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“THE TALIBAN: PROTECTORS OF TERRORISTS, PRODUCERS OF DRUGS, H. CON. RES. 336” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1989-E1991 on Oct. 9, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE TALIBAN: PROTECTORS OF TERRORISTS, PRODUCERS OF DRUGS, H. CON. RES.
336
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HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, October 8, 1998
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing H. Con. Res. 336, legislation condemning the Taliban regime and supporting a broad based government in Afghanistan.
The attacks on our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam that left 254 dead including 12 Americans and over 5,000 injured reflect the failure of U.S. policymakers to confront a new kind of warfare and a new kind of adversary, one that draws its power from a convergence of the destructive tactics of international terrorism and radical Muslim extremism with one of the world's largest heroin empires.
This is a war, not between Islam and the United States, but between a small but growing army of religious fanatics who want to undermine the West and radicalize the Islamic world by overthrowing moderate Islamic governments.
We are in this predicament because the Clinton administration has failed to distinguish between those who are devout Muslims and those who use Islam as a rallying point to attack both the West and those who do not subscribe to their interpretation of the Koran.
Perhaps the most dangerous example of this lack of distinction is found in the administration's attitude toward the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, the principal protectors of Osama bin Ladin.
As the Taliban has extended its sway over Afghanistan, it has grown increasingly extremist and anti-Western, its leaders proclaiming that virtually every aspect of Western culture violates their version of Islam.
In addition to restrictions against women, such as barring them from holding jobs or traveling unaccompanied by a male relative, ancient and cruel forms of punishment, such as stoning have been revived. There are reports of massive ethnic killings and starvation. The evolution of the Taliban bears a fearsome resemblance to the murderously fanatical and purist Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.
Moreover, under the Taliban, Afghanistan has become perhaps the world's largest producer of heroin. The Taliban are involved at every level of activity, from licensing and taxing poppy cultivation to expanding new refining facilities to controlling transportation and distribution.
Disturbingly, Taliban leaders, who have made narcotics the economic base of their regime, view the drug trade itself as a potential weapon. Viewing the West and many pro-Western countries in the Muslim world as corrupt, the Taliban have no compunction about trafficking in narcotics.
The new threat to the West is that these drugs are now financing activities of anti-western fanatics who view terrorism as an effective means to further their aims.
Another key reason for the numerous terrorist training camps that have sprung up in the Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan, in addition to bin Ladin's, has been the benign posture of neighboring Pakistan.
Islamabad has not only countenanced the Afghan terrorist training camps, it has also provided crucial diplomatic support for the Taliban. They have done so out of interest in agitation by Muslim extremists in the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir, and in hopes that the Taliban, after gaining control throughout Afghanistan, will be dependent on Pakistan, thus providing not only strategic depth in the region, but a corridor to the important energy reserves of Central Asia.
Regrettably, the Clinton administration has consistently underestimated the stakes in this situation, particularly in taking its cue from Pakistan on dealing with the Taliban. Even after the U.S. attack on the terrorist camps in Afghanistan, it was reported that administration officials believed they could negotiate with the Taliban for bin Ladin's extradition. If dialogue with the Taliban over bin Ladin exemplifies the basic strategy for confronting this new terrorist threat, we are in serious trouble.
Bin Ladin is only the tip of the iceberg and removing him will not end the threat the U.S. faces from Muslim terrorist extremists of his stripe. Regrettably, the administration has not understood that the fate of Afghanistan cannot be permitted to rest in the hands of the Taliban and their supporters in Pakistan and elsewhere.
For the Taliban's divinely mandated war has no borders and they will not stop with the conquest of Afghanistan. The head of the Taliban has donned the cloak of the Prophet Mohammed and proclaimed himself
``Commander of the Faithful,'' a claim of suzerainty over all Muslims in the region, and a challenge to every government there.
It should be no surprise that, with the advent of the Taliban, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have invited Russian forces to help protect their southern borders and Iran has assembled 70,000 troops or more on its border with Afghanistan.
Moreover, recent events in Pakistan clearly demonstrate that the fundamentalists there, encouraged by the Taliban successes, have leveraged considerable power over the government.
President Nawaz Sharif recently declared that Pakistan will become a Shariat state, confirming that the radical message of the Taliban is spreading to Pakistan's political structure. Fundamentalists are gaining an upper hand--and Pakistan has the bomb.
It is time for U.S. policymakers to stop taking its lead from Islamabad and to bolster relationships with the Muslim states of Central Asia, as well as other important states in the region, such as India, and begin to realistically confront the danger that the Taliban present, not only to the West, but to other Muslim governments that do not share their extremist ideology.
