban were governing
Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan denied the request from the
United States to extradite Osama bin Laden.

They did no such thing. When the US asked for Osama Bin Laden, the
Taliban asked for proof of his involvement. The US replied that such
proof was classified and that they would not give it to the Taliban.
By the time that proof of the guilt of OBL was easily available, the
Taliban were no longer ruling Afghanistan.

They did offer, however, to subject Osama bin Laden to an "Islamic
trial".

Some might say that in the absence of an extradition treaty, strict
and absolute respect for the sovereignity of other nations meant that
G. W. Bush should have accepted this offer. Instead, he took that
offer to be a farce, and treated Afghanistan's noncompliance with his
request as complicity, at least complicity after the fact.

I do not think he was mistaken in this.

This also answers the claim of George Soros that G. W. Bush made the
mistaken choice of treating September 11, 2001 as a military matter
rather than a police matter. The government of Afghanistan really made
that choice when it placed itself between Osama bin Laden and his
apprehension.

I think that it would have been better if the US had followed normal
rules of natural justice and given evidence of the guilt of OBL to the
Taliban before invading. That would have made it a little harder for
Al Qaeda to recruit followers. But much worse in that respect was to
invade Iraq, that made it easy for Al Qaeda to say that the US was in
a war against Islam. The fact that this is not so is not what matters
here, it is the fact the Al Qaeda recruiters can play that card with
success.


Alain Fournier

On Jun 27, 3:31*pm, Alain Fournier wrote:

They did no such thing. When the US asked for Osama Bin Laden, the
Taliban asked for proof of his involvement.

Yes. The Taliban did not do *precisely as they were told*.

If Afghanistan at the time were a nation with strong democratic
institutions similar to those of the United States, or Canada, or
France, one could indeed regard the U.S. actions as highly
questionable.

Also, the main proof of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the events of
September 11, 2001 that I recall as subsequently becoming available
was *his own admission* thereof.

Something that doesn't involve any sources and methods stuff from U.S.
intelligence agencies, but something unlikely to be forthcoming under
_those_ circumstances.

John Savard

Quadibloc wrote:

On Jun 27, 3:31 pm, Alain Fournier wrote:


They did no such thing. When the US asked for Osama Bin Laden, the
Taliban asked for proof of his involvement.

Yes. The Taliban did not do *precisely as they were told*.

Nothing in international law says that they had to do what the
US tells them to do. The Taliban had many faults, you should
blame them for their faults not for "not doing precisely as
they were told". Canada doesn't do precisely what the US tells
them to do. I hope we will not be invaded for that.

If Afghanistan at the time were a nation with strong democratic
institutions similar to those of the United States, or Canada, or
France, one could indeed regard the U.S. actions as highly
questionable.

They weren't highly questionable. They just didn't follow the appropriate
procedures therefore giving Al Qaeda munitions for their recruitment.

Also, the main proof of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the events of
September 11, 2001 that I recall as subsequently becoming available
was *his own admission* thereof.

Something that doesn't involve any sources and methods stuff from U.S.
intelligence agencies, but something unlikely to be forthcoming under
_those_ circumstances.

Yes. But by then the US had already invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban,
when they held power in Afghanistan could not use that future
admission as a justification to arrest OBL. And this is not just
playing with words here. OBL had an army about as powerful as that
of the Taliban, the Taliban would probably had lost its hold on
the country had they tried to capture OBL, you couldn't expect them
to do so without evidence of guilt. Of course the Taliban was nothing
like a good regime, but the problem with the Taliban was not that
they refused to arrest people without evidence of guilt, au contraire.
So if you go to war against them do not use that as a reason to go to
war against them, it doesn't help.


Alain Fournier

On 6/27/2010 7:28 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

Nothing in international law says that they had to do what the
US tells them to do. The Taliban had many faults, you should
blame them for their faults not for "not doing precisely as
they were told". Canada doesn't do precisely what the US tells
them to do. I hope we will not be invaded for that.

I still like the concept that the Taliban could figure out where
bin-Laden was and deliver him up to justice, considering our lack of
success in doing that during the last decade...

Pat

On Jun 28, 3:27*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

I still like the concept that the Taliban could figure out where
bin-Laden was and deliver him up to justice, considering our lack of
success in doing that during the last decade...

