US in peace talks with the Taliban

"The US is engaged in talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said, in the first high-level confirmation of US involvement.

Mr Karzai said that "foreign military and especially the US itself" were involved in peace talks with the group."

Link to BBC article.

Well this seems quite interesting.

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

Well, supposing it succeeds, that leaves the terrorists with yet another camp they can't turn to for aid. Plus the possibility of getting useful intel out of them.

Would be nice to finally get outta there.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

I wonder if it is the Taliban admitting defeat after Osama Bin Laden was killed.

We've been kicking their asses a hell of a lot harder in the last year or so. Bin Laden just sealed the "You can't hide from us forever" realization.

If it is, we win the War On Terror in Afghanistan.

Or on the other hand it could be a showing that sending armed forces in leads to unacceptable losses/unwinnable quagmires and so diplomatic relations will win out over military forces, leading to a draw.

edited 18th Jun '11 11:12:32 AM by IanExMachina

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

^^ That'd be nice, though I don't share your optimism. Terrorism can't be defeated that easily.

Peace would be great, but can the Taliban really be trusted or reasoned with? My impression was that they're very corrupt.

edited 18th Jun '11 11:14:25 AM by BobbyG

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Also even if there are Taliban members willing to negotiate, there are also plenty that aren't.

Hopefully this has some progress.

Good. The real problem in Afghanistan is bad governance rather than the Taliban. The Karzai government has lost the confidence of much of the people. Doing super elite special forces raids/assassinations won't "win" this War On Terror.

edited 18th Jun '11 11:32:55 AM by Breakerchase

Taliban haven't been so much defeated (even if they lose every military engagement, they're still winning politically, much like Vietnam) as they have been given a political out by OBL's death. The Taliban and Al Qaeda actually don't like each other very much, the alliance between them was a personal handshake agreement between Mullah Muhammad Omar and Osama bin Laden (under the code of Pakhtunwali, those agreements are biding).

I'm very interested in what the terms of the peace treaty will be.

edited 18th Jun '11 12:12:15 PM by FFShinra

How? They're despised in both Afghanistan and the US. Only the idiots in Hollywood and a couple of pundits consider them anything above the level of terrorists.

Unless you refer to them winning politically against Pakistan which is the Pakistani government's problem and not ours directly yet.

edited 18th Jun '11 12:16:13 PM by MajorTom

This. The Taliban are very diverse and not very well organised.

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling

Thats an upside though, isnt it? if some of them are willing to cooperate they'll probably be willing to turn in the less willing ones,

Because the alternative is Karzai, and he's done nothing but steal funds and generally be corrupt. The Taliban (which, for all their faults, is not corrupt) does a better job at law and order than he does. Furthermore, most of the Taliban's popularity lies not in its religiosity, but in its Pashtun nationalism (which we've never properly tried to harness). So unless we're prepared to occupy and turn the country into a long term colony, it ain't gonna fly.

edited 18th Jun '11 1:09:39 PM by FFShinra

What I see this is as, is a show of exhaustion, from all parties for a decades worth of warfare.

edited 18th Jun '11 4:26:10 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

My thoughts exactly.

Ick, when the President cannot do his job better than terrorists...that is just sad.

So, how many Dong Zhuos on a scale of one to ten is Karzai? Inspired by something Colbert did, using Hitlers to measure evil, so I figured to use Dong Zhuo to measure corruption.

edited 18th Jun '11 4:45:47 PM by NickTheSwing

Probably the Upper Bracket, he's not declared himself God-emperor but he is certainly a nasty, "family" serving gitwizard.

Man, I hope it doesn't go to hell for women as soon as we leave.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Unfortunately it will. At least initially.

My hope is that the Taliban resurgance, being built on Pashtun nationalism as it was, will collapse as soon as the West leaves, allowing for multiple factions again, with perhaps some backing more liberal policies.

As some one has mentioned, the Taliban isn't a monolith, and thats been even more true since 2008 than it was when they ruled Afghanistan in the 90s.

I suppose it will be interesting to see how this turns out.