“Critical juncture” in negotiations with Taliban
Tman sends us a link to an Reuters article which reports that the Obama Administration has reached a “critical juncture” in it’s negotiations with the Taliban;
The officials acknowledged that the Afghanistan diplomacy, which has reached a delicate stage in recent weeks, remains a long shot. Among the complications: U.S. troops are drawing down and will be mostly gone by the end of 2014, potentially reducing the incentive for the Taliban to negotiate.
No shit, Sherlock. First of all, it’s like trying to negotiate with a shark over a slab of meat. There’s no way that negotiating with folks who think it’s perfectly acceptable to lie to infidels. They are not rational actors, nor do they have any intention of adhering to any agreement.
Secondly, what’s their motivation to negotiate? We’ve already told them that all they have to do is wait us out and they won’t have to deal with us.
That smart diplomacy bullshit hasn’t worked for us for a minute, yet the Obama Administration is more intent on making themselves feel good than they are in negotiating in our own interests.
Besides, I remember when I reported that the Obama Administration was negotiating with the Taliban more than two years ago, Caitlin Hayden of the US Embassy in Afghanistan came on This Ain’t Hell and told us that they weren’t in secret negotiations with the Taliban. So I guess the function of an embassy spokeswoman is to misinform the American people.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
The USGOV has been denying that negotiations have been taking place off and on, by us and/or the Karzai regime for a number of years now.
“Smart diplomacy” doesn’t work so well when the administration is full of dumbasses.
Not to mention it basically blows out the window our long-standing policy of not negotiating with terrorists.
After Jonn’s commentary and the above comments, what more is there to say?
The first thing that President Obama needs to do is to study the life of Ahmad Shah Massoud.On September 9, 2001, two days before the September 11 attacks, Massoud was assassinated in Afghanistan by two Arab al-Qaeda suicide bombers.
Massood had negotiated a truce with the Taliban, ending the post-Soviet Afghan civil war.
Massood knew that the Taliban and Pakistan were allied, and he warned as much in his last interview with a Polish newspaper in August 2001. Give it a read.
http://www.orient.uw.edu.pl/balcerowicz/texts/Ahmad_Shah_Masood_en.htm
Key takeaway follows:
PB: What are then the prospects for any peace agreement with the Taliban? I know that you have attempted to reach some compromise with the Taliban several times, for the first time in February 1995 at the Taliban base in Maidan Shar outside Kabul, which was supposed to save Kabul from destruction. You have also come forward with a proposal of peace agreement quite recently. All such attempts have been so far consistently rejected by the Taliban. Despite that, do you think there is any likelihood of compromise with the Taliban that would lead to a unified Afghan state?
Ahmad Shah Masud: Yes, that is still feasible. Provided Pakistan stops to support the Taliban so that the Taliban will have no other choice that to negotiate with us.
Do we still have Neutron Bombs in our arsenal? Leave the buildings but kill everything in the Blast Radius. That’s the kind ov diplomacy that the Taliban understands.
One thing to remember is that we’re not the only game in town when it comes to talks with the QST. Often the Karzai makes overtures in the negotiation and reconciliation process; in order to buttress any sense of legitimacy for the government in Kabul, we can’t very well publicly countermand those efforts.
#4 Yep, great post Jonn dismantled Joe Biden. How he ever became a foreign policy sage is beyond me. If the Kaiser had Chancellor Biden instead of Bismarck, he would have lost Prussia never mind reunited Germany.
Few extra points.
1) The Taliban believe they are winning, why would they negotiate? Especially since we can never seem to find actual credible representatives of the Taliban.
2)The Afghan/Pakistan Taliban and Al Qaeda are intertwined and can’t be seperated. Al Qaeda’s “Shadow Army” has defeated the Pakistani Army three times, there are far more then just 100 members of Al Qaeda is folly.
3)”They are not rational actors…” when it comes to pain they certainly are. Much of Southern Afghanistan is under our control. There is an Army Battalion that now operates out of Omar’s hometown. The enemy has been crushed in large swaths of the South.