Talk:September 11 attacks/Archive 6

Archive 1

←

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

→

Archive 10

Wild Speculation and Other Error

"September 11, 2001 attacks" - Assumes external attack instead of inside demolition job. No concrete evidence offered to support notion it was an "attack" carried out by suicide hijackers. All stories by FBI et al lead to dead-ends with no resolution or evidence.

"With full tanks of jet fuel, the aircraft were used as flying bombs, one of which was piloted into each of the two towers of the World Trade Center, one into The Pentagon, with a final aircraft crashing into a Pennsylvania field (the intended target of this jet remains unknown)." - Full tanks of fuel, yet the planes had been in the air in some cases for over an hour. Also speculation as to a passenger jet hitting the Pentagon, antiaircraft missile batteries atop the Pentagon make this unlikely and unwarranted even as speculation. Destination of final aircraft is known, so that is a factual error, it was Chicago, which is where it would have been if it hadn't taken off forty minutes late, where it would have struck the Sears tower which was at that time being videotaped by Israeli Moshe Elmakias who has since been arrested and deported back to his mother land, Israel.

"Shortly following the attacks, the United States government accused Al-Qaida..." - Clear speculation, allowed only because "US said it".

"This led to a "War on Terrorism" that included the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (with support of the United Nations)." - Factual errors. The US invasion of Afghanistan was not supproted by the UN, which forbids retaliation in case of criminal act (terrorism) and forbids defining acts of war as terrorism. Catch-22 for US, so they burn the book and roll over everyone.

"The combined attack of September 11 on the World Trade Center was the deadliest act of terrorism against the United States and one of the deadliest attacks of asymmetric warfare in history." - Acts can not be both acts of war and terrorism. This is Orwellian doublespeak at its finest. Pick one side and stay on it. How is such a self-conflicting statement able to survive scrutiny? Is this page being given any scrutiny or is it monitored by a few fanatics who insist on supporting the FBI fable?

"American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 AM EDT." - Again, unlikely given the antiaircraft missile batteries atop the Pentagon. These missiles can make paperclips out of a fully-armed-and-armored attack aircraft before they get anywhere near the Pentagon, a passenger jet spiraling down to the Pentagon over two and a half minutes would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

"The fourth hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The evidence suggests that it crashed after passengers and crew tried but failed to retake control of the plane from the hijackers." - Once again, the stories lead to dead ends. Cell phone calls are proved to be impossible, plucky Todd Beamer is found (so the "official" story goes) to have called an AT&T operator and talked to her for thirteen minutes before he pulled a Passenger 57 on Achmed (operator to this day remains unknown, nobody has stepped forward to identify themselves as the operator who listened to Todd Beamer for 13 minutes then relayed the conversation later by phone to his new widow), FAA radar tracks fast-movers intercepting flight immediately before its mid-air disintegration.

"Some passengers and crew were able to make phone calls from the doomed flights. They reported that there was more than one hijacker on each plane (a total of 19 were later identified) and that they took control of the planes using box-cutter knives. Additionally, some form of noxious chemical spray, such as tear gas or pepper spray, was used on at least one flight. There were also reports from at least two of the flights that hijackers claimed to be carrying bombs." - None of these reports are verifiable. One can find innumerable citations of these stories and many others, but none of them are verifiable.

---

Okay, then show me the source which specifically says that its speculation =\ WhisperToMe 00:13, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Are you serious? You want me to find a source saying there is no source? Is this a serious question or do I misunderstand you? Can you explain what you mean more verbosely so I don't misinterpret your somewhat vague statements? Thank you for your time and patience on this issue, I will not ignore it. - Plautus satire 01:33, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

--- Listen, we have copious sources relating to the stuff you are griping about. I believe that the telephone operator that Beamer was talking to was named Lisa Jefferson, and she was at a GTE center near Chicago. http://www.hazlitt.org/united/Todd-Beamer.html WhisperToMe

