invade countries, mainly Muslim, illegally, commit atrocities, and stir up tensions amongst Muslims
This is because you have had your chance, and very few of your posts here seem serious. This is, pretty much another instance of such.
No, that is not what is being asked, it is you who is apparently deliberately misleading himself. The argument is that since Afghans have a "cultural code" of dishonesty, we cannot trust what a half Afghan half yank has to say. This is hard to miss.
Well, well done on your younger efforts.
I will repeat, the posts here are not "learn about another culture". This isnt lonelyplanet.com. It is learn that Afghans lie without knowing it, thus we cannot believe what any of them says. This is, by definition , an ethnic slur, and I hope we will not have to argue this any more here.
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The threads heating up. I do so love Hewitt...ummm Ghost whisperers.Not once did any of the posts say "Afghans have a cultural code of dishonesty". You are either purposely spinning it that way or your reading comprehension skills are seriously lacking. Honestly, I am having a hard time figuring out which it is with you. I want believe that you don't have trouble comprehending and it is just that you are spinning it the way you want to, but I am really starting to wonder.
I would assume that Afghans would prefer not to lie. However, if it comes to going against their culture, they will lie if need be. Or do whatever else they feel necessary to abide by their culture.
Let me give an example that maybe even you can understand. Say you have a mother who is very much against lying, but the safety of her child will be in jeopardy if she tells the truth. That mother is going to lie. She would prefer to never lie, however, if push comes to shove, she will LIE TO PROTECT HER CHILD. Let's take it a step further. That mother, is very much against killing. It is a sin. But her child is in grave danger and the only option she has is to kill the person harming her child. Guess what? She is going to save her child and kill the person. I can say this because I am a mother. I could not take another life, but if it came down to that person or my daughter, that f'r is going down. Does that make all mothers murderers? Hardly. Does that make all mothers liars? Again, no.
Same goes with the Afghans, their cultural code is to protect their guest. If push comes to shove, the Afghan will lie to protect their guest. Or whatever else they need to do to protect their guest. Thus, handing over Bin Laden goes against their cultural code. The POINT, which is so obviously escaping you, is that your source is questionable. Why? Because he should understand, because of his tribal affiliation, that it goes against their cultural code to hand him over. PERIOD.
Good grief MJD, keep up.
But he couldn't stand. Three men lifted 240 pounds of dead weight and carried Luttrell to the 15-hut village of Sabray. They took his rifle.
What happened next baffled him. Mohammed Gulab, 33, father of six, fed Luttrell warm goat's milk, washed his wounds and clothed him in what Luttrell called "man jammies."
"I didn't trust them," Luttrell said. "I was confused. They'd reassure me, but hell, it wasn't in English."
Hours after his arrival, Taliban fighters appeared and demanded that the villagers surrender the American. They threatened Gulab, Luttrell said, and tried to bribe him. "I was waiting for a good deal to come along and for Gulab to turn me over.
"I'd been in so many villages. I'd be like, 'Up against the wall, and shut the hell up!' So I'm like, why would these people be kind to me?" Luttrell said. "I probably killed one of their cousins. And now I'm shot up, and they're using all the village medical supplies to help me."
What Luttrell did not understand, he said, was that the people of Sabray were following their own rules of engagement -- tribal law. Once they had carried the invalid Seal into their huts, they were committed to defend him. The Taliban fighters seemed to respect that custom, even as they lurked in the hills nearby
No, he, along with memoranda and documentation, is the main source of the article, there are others too. For instance:Please, He is the source of the article.
By the end of 1999 US sanctions and near-world-wide political ostracism were costing the Taliban dearly
Not once did any of the posts say "Afghans have a cultural code of dishonesty".
if it comes to going against their culture, they will lie if need be. Or do whatever else they feel necessary to abide by their culture.
Let me give an example that maybe even you can understand. Say you have a mother who is very much against lying, but the safety of her child will be in jeopardy if she tells the truth. That mother is going to lie. She would prefer to never lie, however, if push comes to shove, she will LIE TO PROTECT HER CHILD. Let's take it a step further. That mother, is very much against killing. It is a sin. But her child is in grave danger and the only option she has is to kill the person harming her child. Guess what? She is going to save her child and kill the person. I can say this because I am a mother. I could not take another life, but if it came down to that person or my daughter, that f'r is going down. Does that make all mothers murderers? Hardly. Does that make all mothers liars? Again, no.
Same goes with the Afghans, their cultural code is to protect their guest. If push comes to shove, the Afghan will lie to protect their guest. Or whatever else they need to do to protect their guest. Thus, handing over Bin Laden goes against their cultural code. The POINT, which is so obviously escaping you, is that your source is questionable. Why? Because he should understand, because of his tribal affiliation, that it goes against their cultural code to hand him over. PERIOD.
Good grief MJD, keep up.
