What if Bush nuked Afghanistan after 9/11?

[JosephDredd]

Article here (link).

Michael Steiner, who served as a political advisor to then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, told the German daily that the nuclear option was one of the possibilities examined after the attacks.

"The papers were written," Steiner said when asked whether the U.S. was considered using nuclear weapons in response to the attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden, in which almost 3,000 people were killed. "They had really played through all possibilities."

Steiner added that Schroder had feared that the U.S., which was in a state of shock following the attacks, would overreact.

It doesn't surprise me that they considered it, but I cannot AT ALL wrap my head around what the world would be like today if they pushed the button.

 

[Hankooks]

The world would be better off if the entire middle east was wiped off the planet. Tons of innocents would be dead but it would be for the greater good imo.

 

[Trollgrappler]

Mountains of profitable minerals in Afghanistan. It is also the worlds main supplier of heroin. There is is no way they would ever have nuked the place.

 

[Quipling]

The world would be better off if the entire middle east was wiped off the planet. Tons of innocents would be dead but it would be for the greater good imo.

Yeah, we could have prevented all several million deaths (many of them directly attributable to the US) of the past few decades by wiping out several hundred times as many.

I bet all the people oppressed by those regimes would have been better off dead.

Mountains of profitable minerals in Afghanistan. It is also the worlds main supplier of heroin. There is is no way they would ever have nuked the place.

Afghanistan's mineral wealth was discovered after the invasion. Similarly, their heroin production was actually far lower under the taliban - they didn't scale to world supplier until the last few years. You're using modern information to argue that it would have influenced decisions before it was known. That's not how causality works.

 

[Phanuel]

What if Bush had accepted Mullah Omar and the Taliban offer to hand over bin laden in the months prior to 9/11? All's the Taliban asked in return was official recognition as the ruling Government of Afghanistan.


oh the what ifs...

 

[Trollgrappler]

Afghanistan's mineral wealth was discovered after the invasion.

Similarly, their heroin production was actually far lower under the taliban - they didn't scale to world supplier until the last few years.

Heroin among many other things are an exports of Afghanistan and always has been and is very valuable for many gov't of the world that profit from importing it. Radiating this place would have been out of the question.

AYou're using modern information to argue that it would have influenced decisions before it was known. That's not how causality works.

 

[Phanuel]

sorry ...couldn't resist.

 

[JosephDredd]

What if Bush had accepted Mullah Omar and the Taliban offer to hand over bin laden in the months prior to 9/11? All's the Taliban asked in return was official recognition as the ruling Government of Afghanistan.

I don't think I've heard about this until now. That's another interesting what if.

 

[Strychnine]

Mountains of profitable minerals in Afghanistan. It is also the worlds main supplier of heroin. There is is no way they would ever have nuked the place.

There's NO WAY President Bush was going to torch all of that revenue.

 

[Strychnine]

What if Bush had accepted Mullah Omar and the Taliban offer to hand over bin laden in the months prior to 9/11? All's the Taliban asked in return was official recognition as the ruling Government of Afghanistan.


oh the what ifs...

I read about that! The Aghan Gov't said they would be wiling to turn Bin-Laden over to a third party for trial and judgement..

Dubya refused.

 

[JosephDredd]

I read about that! The Aghan Gov't said they would be wiling to turn Bin-Laden over to a third party for trial and judgement..

Dubya refused.

Holy FUUUUUUUUUCK.

According to this youtube posting (link), that video is from February, 2001 -- seven months before 9/11.

According to this article (link) the Taliban offered to deport Bin Laden in the summer of 2000.

The article also says (after the bombing of the USS Cole in December, 2000):

After a rocky start on the first day of the Frankfurt session, Mohabbat says the Taliban realized the gravity of US threats and outlined various ways bin Laden could be dealt with. He could be turned over to the EU, killed by the Taliban, or made available as a target for Cruise missiles. In the end, Mohabbat says, the Taliban promised the "unconditional surrender of bin Laden" .

The Taliban actually detained Bin Laden under house arrest in anticipation of handing him over.

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.

The Bush administration cancelled so many meetings with the Taliban to conclude the deal that was already in place by the Clinton administration, including cancelling a meeting AFTER 9/11, that the Taliban joked that if the Bush administration could not afford fuel to reach Bin Laden with cruise missiles that the Taliban would pay for the fuel.

Kabir Mohabbat’s final trip to Afghanistan on the US government payroll took place on September 3, 2001. On September 11 Mohabbat acted as translator for some of the Taliban leadership in Kabul as they watched tv coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Four days later the US State Department asked Mohabbat to set up a meeting with the Taliban. Mohabbat says the Taliban were flown to Quetta in two C-130s. There they agreed to the three demands sought by the US team: 1. Immediate handover of bin Laden; 2. Extradition of foreigners in Al Qaeda who were wanted in their home countries; 3. shut-down of bin Laden’s bases and training camps. Mohabbat says the Taliban agreed to all three demands.

