I mean really – who hasn’t had close relations with the Taliban from time to time:

Several U.S. oil companies, most notably Unocal, had been advocates of diplomatic overtures to the Taliban, in order to facilitate the building of a pipeline from the Caspian Sea region to Pakistan and the Persian Gulf through Afghanistan. In 1996, Unocal vice president Chris Taggart described the fall of Kabul to the Taliban regime as a “very positive step” and urged the U.S. to extend recognition to the new rulers in Kabul and thus “lead the way to international lending agencies coming in.”

Just 10 days after the Taliban seized power in Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, former National Security Council official and Unocal consultant who was appointed special envoy to Afghanistan by President George W. Bush at the end of 2001, argued in a Washington Post opinion article that the U.S. should try to work with the mullahs and form a broad-based government that included other factions. “The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran — it is closer to the Saudi model …” Khalilzad contended, concluding that “we should use as a positive incentive the benefits that will accrue to Afghanistan from the construction of oil and gas pipelines across its territory … These projects will only go forward if Afghanistan has a single authoritative government.”

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2002/06/05/memo/