Another interpretation on your part? It still leads to question the creditability of the offers and the "counter punch" article.No, he, along with memoranda and documentation, is the main source of the article, there are others too. For instance:
is not an example of him as a source. The example you have given is another such. And in any case, the 2 citations are not mutually exclusive. The one says Mohabbat was negotiating successfully for their withdrawal; the other says they were freed by a group other than the Taliban. Their freeing by another group may have come as a result of the actions of their captors. Neither article goes into more than a few words on the topic. And of course, it is highlu unlikely, given that the CNN article comes from 2001, that 3 years later, Cockburn and St Clair would be so sloppy on these facts to let them pass in the bare-faced way you imply, whether they were their own statements or those of Mohabbat
Yes. The quote regarding the PDBs from the 911 Commission report:I've been following this thread fairly closely. But, did I somewhere miss where mjd provided any evidence that the Bush administration did "nothing" in response to the PDBs regarding the AQ terror threats?
There were more than 40 intelligence articles in the PDBs from January 20
to September 10, 2001, that related to Bin Ladin.
We have found no indication of any further discussion before September
11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI Tenet visited President Bush in
Crawford,Texas, on August 17 and participated in PDB briefings of the Pres=
ident between August 31 (after the President had returned toWashington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President ofthe domestic threat during this period...domestic agencies did
not know what to do, and no one gave them direction...The borders
were not hardened.Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic sur
veillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law
enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts.The public was
not warned.
No, because they are not mutually exclusive details, as explained to you, but as you refuse to address.Another interpretation on your part? It still leads to question the creditability of the offers and the "counter punch" article.
Incidentally, isnt it interesting how easy you find it to question to credibility of Mohabbat; yet you find no such difficulty in questioning Bush's State dept.
...
ETA- we are gonna get to this in time. For the moment, it would be best if we stick on the refusal to have OBL handed over or killed, and then move onto the PDB's/demotion of Clarke.
I see, when you can't counter a documented fact you resort to ad-homs.Isnt this incredible? No matter how hard you guys try, you cannot even begin to hide your bigotry. This is incredibly revealing; belief in the OT is not couched in bigotry, but it is in extreme ignorance, of which such bigotry is a drastic symptom.
...etc etc
I've been following this thread fairly closely. But, did I somewhere miss where mjd provided any evidence that the Bush administration did "nothing" in response to the PDBs regarding the AQ terror threats?
Right, well if this is the case, please tell me for starters how/why you accept unfailingly, the word of the State Dept in possibly the most overtly corrupt and mendacious administration in US history, when it contradicts independent, expert insider testimony? Back to the subterfuge; in any other situation you would think twice before you believe a word that comes out of any of their mouts, but when it comes to 911, you appear so unwilling to swallow anything that may lead towards an unpalatable truth, that you believe them unquestioningly. Why is this?The major difference is I have done the research and have looked at the facts without a predetermined conclusion.
Errr.... right. So because they didnt accept the offer, your conclusion is that they must have believed that they were lying. Let's see what Mohabbat has to say about that:You still seem to believe that the Taliban had the ability to "hand Bin Laden over" to the US.
How could they have done this? He wasn't living by himself in a suburban bungalow, he was being protected by his own army.
Even if the Taliban wanted to hand him over I doubt that anyone negotiating with them believed that they could.
If the Taliban had given the US target coordinates for a cruise missile strike, there was no guarantee that Bin Laden would be there when the missile arrived.
The negotiators obviously decided that the Taliban were not negotiating in good faith. What makes you think that you know more about it than they did?
"We all agreed," Mohabbat tells CounterPunch, "the best way was to gather Osama and all his lieutenants in one location and the US would send one or two Cruise missiles."
Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.
In the wake of the 2000 election Mohabbat traveled to Islamabad and met with William Milam, US ambassador to Pakistan and the person designated by the Clinton administration to deal with the Taliban on the fate of bin Laden. Milam told Mohabbat that it was a done deal but that the actual handover of bin Laden would have to be handled by the incoming Bush administration.
On November 23, 2000, Mohabbat got a call from the NSC saying they wanted to put him officially on the payroll as the US government's contact man for the Taliban. He agreed. A few weeks later an official from the newly installed Bush NSC asked him to continue in the same role and shortly thereafter he was given a letter from the administration (Mohabbat tells us he has a copy), apologizing to the Taliban for not having dealt with bin Laden, explaining that the new government was still setting in, and asking for a meeting in February 2001.
The Bush administration sent Mohabbat back, carrying kindred tidings of delay and regret to the Taliban three more times in 2001, the last in September after the 9/11 attack. Each time he was asked to communicate similar regrets about the failure to act on the plan agreed to in Frankfurt. This procrastination became a standing joke with the Taliban, Mohabbat tells CounterPunch "They made an offer to me that if the US didn't have fuel for the Cruise missiles to attack Osama in Daronta, where he was under house arrest, they would pay for it."
Errr.... right. So because they didnt accept the offer, your conclusion is that they must have believed that they were lying. Let's see what Mohabbat has to say about that:
...
Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.
...
That's how they would have done it; that's how the US refused it.
Right, well if this is the case, please tell me for starters how/why you accept unfailingly, the word of the State Dept in possibly the most overtly corrupt and mendacious administration in US history, when it contradicts independent, expert insider testimony?
in any other situation you would think twice before you believe a word that comes out of any of their mouts, but when it comes to 911, you appear so unwilling to swallow anything that may lead toward an unpalatable truth, that you believe them unquestioningly. Why is this?