Ron Paul introduces bill to repeal NDAA

[Thanas]

TheHammer, last I recall you were the guy who ran away and did not concede to Vympel in that thread. So STFU about this or it being justified. I do not condone you lying about these things.

[Grumman]

Further, even the vast majority of those people who say they were against killing Awlaki often begin their statements with something similar to the following: "Awlaki was a piece of shit, and we are all better off without him around but...". I can understand the desire to have a formalized process, so long as it was streamlined, to deal with such situations in the future. However, given our ineffectual congress Awlaki likely would have died of old age before they got it figured out.

Allow me to complete that sentence: "Awlaki was a piece of shit, and we are all better off without him around but there must be a bright line between state-sanctioned assassination and the innocent people of the world." There must be some mechanism to prevent the same thing that happened to Awlaki from happening to John Kiriakou, or Bradley Manning, or me or you, beyond the whims of an amoral leadership.

If that means Awlaki dies of old age instead of being executed for his crimes, so be it.

[Thanas]

No more Awlaki in this thread. Go talk about it in the other one that already exists.

[TheHammer]

TheHammer, last I recall you were the guy who ran away and did not concede to Vympel in that thread. So STFU about this or it being justified. I do not condone you lying about these things.

What did I "Lie" about exactly? There were multiple Awlaki threads and at some point I stopped following them. If someone had some "challenge" I was supposed to answer I'm certainly not aware of it.

[Simon_Jester]

Here's how I would have done the bin Laden thing, or anyone else really. I would have asked the Pakistanis, nicely, to put him on a plane to New York City. If they refuse, well, that's their right. We'll have to make a sweeter offer or just deal with it.

If they say yes though, when he lands, a few NYPD cops will arrest him for conspiracy to commit murder and probably murder too, I think that could stick.

Anyway, after that, some New York County ADA can see about convincing twelve regular people, in a Manhattan courtroom, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was indeed involved and actually did conspire to commit murder. bin Laden can, of course, hire anyone he wants to defend himself and compel witnesses to testify in his defense.

If the district attorney's office succeeds, bin Laden can be sent upstate for a few years, just like any other murderer.

If the ADA fails, we let him go and don't try again, just like any other innocent person.

That's just what I would have done. Fuck this special treatment nonsense.

There are precedents here. When Country A harbors criminals who commit crimes in Country B, and systematically refuses to extradite the criminals, while tolerating their ongoing criminal activity, at some point this can be considered an act of war. Take the idea to its logical extreme- imagine if I harbored a huge number of well organized criminals killing many of your citizens every year, violating your laws and various solemn treaties on international criminal law.

If I'm acting in good faith and am trying to hand these people over to Interpol, fine. But what if I'm not? What if I'm hanging on to them, letting them continue their crime sprees and killings, as a way of striking at your nation indirectly? How much of that are you supposed to laugh off?

Your sovereignty does not give you a right to violate my sovereignty by indirect means such as funding people to kill my citizens. If you do this, I am justified in trying to knock out the people you've been funding, at the very least.

[Simon_Jester]

Bin Laden killed three thousand people in the US alone, and thousands of others in other countries. There have been wars that killed fewer innocent people than that...

[General Brock]

Ron Paul if nothing else tends to get fixated on fiscal policy, and knows the tricks; perhaps there are ways to screw minorities under the guise of helping them.

Of course there are. That doesn't mean removing protective legislation is the way to fix the situation.

I'd have to agree, if the legislation were genuinely protective.

There is also the phenomenon of declining white majority on many states. How crucial was their cooperation in keeping down racial conflict not only between themselves and other races, but between the non-white races who don't get along?

In other words, you're postulating a "white man's burden", or "white kid's burden", to keep down conflict between other ethnicities? Why is it the white kid's responsibility to, say, prevent conflict between blacks and Mexicans in a public school? What makes you think that is even possible? Do you realize how paternalistic, patronizing, and racist that is?

Its a relevant question and its everyone's responsibility. Without a critical mass of believers across the board the program will fail in its purpose, and if the largest stakeholders are critically divided amongst themselves, it becomes everyone problem regardless of their own level of division. Balkanization originated as a term to describe white countries but it applies across races.

