Tuesday, August 10, 2010

This just in: State Dept declares Taliban free of terrorists

The State Department, like most government agencies, treats a schedule more like a series of guidelines than it does a series of deadlines and milestones, so it's no real shocker that it's annual terrorist list group was released three months late. But what is unbelievable is that State has apparently declared the Taliban to be terrorist free: (emphasis added)

A new State Department report designating terrorist organizations notably excludes one group: the Taliban. The U.S. has been fighting a war in Afghanistan for almost a decade aimed at “defeating the Taliban,” Taliban members repeatedly have threatened and killed American citizens and lawmakers have increased pressure on State to add the Taliban to the list.

Earlier this summer, a group of congressional Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton urging her to begin the process of categorizing the Taliban as a terrorist group. In June, Sens. Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand of New York and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez of New Jersey proposed legislation that would immediately add the Taliban to the terrorist list.

Yet the State Department’s report (due on April 30 but released last week), did not include the Taliban with groups such as al-Qaida, Hamas and the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA). To qualify, an organization must meet only three criteria: It must be foreign, it must engage in terrorist activity and its activity must threaten the security of the U.S. or its citizens.

I'm just gonna ask...  Exactly which of the three criteria has the Taliban successfully avoided detection in?

Gimme some feedback in the comments.

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