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U.S. Already Planned to Attack Taliban
I am posting this here for posterity's sake. This is the BBC article that came out on Sept 18, 2001, indicating that there were US plans for attacking Afghanistan before Sept 11th
By the BBC's George Arney
A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.
Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
Russian troops were on standby
Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.
Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.
The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.
Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.
He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.
Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.
He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.
And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban.
A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.
Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
Russian troops were on standby
Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.
Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.
The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.
Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.
He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.
Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.
He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.
And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban.
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IMC Network
<http://www.rense.com/general17/spp.htm>, which also discusses a recent book published in France.
A good discussion of that book is at
,http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/qf.html,
by Prof Peter Dale Scott of UC Berkeley. The book lays out how the US gov't kept the FBI from investigating bin Laden right into August '01, leading the deputy director John O'Neill to resign in anger, while it held talks with the Taliban over an oil pipeline, threatening that if the Taliban didn't settle for a "carpet of gold", it would get "a carpet of bombs". This war in other words has little to do with 9/11, which was only an excuse to launch it.
And in fact, Zbigniew Brzezinski advocated prepraing for a war in Central Asia whose purpose would be continued domination of Eurasia, and hence the world, by the US, in a book called the Grand Chessboard that came out in '97. See
<http://www.guerrillanews.com/newswire/215.html>
And US army units began to hold "exercises"n Central Asia shortly thereafter.
So much for the righteous indignation of the likes of jon and the other right-wing carpet bombers.
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski about how the US provoked the Soviet Union into invadingAfghanistan and starting the whole mess
Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his
memoirs [From the Shadows], that American intelligence services
began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan six months before the
Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national
security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a
role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history,
CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say,
after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the
reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise:
Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the
first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet
regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid
was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action.
But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and
looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to
intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they
would.
Question: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting
that they intended to fight against secret involvement of the
United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them.
However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything
today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and
you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially
crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, in substance: We
now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.
Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war
unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about
the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic
fundamentalists, having given arms and advice to future
terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The
Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up
Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
cold war?**
Question: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated:
Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in
regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam.
Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or
emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5
billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi
Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism,
Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more
than what unites the Christian countries.
* There are at least two editions of this magazine; with the
perhaps sole exception of the Library of Congress, the version
sent to the United States is shorter than the French version, and
the Brzezinski interview was not included in the shorter version.** It should be noted that there is no demonstrable connection between the Afghanistan war and the breakup of the Soviet Union
and its satellites.