George W. Bush, September 27th, 2004:
“…as a result of the United States military, [the] Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free.”
“Officials: Taliban fighters ambush, kill bus passengers,” CNN, October 19, 2008:
Taliban militants recently kidnapped and killed between 30 and 40 bus passengers in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Sunday.
Afghan officials identified the victims as civilians, but a Taliban spokesman said the group’s fighters arrested and killed 27 Afghan soldiers.
The incident happened on Thursday in the Maiwand district of southern Kandahar Province, a dangerous Taliban-controlled area.
A statement from 2004. Things have changed drastically between Afghanistan and Pakistan since then. Taliban and AQ have a safe haven in the latter and cross the border into Afghanistan, and have learned to expand their operations in the face of the low profile/non combat deployment of NATO and its dependance on small operations by special forces to counter the Taliban in a large and rugged area. Large force operations are needed at this point, to secure long term and assure populace that the Taliban won’t be back with their guns and reliquous courts.
Well CNN picked the headline, not me. My headline: Taliban execute and behead prisoners of war. Under that headline I would place the middle and last paragraphs of the CNN story: Afghan officials on Sunday retrieved six of the victims’ bodies, which were beheaded, according to provincial police chief Matiullah Khan Qaneh. Qaneh said the Taliban militants seized around 50 passengers, releasing 10 of them and taking the rest to the Band Timor area of the district. “According to our information from the area, Taliban killed the remaining 40 passengers,”
Frankg, you’re either missing the point or trying to cloud the issue. George W. Bush at BEST misspoke when he said the Taliban were gone — which calls into question his competence — or at worst LIED when he made his claim. And since he lied us into an illegal and unnecessary war in Iraq, he doesn’t have the credibility necessary to defend his statement as misspeaking.
Mark, my response was to the headline, “What Taliban?”.
Apologies for any incompleteness on my part. The difference in the two dates was just the first thing I noticed.
I will have to reference Bush’s speech from 2004 to see exactly what he said, but it could be that there were no serious threats in 2004 compared to four years later when this particular attack occurred.
Yes, these attacks have been building for some time. I’ve read lots of warnings about these threats growing since 2006. Two years after Bush’s speech.
We couldn’t pursue them into Pakistan’s lawless regions with large units (understandably), so they have regrouped and rearmed, gathered recruits, allies, etc. for years now.
My main point was that the Coalition forces have restricted their forces to their bases in Afghanistan for so long, the Taliban have gotten bolder and bolder over the years and are operating more and more in that vacuum, with more and more forces. There have been other problems that have allowed this to occur, like NATO rules of engagement, chain of command problems, etc. I don’t why NATO chose this course for such a long time.
Also while the coalition special forces were useful, there is only so much they can do, especially at this point (even some of them were restricted to bases when they were expressly sent to Afghanistan to engage any Taliban resurgance).
In 2004, I doubt much of this was the case.
Again, apologies for any missing of the points.
Actually Frank, the Taliban was still in existence during the time that Bush lied and said the group had been eradicated. In point of fact, the group dispersed to various regions in November of 2001, which is a far cry from ceasing to exist.