UAE's recognition of Taliban helped US defeat them Gen. Franks says

The Strata-Sphere:

Tony Snow had General Tommy Franks the other day (which I missed) but he replayed some of the discussion with new facts about The UAE efforts as our ally. This caused me to go do some research on Tommy Franks comments. The first two are what I heard (sorry, no transcripts yet).

(1) Tony Snow Show: The UAE provided the information and maps for our invasion of Afghanistan, specifically the Camp Rhino location. This allowed us to establish a safe location to take down the Taliban, and probably helped save the lives of our military forces. More here:

Gen. Tommy Franks notes that the UAE’s much-criticized “recognition” of the Taliban actually enabled the country to do first-rate spying. The UAE provided maps and information for the opening invasion of Afghanistan.

(2) Tony Snow Show: The UAE was one of the first to provide us fly-over rights to deal with Afghanistan and the Taliban, they also provided support for our airborne intelligence gathering resources.

(3) Hannity and Colmes: “With regard to maintaining contact with the Taliban, even before Sept. 11 — and I’ll exercise caution how I say this — but I’ll say that I believe we had every reason to be thankful for the relationship and the dialogue that existed between the United Arab Emirates and the Taliban, as it assisted us in our efforts to understand what was going on in Afghanistan.” Meaning where they were and their leadership and military structures.

(4) The UAE is ON THE GROUND with us in Iraq (from a previous link):

The UAE since has put troops on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, in active and humanitarian missions. It trains Iraqi forces on its soil. It lets the United States conduct flights through its airspace.

It has housed servicemen — and women — from the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. It maintains the largest U.S. naval facility outside the United States, and Dubai Ports World performs contract service at the port.

Newsmax has a list of UAE support which the critics cannot possibly refute or present equivalently solid information:

Air Force U-2 spy planes and Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft have been based at the U.A.E.’s al-Dhafra air base, along with KC-10 aerial refueling planes. Al-Dhafra is said to have played a key role in both the Iraq and Afghanistan air wars.

U.S. sailors and Marines regularly make liberty calls at the port of Jebel Ali, near the U.A.E.’s largest city, Dubai. Former Iraq war commander Gen. Tommy Franks said Wednesday that Jebel Ali is “the best run port that I’ve ever seen.”

With the U.A.E. located directly across the Straits of Hormuz from Iran, Jebel Ali and al Dhafra offer the U.S. forward bases of operations should Tehran attempt to shut down the key waterway, which it threatened to do last month if sanctioned by the U.N.

Facts are tough things to refute with scary fairy tales.

Read the other great post at Strata-Sphere too.