Oh, I am sorry, you are right, let me examine what your "copious" source claims. For if we can not verify the story from this "copious" source we do not have evidence, but merely another fable. Where are the recordings of this call? Is it reasonable to assume that a typical GTE operator, in addition to reciting a prayer and taking a last request, would not think to record the conversation with the doomed man on the hijacked plane? Apparently this woman was too emotional over the whole thing to click a button. - Plautus satire 03:25, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Snopes says that cockpit tapes suggest a struggle between hijackers and other non-hijacking passengers. Where is this tape? Once again we find that we quickly encounter a wall shutting out further investigation. We have no public domain evidence, all of it is secret. It is this "secret evidence" that nobody is allowed to see that constitutes what is commonly called the "proof" in this case. - Plautus satire 03:29, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/911/showcase/chi-020419flight93,0,2369725.story - The flight 93 families heard the tape, btw. WhisperToMe 03:34, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And these tapes are where? How can I listen to them? How can they be subjected to scrutiny? - Plautus satire 03:43, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The article cited above is very interesting. It makes the following claim: "The last minutes of the tape are muffled by the sound of rushing wind as the plane plunged from the sky, family members said, but the recording was clear enough that American and Arabic-speaking voices could be discerned." Rushing wind heard inside a plane? Have you ever been inside a passenger jet? Have you ever heard rushing wind? - Plautus satire 03:45, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This article lists the names of all forty people the airline says was on the flight in question. Did none of the other thirty-nine (13 times 3? Relevant? As relevant as your comments on this issue.) want a chance to pray with the operator and bid fond farewell to their loved ones? Todd Beamer must have had quite a calming influence on those other thirty-nine people, in order to stay on the phone for thirteen minutes while praying with an operator and saying his last goodbyes by proxy to his soon-to-be-widow. Were all of these other people friendless orphans to whom they had nobody to offer a single goodbye? With such level-headed, organized passengers, it's surprising they were not able to overcome the small number of hijackers and pilot the plane safely back to the ground like in a Washywood movie. - Plautus satire 03:53, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This passage by Plautus is so stupid (<= Why is this going unchallenged by impartial observers? Is this a fair response? - Plautus satire 21:45, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)) and illinformed that it barely merits a response. But I'll give one anyway. Literally dozens of phone calls were made from Flight 93 - Beamer was certainly not the only one. Several of them - Beamer, Glick,Burnett, Lyles - stated on the phone that they intended to overpwer the hijackers. and they died whilst attempting to do just that. The operator that Beamer spoke to was Lisa Jefferson. She stepped forward right away and was never anonymous. Arno 06:32, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Where are recordings of all these phone calls? We were shared the life of Todd Beamer's new widow and his "let's roll" story, what about the other heroes? Who were they? - Plautus satire 21:37, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I have heard that it is technically impossible to make a mobile phone call from a plane (no reception because too far away from ground) - does anyone have reliable info about this question?? I think we can dismiss Plautus' objection that 39 people would have reacted in a different way, like tried to take control of the plane, because they didn't realise what their ultimate fate was. They probably thought that they would survive unhamred if they just behaved as told by the hijackers (even some hijackers didn't know it was a suicide attack). pir 06:22, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nope - The hijackers planned to crash the plane into the Pentagon or the White House; and have you heard of a GTE Airfone before? WhisperToMe 06:26, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Mark Bingham, Cee Cee Lyles, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Sandy Bradshaw to name a few. (The two girls are flight attendants who have been said to have boiled water to throw at the hijackers) WhisperToMe 00:06, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And where is the evidence that this event you describe of boiling water occured? Where is the evidence for any of these claims made about the events on this flight? Were there eyewitnesses? You do a wonderfully succinct job of presenting these stories, but I'm afraid your evidence for these stories is abit lacking. A story repeated is not necessarily a true story. See: [http:/www.snopes.com/ Snopes] - Plautus satire 02:34, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

13x3 is not relevant, by that reasoning -- 1939 would be a significant and unlucky year. Oh wait, it was. God have mercy upon the people of 393939 (note the inverted 666 hidden in that date). Heh, PLaubus what is 39 inverted...93! Fear the numerology. Lirath Q. Pynnor

hehe - Plautus satire 21:37, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

---

And where are the records of these GTE airfone calls? Or records of any reported cell phone calls? Or records of any calls, period? What about recordings of calls? Are there any? - Plautus satire 06:40, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Plautus (or Yet Another Page Turned Into Bash Plautus)

Some of his comments are valid. For instance, he correctly noted that the UN does not support the "War on Terror". While his goal seems to be that of introducing conspiracy theory information to this page -- the fact is, a whole lot of people think that a conspiracy occurred. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Actually, Lir, the UN does support the Afghanistan War, but NOT the Iraq war. You are half right and half wrong. :) - Whisper, too lazy to sign in.