There is also, maybe - I've read about but not verified to my satisfaction - white flight to private schools. Now, if some of those private schools are taking advantage of the tendency for whites to be be foremost among attendees, and pocketing desegregation cash, maybe that's not fair to the public sector.

Verify it. In urban areas, there are many private schools that are not dominated by whites. They aren't the prestigious private schools. There is an assumption private schools cater to rich white people, but does that include Catholic schools, which are considered private but often take in impoverished students?

I think I was wrong. A decisive factor may be flight in general to homeschooling, not private schools, which is much more affordable across races.

Link: http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2005/ ... iteflight/

There is also the massive disparity between the rich and poor attending those schools - when the rich haven't haven't run off to a private school. Many of the poor appear to be non-white.

Only in urban areas - once you get to rural areas the poor are overwhelmingly white. Most poor people in the US are white, despite the stereotypes.

Most people in the U.S. are white; of course they will constitute more of the poor. I never even considered a rural-urban racial divide.

Ron Paul is also, I might add, is soft on gender segregation citing studies that indicate this appears to improve academic performance.

Yes, studies indicate that in some cases this is true. That doesn't mean people should be segregated from kindergarten through the end of high school.

I agree.

Even aracial bullying is becoming an issue.

That has actually been around since... well, forever. What's happening is that it is finally being recognized and someone is trying to do something about it. Oh, and we have video cameras now. When I was beaten by 4 or 5 people at a time I was flat out told I was lying, despite my injuries. Now, when the bullies film themselves and post it on YouTube it's harder for the matter to be ignored.

It should never have been ignored in the first place. If they're bragging about it on YouTube instead of trying to cover themselves that's a real problem.

Ron Paul makes the case that segregation should not be forced, and that it is up to the states, which in turn would normally answer to local needs and conditions. It is in some way a cop out, except that the responsibility does technically lie with the states.

Except the states used segregation to systematically deny people an education, to give one group good facilities and everyone else total shit. People risked their lives in the 1960's to put an end to that "system" that held down and held back everyone but privileged white boys. This is just an underhanded way to reverse the gains of everyone not privileged, white, and male.

I'm not unfamiliar with race and class politics and the tactics used. Now everyone not white male and privileged gets substandard facilities. You close out one tactic and your opponent finds another more effective.

If you think racist whites will try and take advantage of the situation, you are correct and that is already taking place under the table.

Yep, but that's no reason to make it easier for racists - of any color or creed - to discriminate against others.

The existing system has made it a sport.

Furthermore, given the changing racial demographics, it could probably only happen under the table so as not to spark open conflicts as minorities become empowered with numbers as well as education and wealth.

You mean, like a white minority could never hold down a black majority in South Africa? Oh, wait...

Isn't that old news? The white minority couldn't hold the line even with superior arms. The rest of the world was far healthier socially and imposed sanctions. One would assume a racist American state might well face similar retribution from the rest of America.

Some of the worst offenders on segregation in the US were states that historically black majority, or close to it, for most of US history like Alabama and Mississippi.

Well, it wasn't federal money pouring into the early civil rights movement that made it a success. It may not be federal money pouring in that holds the gains, if only because the Federal government ran broke.

[General Brock]

Sorry for the poor editing in the above post. Time for a break.

[Thanas]

TheHammer, last I recall you were the guy who ran away and did not concede to Vympel in that thread. So STFU about this or it being justified. I do not condone you lying about these things.

What did I "Lie" about exactly? There were multiple Awlaki threads and at some point I stopped following them. If someone had some "challenge" I was supposed to answer I'm certainly not aware of it.

Then your memory is poor. Go to the monster thread where Vympel pretty much demolished your argument. Now no more of that in this thread.

[Simon_Jester]

We can totally blame Afghanistan for bin Laden's attack, because the Afghan government knowingly and freely provided bin Laden with places to camp out while planning the attacks, and with resources and land to train foot soldiers for future conflicts that he fully intended to provoke by killing as many innocent people as necessary. The Taliban can be blamed for Al Qaeda just as surely as the US can be blamed for the Contras in Nicaragua.

If you want to use the analogy of mass murderers, fine. This is not like going after another country who goes "well shit, we didn't know Hannibal Lecter was living in our country while eating people in your country." This is more like another country inviting Hannibal in, giving him a free house with complimentary knife, fork, and dinner set, patting him on the head and handing him a passport to your country.

