From: NY Transfer News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [CubaNews] BBC-Was US set to attack Afghanistan anyway? Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Peter Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> BBC Report: Was the US Set to Attack Afghanistan Anyway? [The same issues covered by the Guardian reports of Sept. 21 and Sept 22 were reported by the BBC on September 19th (see below). Up until now, the 9-11 attack has been presented as having come from al-Qaida, a non-state actor. Someone in the spook community has decided to show the BBC and the Guardian reporters evidence of US prior planning to attack Afghanistan and forcibly submitting them to UN authority. Which could then give the *Afghan nation* a reason to bomb us. Which, in turn, would remove the nagging little problem of "how do we rationalize attacking Afghanistan and battling the Taliban, since our target (bin Laden and his al-Qaida) is essentially a transnational corporation with a branch office in Afghanistan?" So, while this leak in a sense provides a rationale for the 9-11 attack -- and if true, absolutely quashes the "unprovoked" aspect of the official spin on it -- it also escalates the strike on the US from the status of a roque terrorist attack to a state action, and makes it easier to kick the chocks out from under the tires on the bombers and get 'em airborne. Niaz Naik, the major source of this story, is a former foreign minister of Pakistan and should be viewed as an employee of the Pakistani government. Elements of what he says -- but by no means everything -- are backed up by others. The Pakistanis are about to let the US use their airspace against Afghanistan. Surely it is to their advantage to present the conflict between bin Laden and the US as being a larger one, between Afghanistan and the US. They may well see no other way at all to sell their position to their people -- and the US has to see huge advantages in doing the same thing, since we're about to do a lot of "collateral damage." The threats made at the "track two" meeting in July are not part of a war on the Taliban; the US allegedly delivered a warning that there would be an aggressive strike against bin Laden himself. This may, in fact, have pushed bin Laden the non-state actor to accelerate plans he'd been working on, or may merely have firmed his resolve to carry them out. By mid-July, the Taliban could reasonably have expected that satellite surveillance would back up their claims to have largely met the requirements for State Department certification of their cooperation with the US war on drugs. Because of large stockpiles of opium in Afghanistan, both the Taliban and the opposition Northern Allince failed in March, 2001 to satisfy the State Department in March 2001, althogh the Taliban's curtailment of new opium production was acknowledged. http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/global/drugs/01030205.htm However, in June 2001 the UN Drug Control Program http://www.undcp.org/newsletter_2001-06-30_1_page002.html verified that cultivation had ended, and that the Taliban had eradicated the Afghan poppy crop for 2001. The Taliban would have been in a bad position in terms of humanitarian aid beyond promised rewards for drug eradication, though, as the destruction of the World Heritage Site at Bamiyan was clearly something far, far stupider to do than they dreamt of ahead of time. They have apparently been asking for some time for the US to bring its evidence against bin Laden to court in Afghanistan or another Muslim country; I'm sure they were expecting US support for the opposition Northern Alliance to wane as a quid pro quo for the poppy eradication, but instead were presented with little in the way of aid, repeated demands for bin Laden, and little willingness in the international community to assist a government so hell-bent on oppressing women and so willing to ignore world opinion on Bamiyan. In short, it's possible that these meetings did not go at all the way they expected them to, but rather than representing a new declaration of war -- as Naik implies -- the comments could have been made at a very tense meeting that the Taliban expected to go relatively well, because of their efforts at drug eradication and their quite urgent need for assistance in feeding their people. Okay, on to the "Secret Plan." Crucial here is the allegation of when this was all being timed and when the Taliban were told whatever they were told, or have been told. And, of course, the motives of the leakers. The two articles published by the Guardian, and the statement of "war" in the leading paragraphs in the first, invite the reader to jump to the wrong conclusion: that the US had essentially quietly declared it was ready to become an open participant in the civil war at the meeting in July. This then escalates the dispute to state actions and responses, and makes The Crusade more palatable to a Brit Left audience, for whom the Guardian is writing. The Guardian also describes the plan to overthrow the Taliban and install the 86-year-old former King as something of an innovation. On the contrary, it's actually a return to the tired old ops of the 1950s (i.e., the 1953 overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and the re-imposition of the Shah) which served the CIA so well, and which are viewed with tremendous nostalgia in the Agency. Hardly a new idea. In addition, the *cable* from the US asking the UK for opinions on this plan appears to have been cut yesterday, well after the 9-11 attack, although according to Naik, this plan was discussed way back in July at the meeting he describes. In sum, I'm very suspicious of the motives for this stuff being handed out to English reporters. They have an agenda -- the Brits have never liked the Afghans (see Kipling, for instance!) and they are mortally offended by the Taliban (as, granted, am I: for example, their treatment of women and disrespect for the cultural patrimony they were entrusted with. Their explanations for their actions sound perverse -- like claiming the attack on the Buddhist sculpture at Bamiyan was justified by *Hindu* misdeeds in India). I'm also suspicious of the reason for the Pakistani diplomat being so very voluble. I don't think he gave that interview before being extensively coached by professionals -- probably a professional PR team from State. -Peter] * BBC Online - 19 September 2001 05:56 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm 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. 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. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ================================================================= _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
