Negotiations with the insurgency
Tman sent us a link to an Associated Press article about the negotiations that going on between the US and a former 6-year prisoner from an Afghanistan jail, former Taliban minister and current leader of the Islamic party, Hizb-i-Islami.
Dr. Ghairat Baheer, a representative and son-in-law of longtime Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (Gul-bu-DEEN HEK-mah-tyar), told The Associated Press this week that he had met separately with David Petraeus, former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who is now CIA director, and had face-to-face discussions earlier this month with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, currently the top commander in the country.
So, since he’s a leader of the insurgency in Afghanistan, we had imprisoned him for all of the right reasons. And now we’re trying to make peace with him? Good luck.
The most interesting part of the article to me, was this paragraph;
In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden would not confirm that such meetings took place but said the U.S. was maintaining “a range of contacts in support of an Afghan-led reconciliation process.”
Caitlin Hayden, you old timers might remember, was the member of the US Afghanistan Embassy staff who made two appearances on this blog over two years ago denying that there were negotiations going on between the US and the Taliban. So I guess her function is purposeful misinformation.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
Now she’s on the NSC? Dear Lord, help us all.
As I wrote earlier hope is not a plan. These talks are not of any real substance because our enemies believe they are winning and are not willing to discuss anything of any real importance. They intend to just run out the clock and maybe get a few goodies in the process as gestures of our goodwill. This administration is just trying to make our exit look plausible, though it is anything but.
The whole idea that we would turn to Hekmatyar and Hizb-i-islami, the one party who is without any doubt worse then the Taliban by a considerable magnitude, proves this.
Hekmatyar fillet people alive and destroyed Kabul by bombardment, something the Soviets never did. It was warlords like him that gave rise to a counter armed force known as the Taliban. They are one of the most lethal entities(with the Haqqanis) and out right control large swaths of the east. Unlike the Taliban they also have traditionally been able to recruit far beyond the Pashtuns, for evidence look no further north where they have made serious inroads.
One last point, there has been rumors that Obama may release some of the worst actors from Gitmo as a gesture. Characters we are certain will take up arms against us again. We are most likely to get nothing in return either.
Well its not like we can trust our “allies” over there either. Everytime we turn our backs on them, they shoot us.
“I say we take off and Nuke em from orbit. Its the only way to know for sure.”
#3… they mostly come out at night, mostly.
I’m always hesitant to believe in peace talks with insurgents as history shows that most times the talking time is used by the insurgency to rearm and gather reinforcements.
We have to do something though, fighting a never ending insurgency in a country across the world from us accomplishes The United States very little.