At that point, I think you'd be within your rights to object violently. Especially when you know damn well it'll happen again if the killer isn't stopped, because it has happened again in the past- bin Laden launched other attacks before 9/11 while camped out on Afghan soil, and when those attacks didn't accomplish what he wanted, he simply planned bigger ones while taking full advantage of his safe haven in Afghanistan.

Now, that didn't have to mean war with Afghanistan: we cannot blame all of Afghanistan for bin Laden. But it can mean war with Afghanistan if Afghanistan knowingly uses bin Laden as a weapon to attack us, provides him with resources and defenses to help him do so, and refuses to cooperate with international police efforts to bring him to justice. Especially not when the US was not the only country that wanted bin Laden caught.

Pakistan's case is more ambiguous- because the Pakistani government is unable to control its own intelligence services. The ISI was doing the same thing with bin Laden that the Taliban was- giving him shelter and a place to plan more acts of war, while deliberately blocking attempts to bring him to justice for his crimes. Meanwhile, the rest of the Pakistani government avowed its intent to catch bin Laden... but neither knew that he's in the country, nor was able to stop the ISI from moving and supplying him at will.

The US commando raid that killed bin Laden was doing exactly what the Pakistanis had promised to do themselves... but were unable to do. While that's a violation of sovereignty, it's an unusual one. Because if you can't enforce your own policies on your own soil, it weakens your claims when you try to stop other people from doing it for you.

The international conventions around sovereignty are based on the assumption that if you claim a right to control land, you must actually be able to exercise that control. If I agree to have a man arrested on my own soil, it is expected that I will be willing and able to do the deed. If I'm not willing, then I'm not honoring my agreements and it's impossible for anyone to deal with me because I'm being a dishonest asshole. If I'm not able, then do I really have a claim to inviolate sovereignty? Can I reign over a piece of land I can't rule?

[Shroom Man 777]

Wasn't the whole in-league with Al Qaeda thing, along with the WMD thing, the reason why the US went into Iraq too?

[Block]

Wasn't the whole in-league with Al Qaeda thing, along with the WMD thing, the reason why the US went into Iraq too?

That was an excuse made up after the NBC teams didn't find WMDs like they were promised existed.

[Shroom Man 777]

I swear I heard or saw shit about that 9/11 guy meeting up with some Iraqi guy in the media propaganda freedomization democracy infodump would-you-like-to-know-more-ing blitz brigades before the second front of the Operation Middle Eastern & Muslim World Super-Freedomization Road Map to Peace was opened.

God, there was so much bullshit then. Oh my god, dirty bombs. Oh my god, suitcase bombs. It was the ultimate case of bullshit where they trumped up Iraq's ability to murder the leader of the free world and last global superhyperultrapower with all sorts of weapons of mass destruction up to and including tactical theromonuclear kitchen sinks. Man. That was one of America's crowning achievements of awesome. The United States should win a Pulitzer Prize for this. The Man Booker Prize. The Ramon Magsaysay Prize. J. Jonah Jameson could give the opening speech. They should have a party, have cluster bombs loaded with confetti blow up paper mache pinata children and have mangled candy cane limbs rain down on the partygoers. Waterboard deep fried honey roasted hamburger meat dictator effigies with high fructose corn syrup.

The only one who would be aghast at this smorgasbord of culinary war crimes would be Ron Paul, because his buddy David Icke showed him the television documentary V and so he thinks that humans should follow the shapeshifting reptiloid overlords' insectivore diets. With his fake doctor's degree, he can sell Centipede Oil instead of Snake Oil.

[Block]

I swear I heard or saw shit about that 9/11 guy meeting up with some Iraqi guy in the media propaganda freedomization democracy infodump would-you-like-to-know-more-ing blitz brigades before the second front of the Operation Middle Eastern & Muslim World Super-Freedomization Road Map to Peace was opened.

I THINK that may have been from Fox news, and quickly proven to be false by the slightly more reputable news agencies.

[Simon_Jester]

Wasn't the whole in-league with Al Qaeda thing, along with the WMD thing, the reason why the US went into Iraq too?