Did they pass a resolution supporting the invasion of Afghanistan, I can't find any such record of that. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Lir, they did pass resolutions condemning the Taliban and Al-Qaida, therefore paving way to the freezing of accounts and the like. WhisperToMe 00:10, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

But were they resolutions giving permission for the US to invade Afghanistan? Lirath Q. Pynnor

---

I admit I read the talk page at close to double speed, but doesn't the "terrorist" question simply pivot on whether or not the intent behind the events was to generate as much fear as possible on a civilian population? That being generally accepted (including from the conspiratorial angle, which at least raises interesting observations), the term seems NPOV to me and thus viable, though would function either way. Chris Rodgers.

---

UN support for war on terrorism?

The UN does not support the "war on terrorism," which is real war, waged against countries based on the alleged criminal activity of their respective populations. The UN forbids going to war over criminal acts. The UN defines acts of war as other than terrorism. If these demolitions were acts of war, then evidence needs to be provided proving that Afghanistan or Iraq or whoever is being invaded next week are involved, otherwise the invasions are invalid per the UN. The UN has not sanctioned the invasion of Iraq nor the prosecution of an illegal war in Afghanistan in response to an illegal criminal act (conspiracy to demolish and murder). There is no "partly right" here. There is right and wrong. The UN does not support the US at this point, that kind of blanket statement is pretty much a no-brainer. And I'll gratuitously throw in Israel, here. Israel is in flagrant violation of UN Security Council resolutions without pause. It's almost as if they're in a race to clog the UN system with repeated violations that need to be defined and addressed faster than they can be resolved. Sound familiar? - Plautus satire 21:43, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

http://usembassy.state.gov/tokyo/wwwhse0926.html - Hi! WhisperToMe 23:57, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This document refers to the United Nations Security Council Resolution, which was passed in 2002[1], well after the invasion of Afghanistan by the US. The UN did not support the invasion of Afghanistan. Nowhere in the UN's web archives of their SC resolutions can one find explicit support for the invasion by the United States of Afghanistan. - Plautus satire 02:29, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There was no SC resolution specifically on the 2001 war in Afghanistan because none was needed - the war was undertaken under the UN Charter's right of self-defence, which requires no UN endorsement. This right was affirmed unanimously by the UN Security Council shortly after 9/11. The point was noted by Secretary General Kofi Annan on 8 October 2001, who said: "Immediately after the 11 September attacks on the United States, the Security Council expressed its determination to combat, by all means, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. The Council also reaffirmed the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. The States concerned have set their current military action in Afghanistan in that context." See the full text of his statement at http://www.usembassy.it/file2001_10/alia/a1101021.htm . -- ChrisO 11:42, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, but the UN does not support or endorse illegal wars like the invasion of Afghanistan by the United States. - Plautus satire 13:44, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I know I'm being trolled, but what the heck...

A war does not automatically need the prior authorisation of the UN Security Council. Read Article 51 of the UN Charter (http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm), which says:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

In the case of Afghanistan, what happened (in chronological order) was this:

• The UN Security Council passed resolution 1333 (19 December 2000) "strongly condemning the continuing use of the areas of Afghanistan under the control of the Afghan faction known as Taliban, which also calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (hereinafter known as the Taliban), for the sheltering and training of terrorists and planning of terrorist acts, and reaffirming its conviction that the suppression of international terrorism is essential for the maintenance of international peace and security"
• The 9/11 attacks occurred.
• The 9/11 attacks were blamed by US on al-Qaeda, which the UN had already determined was being sheltered by the Taliban.
• Immediately after the attacks, the UN Security Council "reaffirmed the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." (Or in other words, "go get 'em".)
• The Taliban refused to surrender bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda.
• The United States attacked the Taliban on the basis of "individual self-defence" and Ambassador Negroponte duly notified the Security Council, as required by the UN Charter.

