on tuesday, we ceased to have such caring. the flip side of our coin is about to be made visible.
dep
Good point.
Listen, our foreign policy hasn't been exactly perfectly consistent over the years, but those who are just as inconsistent shouldn't be criticizing others for the same thing.
The US dealing with what eventually became the Taliban and bin Laden's group is an exact example of not only the messiness of international relations, but of what this country is going to have to do more of in the future: deal with unsavory people in order to further our interests and achieve our goals.
That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.
The Drug Warriors finance mass murderers and terrorists.
We are shortly going to send fleets of bombers to rain a hell-storm of fire and brimstone upon those terrorists and their harbors -- all of which I wholeheartedly approve.
But when all this is over, remember this: The Drug Warriors were paying these butcher's meal tickets. Guess there's a common bond in Jihad.
I'm in favor of drilling every patch of black snow in Alaska, and I sound like a "greenie"? You're a dunce.
My point is that even if Alaskan reserves were to prove less-than-estimated (as Interventionist Texaggie79 is desperately hoping they will be, so that his war-mongering Interventionist policies are not shown to be totally bankrupt), there is still no valid reason for insisting that we be dependent upon foreign oil.
You just keep ignoring the fact that the oil out of the middle east is essential to the world economy.
And money is essential to the middle eastern economy.
Which is why no matter who controls the oil, they are going to sell it. The only question for the US is, do we want to take Texaggie's advice and be dependent on foreign oil? Or shall we remind Texaggie again that he is an willfully-ignorant intellectual and emotional adolescent, and that his advice is always wrong, and we would be far better off if we were not so dependent upon foreign oil, exploiting Alaskan and domestic Gulf-of-Mexico sources instead.
Since when do you let pesky little facts get in your way? 419 Posted on 09/14/2001 09:26:22 PDT by Texaggie79
Here's some more "pesky little facts" for you, petulant child:
That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.
Your "realist" policies of Internationalism and Drug War have combined to directly finance the Terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center.
You wrote their paychecks, Traitor-boy.
At the beginning of US involvement in World War II, there was a term: "American Quislings" -- those americans who had directly supported, financed, aided and abetted the enemy regimes prior to the US entry into the War.
In this war, you and your Internationalist, drug-warrior pals ARE the American Quislings. Your policies have cut the checks that financed 10,000 murdered citizen's death warrants.
Another foreign policy "success" from the Internationalist "realists".
When our external enemies have been destroyed, it will be high time that Internationalists and Drug Warriors like yourself admit the blind, arrogant stupidity of your traitorous policies and begged their fellow Americans for forgiveness for their crimes against their countrymen.
But will you ever do so??
Of course not.
Why?
Because you are BLIND, ARROGANT, AND STUPID, that's why.
That is why you advocate blind, arrogant, and stupid policies.
It is who you are.
Thank You President Bush for your offering to the Forces of Evil, Death and Destruction. And if Clinton or Bush Sr. or Reagan gave these monsters money they all have blood on their hands!
"Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it."
Colin Powell, Sec. of State.
"Second question was a little bit more about the $10 million in livelihoods. Basically we are pursuing sort of a two-prong strategy inside of Afghanistan. One is to provide direct humanitarian assistance to those who are most affected by this catastrophe, and so that would be health assistance through organizations like UNICEF and International Medical Corps; would be shelter programs in the camps, that sort of immediate humanitarian aid."
Leonard Rogers, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Humanitarian Response, USAID.
"The money will all go through either the United Nations or nongovernmental organizations, and some of those nongovernmentals are American organizations like CARE and International Medical Corps."
Leonard Rogers, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Humanitarian Response, USAID;.
"U.S. aid to Afghanistan bypasses the ruling Taliban militia, which controls the bulk of the country but has no official relationship with the United States because of its alleged role as a sponsor of terrorism."
AP Article on Aid
"The new aid commitment was welcomed by the Feminist Majority Foundation, which has been urging an increase of humanitarian assistance to Afghanis, especially to women and children."
AP Article on Aid
For over two hours, Scheer talked and talked about the paradise he had seen during a recent visit to North Korea, about the greatness of Kim Il Sung, about the correct nature of his so-called juche ideology - evidently a word embodying Kim's redefinition of Marxism-Leninism in building Communism against all obstacles and with the entire world in opposition… At one point, I asked him incredulously: "Bob, do you really believe this crap?" Scheer responded with complete earnestness that he did - that Kim had charted out a path that other nations could and should take as an example of the art of the possible….[Finally], the interminable interview ended, leaving me recalling Woody Allen's famous words to Annie Hall's demented brother: "I have to go now. I'm due back on planet earth."
Brian Carnell
web posted June 11, 2001
A longstanding claim by the left is that media are biased because they are owned by, and hence must serve the interests of, capitalists. Whatever you think of that claim one thing is clear -- if the mainstream media does have biases, they pale in comparison to the sort of nonsense stories that make it into even relatively respectable Left wing newspapers and magazines.
At the moment, for example, an outrageous lie about George W. Bush is spreading quickly across the Internet thanks to Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer and Leftist rag The Nation. On May 22, the Times web site published a column by Scheer claiming that the Bush administration was dramatically changing U.S. policy toward Afghanistan's governing extremist Islamic movement, the Taliban. In dramatic fashion Scheer wrote,
Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.
That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.
Almost every sentence in these two paragraphs is a lie, as anyone who is willing to spend five minutes doing a little research will easily discover.
The United States is indeed sending aid to Afghanistan, but the $43 million in aid is not going to the Taliban. It is instead being donated to the United Nations. The aid is not being used to help the Taliban fight drugs or as a reward for the ban on opium. Instead the aid will be used to help the World Food Program avert a potential famine in Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of starvation in that country, and many of them are flooding into refugee camps in Pakistan where disease and other problems threaten to overwhelm Pakistan' ability to deal with them.
In fact the majority of the aid package, $23 million worth, is in the form of surplus wheat from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It would be interesting to see Scheer explain how surplus wheat is going to help the Taliban crack down on drugs.
Nor is this a change in American foreign policy. Scheer conveniently forgets to mention that last year the Clinton White House also donated tens of millions of dollars in aid to help avert famine in Afghanistan.
It was bad enough that the Los Angeles Times allowed Scheer's column to be published with apparently no fact checking. All of the major news wires and other news organizations covered the announcement of the aid package including what it was for and how it would be administered (it took this writer all of 2 minutes searching at the CNN web site to find a CNN account of Colin Powell's announcement of the aid package, which completely contradicted Scheer's version). But the situation got even worse after The Nation decided to reprint Scheer's column and feature the article on its web site. Scheer, of course, is listed as a contributing editor to The Nation.
Thanks to The Nation the story about Bush's alliance with the Taliban is now spreading rapidly across the Internet. Of course rather than question why a major U.S. foreign policy shift would be noticed only by a small leftist rag, many of the liberals and leftists falling for Scheer's hoax instead see it as proof that the mainstream media are merely propaganda tools for capitalism who conveniently don't mention such inconvenient facts.
The real lesson in this fiasco, of course, is about The Nation's credibility -- or lack thereof. Exactly what does it say about a magazine that retains as a contributing editor someone who could completely fabricate such a story? Scheer's article speaks volumes about what counts as truth on the Left.
Brian Carnell is the publisher of LeftWatch.Com.