Fwd: [Stop the Poisons] BUSH, TALIBAN AND BIN-LADEN

[Guest guest]

>3. Bush Rejected Taliban Offer to Hand bin Laden Over

>Posted by: " Fernwoods " Fernwoods fernwoods7

>Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:00 pm (PST)

>

>For " Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand bin Laden Over " scroll 1/4 down

>letter to Pelosi, but includes much more of interest.

>

>Find the Truth About Bush's Wars

>

>Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!

>

>By Richard Behan

>

>Madam Speaker, if you will not impeach, then you must refute this history,

>if you can?

>_http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19095.htm_

>(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19095.htm)

>

>

>Find the Truth About Bush's Wars

>Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!

>By Richard Behan

>When people who honestly believe a lie

>learn the truth, they will either cease believing,

>or they will cease being honest.

>--anonymous

>17/01/08 " Counterpunch " --- - Speaker Pelosi, President Bush could have

>achieved his goal of " regime change " in Iraq quickly and without the

>violence of

>war. Saddam Hussein offered, weeks before his country was invaded, to leave

>Iraq and go into exile. President Bush withheld this offer from public

>view-and refused it. Nor did the President need to invade Afghanistan to

>apprehend

>Osama bin Laden. On five different occasions, George Bush refused a standing

>offer from the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden-three times before 9/11

>and twice thereafter, again without public disclosure.

>No, the military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are not directed

>against terrorism. They are territorial in nature. Mr. Bush intended from

>his first

>days in office to invade the two countries: as early as late January, 2001,

>his Administration was developing the decisions and beginning the

>preparations for both military incursions. 9/11 was in the distant future,

>so the

>conflicts cannot be exercises in counter-terrorism, as the Bush

>Administration

>frequently and dishonestly insists. They are premeditated wars of unprovoked

>conquest and occupation.

>Madam Speaker, if you know this, and if you continue refusing impeachment,

>then you are a criminal accomplice in violating the trust of the American

>people-and in violating both U.S. and international law.

>If you do not know this truth about the wars, Madam Speaker, you must learn

>its details and embrace it, and then you must seek with dispatch and justice

>to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney.

>You claim you don't have the votes. But to say that is to canvass the jury

>before the trial begins, before the evidence is presented and scrutinized.

>When the hideous truth of these wars is finally exposed-as it will be in the

>impeachment process-you will have the vote of every honest and patriotic

>member

>of the House of Representatives, Democrat and Republican alike.

>Why isn't the truth already widely known? There are two reasons. The Bush

>Administration is infamous for its pathological lying and secrecy: they have

>done everything in their power to distort or suppress the truth. And the

>mainstream press has become an engine of entertaining, not informing the

>American

>people: it is indifferent to the truth.

>But the truth is always there, and it can be discovered in foreign news

>outlets, in the domestic alternate press, in book-length treatises, and in

>the

>passion for truth and unconstrained inquiry displayed by people posting to

>the

>Internet. These are the sources for the exposition to follow.

>Madam Speaker, if you will not impeach, then you must refute this history,

>if you can.

>THE WARS ARE NOT ABOUT TERRORISM

>The Bush Administration's Curious Behavior

>Hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush told

>the world the United States would take the fight directly to the terrorists

>and the states that harbored them. Thus the Bush Administration's " War on

>Terror " was born.

>Less than a month later, on October 7, Mr. Bush launched a savage aerial

>bombardment of Afghanistan. He had the support of a shocked American

>citizenry

>and a sympathetic world, all of whom expected justice to be delivered soon to

>the terrorist Osama bin Laden and the harboring state embodied in the

>Taliban.

>The incursion into Afghanistan was sold as the first action in the " War on

>Terror. " It was a brilliantly executed charade.