A reporter named Pizzey aired a story on the deal, which had been finalized a year before in Frankfurt, and the Bush administration gave Mohabbat (the man the Bush administration paid to be liaison to the Taliban for these negotiations) a dressing down and told him "the game had changed, and he should tell the Taliban the new terms: surrender or be killed. Mohabbat declined to be the bearer of this news and went off the US government payroll."

Towards the end of that same month of October, 2001 Mohabbat was successfully negotiating with the Taliban for the release of Heather Mercer (acting in a private capacity at the request of her father) when the Taliban once again said they would hand over Osama Bin Laden unconditionally. Mohabbat tells us he relayed the offer to David Donahue, the US consulate general in Islamabad. He was told, in his words,that "the train had moved". Shortly thereafter the US bombing of Afghanistan began.

What a complete fucking failure by Bush. I have never heard of this before. The article finishes by outlining the sources they've been provided to verify this version of events since the Bush administration claimed the Taliban demanded the cessation of bombing.

Can you imagine if Bush had just fulfilled the deal Clinton finalized to receive Bin Laden before 9/11? How different would the last 15 years have been?

I am totally stunned.

EDIT: I was so shocked by this article that I came back online to look back into it and cannot find anyone else who supports this version, so maybe I got suckered by a shitty conspiracy website. I can't find much information on the website itself.

What it looks like is true is that the Taliban was willing to hand over Bin Laden in exchange for proof he was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Here's a link to the content of an explosive Salon.com article which is no longer available on their website, but which has been copied all over the internet by some pretty reliable news media.

New NSA documents contradict 9/11 claims (link).

 

[JosephDredd]

See edit of previous post.

 

[Quipling]

http://www.mining.com/1-trillion-motherlode-of-lithium-and-gold-discovered-in-afghanistan/

Survey discovered the lode in 2007. Unless you have evidence to the contrary...?

Heroin among many other things are an exports of Afghanistan and always has been and is very valuable for many gov't of the world that profit from importing it. Radiating this place would have been out of the question.

Leaving aside your stuff about heroin "profiting many gov't", you're simply wrong.

Opium production wasnt big in Afghanistan until the 80s (Muhajadeen revenue source) and the Taliban under Mullah Omar reduced poppy production in afghanistan to the point where it was effectively nonexistence. It didn't recover to the point of significance until 2004 (two years AFTER the fall of the taliban), but I'm sure you have a gif to argue otherwise.

 

[Lead]

Comic books would be better if they just did a ton of what if's with our history and no superheroes involved.

 

[WrestlinganJudo]

Article here (link).



It doesn't surprise me that they considered it, but I cannot AT ALL wrap my head around what the world would be like today if they pushed the button.

Afghanistan was in a civil war at the time.

I highly doubt they would have done it no mater what.

The military draws up plans for all kinds of situations just for the mental gymnastics of it.

They have always played with what if situations even against our best allies as a learning tool.



What if a large collection of people get a civil war going in France. Then the instigators trying to take over France offer to turn over someone that's wanted by us to recognize them as the official government of France.

We would be taking a big poop on the Northern Alliance if we had made that deal with the Taliban.

Long before 9-11 there were women's studies professors wanting to know why the US was not doing something about the Taliban treatment of women.

 

[SouthoftheAndes]

Makes sense in some ways I guess. Would of been better if we destroyed all that Opium as well. Shits a cancer to the world. Because we know damn well one of the worst drugs ever comes out of there. But if tactical nukes are to be used they should be used on Iran to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Simply take out their facilities.. Of course some conventional weapons can do that.

 

[BROKENSPROKET]

Mountains of profitable minerals in Afghanistan. It is also the worlds main supplier of heroin. There is is no way they would ever have nuked the place.

I came here to say just that.

 

[Cid]

http://www.mining.com/1-trillion-motherlode-of-lithium-and-gold-discovered-in-afghanistan/

Survey discovered the lode in 2007. Unless you have evidence to the contrary...?


Leaving aside your stuff about heroin "profiting many gov't", you're simply wrong.

Opium production wasnt big in Afghanistan until the 80s (Muhajadeen revenue source) and the Taliban under Mullah Omar reduced poppy production in afghanistan to the point where it was effectively nonexistence. It didn't recover to the point of significance until 2004 (two years AFTER the fall of the taliban), but I'm sure you have a gif to argue otherwise.

Typically they don't profit from it but rather use it for neferious affairs. The Golden Crescent taking over from the Golden Triangle which took over from the Golden Crescent before that was not really that suprising if you're able to locate the pattern going on.

 

[loyalyolayal]

I'm ok with it.

 

[M3t4tr0n]

Comic books would be better if they just did a ton of what if's with our history and no superheroes involved.

Lol I remember those what if comics back in the day from marvel.