While the Taliban connives with foreign terrorists, the Afghan people suffer from poverty, drought and hunger.
Many of the points made by the antiwar movement have been consciously assimilated by the Pentagon and its lawyers and advisers. Precision weaponry is good in itself, but its ability to discriminate is improving and will continue to improve. Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect.
I recommended to the president [George Bush] that our focus had to be on al-Qaida, the Taliban and Afghanistan. Those were the ones who attacked the United States of America on 9/11.
And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban - I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban - no, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.
When I read about women living under the Taliban, I really wanted to travel there and see for myself: Is it that bad? What is the situation? I remember the night before I left for my trip, I called my mom and said, "I'm going to Afghanistan tomorrow."
The U.S. is telling the Northern Alliance to kill Taliban prisoners. It's totally a breach of all the known conventions of war. Western television networks aren't showing this, but Arab networks are showing how prisoners are being killed and what's being done to them. Instead, we're shown scenes that are deliberately created for the Western media: a few women without the veil, a woman reading the news on Kabul television, and 150 people cheering.
Carolyn Maloney led the fight to make sure that DNA evidence kits are processed and passed the Debbie Smith Bill. She, when no one almost would listen to us on the whole issue of the Taliban and its treatment of women, she helped pass the Afghan Women's Empowerment Act.
In early 1999, I was watching TV, when I came across a story on Afghanistan. It was a story about the Taliban and the restrictions they were imposing on the Afghan people, most notably women. At some point in the story, there was a casual reference to them having banned the game of kite fighting. This detail struck a personal chord with me, as I had grown up in Kabul flying kite with my friends.
We felt like the Taliban saw us as little dolls to control, telling us what to do and how to dress. I thought if God wanted us to be like that He wouldn't have made us all different.
Since the Bush-Cheney Administration took office in January 2001, controlling the major oil and natural gas fields of the world had been the primary, though undeclared, priority of US foreign policy... Not only the invasion of Iraq, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, had nothing to do with 'democracy,' and everything to do with pipeline control across Central Asia and the militarization of the Middle East.
I mean, the Taliban, my view is that they have been weakened. We have not seen them able to conduct any kind of organized attack to regain any territory that they've lost. We've seen levels of violence going down.
Mr. Speaker, we are a blessed Nation. We have not suffered another attack on our soil since September 11, and we are grateful. We have killed or captured dozens of members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Our military and intelligence forces are working both hard and smart.
Fighting the Taliban and the various radical organizations on the front lines is like adding a Band-Aid to a cut, it may stop the bleeding but unless you clean it with antiseptic, the germs stay and multiply.
Since 1996, the Feminist Majority Foundation has been immersed in a campaign to support Afghan women and girls in their fight against the brutal oppression of the Taliban.
We need to put in proper safeguards. How are we going to feel if somebody leases to the Taliban?
If a woman is wearing the burqa, it's not her wish. It's more that she feels secure from the Taliban, secure from acid if she were to show her face.
Moscow has been helping the Northern Alliance because "the Taliban was openly supported by Pakistan... until last week, Pakistani servicemen had taken part in war operations on the Taliban side.
And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence.
Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed 'we' did. Well, does that not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power?
They [people of Afghanistan] didn't want Al-Qaeda in their country. They didn't appreciate the Taliban taking control. But they really have an incredible amount of dignity. And by that, they are grateful for America's help in ridding them of the Taliban. The average, ordinary person is glad that their daughter can go to school now. There's no public executions, no banning of soccer games. The difference is, they're appreciative, but they don't want any prolonged military presence of the United States there.
Swapping Bergdahl for illegal enemy combatants (terrorists, in common parlance) signaled unmistakably to Taliban and al Qaeda that Obama is determined to withdraw from Afghanistan no matter what the cost to the United States or those in Afghanistan fighting to remain free.
American Taliban John Walker Lindh has pleaded guilty to two counts of terrorism and will face twenty years in prison. I guess that means his jihad is on ji-hold.
Did you hear about this 20-year-old kid named John Walker from Northern California who was apparently fighting for the Taliban?... It didn't take long for the TV networks to jump on this Walker thing. CBS has a new show: 'Walker: Taliban Ranger.'
I don't know anyone who is more admired and respected in the international community than President Karzai, for his strength, for his wisdom and for his courage to lead this country first in the defeat of the Taliban and now in rebuilding a democratic and unified Afghanistan. And I can tell you I am with foreign ministers and with heads of state all over the world. I sit in the councils of NATO. I sit with the EU. I sit with people all over the world and there is great admiration for your president and also for what the Afghan people are doing here.
As a health scientist at Columbia University, Les Roberts, pointed out, sooner or later people are going to be looking at a child in a wheelchair suffering from polio and will say 'the Americans did that to him'. So they continue policies which have similar effects i.e. organising the Taliban. This will come back to them too.
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