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Taliban us installed { September 10 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/10/cf.00.htmlCNN Crossfire 9/10/02 - "we put the Taliban there. "
MCDERMOTT: It certainly is an improvement for the women of Afghanistan. But you've got to remember that of American policy, we put the Taliban there. We gave the money to the..
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/10/cf.00.html
CNN CROSSFIRE
Have U.S. Efforts in Afghanistan Been Successful if bin Laden is Alive?; Will Fingerprints Stop Terrorists From Entering the Country?
Aired September 10, 2002 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARLSON: Congressman McDermott, it's fashionable among some Democrats to mock the color coding terror alert system, but isn't the story here the dog that didn't bark? There hasn't been a terrorist attack in the last year, despite fears there would be. And if the primary goal of the war on terror is to protect the U.S., it's been successful, hasn't it?
REP. JIM MCDERMOTT (D), WASHINGTON: Well, you know, some people say if you clap your hands, there won't be any elephants in the backyard. That...
CARLSON: Their expectation would never be elephants in the backyard. There was a real expectation of terrorist attacks, and there haven't been.
MCDERMOTT: We've been told there were going to be terrorist attacks. We've been told again and again, but it's like Aesop's fable, you yell wolf long enough, people start to say, who believes this? And I really think that at this point, it has very little impact when they do what they did today.
CARLSON: I'm surprised, Congressman, to hear you compare the real threat of terrorism to a fable.
But let me ask you this, then: a year ago Osama bin Laden controlled the country of Afghanistan. He had thousands of people working for him, millions of dollars, he acted with impunity. That's all gone now. We don't know if he's dead or alive but he no longer controls his own country. Seventeen hundred or so al Qaeda members are in custody. This is not a success?
MCDERMOTT: Well, if you look at Afghanistan today, you have to ask yourself what is a success? I mean, you've got the United States special forces acting as a bodyguard for the president, because he's had an assassination attempt. They assassinated the vice president. They got warlords operating all through the country. I think you have to say it's a very limited success that we've had there.
CARLSON: If you're not an Afghan woman, I guess it's pretty easy to say that.
BEGALA: Congressman Blunt, I think Congressman McDermott makes a good point. I don't think anybody -- you and the Republicans, President Bush, you're not ready to declare success and victory in Afghanistan yet, are you?
BLUNT: Not in Afghanistan or against the war on terror. You know, we've got a lot to do in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan have been subjugated in an incredible way. The women of Afghanistan have been so disadvantaged. You know, you have young girls going to school for the first time who aren't really all that young: 10, 12, 13, 14 years old who never got to go to school.
That country is turning around but it's been a country in turmoil because of terrorism, because the way they fund terrorism with drug money, because of this, again, this culture of hatred and irrational unaccepting of anything different than the one way you say people have to live.
BEGALA: One of the reasons that Taliban rose was because after the mujahedeen drove the Soviets out, the United States no longer was very interested in what happened in Afghanistan.
And right now, in fact, there are so few American forces in Afghanistan that effectively, Hamid Karzai only controls Kabul. Aren't you worried that if we pull forces out of there, perhaps for an enterprise in Iraq, that we're going to repeat the same error of the past and turn Afghanistan again back over to the Taliban and al Qaeda?
BLUNT: I do think there was a walking away from Afghanistan after the Soviets left by the -- on the part of free peoples around the world. I don't think we have to stay in Afghanistan as long as our allies are staying. They're staying there. We did our share. We did way more than our share of the fighting. They're now doing their job and have come in and have accepted a large responsibility for trying to transition from a country beset by terrorism and war to one by peace. There are plenty of forces that will be left there, Paul, even as we leave. And I think from our going in that was one of the things that was understood.
It is one of the challenges in Iraq. If we do Iraq without allied support, what kind of commitment do we have to stay as long as somebody needs to stay? That's why the president's efforts in the last few days with our allies and his efforts this week with the U.N. And the presentation he makes there, I think, will be so important.
CARLSON: Congressman, with all due respect, I felt like your last answer but your assessment of the situation in Afghanistan was a little glib. I want to give you a chance to restate it.
A year ago, Afghan women could be beaten in public for going to school. Now they're free. Isn't that an improvement? An improvement brought about by the Bush Administration of the United States?
MCDERMOTT: It certainly is an improvement for the women of Afghanistan. But you've got to remember that of American policy, we put the Taliban there. We gave the money to the..
CARLSON: I beg your pardon?
MCDERMOTT: ... Pakistanis.
CARLSON: You're breaking news here, Congressman. I don't think this has ever been reported before in the United States.
MCDERMOTT: Oh, yes, it has been. We funded the Taliban through the Pakistanis, and all that money -- we could have cut off that money and stopped what was going on. We knew what was going on there. All we wanted was a stable, quiet Afghanistan so we could put a pipeline down through there. That's really what we were up to.
CARLSON: That's quite a -- That's quite a theory.
BLUNT: Paul, I know I'm not asking the questions, but during the eight years of the Clinton administration, do you think we funded the Taliban? Is that what Jim is saying here?
BEGALA: You have to ask the congressman.
MCDERMOTT: Our foreign policy has been a mess in Afghanistan from the point that we walked away from --
BLUNT: But did we fund it is a different question?
CARLSON: That's the allegation you made. Didn't he?
BEGALA: It's an important fact, under President Carter and then President Reagan, we funded the mujahedeen, the freedom fighters, as Charlie Wilson of Texas used to call them...
CARLSON: Mr. McDermott is making this your thesis...
BEGALA: ... some of them were Taliban.
CARLSON: Did President Clinton fund the Taliban? That's the allegation you made. Is it true?
MCDERMOTT: The United States government's policy of giving money to Pakistan and letting them take charge of whatever happens in Afghanistan essentially put us as the people behind it.
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