Christine Smith's Blog

(audio) My Radio Interview/Commentary on the Freedom Works! Radio Show

Today I was on Paul Molloy’s radio show, Freedom Works!, heard on AM-station WTAN, covering “more than 3,000,000 people in and around” the Tampa Bay, Florida region.

We discussed torture, as well as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I invite you to listen – CLICK HERE. (It is 25 minutes in length.)

A good show – Paul Molloy and I had an excellent discussion!

During my commentary, the host questioned, in understandable disbelief (since he said he did not remember any such news reports), my statement that the Taliban had given the United States government an opportunity to provide evidence connecting Osama bin Laden with 9-11, which upon receipt, the Taliban indicated they may provide bin Laden for trial.

Although I had read news reports of this years ago, and recently reference to it in other articles, I could not recall the Taliban leader’s name during the show. (It was Abdul Salam Zaeef.) So I told the host I would look up the Taliban leader’s name later along with reports of their request for negotiation, and the possibility they provided of turning over of bin Laden, if evidence was provided by the United States government.

Thus, here are a several news links with that information (I recommend taking a look at all the links – as the quotes and information provided in each are most interesting):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/05/afghanistan.terrorism

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/17/afghanistan.terrorism11

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/30/bn.02.html

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/sns-worldtrade-taliban-chi,0,2694361.story

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/11/world/main310852.shtml

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2001/09/13/stories/0313000b.htm

And even back in 1998, the identical thing occurred, with the Taliban requesting evidence linking bin Laden to the embassy bombings in Africa:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/217947.stm

As I shared on the show, I believe the invasion was not about capturing bin Laden, but about regime change, otherwise the evidence would have been given so that such negotiation concerning a possible trial could occur.

Also, since we discussed the CIA and my opinion it should be abolished, I recommend the following excellent articles (due to time, I shared my reasons only briefly):

The Case For Abolishing The CIA, by John Judis -
The New Republic Online, December 20, 2005.

Don’t Reform the CIA — Abolish It
by Jacob G. Hornberger,
The Future of Freedom Foundation, December 12, 2007.