Regarding the Taliban, the State Department’s “diplomats hoped to appease Kabul’s new rulers. ‘We wish to engage the new Taliban ‘interim government’ at an early stage,’ declared a classified instructions cable sent from Washington to embassies abroad on September 28 [1996]. In official meetings with the Taliban, American diplomats should strive to ‘demonstrate [American] willingness […]
9/27/1996
On September 27, 1996, “within hours of Kabul [Afghanistan]‘s capture by the Taliban, the US State Department announced it would establish diplomatic relations with the Taliban by sending an official to Kabul–an announcement it also quickly retracted. State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said the US found ‘nothing objectionable’ in the steps taken by the Taliban […]
9/27/1996
“On the day the Taliban took Kabul [Afghanistan], the State Department offered them more than an olive branch. ‘On the face of it, there’s nothing objectionable at this stage’ to the imposition of Islamic law in areas under Taliban control, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said [on September 27, 1996]. He played down the execution […]
9/27/1996
“…on September 27, 1996, the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, fell to Taliban forces.” – Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 129 […]
9/27/1996
U.S. State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said, during the September 27, 1996 State Department Regular Briefing, “The Taliban had announced ‘that Afghans can return to Kabul without fear, and that Afghanistan is the common home of all Afghans and we [take] those statements as an indication that the Taliban intends to respect the rights of […]
9/27/1996
During the State Department Regular Briefing of September 27, 1996, spokesman Glyn Davies responded to questions about the Taliban’s imposition of strict Islamic law in Afghanistan by saying: ” ‘Remember, we don’t have any American officials in Kabul. We haven’t had them since the Soviets left because we’ve judged it too dangerous to maintain a […]
9/27/1996
“In Washington a spokesman for the State Department, Glyn Davies, announced [during his September 27, 1996, State Department Regular Briefing] the official American reaction [to the Taliban’s September 1996 defeat of Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance] from a briefing room podium. ‘We hope this presents an opportunity for a process of national reconciliation to begin,’ […]
9/26/1996
On September 26, 1996, as Taliban forces closed in on Kabul, “President [Burhanuddin] Rabbani’s military commander, Ahmad Shah Masoud, ordered his troops to evacuate Kabul. Within hours, columns of Taliban fighters were moving into the Afghan capital. One column went straight to the UN building where [former President Mohammed] Najibullah, the deposed communist leader, had […]
9/25/1996
“As far back as September 25, 1996, CIA Director John Deutch told a congressional committee: ‘Saddam’s family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food [from the Oil-for-Food program] end up.’ ” – Douglas Feith, War and Decision, Page 584 […]
9/15/1996
Author Peter Bergen detailed the U.S. State Department’s first support (in September 1996) of the Taliban in Afghanistan: “This tepid support can be explained on several grounds, the first of which was simple ignorance. [The U.S. embassy had been closed down, and the U.S. had little idea of who the Taliban were.] …Unocal, a giant […]