>Flashback to October 12, 2000, a year earlier. The USS Cole, an American

>Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, has suffered heavy damage from a

>terrorist attack, perpetrated by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

>Three weeks later officials of the Clinton Administration met with

>theTaliban in the Sheraton Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. To avoid a violent

>retaliation

>of furious bombing, the Taliban offered the unconditional surrender of Osama

>bin Laden.

>Before the details of the transfer were completed, however, a Supreme Court

>ruling gave George W. Bush the White House, and the message was passed: the

>actual handover of bin Laden will be deferred until the Bush

>Administration is

>sworn in.

>Once in office, the new Administration asked the Taliban to delay the

>handover of Osama bin Laden at least until February. As winter faded into

>spring,

>and spring into summer, the Administration demurred twice more.

>Then Osama bin Laden struck again, on September 11, 2001.

>On September 15, Taliban officials were flown in U.S. Air Force C-130

>aircraft to the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the deal was sweetened. The

>standing offer of surrendering Osama bin Laden was renewed, but now the

>Taliban

>would also oversee the closure of bin Laden's bases and training camps.

>This time the White House simply rejected the offer out of hand. It did so

>again when the offer was repeated several weeks later, and days after that

>President Bush ordered the violence to begin.

>The invasion of Afghanistan was something vastly different than a quest to

>apprehend a terrorist..

>Sources for this section:

>1. " Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand bin Laden Over, " Guardian Unlimited

>(UK), October 14, 2001.

>2. " Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Surrender bin Laden, " Andrew Buncombe, The

>Independent (UK), October 15, 2001.

>3. " Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a

>peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan, " George Monbiot, The Guardian

>(UK),

>November 11, 2003.

>4. " How Bush Was Offered bin Laden and Blew It, " Alexander Cockburn and

>Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch, November 1, 2004.

>5. " Did Bush try to stop bin Laden in his first eight months in office? "

>MSNBC Countdown, September 28, 2006.

>The War in Afghanistan

>The commitment to invade Afghanistan was made long before 9/11.

>The Bush Administration wanted to secure for American energy

>companies-notably the Enron and Unocal Corporations-the strategic pipeline

>route across

>Afghanistan to the Caspian Basin. But the Taliban had signed a contract in

>1996

>with the Bridas Corporation of Argentina, preempting the route.

>Scarcely settled in Washington in early 2001, the Bush Administration

>immediately pressed the Taliban to rescind the Bridas contract, and undertook

>planning for military intervention should negotiations fail. Administration

>officials and the Taliban met for talks three times throughout the spring and

>summer, in Washington D.C., Berlin, and Islamabad-but to no avail.

>At the last session, in August, 2001 the Administration threatened a " carpet

>of bombs " if the Taliban did not comply. The Taliban would not. Soon

>thereafter-still weeks before September 11-President Bush notified

>Pakistan and

>India he would attack Afghanistan " before the end of October. "

>Then 9/11. Then two more refusals of Osama bin Laden's head. Then, on

>October 7, the Bush Administration looses the carpet of bombs.

>Since then Afghanistan has been supplied with a puppet government, the

>Bridas contract is history, and the country is dotted today with permanent

>U.S.

>military bases in close proximity to the pipeline route. It was a war of

>conquest and occupation.

>Counter-terrorism is scarcely visible. Osama bin Laden remains at large, the

>yield of " terrorists " to date consists of several hundred iconic and badly

>treated wretches in Guantanamo Bay, and terrorism in the Middle East has

>intensified, not diminished.

>Sources for this section:

>1. " Players on a rigged grand chessboard: Bridas, Unocal, and the

>Afghanistan pipeline, " Larry Chin, Online Journal, March, 2002.

>2. Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism,

>Paul Sperry, WND Books, 2003.

>3. Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, February 23, 2003.

>4. " A Timeline of Oil and Violence: Afghanistan " , see the website,

>_http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm_

>(http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm)

>5. " Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat, " New York Times,

>September 24, 2006.

>6. " From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil, " Richard W.

>Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.

