US is negotiating with Taliban ( Archived) (433)

It's similar to what happened in Vietnam after the Tet offensive. The good old carrot and stick strategy. Karzai goverment will be doomed after the US disengages from Afghanistan same as happened the goverment of South Vietnam in 1975

I'm not in the least surpried.

jesus , how can anyone negotiate with people who caused 9-11

I wonder what kind of promises will be made and if Obama will wine and dine them.

it is accepting the defeat of the most powerful army fro bunch of idiots..there'll be another 9-11

There's always been a reason for having troops police the whole world.

I have my suspiciions about who began what to do with 9-11 and will keep them to myself espceially online.There are way to many doubting thomas's

21 June 2011

Negotiating with the Taliban
26 Comments
Amin Saikal


Both presidents Hamid Karzai and Barack Obama have reached a point of desperation about finding a way out of their increased vulnerability in Afghanistan.

The Afghan leader feels the heat as the time draws closer to the beginning of the American troop withdrawal next month. The US leader has lost public support and financial strength to continue the war. The path chosen is to open peace talks with the Taliban and their affiliates after fighting them as terrorists for a decade. Can this approach work?

This is not the first time that the Karzai government and its international backers, the US in particular, have contacted some Taliban elements for peace talks. Encouraged by the Taliban's main backer Pakistan as early as 2003 Karzai and the then US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, called on the Taliban to lay down their arms and negotiate a settlement. However, the Taliban have always preconditioned peace talks with the Karzai government on the withdrawal of foreign forces.

The US and its NATO and non-NATO partners are not in a better position now to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. They have neither secured a credible partner on the ground, as the Karzai government has proved to be corrupt, dysfunctional and unpopular, nor managed to marginalise the Taliban or rebuild Afghanistan to the extent necessary to give confidence to the Afghan people that they are not going to be sold out at the end.

Both the Karzai government and the US and its allies have squandered numerous opportunities in pursuit of self-seeking and altruistic objectives, paying little or no attention to the advice and recommendations of those who have well understood the complexity of Afghanistan and its neighbourhood in both historical and contemporary terms. They have been content mostly with listening to themselves and some so-called Western and Afghan experts who, like many governmental and non-governmental organisations, have turned the Afghanistan conflict into an industry for self-promotion and self-enrichment.

Numerous reports and studies have been compiled by such experts and organisations on how to reform various aspects of Afghan politics and society, and how to deal with the regional dynamics of the Afghan conflict, especially in relation to Pakistan. Most of these reports and studies have either gathered dust on the shelves of various ministries and government departments in Kabul or have borne little relation to the reality of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

The Karzai leadership and its international backers have often touted their position in terms of promoting the wellbeing, security and prosperity of the Afghan people. Yet in practical terms, a majority of the Afghan people continue to live in abject poverty, placing Afghanistan at the bottom of the UN index of poorest countries in the world. Paradoxically, a small new rich class has emerged. This new class is composed of the Karzai family, senior government officials, drug traffickers, mega poppy growers, regional strongmen and some former Mujahideen commanders, who fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, with full US support. Backed by many expatriate benefactors, whose presence in Afghanistan has increasingly become a liability for the country, this class presents the modern face of Afghanistan. It is linked internationally but remains detached from the daily grind of ordinary Afghans, whose sense of insecurity, unpredictability and impoverishment remains pervasive.


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