Brown Pushing Talks With Taliban

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,158042,00.html

Negotiating with Taliban members is perhaps a good idea at this point, but negotiating for what is the question. They seem to side with the guys who have the most money to hand them. How good is a "friend" like that?

And, what happens when that pocket runs out of loose-change?

I don't see how it is possible to negotiate anything with the very weak central-government there, and there's no signs that that will ever change.

Good idea, wrong place... maybe.

quote:

Negotiating with Taliban members is perhaps a good idea at this point, but negotiating for what is the question. They seem to side with the guys who have the most money to hand them. How good is a "friend" like that?

And, what happens when that pocket runs out of loose-change?

I don't see how it is possible to negotiate anything with the very weak central-government there, and there's no signs that that will ever change.

Good idea, wrong place... maybe.

Like Weatherguesser, I believe pushing talks with Taliban Members might be a positive step. Talk is much cheaper than continued bloodshed. President Karzai is member of the Pashtun Tribe, where most of the Taliban Members originate...A fact that could help lessen the sting of Negotiations. However, centuries of Afghanistan History and Tribal Warfare will be hard to overcome. The real issue in Afghanistan is Economic Develop, Health Issues, and Security.

We have to remember who we supported when the Russians where there. We gave them everything they needed to push them out of the country. Now look at us when we turned our backs on them - we are fighting those we supported.

This could be the first signal from Downing Street of a definite change in British policy. The Brits are about to hand back Basra province, so once that happens, that will mean a small force on the ground in Iraq, we've been told 2,500, with the rest to re-deploy (probably to A-Stan). And if we're to have a larger presence in Afghanistan, then we need to know just for how long and to what end. I think the time is coming when the Administration will no longer be able to take British support for granted . . .

And Sgt. Penn's point was well taken . ..Perhaps if the US had supported Russian efforts out there, we wouldn't now be fighting.

Talk, Sure lets talk till we are blue in the face, as soon as someone else shows a bigger checkbook, Boom there we are yet again funding those who belive that Americans must die. So I say why change now. Britts belive the talking will be strong so go for it. I think America should tell them they are on their own on this one.....

A couple of more useful articles are heer:

The Independent
Brown: 'It's time to talk to the Taliban'

Telegraph
Government seeks to win over Taliban fighters

Brown already has some official language he can use following his "talks."

"We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace ... I believe it is peace in our time."

[Neville Chamberlain, stepping off the plane after the conference in Berlin had ended on 30 September, 1938]

quote:

Originally posted by MGYSGTPenn:
We have to remember who we supported when the Russians where there. We gave them everything they needed to push them out of the country. Now look at us when we turned our backs on them - we are fighting those we supported.

no the ones we supported back then are what is known as the northern allaience... ubl had little to do with what we were doing... he was the construction man that built stuff all over the place....

quote:

Originally posted by TDR_AUST:
A couple of more useful articles are heer:

The Independent
Brown: 'It's time to talk to the Taliban'

Telegraph
Government seeks to win over Taliban fighters

i dont think it will work... we going to them and asking for talks just shows them that we are in fact weak....

A talk with the Taliban could be a positive step, yes, but I agree with what SgtPenn said. There seems to be nothing to negotiate with them, unless we've got the money.

talk, ahhh have people forgotten a few things??!!!
talk with a bunch of people whose main goal in life is to destroy and kill anything that they don't like, against their religion (and it's been proven they have warped that), that is different from them, or they just don't like.
talk??
what a great honor to be paid upon those who have given their life's for the freedom of the Afghans - including Afghans themselves!!
talk??
sometimes the only talk some "people" understand is the end of a gun stuck in their face.
talk??
seems to me the last time a British leader (as was pointed out earlier)wanted to talk to a known bunch "nut-cases" look what that got us!!!

I assure you that haveing a peace talk will only post-pone the fight. Where it will allow the Taliban to regroup and gather more ammo. I have been their in the mountains, it's pretty nice their. I would like to see a BOMB dropped on it and turn the GHAN into a Resort for us Military. You know, a nice place to go Snow Skiing or just for R&R.

That is the as nice as I can be about the GHAN. NO MORE TALKING, PLEASE.