This is hardly rocket science. The UN did not explicitly authorise the war in Afghanistan because it did not need to. If the UN had been around in 1941, for instance, it would not have needed to authorise the US declaration of war on Japan. You should have a look to see if any countries introduced Security Council resolutions opposing the war. (Free clue - they didn't). In short, a lack of explicit UN endorsement does not by itself make a war illegal. -- ChrisO 20:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

ChrisO: thanks for digging out the Kofi Annan quote. However it doesn't make sense: the idea that the US was entitled to attack Afghanistan because of a state's right to self-defence is based on the assumption that Afghanistan (as a nation state) was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. There is no evidence for that. 9/11 is thought to have been carried out by al-Qaeda and not the government of Afghanistan, and the links between both does not imply anything.Is there any evidence that the Afghan government even knew about 9/11? Did London bomb Dublin after IRA attacks? Did Washington bomb Washington after Oklahoma? It just doesn't make sense, does it. In fact al-Qaeda operates as a transnational organisation and the attack on Afghanistan has done little harm to al-Qaeda. The argument of self-defence doesn't hold. pir 19:28, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Pir, see my explanation above. I agree, it's questionable whether the Taliban knew about the 9/11 plot before it happened (although I suspect that the leadership probably did have some inkling of it). The key issue was that the Taliban did not surrender bin Laden nor cut off support for AQ, despite having been ordered to do so by the UN in 1999 and 2000. In other words, AQ was not simply a terrorist group operating within a country; it was a terrorist group operating openly with the active knowledge and support of that country's de facto government. This is very different to the situation with Ireland and the IRA. The conflict thus changed from being one between a state and a terrorist group, to being one between a state and another regime which was so intertwined with a terrorist group that it was itself, in effect, part of that group.

I should make one other point. The Taliban was not the "Afghan government" - it was not recognised as such internationally (if I remember rightly, Pakistan was the only country to recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government). Legally, the legitimate government of Afghanistan was the Northern Alliance coalition, which the Taliban had expelled from Kabul and bottled up in about 10% of Afghan territory before 9/11. If you look at the UN resolutions on Afghanistan, you'll notice that they define the Taliban as a "faction", not as the government - this is why. So our intervention in the Afghan civil war was, legally speaking, an intervention in support of the internationally recognised government against the Taliban insurgency. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing in the UN Charter that requires UN permission for one government to give military assistance to another. -- ChrisO 20:33, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

ChrisO: Thanks for your contribution - you are an effective advocate of the US position. You give us three different though contradictory reasons why the US-led attack on Afghanistan was legal:

[1] The Taliban were not the recognised government and the invasion was merely giving military assistance to the legitimate government. Unfortunately, as you state yourself, the US invoqued the right to "individual self-defence".

I didn't say that was the reason that the US invoked. I mentioned it to make the point that there was more than one right that the US could have invoked, if it had wanted to. -- ChrisO

[2] The Taliban refused to give up bin Laden. In fact they refused to hand him over unless the US produced evidence of his involvement in 9/11 (1). This is quite a sensible position: at that time, the US had not produced any evidence of al-Qaeda's responsibility. It is doubtful that bin Laden would have received a fair trial in the US (e.g. see Guantanamo, or Bush's soundbite that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive"). EU countries routinely refuse to extradite people to the US if they risk the death penalty (outlawed in the EU). It is not unthinkable that the Taliban would have extradited bin Laden to a third country , if there had been genuine political will to choose the path of law&justice rather than war&mindless retaliation (for example the Taleban offered to hand over bin Laden to Saudi Arabia in 1998 (2) ). On Sept. 20. 2001, the shura, a council of Islamic clerics asked Osama bin Laden to leave Afghanistan voluntarily (3). On September 28., the Taliban changed their position and told bin Laden the leave the country (4). Finally, I can't see how this fits into the "individual self-defence" story.

I think there are three distinct issues to address here. The first is that because there was no extradition process between Afghanistan and the US (and the Taliban was not the recognised government anyway), there was no legal mechanism by which OBL could have been handed over.

The second is that just about every intelligence service in the world was telling its government that (a) AQ was behind the 9/11 attacks and (b) AQ and the Taliban had become so intertwined that they were, in effect, the same thing. The US concluded that the Taliban was not serious about handing over OBL. In any case, handing over OBL was *not* the key issue. The key issue was the continued existence of AQ, which the UN had already twice condemned the Taliban for sheltering. The Taliban shura would have done nothing about this issue, which was totally unacceptable to the US (understandably). You shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking OBL = al Qaeda; if OBL is ever captured, it's a certainty that US troops will stay in Afghanistan for a long time afterwards to mop up remaining AQ fighters.

