But both he and General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, held out the possibility of eventual talks with the Taliban leadership to end a war which is now into its ninth year. "I think any Afghans can play a role if they focus on the future, and not the past," he said when asked whether he would be content to see Taliban leaders in a future Afghan government. US general signals Taliban talks - The Irish Times - Mon, Jan 25, 2010 Wow.. Peace talks.. Taliban in government.. Have they finally seen the light ? Couple of days ago we have Bin Laden saying Israel is the problem.. US signals they would be interested in peace talks..
This will be the third (i believe) time Taliban have attempted to engage the US in peace/ceasefire talks.
Well if it wasn't for us, the Taliban wouldn't exist. I think its only fair that we let our former partners help us out in Afghanistan, right?
"Though Mr. Haqqani is much hated by the current White House and wants him killed, previous White House under President Reagan invited him and praised him. This picture shows the Afghans in the White House with President Reagan. Other Reagan-Afghan pictures used to be ubiqutous on the internet but have now vanished. The Taliban was a construct of the CIA and was armed by the CIA, ISI and the Saudis as a counter to a resurgent Russian-backed communist party andan antidote to the civil war in Afghanistan. Pakistan supported the Taliban in conjunction with the CIA who were arming it right up till 2000." http://rupeenews.com/usa/the-taliban-was-a-construct-of-the-cia-and-was-armed-by-the-cia/
The Taliban is tiny, the USA is enormous. Any arrangement that they make will revolve around this gross inequality of power - it won't be a peacemaking affair, it's going to reflect the USA's unregulated pursuit of their own interests.
Yeah, we really should take into account the ideals of the Islamic Fundamentalists. They have feelings too right? I guess sending their 'followers' to blow themselves up at a school in the name of a man who lives in the sky is justified
You're sick. You'd rather kill them all and continue this war than negotiate a peaceful settlement? Expediting the establishment of common law over religious law in a country thousands of miles a way is so important to you that you'll support genocide? You realize every bomb we drop kills a bunch of women and children too, right? I'm pretty sure they have feelings. And last I checked the Taliban weren't a terrorist group, perhaps you're thinking of Al-Qaeda? The Taliban were the ones supposedly harboring the terrorists, and they even offered to aid the US if we provided proof of such. More recently they've offered a truce stating they would not become a terrorist haven if we stopped killing them.
The Taliban was the government of Afghanistan that allowed Al-Qaeda to practice and gave them a safe haven in Afghanistan, but the Taliban is still a Fundamentalist group that carried out the strictest interpretation of Sharia law (which terrorized the people). Even after the separate the ones who are in it for ideology and the ones who are in it for money, how can one ever silence the strong religious beliefs of a group of people? We trust them to stop? I think not. This is not a normal type of war for the US, it's guerrilla warfare, and the West doesn't fight wars that way. But the answer is not simply trusting them to stop, or negotiating some sort ceasefire, because individuals with strong fundamentalist beliefs like the Taliban, don't just stop believing because of a Western based contract. If they are willing to kill themselves for their beliefs, do you really think they can simply be "talked down"?
I'm pretty sure they're killing themselves for vengeance and soil, not religious beliefs. The rewards of jihad provide an additional incentive, but the motivations are almost always political. And not that saving their women is the reason for war, but we have no right to tell Afghanistani's how their country should be run. If they support Sharia law then let them have it... no use killing ourselves and pissing them off over it. If they didn't abuse their women I bet you'd have a much tougher time supporting this war.
These are not entirely accurate. The Taliban was an Afghani response to the Soviet Invasion. They were funded by the US through the ISI, but they were not created by them. Their power grab after the invasion was a result of the lack of infrastructure and any formal government or central group other than warlords being strong enough to consolidate power after the Soviets were kicked out. And the Saudis almost exclusively funded Arab Afghans, or Arabs from outside of Afghanistan that had come to help kick out the infidel Soviet invaders. They were not so much involved in funding Afghans themselves. And to point it out really isn't important since the context of the situation has changed. Before it was about defending Afghanistan and containment, and now the relationship between the two groups is about the radical views and oppressive religious practices as well as the harboring or like-minded terrorists. Its pretty obvious the US didn't fund the development of the Taliban's ideas in that respect.