Stardate 20010924.0400 (On Screen): Bill sends in this link to a page which is the latest example of "It's really the US's fault". But the case it builds is remarkably weak and unimpressive. It claims that in May the Bush administration threatened the Taliban with bombing if they didn't turn bin Laden over to us for trial. Even if it's true (and it wouldn't surprise me) what of it?
Let's be clear that bin Laden was already wanted by the US for complicity in the first WTC bombing, the bombing of our embassy in Nairobi and the bombing of USS Cole. The Clinton administration had been applying "measured diplomatic pressure" on the Taliban for years to try to get them to turn bin Laden over to us for trial (amounting to the diplomatic equivalent of "Pretty please with sugar on top?") and the Bush administration began taking a harder line. But even if the US did directly threaten to bomb Afghanistan, does this excuse or explain the WTC bombing? No, it does neither. First, the hijackers began to infiltrate the US long before this threat; in fact many were here last year before the election. Some of them were taking pilot lessons in Florida last winter. So it is evident that the details of this attack had been put into place long before Bush was even sworn into office, let alone before his administration might have made that threat, which means that at worst, only the timing of the attack was changed by it; it would have happened whether the Bush administration had issued a threat of that kind or not. As to the claim of oil and gas interests being behind it, that's sheer moonshine. But then, if you look at the front page, the "editorial slant" of Global Free Press becomes blatantly clear. (What do you expect from a site based on Slashcode?) (discussion in progress)
