U.S. to open direct talks with the Taliban

[Martin_Hyde]

@adaher

I think this is a straight-up trade. The Taliban want their fighters back that we’ve captured, we want our POW.

The five guys are actually all high level Taliban. Several of them were actually the equivalent of cabinet-level guys in the government of Afghanistan back before 2001 when the Taliban controlled most of the country. But releasing them may actually not be that bad for us, because there is some (probably misplaced and naive) hope that they can assist in the peace negotiations.

[NotfooledbyW]

@Martin_Hyde

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.

I agree 100 percent. And those that argue that the Taliban would or could give Obama a two year exit window have not paid attention to what has transpired there the last two years.

One major factor is that Obama has committed the US to protecting Afghan’s security through 2024. Within that plan Afghans have taken lead security operations in every province this week. That came about exactly on schedule. Afghan security forced have several hundred thousand uniformed police and soldiers near the target numbers,

The plan going forward is to have Afghans in the lead with several thousand foreign special forces teams and trainers stay on Afghanistan to assist if needed if the Taliban ever attempt to assemble in any kind of numbers that could allow attacks that could over run Afghan military positions in any significant way.

[NotfooledbyW]

@adaher

All they have to do is read our media. We want out, this gives us an excuse to get out, at least temporarily. What they are hoping is that with us out, they can regain control and we won’t intervene. Which is delusional if that’s what they believe. The Taliban will never rule Afghanistan again.

You are correct. Well stated.

[TriPolar]

@adaher

All they have to do is read our media. We want out, this gives us an excuse to get out, at least temporarily. What they are hoping is that with us out, they can regain control and we won’t intervene. Which is delusional if that’s what they believe. The Taliban will never rule Afghanistan again.

@NotfooledbyW

You are correct. Well stated.

They probably do watch our media and see what the American people want. But they don’t trust us, or our government, which shows no signs of actually wanting out, just avoiding the bad press. We’ve given no sign that we can be trusted in these negotiations, which as far as we can tell are intended by the Taliban to get themselves into power again. Our only real hope for cooperation with the Taliban is to find a common enemy.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@sidecar_jon

Don’t mix up UN actions with American actions, Iraq part one was a success? humm. If your going to fight for oil at least make sure you get the dammed oil!

How was Gulf War I not a success?

The goal of the war was to kick Iraq out of Kuwait after it invaded not to “get the dammed oil!”.

They did and the people who had “the dammed oil” before Saddam attacked, the Kuwaiti government, regained control of “the oil”.

The US wasn’t trying to conquer Iraq or turn Kuwait into a democracy.

Now, I may not have liked the way it ended with the US encouraging the Kurds and the Shia and then the world ignoring the large scale ethnic cleansing of 400,000 Palestinians.

Admittedly, at least some people protested the US abandonment of the Kurds and the Shia, but it was quite galling to see how many who regularly raged about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians completely ignored the vastly worse treatment the Palestinians of Kuwait faced and strong evidence that such rage had nothing to do with concern for the Palestians of the levant but outrage that their tormentors were Jewish.

[Ibn_Warraq]

@Martin_Hyde

So a list of things that have little to do with the substance of the situation in Afghanistan and nothing to do with the strategic situation? I’m not sure I feel a need to really care or even discuss such a worthless list.

Agreed. Additionally that list could describe just about any war.

[BrokenBriton]

@Martin_Hyde

Yes, the Taliban are weak.

The reason the U.S. wants to negotiate with the Taliban is because it is recognized we can’t eradicate them, not because there is a genuine fear that they can take over Kabul–that is considered basically an impossibility by most serious military observers.

Yeah.

paging Baghdad Bob