When President Bush said Afghanistan was in league with Al Qaeda, he was telling the truth- this had been proven before, and proven since, by third parties who had no obligation to obey Bush. When President Bush said Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda, he was lying- this too had been proven before, and proven since, by third parties who had no obligation to obey Bush.

It's like, if I punch you, and you punch me back, it's OK. It makes sense, you shouldn't have to just stand there and let me beat on you for no reason.

But if I don't punch you, and then you lie and say I punched you and then punch me "back," it's not OK. Because then you're being a dick.

So... either: a) they comply, giving up their right to protect people as they see fit, b) they say they'll comply and don't. Then you do it for them, saying their failure meant they don't have sovereignty in practice anyway. or c) They refuse, which you'll see as enabling an act of war and use that to justify attacking them.

There's no way for the other guy to win here. I guess he could fight back with force, but that's plain might makes right, and I don't like that at all.

D13, stop a minute.

Do I really have a right to protect people as I see fit? Is this right unlimited?

Under the law of a single nation, do I have the right to offer room in my house to a serial killer? Can I give him weapons and money so that he can find and kill more victims? Or will I be charged with being an accessory to the murders he committed? As a moral matter, how do we judge someone as a human being if they do something like this? Is it moral or immoral to "protect" someone who commits crimes against others?

That's where I think your argument unravels: point (a). Nations do not have an unlimited right to protect war criminals and mass murderers. If the international community as a whole can agree that a man has committed mass murder, and if governments of many nations denounce him and call for his arrest via Interpol or other means, then by what right does another country say "no, we will protect him and let him keep operating as he did before?"

You might say the ends justify the means with a case like bin laden, but that's dangerous territory. What if we actually were wrong about him (or any of the several other people targetted by these strikes)? What if Pakistan were protecting him because they correctly believed in his innocence, and we decided to sidestep that anyway?

Then why was bin Laden liable to be arrested in many other countries (like France and Germany) that are not beholden to US court decisions? Again, in bin Laden's case the US was not the only country which had declared against him.

There are other cases where you can't say this, which is fine- but you were talking about bin Laden, not Joe Sixpack or his Islamic-fundie counterpart.

And come to think of it, if you're so confident that a court trial for a man like bin Laden would work (if Pakistan had handed him over, you yourself said he should be tried in court), then why wouldn't a court trial work equally well as a way of finding guilt or innocence if he were seized against the Pakistanis' will? We routinely arrest people against the will of whoever is harboring them as part of domestic police work. That's not a miscarriage of justice.

God, there was so much bullshit then. Oh my god, dirty bombs. Oh my god, suitcase bombs. It was the ultimate case of bullshit where they trumped up Iraq's ability to murder the leader of the free world and last global superhyperultrapower with all sorts of weapons of mass destruction up to and including tactical theromonuclear kitchen sinks. Man. That was one of America's crowning achievements of awesome. The United States should win a Pulitzer Prize for this. The Man Booker Prize. The Ramon Magsaysay Prize...

Maybe the Oscar? It was fiction, after all.

[General Brock]

We can totally blame Afghanistan for bin Laden's attack, because the Afghan government knowingly and freely provided bin Laden with places to camp out while planning the attacks, and with resources and land to train foot soldiers for future conflicts that he fully intended to provoke by killing as many innocent people as necessary. The Taliban can be blamed for Al Qaeda just as surely as the US can be blamed for the Contras in Nicaragua.

I have to intercede:

Mullah Omar and officials in his immediate entourage made clear to this reporter and my colleague Ammar Turabi that they were unhappy with bin Laden's activities when we interviewed him in 2001.

Any fatwa issued by bin Laden declaring jihad, or holy war, against the United States and ordering Muslims to kill Americans was "null and void," Mullah Omar said.

"He is not entitled to issue fatwas," he explained, "as he did not complete the mandatory 12 years of Koranic studies to qualify for the position of mufti."

The then-41-year-old (now 50) mullah said the "Islamic Emirate had offered the United States and the United Nations to place international monitors to observe Osama bin Laden pending the resolution of the case, but so far we have received no reply."

At best you could say Mullah Omar and his Taliban were negligent, as was the rest of the world, in foreseeing Bin Laden would somehow get in three lucky lucky shots on the United States and not just another anti-American firebrand. Insofar as he could, Mullah Omar did what he could to restrain Bin Laden, a hero against the Soviet Occupation.

