Quote Originally Posted by 91bravojoe View Post
In 2001, we openly negotiated with AQ's congenial host, the Taliban, to build an oil pipeline.
The pipeline was held out as a carrot to try to get the Taliban to dump AQ on several occasions, notably in 97-99, before the project was sidelined by US-imposed sanctions. Bit of bribery... it's been known to work on occasion, but it didn't work this time. AQ of course would have known it was going on and tried to stop it.

Despite the voluminous amounts of blather on various conspiracy-theory websites, the project was never of any economic significance to the US. It was seen purely as leverage to try to pry the Taliban into a more moderate and engaged stance by promising some revenue from transit fees. Nothing terribly unusual or inconsistent there.