>THE WARS ARE ABOUT AMERICAN HEGEMONY-AND OIL

>The War in Iraq

>The template for the invasion of Iraq was crafted in 1992, in Richard

>Cheney's Defense Department during the first Bush Administration. It was a

>document

>advocating a U.S. posture of singular global dominance in economic,

>diplomatic, and military power. The authors were Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay

>Khalilzad,

>and Lewis " Scooter " Libby. Their document spoke explicitly about the need to

>secure " ...access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, " and

>Iraq

>was in the crosshairs.

>In 1996, the Project for the New American Century was created, touting the

>term " global hegemony, " and seeking to maintain America's status as the

>world's only superpower, using preemptive war if necessary. Among the

>founders of

>the PNAC were the earlier advocates of world dominion: Richard Cheney, Paul

>Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lewis " Scooter " Libby. Donald Rumsfeld, and

>Jeb Bush were founding members as well.

>In a 1998 letter to President Clinton the PNAC people once again sought the

>invasion of Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, and 15

>others signed the letter.

>In September of 2000 the Project for the New American Century once more

>advocated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Then four months later, Richard

>Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, Lewis " Scooter "

>Libby-and 24 others from the PNAC-moved into top positions in the Bush

>Administration.

>The commitment to invade Iraq was made at the first meeting of President

>Bush's National Security Council in January of 2001.

>The rationale was ideological, apparently: by means of a preemptive war, to

>take an initial step toward global hegemony. A more tangible objective would

>soon emerge.

>Sources for this section:

>1. " Empire Builders: Neoconservatives and their blueprint for U.S. Power, "

>Christian Science Monitor , a series appearing June, 2005.

>2. The website of the Project for the New American Century. See

>_http://www.newamericancentury.org/_ (http://www.newamericancentury.org/)

>3. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education

>of Paul O'Neill, by Ron Suskind, Simon and Schuster, 2004.

>4. " From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots with Oil, " Richard W.

>Behan, AlterNet, February 5, 2007.

>Regime Change

>In December of 2002, 3 months before his country was invaded, Saddam Hussein

>invited the Bush Administration to send U.S. troops into Iraq to search for

>weapons of mass destruction, and he said he could prove Iraq was not involved

>in 9/11. His entreaty was turned aside by President Bush and Vice President

>Cheney. Two months later Hussein promised unlimited access to the FBI to

>search for WMD's, support for the US position on Israel and Palestine, and

>even

>some limited rights to Iraq's oil. All this was rejected. Finally, in

>desperation Saddam Hussein offered personally to depart Iraq for exile in

>Egypt or

>Saudi Arabia. Once again he was refused by the White House, and soon

>thereafter

>cruise missiles pounded Baghdad and U.S. tanks rolled across the border

>from Kuwait.

>Regime change was not the objective: that could have been achieved

>bloodlessly with Saddam Hussein's exile. Combating terrorism couldn't

>possibly have

>been the objective, either: when President Bush invaded Iraq, there was no

>sign

>of al Qaeda in the country at all. There had to be some other purpose.

>Sources for this section:

>1. " Dreamers and Idiots: Britain and the US did everything to avoid a

>peaceful solution in Iraq and Afghanistan, " George Monbiot, The Guardian

>(UK),

>November 11, 2003.

>2. " Llego el momento de deshacerse de Saddam, " El Pais (Spain), a transcript

>of a conversation between George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Jose Maria

>Anzar in Crawford, Texas, February 22, 2003. Published September 26, 2007.

>Oil

>Within weeks of taking office the Bush Administration was studying maps of

>the Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, refineries, tanker terminals, and

>undeveloped

>oil exploration blocks. A National Security Council document dated February

>3, 2001 spoke of " actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and

>gas fields. " Later in the year the Bush State Department undertook the

> " Future

>of Iraq Project, " in one element of which Administration bureaucrats and oil

>company representatives planned the postwar deconstruction of Iraq's

>nationalized oil industry. It would be replaced by a clever form of

>privatization,

>hugely favoring American and British oil companies. This planning was

>underway in October of 2001, exactly a year before Congress authorized

>military

>force in Iraq.

