Re: US plans to topple Taliban (Guardian UK article) (fwd)

Gallop polls do show the world in two camps, though far from what the
Resident Bush has in mind: everybody against the United States and Israel.
Israel for war: 74%; United States (only) 54%. Everybody else all over the
world: pro war only in the single digits.


http://www.gallup-international.com/terrorismpoll_figures.htm

http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=gallup&n=20&c=news

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=66015&group=webcast

At 05:38 AM 9/21/01 -0400, you wrote:
>       Secret memo reveals US plan to overthrow Taliban regime 
>
>Special report: terrorism in the US
>
>Special report: Afghanistan
>
>Ian Traynor in Tajikistan and Gary Younge in Washington
>
>Guardian
>
>Friday September 21, 2001
>
>The US government is pressing its European allies to agree to a military
>campaign to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and replace it with an
>interim administration under United Nations auspices. 
>
>Diplomatic cables from the Washington embassy of a key Nato ally, seen by
>the Guardian, report that the US is keen to hear allied views on
>"post-Taliban Afghanistan after the liberation of the country". 
>
>The embassy cable reveals that the US administration is bent on force to
>evict the Taliban from power because of the shelter it has offered Osama bin
>Laden, named by the White House as prime suspect for the New York and
>Washington atrocities on September 11. 
>
>The Guardian has also learned that two large US Hercules transport aircraft
>landed in Tashkent, capital of the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, on
>Tuesday loaded with surveillance equipment to be installed along the
>northern Afghan border. 
>
>The secret landing represented a radical departure since it appeared to
>herald the deployment of squadrons of US fighters at Uzbekistan's sprawling
>airfield at Termez, directly on the border. Such a build-up would incur the
>wrath of Russia which views the central Asian republics as its backyard. 
>
>The Pentagon yesterday continued its move to a war footing, with orders for
>up to 130 heavy bombers, fighters, aerial refuelling planes and other combat
>aircraft to be deployed around the Middle East and Central Asia region. 
>
>Two B-52 bombers yesterday left Barksdale airbase in Louisiana, joining
>F-15E fighter-bombers, F-16 fighters, B-1 long range bombers and E-3 Awacs
>airborne command-and-control aircraft that left on Wednesday. 
>
>The navy has also sent an additional aircraft carrier toward the Middle East
>region,which along with the air deployment could place up to 500 US
>warplanes in the Mediterranean, Gulf and Indian Ocean areas. 
>Tony Blair, in Washington last night to meet Mr Bush, suggested military
>strikes inside Afghanistan, targeted on Bin Laden's training camps, could
>come in a matter of days. "These people, if they could, would get access to
>chemical, biological and nuclear capability. We have no option but to act,"
>he said. 
>
>The US strategy to depose the Taliban regime is based on more than military
>thinking. A further plank appears to entail supporting the campaign of the
>exiled 86-year-old monarch of Afghanistan, King Zahir Shah, to return to
>power by encouraging the guerrilla army of the Northern Alliance opposition
>to fall in behind him. 
>
>Diplomatic documents seen by the Guardian show that Washington is funding
>and organising the travel of several Northern Alliance figures to Rome to
>confer with the exiled monarch who is expected to call for a revolution. 
>
>"The king plans to call on all the Afghan tribes to rise up against the
>Taliban," the diplomatic cable reported yesterday, citing the advice of the
>US administration. 
>
>US plans to overthrow the Taliban regime were revealed when a senior
>European politician in Washington this week was told by the US
>administration that it wanted to hear his country's views on how Afghanistan
>should be run after the Taliban were defeated and that "closer
>consultations" were necessary. 
>
>The Americans also spoke of a role for the UN in the new "interim
>administration" for Afghanistan and for the Organisation for Security and
>Cooperation in Europe in central Asia, without mentioning Nato. 
>Washington is routinely sceptical of the UN and OSCE, but the key role was
>seen as an attempt to build as broad a coalition as possible behind the
>imminent campaign. 
>
>The Europeans, Russia, and even China might be swayed by the unusual US
>inclusiveness, diplomats said. "It's a major change of US policy," said one.
>
>
>The spying mission in Uzbekistan is also fraught with political risk. The
>two Hercules could not fly over Iran, but Turkmenistan, the third ex-Soviet
>state bordering Afghanistan granted permission. 
>
>However, diplomats said the Turkmens were less keen to grant overflying
>rights to US fighter aircraft heading for the Afghan border.  
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