Pakistan Nears Deal To End Fighting With Militants

The Pakistani government is close to an agreement to end hostilities with the most militant tribes in its turbulent border area, whose main leader is accused of orchestrating most of the suicide bombings of recent months and the assassination of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

A 15-point draft of the accord, which was shown to The New York Times, called for an end to militant activity and an exchange of prisoners in return for the gradual withdrawal of the Pakistani military from part of the tribal region of South Waziristan.

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Comments

[Driver125]

What happened? Is our bribe now too small? Has someone made them a better offer? Is there no honor among thieves?

[Durango]

Most people don't realize just how close the Taliban were to giving up Osama and his crew to the US before our invasion in 2001. If it wasn't for the bloodlust (to some degree justified) of the Bush Administration the Taliban just might have turned them over.

And history could have been a whole lot different.

A truce with Pakistani militants MIGHT Not be such a bad idea, if it is played intelligently.

Osama and his minions are not, for the most part, Pashtun or Pakistani. Judging by the behavior of the Arab-Afghan's in the Afghani war they may not be making very good friends of their hosts.

IF we could end the fighting AND get those criminals turned over to justice it could go a long ways in solving the war in Afghanistan.

After all, the Taliban are not al Qaida. And the fundamentalism of the Taliban is not that much different than our "allies" in Afghanistan. If they could make a political deal there maybe peace could come to that poor devastated country. The Afghani's certainly deserve better from the world.

On the other hand: Bush/Cheney et al have shown no intelligence or ability to make the right choices. If there is a way to get us out of this mess they will find a way to miss it. They will screw it up and make it worse.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

Ahhhh, amnesty 'again' for Al Qaida hiding in Pashtun/Waziristan.

Too bad there's no oil there, we might have actually finished the war against those that attacked us on 9/11/2001.