The third issue is that it fits right into the middle of the "individual self-defence" story, because on September 13, 2001 Congress passed Joint Resolution 63, which stated:

Congress hereby declares that a state of war exists between the United States of America and any entity determined by the President to have planned, carried out, or otherwise supported the attacks against the United States on September 11 , 2001. [2]

Note the bit about "otherwise supported" - the resolution specifically targeted the sponsors and allies of the 9/11 terrorists, in other words the Taliban. Again, this is an entirely uncontentious principle of international law. When the US declared war on Nazi Germany in self-defence (Hitler actually declared war first, in solidarity with the Japanese), it also declared war on all of Germany's allies (Italy, Romania, Hungary etc). So in a formal sense, the war in Afghanistan actually began on September 13, although it took nearly a month more for military action to commence. -- ChrisO

[3] The attack of Afghanistan as Self-defence. Self-defence is the legitimate use of violence to protect oneself in a situation of immediate danger. If the UN allows self-defence it is in the situation where country X is attacked by country Y's military forces. How could this possibly apply to the 9/11 attacks? Al-Qaeda was is not the Afghan military. Also, there was no immediate danger as the attacks had happened already, and the danger that had existed did not just originate from Afghanistan. The attacks had been planned in Hamburg. Most of the perpetrators were Saudi. The suicide pilots had taken flight lessons in the US. etc. To accept the argument that self-defence allowed the attack of Afghanistan, is to allow the invasion of half the world's countries.

It applied for two reasons. First, AQ *was* in effect part of the Afghan (Taliban) military. Taliban troops were commanded by AQ commanders, and vice-versa. They fought alongside each other, and the two groups were so closely linked that they could effectively be considered the same. This is obviously very different from the situation in Germany - nobody could possibly argue that AQ's Hamburg cell was operating in cooperation with the German government or military.

Second, at the time there *was* a perceived "clear and present danger". I would guess from your edits that you live in the UK (as do I). However, I was actually in the US (including New York) during and immediately after 9/11. There was a very widespread fear that more "spectacular" attacks were about to occur. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was closed because there were fears that a plane would be driven into that, too. I remember driving through Nevada and being stopped by a heavily armed National Guard unit near the Hoover Dam, which was turning back lorries for fear that they might be carrying truck bombs to blow up the dam. Intelligence agencies get reports of supposed terrorist plots all the time, but immediately after 9/11 nobody in the US wanted to take any risks, no matter how improbable they may now seem. The US wanted to destroy AQ as quickly as possible so that it would not have the opportunity to launch any more attacks. Bear in mind that at this time, nobody really knew just what its capabilities were (remember the rumours of chemical and nuclear weapons?). So the US had very good reasons to launch an immediate attack to remove what was seen as an immediate threat - waiting for a legal process to conclude would have taken far too long, could have left the US vulnerable to another AQ attack and would in any case have been political suicide for any US government in that situation.

At Wikipedia we must always strive for NPOV and not be advocates for any particular government or other group. From a NPOV, the attack of Afghanistan can not be construed as an act of self-defence.

I disagree. A NPOV would say that it was generally accepted that it was an act of self-defence (and give the arguments for this), but also recognise that some did not agree with this view (and give the arguments for that)

Even according to what you say, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan did not have the explicit "support of the United Nations" as stated wrongly in the article. It should be made clear that the UN explicitly endorsed the right to self-defence, that the US interpretation was that it allowed them to invade Afghanistan, and that this interpretation is at least questionable.That is the only point I want to make here. pir 03:13, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Who questioned its legality? Not the UN, not any of the Security Council members, nor the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Some governments did criticise it, but I think you'll find that nobody introduced UN resolutions against it. The situation was very different to Iraq or, for that matter, Kosovo. -- ChrisO 20:40, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

ChrisO : OK the central question here is that of self-defence. I'll pass on the rest.

Your reference to US Congress Resolution 63 is pretty irrelevant here, for several reasons, chiefly because it has no validity in the international arena. The copmparison to WW2 doesn't hold either, because there war was declared against countries, in this resolution it is an undefined any entity determined by the President - since when is it possible for a state to declare war against terrorist groups?

I agree that just after the attacks an imminent danger was perceived - but this was by the US population not necessarily by the government. You would need to convince us that there was evidence of an imminent threat (I don't think there is any). Secondly you would need to show how exactly the war on Afghanistan could possibly have averted a hypothtical second wave of attacks (the war didn't start until about 3 weeks later, and as I have pointed out, the attacks were not organised in Afghanistan).

