>> You contradict yourself here. First you say that the architects of the
>> Afghanistan invasion believed it was in their "interests" to topple the
>> Taliban.
>>
>
> Well, no. What was (presumably) in somebody's interest was to invade
> Afghanistan.
After which they promptly toppled the Taliban. What a weird coincidence.
>
> An earlier contributor to this thread suggested that the Taliban
> posed a "threat" not just to the US, but to China, Russia, Iran and
> (by implication) Pakistan and India, among others. So far as I know
> none of these powers had suffered any damage from the Taliban or
> from Al-Qaeda.
>
http://www.the-american-interest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=423
> In the 1990s, Iran and Russia saw the Taliban (like the previous U.S.
> policy tilt toward Saddam Hussein) as part of a U.S.-Pakistani-Saudi
> plan to encircle Iran. The strengthening of links between the Taliban
> and al-Qaeda, and the consequent worsening of relations between the
> United States, on the one hand, and Pakistan and the Taliban, on the
> other, culminated in a temporary realignment after September 11.
> Despite some jockeying for relative advantage, Russia, Iran, India and
> the United States ultimately cooperated to defeat the Taliban and
> al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and to establish the new Afghan government.
> Not only did Iran cooperate with the United States, Russia actively
> helped it establish support bases in Central Asia. Pakistan was
> politically marginalized in the process.
>
> Since then, however, old alignments have re-emerged thanks in part to
> missteps in U.S. policy [....]
That's by Barnett Rubin, who's Juan Cole's main source on Afghanistan.
> The US public certainly
> was shaken by the September 11 attacks, and some of the public
> no doubt perceived -- with much encouragement from the propaganda
> sector -- a tsunami of crazed towelheads ready to swarm
> ashore, scimitar between their teeth, and kill all our men and violate
> all our womenfolk.
>
> Did any elite elements share this "perception"? I
> doubt it. Three thousand people -- hell, the car sector kills ten times
> that many every year.
Man, your logic is impeccable.
I'm just confused about one thing. So the US public was scared by 9/11, but the "elite elements" just shrugged and noted that "the car sector" kills ten times that many people. So then, why didn't the US public also shrug and note that the car sector kills ten times as many people? I guess it must have been because the attacks were carefully crafted to hit the mass public but spare the elite elements, since it was merely the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that were targeted.
> If anything, they saw it as an opportunity -- an opportunity to
> organize hysteria, chauvinism, moral panic, and a state-of-siege
> mentality. In this they were stunningly successful. September
> 11 was a godsend for them. If it hadn't existed, they might have
> been tempted to invent it.
>
If you would just come out and say that 9/11 was actually orchestrated by Dick Cheney, this argument would make a hell of a lot more sense.
SA