>The State Department's plan was codified in a model " hydrocarbon law "

>drafted during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with direct

>participation of the American and British oil companies. The law was not

>translated

>from English into Arabic until elections had been held; then Prime Minister

>Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet approved the law on February 15, 2007 and

>submitted it

>to Parliament for passage.

>The hydrocarbon law when passed will grant immensely profitable access for

>international oil companies to an estimated 81% of Iraq's undeveloped crude

>oil reserves. The favored companies are Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, Royal

>Dutch/Shell, and BP/Amoco.

>Enactment of the hydrocarbon law was proposed as a mandatory " benchmark " by

>President Bush in a speech on January 10, 2007. The benchmark was made

>statutory when the Democratic Congress passed the Iraq Accountability Act

>a short

>time later.

>The tangible objective for invading and occupying Iraq was suspected early

>by the war's opponents and it is now confirmed: to secure access to the

>country's immense oil and gas resources. Evidence of success is

>everywhere. Iraq

>now has a puppet government and five permanent American " mega-bases " to house

>100,000 troops for 50 years. The American embassy in Baghdad is ten times

>larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world. And in November,

>President Bush

>and Prime Minister Maliki signed a document called The Declaration of

>Principles, to assure an " enduring relationship " between their governments.

>Sources for this section:

>1. For copies of the Iraqi oil field maps, see the website of Judicial

>Watch, at: _http://www.judicialwatch.org/oil-field-maps_

>(http://www.judicialwatch.org/oil-field-maps)

>2. " Contract Sport, " by Jane Mayer,The New Yorker, Issue 23, February 16,

>2004.

>3. Crude Designs: the Ripoff of Iraq's Oil Wealth, Gregg Mutitt, ed., the

>Platform Group, United Kingdom.

>4. " Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil, " by Joshua Holland, published

>on the AlterNet website, October 16, 2006.

>5. " Slick Connections: U.S. Influence on Iraqi Oil, " Erik Leaver and Greg

>Mutitt, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 18, 2007.

>6. " Imperial Opportunities for U.S. Builders, " Tom Engelhardt, Asia Times,

>November 6, 2007.

>7. " An 'Enduring' Relationship for Security and Enduring an Occupation for

>Oil, " Ann Wright, truthout website, December 5, 2007.

>And so, Speaker Pelosi, here we are after six years of fraudulence, engaged

>in two wars of conquest and occupation the Bush Administration orchestrated

>in defiance of honesty, decency, morals, and law. Half a million lives and

>half a trillion dollars have been poured into the cesspool of their lies and

>deceit.

>Truth and justice are the bedrocks of our existence as a nation. The Bush

>Administration has trampled truth. We cannot tolerate the withholding of

>justice as well. Madam Speaker, you must impeach.

>Or can you refute this history?

>Richard W. Behan lives and writes on Lopez Island, off the northwest coast

>of Washington state. He can be reached at _rwbehan _

>(rwbehan) .

>(This essay is deliberately not copyrighted: it may be reproduced without

>restriction.)

>

>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>Much of this information was available to anyone searching for the truth

>before Congress voted for war. Dennis Kucinich & Ron Paul are the only

>presidential candidates wise enough to vote against the Iraq war & vote

>against

>funding and vote against enabling Bush to attack Iran. Shouldn't we have a

>president that has a record of making the right decisions?

>

>Contribute for Kucinich at:

>_https://services.myngp.com/ngponlineservices/contribution.aspx?X=aDlDFFT9TMGh

>0ghebdP6VkYKCfcT%2fFNw_

>(https://services.myngp.com/ngponlineservices/contribution.aspx?X=aDlDFFT9TMGh0\

ghebdP6VkYKCfcT/FNw)

>

 

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