US Officials Start To Negotiate With Taliban

Foreign Policy:

In a dramatic shift, some U.S. military and civilian officials in Afghanistan are now trying to negotiate with Afghan Taliban fighters to encourage them to "reintegrate." Although no program yet exists, the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul recently created a "cell" to address these efforts and formalize this outreach -- a technique some commanders report they are already using.

Read the whole story: Foreign Policy

Comments

[sonoffestus]

Taliban Awakening Councils sounds good to me.

[Hirnlego]

How 268 T errorist Groups Worldwide Ended, 1968–2006:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/images/figure1.gif

More:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/index1.html

[Lobbyist790]

How to:Defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan
What if, Pharmaceutical Company’s buy Afghanistan’s poppy harvest to make organic pain medication. Two birds with one stone,
#1 it will pay the growers a living wage for their harvest and
#2 it will dry up the main source of revenue for the Taliban, who support and protect al Qaeda. Yes I know you think I’m crazy but it could work.

[YankeeDo]

Wonderful. Nearly 1000 American lives lost, $1,000,000,000 down the toilet and now Obama decides that the Taliban are the good guys and should run the Afghan government.

This reminds me too much of Nixon's "Peace with Honor" which brought us neither.

[Hirnlego]

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/index1.html

[mamacat]

Bush's policies pushed the Taliban and al Qaeda closer together. If Obama can isolate them from each other, I am all for it.

In the past, al Qaeda supported the Taliban in order to be allowed to have a base in Afghanistan, not because the Taliban were interested in exporting terror. We can keep al Qaeda hiding in their caves without fighting between a third and half of the Afghan people.

[horsey]

if you click on the main headline for this story a page in Arabic comes up.

[Ping]

If this an attempt to turn members of the Taliban into the Afghan Army like the US military should have done in Iraq, then I am for it.