They could have looked him up in the *phone book*. Or perhaps detained
him on the way out of a cabinet meeting.

He went into hiding *because* Afghanistan was invaded; al-Qaeda and
the Taliban had a working relationship, or at least that is what the
U.S. government believed and the way the news media presented the
matter at the time.

John Savard

On Jun 27, 9:28*pm, Alain Fournier wrote:

Nothing in international law says that they had to do what the
US tells them to do.

I am concerned about the fact that the laws of the State of New York
and of the United States of America prohibit hijacking airplanes and
flying them into occupied buildings, killing thousands of people.

Because murder is wrong. It's a violation of eternal moral law.

International law is merely a pact of convenience between human
governments for the practical purpose of avoiding friction that might
lead to war.

No country was going to go to war against the United States because it
invaded Afghanistan, so I really see no reason to care enough about
this "international law" to set it above the real eternal law that
murder is wrong.

John Savard

On 6/28/2010 3:10 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
He went into hiding *because* Afghanistan was invaded; al-Qaeda and
the Taliban had a working relationship, or at least that is what the
U.S. government believed and the way the news media presented the
matter at the time.

Yeah, well after the uranium from Niger, we all know just how reliable
what the US government knew and the news media reported was.
Besides, it would have been hard for the Taliban to assault his Secret
Mountain Fortress to capture him:
http://edwardjayepstein.com/2002image/netherpopup.gif
Despite the lack of handrails on the stairs, this was some piece of
work, ranking up there with SPECTRE's rocket launching base inside of
that Japanese volcano.
....and you just know that wherever bin Laden is today, he has a white
cat sitting on his lap.
A cat that hates America and all that America stands for.

Pat

On 6/28/2010 3:15 AM, Quadibloc wrote:


No country was going to go to war against the United States because it
invaded Afghanistan, so I really see no reason to care enough about
this "international law" to set it above the real eternal law that
murder is wrong.

Well, Al-Qaeda killed 3,000 of our people; I wonder how many people
we've killed in total in revenge?
Opinions vary widely, but whatever the real number is, it dwarfs the
casualty figures on 9/11:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

Pat

Quadibloc wrote:

On Jun 27, 9:28 pm, Alain Fournier wrote:


Nothing in international law says that they had to do what the
US tells them to do.

I am concerned about the fact that the laws of the State of New York
and of the United States of America prohibit hijacking airplanes and
flying them into occupied buildings, killing thousands of people.

I have news for you. If you follow the laws of the State of New York
and the United States of America, the Taliban didn't have a reason
to hand over OBL to the US at the time they were governing Afghanistan.
Remember, the US told them to hand over OBL because they had evidence
of the implication of OBL in the events of September 11th, 2001 but the
US refused to show that evidence to the Taliban, it was top secret
stuff. Do you think that a judge in New York would issue an arrest
warrant on someone without seeing any evidence because the evidence
is secret? So again, yes OBL and his cronies deserves punishment
but the Taliban could not rightfully do it without having facts.
Again, the Taliban had many serious faults, but asking for evidence
before administering punishment is not one of their faults, it more
the other way around, their fault (at leat one of them) was to punish
without evidence of guilt. So why complain about the one time that
they decided to ask for evidence before giving punishment? It is the
right thing to do.

Because murder is wrong. It's a violation of eternal moral law.

But you still need to have evidence to punish those accused of
murder or any violation of eternal moral law.

International law is merely a pact of convenience between human
governments for the practical purpose of avoiding friction that might
lead to war.

So you propose ditching that and going directly to war?

No country was going to go to war against the United States because it
invaded Afghanistan, so I really see no reason to care enough about
this "international law" to set it above the real eternal law that
murder is wrong.

This war is the longest war in the history of the US. There might be
a reason for this. If the process would seem fair to the people of
Afghanistan, if it was only we punish OBL for what he did to us, there
would be less resistance. But you said a little higher up in the thread
"Yes. The Taliban did not do *precisely as they were told*." That seems
to be widely viewed as a sufficient justification for going to war
with Muslim countries, and that does not seem fair to Afghanis. Afghanistan
doesn't do what they are told, bomb them, Iraq doesn't do what they are told,
bomb them. People tend to fight back in that kind of situation. That is how
you get the longest war in US history, it is not because the Afghanis are
more formidable fighters than past US foes.


Alain Fournier