Blaming the Taliban for Bin Laden never made complete sense. While their ability to control influential guests in a fractured country may have been questionable enough to justify special forces intervention, there was reason to doubt that Mullah Omar and Bin Laden were of like minds on anything, let alone conspirators in 911.

[Simon_Jester]

Then why, after 9/11, did the Taliban not simply agree to cooperate with US forces in finding bin Laden?

Omar saying that bin Laden is not qualified to issue fatwas is completely irrelevant, a red herring. It doesn't matter whether Omar thought (or thinks) that bin Laden was qualified as a theologian. What matters is whether Omar's government was willing to offer bin Laden a safe harbor where he could attack other countries, free from reprisals or punishment. Which it did.

[Thanas]

I swear I heard or saw shit about that 9/11 guy meeting up with some Iraqi guy in the media propaganda freedomization democracy infodump would-you-like-to-know-more-ing blitz brigades before the second front of the Operation Middle Eastern & Muslim World Super-Freedomization Road Map to Peace was opened.

I THINK that may have been from Fox news, and quickly proven to be false by the slightly more reputable news agencies.

No, the "they totally met in Geneva to discuss strategy against the west" was one of many thinks launched by Darth Cheney.

From Bush's own statement regarding the Iraqi threat:

And that is the source of our urgent concern about Saddam Hussein's links to international terrorist groups. Over the years, Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than 90 terrorist attacks in 20 countries that killed or injured nearly 900 people, including 12 Americans. Iraq has also provided safe haven to Abu Abbas, who was responsible for seizing the Achille Lauro and killing an American passenger. And we know that Iraq is continuing to finance terror and gives assistance to groups that use terrorism to undermine Middle East peace.

We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

Made before the invasion.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's like, if I punch you, and you punch me back, it's OK. It makes sense, you shouldn't have to just stand there and let me beat on you for no reason.

But if I don't punch you, and then you lie and say I punched you and then punch me "back," it's not OK. Because then you're being a dick.

What if because the first instance was deemed OK, the party decides to take advantage of that and uses it in the second instance to induce dickery?

[Simon_Jester]

Then the first instance was okay, and the second instance was dickery. The first instance is not retroactively wrong because of something a dick did later.

Unless, of course, the dick caused the first instance so he'd have an excuse for the second- but at that point we're diving into 9/11 trutherism, which is bullshit.

[General Brock]

Then why, after 9/11, did the Taliban not simply agree to cooperate with US forces in finding bin Laden?

Omar saying that bin Laden is not qualified to issue fatwas is completely irrelevant, a red herring. It doesn't matter whether Omar thought (or thinks) that bin Laden was qualified as a theologian. What matters is whether Omar's government was willing to offer bin Laden a safe harbor where he could attack other countries, free from reprisals or punishment. Which it did.

Shrub famously rejected offers by the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden.

There was never any chance for the Taliban to 'cooperate', they weren't even recognized as the official government. Shrub was going to invade, and that was it.

[Simon_Jester]

"Famously rejected..." the fame here coming from one man? One man who was once a US/Taliban go-between and is now irrelevant, and who has every reason to try to kick himself back into the limelight by ginning up a story?

Christ, if that's your standard of evidence, I've got the coordinates of a pile of Iraqi WMD locations to sell you.

I mean, there's the off chance it's true- but the standard of evidence you're applying is low, the 'conspiracy alarm' factor is high, and you've been so consistently injecting paranoia and bullshit into your arguments that I'm very skeptical.

[Spoonist]

Uhm, Simon? Bush have said so himself. The Bush inner circle thought the offer was bullshit, with lots of give us stuff first then we'll give you Bin Ladin.
If we ignore the pre 911 offer as BS. Then as soon as things started going bad for A-stan, the taliban offered Bin Laden. But first the taliban wanted proof of Bin Laden's involvement, then when the bombs started dropping they wanted the bombing to stop first - then they would hand him over. The US refused - unconditional handing over was the only offer on the table.
etc
etc
Then, was it 2003?, when Iran wanted to trade Saad Bin Laden (son active in Al-Quada) for some allies of theirs caught in A-stan. That was also refused.
etc
etc
Similar things were said when Barrack took over, several offers that had been given to Bush and rejected, were repeated to Barrack who also rejected them.
etc

