Afghanistan was already on the list
Published by marco on
Curious about how quickly the U.S. attacked Afghanistan? Wonder why a non-military solution wasn’t even considered? Apparently, an attack has been contemplated as far back as March 2001 (as reported on Janes in India joins anti-Taliban coalition). In June Indiareacts.com reported that action was already taking place:
<q> … the anti-Taliban move followed a meeting between US Secretary of State Collin Powel and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and later between Powell and Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh in Washington. Russia, Iran and India have also held a series of discussions and more diplomatic activity is expected. … Officials say that the Northern Alliance requires a “clean up” operation to reduce Taliban’s war-fighting machinery to launch an attack against the Taliban advance to the Tajik-Afghan border. This “clean up” action is being planned by the US and Russia since the Taliban shows no “sign of reconciliation”.</q>
On September 18, 2001, the BBC published US planned attack on Taleban, citing an interview with a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary.
<q>…[he] was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest. … [H]e said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban.</q>
That sort of clears up any confusion on why the US didn’t negotiate for an extradition for any suspected Al-Qaeda members. The war was already planned from 6 months ago and was going to go ahead regardless of the September 11 attack. An extradition would have removed the moral imperative for the attack.
Links picked up from What Really Happened? on their Pre-planned page.