Bush Administration has Never Taken the Taliban as a Serious Threat (Title changed)

UPDATE: I've changed the title. The original title, "Bush Gave Taliban $43 Million Four Months before 9/11", was causing the discussion to focus on a single example--and not on the idea I was trying to get across.

As Barack Obama begins the effort of turning America’s attention toward the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan--and as American soldiers die at the hands of Taliban militants in numbers never before seen--it’s worth drawing everyone’s attention to a piece in The Nation that VetVoice’s Chris LeJeune dug up this afternoon. It was originally published May 15, 2001--less four months before 9/11.

• Brandon Friedman's diary :: ::
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Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-US 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 United States 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.

Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.

Sadly, the Bush Administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at US insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.

Bush made the U.S. "the main sponsor of the Taliban." Looking back, it’s sad to see that the writer, Robert Scheer, knew just how far $43 million and more would go in a place like that.

The first American died in Afghanistan six months later. Since then, 556 American troops have died there, with 64--nearly 12 8 percent--having been killed in the last six weeks. The Taliban have proven resilient, formidable, and more than capable of waiting out their enemy in a war of attrition.

But given the history of the region, this should have been anticipated by the U.S. government. Thus, the troubling aspect of this is the mind-blowing pattern of carelessness and neglect on the part of the Bush administration with regard to the region. With their $43 million corporate sponsorship of the Taliban in 2001, the administration failed to take the Taliban seriously enough then--as we learned four months later--and they do not take the Taliban seriously enough now--as we’ve seen with the spiraling violence this summer.

What’s worse is that John McCain is of the same school of thought. From his vote to invade Iraq, to his obsession with the "surge" in 2007, to his fetish for war with Iran, John McCain has displayed a stunning lack of awareness and knowledge when it comes to the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the damage may have already been done. As the moderately saner heads of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and top military man, Admiral Michael Mullen, push for more troops in Afghanistan, it’s painfully apparent that there are none left to spare. They are all in Iraq.

So, as American troops in Iraq see the news of their buddies fighting--under-resourced and under-manned--in Afghanistan, they will sit behind concrete barrier walls in Baghdad. They will remain helplessly there on 15-month-long tours, helping to prop up a corrupt, Iranian-backed government, while continuing to pay Sunni insurgents to not take up arms against them.

Meanwhile, their comrades in Afghanistan will continue fending off increasingly sophisticated attacks brought on by a Taliban funded with the $43 million given to them by the U.S. government. Osama bin Laden will remain a free man, as will many others responsible for attacking us on 9/11. The Bush administration will react too slowly, if at all. John McCain will remain fixated on Iraq and Iran.

And with or without help from the Commander-in-Chief, American troops in Afghanistan will continue fighting. They will do what they can to hold the line until leadership that actually understands the gravity of the situation arrives next January.

UPDATE: I should have included this piece from the CATO Institute somewhere in my post. It's from 2002 and fleshes the topic out a little more.

Original here