“The White House Counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales…sent a now-infamous memo to [President] Bush on January 25, 2002, stating, ‘The war against terrorism is a new kind of war. …In my judgment this new paradigm renders obsolete [the] Geneva [Conventions]‘s strict limitations on questioning enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.’ He argued that ‘Afghanistan was a failed state because the Taliban did not exercise full control over the territory and people…the Taliban and its forces were in fact, not a government, but a militant, terrorist-like group.’ ” [Editor’s note: the author incorrectly identified the date of the Gonzales memo as January 25, 2001.]
– Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos, Pages 295-296