Btw. we are not splitting hairs here. The reality of the situation is that a country which spends over $400 billion on what they call "defence", more than the fifteen next countries combined, is invading countries on spurious grounds, but claiming it the be 'self-defence'. Just reflect on this for a second.

I am glad that you give away the real reason for the Afghanistan war in an aside: [ waiting for a legal process] would in any case have been political suicide for any US government in that situation. The simple truth is that the 9/11 attacks humiliated the world's remaining superpower, and there was incredible pressure for the US to launch military action to restore "credibility" . (This was of course exactly what al-Qaeda had wanted and aimed for). Everybody knew that was going to be the response and that's also why the UN and many nations did not protest but tried to make the best of it. However, it was not an act of self-defence, it was an act of blind retaliation. The proof is that the war on Afghanistan made al-Qaeda stronger rather than weaker, and it did not make the US safer (even politicians keep on insisting that the danger persists).

Do we agree on the following: ?

[1] the UN did not 'explicitly' endorse the invasion of Afghanistan ;

[2] the UN did 'explicitly' endorse the right to self-defence ;

[3] the US claims the war on Afghanistan to be an act of self-defence

[4] we should include any effects of the invasion that fit into the self-defence story, as well as those that do not.

The best is to let facts speak for themselves. Sorry, I won't have Internet access for a week. pir 02:43, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely, that point needs to be made. Lirath Q. Pynnor

I would not call it questionable at all, Pir. Remmeber that the UN condemned the Taliban and Al-Qaida and agreed to help freeze funds. WhisperToMe 04:00, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK - please explain how the invasion of Afghanistan constitutes self-defence. I just don't get it. pir 04:36, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ok, if the U.S. did not invade Afghanistan, then the Taliban would still have been sheltering the leadership of Al-Qaida, and all of the characters that are part of the organization (Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, etc) would still be playing an active role. By attacking the Taliban, the United States removed the government that protected Al Qaida. Therefore, they were able to attack Al-Qaida fiercely. Al-Qaida is still existing, yet many of its core members have been killed or captured. By invading Afghanistan, the U.S. was able to damage Al-Qaida severely. WhisperToMe 04:54, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

WhisperToMe, I fear you're kidding yourself. The war on Afghanistan established al-Qaeda as a serious adversary of the US and led to a great recruiting drive. Any damage that it did to al-Qaeda had been anticipated.The net effect was to make al-Qaeda stronger. Watch out for the next attacks. pir 02:43, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Pir, I disagree. The war helped nab important guys like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who planned many spectacular plots, some of which actually worked, and some of which didn't. Helped make Operation Bojinka back in 1995! Now that he is gone, Al Qaida suffered a huge brain drain... Also, Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh have been captured. And Mohammed Atef is dead. All of this is due to the war. Al-Qaida has been an adversary since 1992, when they first attacked a hotel in Yemen. The attack only killed two tourists instead of soldiers, but by 1998, Al-Qaida got somewhat large recognition, and by 2001, it became a household name for terrorism... WhisperToMe 03:10, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that the Taliban had bin Laden in custody? In order to "turn over" bin Laden they would have to take him into custody. Was this possible? Was this practical within the arbitrary timeline established by the Pentagon? - Plautus satire 05:21, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that the US invasion of Afghanistan has impaired "Al-Qaida" in any significant way? By the way, I'd like to point out that the Mossad has already been busted once trying to set up phony al Qaeda "terrorist" cells in Gaza. How many more setups like this have there been? - Plautus satire 05:25, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The United Nations Security Council demanded that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (aka the Taliban) hand over Osama. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan responded by saying they would not turn Osama over until the U.S. provided evidence that he was guilty. A shura formed in Afghanistan, and made a recommendation to the Taliban leadership to make Osama leave Afghanistan, thereby protecting Afghanistan from invasion. The U.S. rejected that idea. Kingturtle 05:30, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Also no evidence was provided that the Taliban had or could acquire custody of bin Laden. There wasn't even so much as a shred of evidence bin Laden was even in Afghanistan until his funeral in December of 2001. - Plautus satire 05:44, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

His funeral? Did I miss something along the way? -- ChrisO 20:40, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

---