H. Con. Res. 336 outlines this serious U.S. foreign policy failure and attempts to correct the administration's deficiencies in this regard. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 336. I request that the full text of H. Con. Res. 336 to be printed in the Record at this point.
H. Con. Res. 336
Whereas the military defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, in which more than 1,000,000 Afghans lost their lives, was a key contribution to the ending of the Cold War;
Whereas upon the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States generally lost interest in the region and Afghanistan's neighbors became more influential inside Afghanistan, and the various Afghan factions were thus unable to form a broad-based and representative national government;
Whereas in October 1994 a new force called the Taliban emerged in Afghanistan, pledging itself to establish a true Islamic government, disarm all other factions, eliminate narcotics cultivation, establish law and order, and restore peace;
Whereas since 1994 the Taliban movement has, often through force and terror, continued to expand its domination of more and more territory within Afghanistan, while the movement itself has become more and more militant and extreme in its actions and its interpretation of Islamic principles;
Whereas the Taliban movement, especially key members of its leadership, has become increasingly associated and deeply involved with individuals and groups involved in international terrorism, including, but not limited to, Osama bin Ladin, who was responsible for the August 1998 attacks on United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania;
Whereas those terrorist elements with which the Taliban are associated are not only focused on separatist activities in Kashmir but also significantly involved in anti-Western and anti-American terrorist activities;
Whereas over 95 percent of heroin produced in Afghanistan is from areas controlled by the Taliban and some large portion of that heroin is sold on America's streets and, in spite of United Nations crop substitution program in Taliban areas, poppy cultivation and heroin trafficking have increased dramatically;
Whereas linkages have been established between Afghanistan and terrorists who were involved in the World Trade Center bombing, the murder of Central Intelligence Agency personnel in Langley, Virginia, and the recent bombings of United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania;
Whereas the inter-Afghan dialogue initiative began in early 1997 and has successfully held 3 major meetings, concluding its last gathering of approximately 200 Afghans in Bonn, Germany, in July 1998;
Whereas the United States launched a limited attack against terrorist bases in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan on August 20, 1998;
Whereas the Taliban rule by fear and terror and systematically abuse the rights of all Afghans, especially women, and are intolerant to non-Sunni Muslim believers, especially Hazara, many of whom are Shiite Muslims;
Whereas the Government of Pakistan has been a vigorous defender of the Taliban's activities and tens of thousands of Pakistani Taliban have linked up with Afghan Taliban creating a transborder movement with growing influence inside Pakistan;
Whereas reports of the persecution of Christians, Shiites, and other religious minorities inside Pakistan are a growing concern to Congress;
Whereas the Central Asian States, especially Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in addition to Russia and Iran have voiced alarm at the fall of northern areas of Afghanistan, where there has been almost no narcotics cultivation and where all the major groups have been interested in strong and close relations with the United States;
Whereas it is widely accepted in the region that the United States Department of State, and consequently the United States Government, supports the Taliban;
Whereas Congress has repeatedly condemned the activities of the Taliban regime and urged more vigorous support for efforts to form a broad-based government based on the inter-Afghan dialogue initiative, several of whose members have been executed by the Taliban for no apparent crime; and
Whereas there needs to be a fundamental reappraisal of overall United States policy toward Afghanistan and its neighbors: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of the House of Representatives and the Senate that--
(1) the United States should publicly condemn the Taliban regime for its reprehensible atrocities against human rights, in particular women's rights, its embrace of international terrorism, and its willing integration into a worldwide narcotics syndicate;
(2) the United States should recognize that it will be better served by a comprehensive regional strategy that addresses Afghan issues rather than its current one that relies primarily on Pakistan;
(3) the United States should explore its mutual interest regarding the danger of the Taliban with other countries of the region;
(4) the United States should not grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban or assist in any way its recognition in the United Nations but rather should support the inter-Afghan dialogue efforts to form a truly representative broad-based government;
(5) the Department of Defense should conduct a vulnerability assessment of the Taliban regime;
(6) the United States should work to initiate through the United Nations Security Council a ban on all international commercial air travel to and from Taliban controlled Afghanistan;
(7) the United States should call on the Taliban regime to permit humanitarian supplies to be delivered without interference to all regions of Afghanistan;
(8) the United States should consider those Afghans, especially known friends of the United States, fleeing political persecution from the Taliban regime to be refugees eligible for consideration for asylum;
(9) the Department of State should urge the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to protect the rights of Christians and Shiite Muslims in Pakistan and should publish a special report to Congress on the human rights situation in Pakistan, especially as it affects religious minorities; and
(10) the Department of State should report to the Congress concerning whether the Taliban, which provides a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and other terrorist organizations as well as illicit drug monies which assist these terrorists, should be added to the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.
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