Its not that he/they wasn't offered, he got plenty of offers - (Clinton received some as well before him). Its that those offers was not seen as trustworthy, or that there would be no bargaining with "the other side". etc

So its very real that offers like the one in that article was made, whatever you think about that specific one. Its also very real that the Bush admin refused to negotiate on several occasions.
What is unknown though is if any of those offers were genuine, also unknown to which level the Bush admin got credible info on the genuiness of the offers (given the neglected intel over all), then unknown again is if the Bush admin's reluctance/refusal to negotiate with "the enemy" effected events to the worse.

I thought this was common knowledge with people who give a damn, so I'm confused about your reply. I'll see if I can find that french or maybe canadian documentary that had interviewed Rice on this.

[Simon_Jester]

Uhm, Simon? Bush have said so himself. The Bush inner circle thought the offer was bullshit, with lots of give us stuff first then we'll give you Bin Ladin.
If we ignore the pre 911 offer as BS. Then as soon as things started going bad for A-stan, the taliban offered Bin Laden. But first the taliban wanted proof of Bin Laden's involvement, then when the bombs started dropping they wanted the bombing to stop first - then they would hand him over. The US refused - unconditional handing over was the only offer on the table.
etc
etc
Then, was it 2003?, when Iran wanted to trade Saad Bin Laden (son active in Al-Quada) for some allies of theirs caught in A-stan. That was also refused.
etc
etc
Similar things were said when Barrack took over, several offers that had been given to Bush and rejected, were repeated to Barrack who also rejected them.
etc

Its not that he/they wasn't offered, he got plenty of offers - (Clinton received some as well before him). Its that those offers was not seen as trustworthy, or that there would be no bargaining with "the other side". etc

So its very real that offers like the one in that article was made, whatever you think about that specific one. Its also very real that the Bush admin refused to negotiate on several occasions.
What is unknown though is if any of those offers were genuine, also unknown to which level the Bush admin got credible info on the genuiness of the offers (given the neglected intel over all), then unknown again is if the Bush admin's reluctance/refusal to negotiate with "the enemy" effected events to the worse.

I thought this was common knowledge with people who give a damn, so I'm confused about your reply. I'll see if I can find that french or maybe canadian documentary that had interviewed Rice on this.

I'm sorry, sometimes I find that I've accidentally been living under a rock for the past ten years.

That said, you did hit on the biggest issues. With a huge bounty on bin Laden's head and his death or capture being one of the highest (nominal) objectives of American foreign policy, it's no wonder that all sorts of people come out of the woodwork offering his head on a plate. But the incentive to lie is huge, and for organizations already in a commensal relationship with Al Qaeda, there's an obvious way to exploit this kind of situation:

Taliban: "Stop bombing and we'll give you bin Laden."
US: "Uh... OK."
Taliban: "Psst, Osama's well-known agent, we're gonna be moving a lot of extra revolutionary guardians into this particular cave at around, oh, 0300 hours next Tuesday. Just thought you should know."
Osama's well known agent: "SHITS!"
Osama bin Laden: "SHIT! RUUUN!"
Taliban, a week later: "Nope, nope, nothing here. Hey, US, we're sorry, he got away. But we think he went thataway; we'll take another go at him in a few days if you like. Just keep not bombing us, OK?"
US: "..."

Repeat until bin Laden figures out how to skip the country entirely. Meanwhile, the Taliban are frantically caching supplies for guerilla campaigns, trying to transfer assets overseas to places the US can't or won't lock the down, and so on. Not good.

This doesn't happen in more mundane criminal investigations, because the people offering to fink out the mob boss for you are probably already under arrest and in your power for other crimes, and because you can act on the information they give independently. And quickly.

[Spoonist]

Uhm, again, the falling out between the taliban and al-quaida is well documented. It started before the clinton missile to the camps thingie. Its even hinted that the intel of those camps and Bin Laden's visit to them came directly from part of the taliban leadership. However openly they could not be seen as anti a brethren jihadii.

If the taliban actually knew where he was they would most definately have handed him over. But its unknown if they really knew the exact location. More likely that they knew the general location and that they would move in if the US would negotiate. But that is speculation.