You can't really have discussion with a group mindset that believes that everything that orginates in the west is evil(except weapons). Why not try to have a meaningfull discussion with a rattlesnake. You'll get just as far.

Maybe we should ask the Afghan citizens who suffered under the Taliban if they feel that "negotiating" would work.

The Taliban were a totalitarian theocracy when they controlled Afghanistan- anyone who thinks they could be "moderate" and willing to participate in any form of free representative government is sadly mistaken.

Ask the women and girls, ask the non-Pashto citizens, ask the moderate Muslims who all experienced life during the 6-year Taliban rule in Afghanistan if they feel "talks" will be a benefit to their country.

Oh okay, so they get paid for killing our troops, and the liberals call that peace right?

The history has nothing to do with now, that was then and now is now.

Just like "trying" to compare Iraq with Vietnam...That was then, now is now..I know thats hard for you libs to understand..but give it a shot...maybe "learn" something except Bush did it!!

YEA,GREAT IDEA. GATHER THEM TOGETHER AND DROP A COUPLE OF THOSE M.O.A.B.'S ON THIER HEADS. NO AID OR COMFORT TO THE ENEMY.

We need to remember how we won WWII. It was not talk. When they know you will kill them all if they do not get with the program, they do what is asked. If we talk it will never end.
Semper Fi

quote:

Originally posted by TPCAT:
And Sgt. Penn's point was well taken . ..Perhaps if the US had supported Russian efforts out there, we wouldn't now be fighting.

It may be that I've misunderstood what Sgt Penn wrote.. but I think you have. The USA , The Saudis and the Brits pumped money and gear into Afghanistan through Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Institute = their "CIA" equivalent) the deal included an insistence on "non interference" by ISI - meaning that while outsiders could hand over their cash, they weren't allowed to observe; they had to rely on Pakistani reports on what a great job was being done. Unsurprisingly, those reports weren't always exactly truthful. Pakistan largely acted in what it thought was its OWN interests, promoting Afghan leaders whom it thought could be controlled, and bad-mouthing those it didn't think could be controlled. When the Russians got driven out, Pakistan's proxy warlords wound up running the country as a series of "princedoms"; they did NOT provide good government, they stole most of the aid (not that there was a lot of aid once the Russians had gone!) And they created a political vacuum: a belief that ANYTHING had to be better than the warlords. The Taleban filed the vacuum: initially they were welcomed as something different - and therefore surely better? - than the warlords. Then came the USA's knee jerk invasion. To avoid American casualties, local mercenaries were hired... who just happened to be the warlords who'd been driven out by the Taleban. When they'd driven out the Taleban, things were back exactly as they'd been before, except an ex oilman in Kabul was pretending to run the country, whereas REAL power was back in the hands of the old warlords. And people didn't like the way they ruled any more than they had done the first time. The Afghans have been fighting invaders since Alexander the Great's time - almost always successfully. It was kind of inevitable that the USA would assume that it could do what nobody else ever had simply because it was America. No training, no research, no intel required... just wave the flag and drop a few bombs. The result was the ILLUSION of victory. We didn't collectively have the attention span to do the job right the first time, but just assumed that victory would drop into our laps when we regained an interest in the region?!

A study of Afghanistan (It's hard to think of a place with over 70 different languages as a "country") would have revealed that they "do warfare" as they have done for thousands of years: it's heavily ritualised, and very like the way animals fight (wolves, stags..) "killing" the enemy is VERY rare, and usually accidental. Victory is normally achieved not by actual fighting, but by subverting the other side's (usually mercenary) army. Offering the other side's Lieutenants a pay increase for changing sides can result in you suddenly having a much bigger army than your opponent. At which point, he almost certainly pays you off by giving you whatever you ask for. (You in turn don't make unreasonable demands, or he may be forced to fight, and someone - including you - might get hurt.) Right up to the Russian invasion (which deliberately Brzinsky provoked by generously funding Militant Islamic Fundamentalists right on their borders) that's how the Afghans "did war". Seems sensible to me to check and see if they STILL do it that way.

Well...nothing to worry about. Brown has mastered his "Living Daylights" strategies. Moreover, there's no legendary fighter like an 007. Punning, anyone?