Do you think anything positive will come from this? Is the Taliban serious about wanting peace? Will they ever respect the rights of women, as is apparently a condition of these talks?
And is now the time? Why only after we’re handing over security to the Afghans? With U.S. troops pulling out anyway, I’m not so sure what kind of offer we’re bringing to the negotiating table.
No. No and No.
ISAF has failed in its mission. They do not trust the ANA to old the line. Hoping to strike a deal with the Taliban, so the ANA does collapse and we see a return to the position of September 10 2001.
What he said.
That’s odd phrasing, is it; the US has wanted to talk for years. It’s the Taliban’s popsition that has changed.
Civilian contractors and the locals have for many years been talking to the Taliban and paying protection money, this official move is just another part of “operation get the hell out”. Part of making it look like the west won, expect films showing thus soon.
Fantastic:
I bet such scripts are being touted in Hollywood right now… hold on though maybe the current slew of Zombie flicks is an allegory.
When the U.S. had peace talks with the North Vietnamese in 1973, the truce was based
on a 2 year period of nonaggression by the NVA so that the ARVN could build up its
strength and fighting ability without U.S. advisors. This is why Nixon withdrew our forces in
1973.
Obama is probably looking for a 2 year nonaggression pact with the Taliban so that we
can leave as liberators who have guaranteed 2 years of time for the Afghans to maximize their military preparedness. Nixon wanted a U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam that was orderly
and graceful. Obama expects the same results from the Army’s departure from Afghanistan.
Except we aren’t totalling withdrawing from Afghanistan but maintaining a non-trivial armed presence there.
In addition even in the worst case scenario I don’t see the Taliban taking over all of Afghanistan considering the Afghan government now has lots of American weaponary and the Taliban is primarily a Pashtun group.
Well put; we need a “decent interval” to make it look like $2 trillion and 2400 lives were “worth it”. As in Vietnam, we went into this with no clear objective, no clear end game, and no clear plans for post-war Afghanistan. I’m sure the professors of military science at West Point will have lots to research on this, but the basic lessons don’t seem to be learned. As I have said, the future of Afghanistan will be revealed when Karzai decamps to Switzerland, or the South of France.
Thats assuming the Taliban are not the Afgan army right now in which case they have all the “good guns” right now…
There’s basically no evidence this situation is in any way similar to Vietnam.
Strategically Afghanistan has cost a lot of money and served virtually no valid interest. Our strategic concerns were handled in Afghanistan probably more than ten years ago now when it became too inhospitable as a refuge/training camp for international terrorists (we honestly don’t care about the various mujahideen/irregulars/guerrillas/terrorists or whatever you want to call them that are only focused on staking out power within Afghanistan’s borders.) With the arrival of significant airstrikes and U.S. attention Afghanistan became a hot bed of fighting over basically Afghanistan, but not a real hot bed of the terrorist groups we had gone in there to disrupt. They had no real affinity for Afghanistan, it was just a place they could train and hide easily, and once that was no longer true several other countries became their preferred destination.
All that being said, the Taliban does not have broad national appeal in Afghanistan, it never has. It has never even controlled the entire country, and when it controlled a majority of the country it was just because it had done well in the Civil War, but it had no intrinsic support to control that large portion of Afghanistan. Given their traditional enemies are now massively armed and supported by the West, there is about as much chance as the Taliban taking control of all of Afghanistan as there is the insurgents in Syria pushing Assad out of power sans stronger U.S. action. They simply are too weak relative to their enemies.
It’s not comparable to North Vietnam and South Vietnam at all, in terms of power.
Martin:
Your points are well taken, but don’t underestimate the appeal of the Taliban in the context of a highly corrupt central government, as exists now. They would be considerably weakened if there was a good, functioning government in Kabul. And once the US leaves, don’t discount another civil war in which they might “do well” again.
It is understandable that after 12+ years the USA wants to extract itself from a never-ending war in Afghanistan. The Afghan people need to take responsibility for their own future; if twelve years hasn’t made them ready for that task (or if they have actively chosen the Taliban), then a hundred more won’t make a difference.
Heaven fobid either involved supporting a bogus, illigitmate, self-serving regime in order for the imperial power to demonstrate to the world it’s willingness to confront the great enemy (be it communism or … terrah!).
And far be a classic example of the imperial power getting bogged down in a hopeless occupation it could never win.
And certainly neither demonstrated you cannot buy hearts and minds and that a committed militia armed with basic equipment will improvise tactically way beyond your mindset.
And a 100 other parallels too trite and time consuming to bother reciting.
It sees very similar to Vietnam in that the USA lost another war it lacks the Chopper on the roof scene but its not far off.
Perhaps, with the constraints and requirements of international law and 21st century morality, we can consider ourselves lucky if a war ever is “winnable” in a conventional sense. Or perhaps unlucky - maybe the only “winnable” wars are those that go so far that we have no choice but to level cities. This could even be further exacerbated by the fact that only people we’re likely to war these days are those who place little value on human life and are willing to hide behind civilians or are dedicated enough that they’re willing to continue fighting to the last man.
The Taliban wants the release of certain prisoners held at Gitmo.
Since the offer of peace talks, the Taliban has proposed a prisoner exchange as a condition for peace talks. My guess is that the US admin will refuse, as that would leave little incentive for the Taliban to negotiate.
lolwhat.
You actually prefer the forces of Islamist reaction over the Karzai government just because the former is opposed to “imperialism”? :dubious: This is why I can’t take “antiwar” leftist types seriously-they will whore themselves and defend to the death any faction as long as it opposes American imperialism: fascists, Baathists, Islamists, Stalinists etc.
And if it was suited to America’s interests, so what? All powers act in their interests and in Afghanistan’s case it was beneficial to the populace too. As noted above you ignore the fact that the Taliban is not a popular movement but an ethnically based one.
They aren’t synonymous certainly, there being plenty of Uzbeks, Tajiks etc. in the Afghan Army.
Certainly. In the worst case scenarios I can see the Taliban retaking Kabul and the Karzai government completely collapsing but that simply means the non-Pashtun militias will take over and control good chunks of Afghanistan.