Karzai abandons Taliban peace talks

Whoever killed his brother and the chief negotiator (Rabbani), they succeeded in derailing the peace talks. *

Karzai has expressed a desire for making peace talks with Pakistan, saying "I do not have any other answer but to say Pakistan is the other side in the peace talks with us."

I'll save my opinion for a later post.

Gee, peace talks broke down in the Arab World. What a surprise.

Well, wait, was it the Taliban that conducted the suicide bombing or just someone (or a rogue unit in the Taliban, considering how they aren't very well unified) trying to derail the peace talks? Also, what does having Pakistan at the other side of the table do? Pakistan can't order Taliban commanders to stand down.

@ USAF

Well it's not quite the Mid-East, it's more on the border with Southeast Asia. :D

I suppose it should be the Muslim World, shouldn't it? Same difference, here. They, plus Israel, are about as incapable at holding a stable, non-violent peace conference as the Balkans, and that's saying something...

No, its not. The Palestinian-Israel talks collapsed from being nigh-intractable. THESE talks collapsed because someone is pulling an Assassin's Creed on Afghanistan and killing all of those who would be key to said deal.

Anyway, the reason Karzai is saying he would talk to Pakistan is because of the Taliban having been created by Pakistan and its leadership currently hiding out somewhere in Quetta.

What's ironic/scary though is that Pakistan just convened an all-parties conference and decided to make peace with THEIR militants too.

edited 30th Sep '11 7:55:30 PM by FFShinra

Still. Peace talks between Muslim countries is like the diplomats wearing big "shoot me here" signs on them.

So, what, were these talks even liable to accomplish anything, or was it just posturing?

Not only were these peace talks capable of accomplishing something in the direction of peace, I would go so far as to say they were by far the most likely method of accomplishing it. Much like the IRA, at some point killing them isn't enough (they'll always have more recruits) and you have to entice their leadership into the political realm. This draws most of their base level recruitment into the same political realm, isolating the hardliners in their own less dangerous, smaller groups.

The Pakistan thing is amusing to me- in order for Karzai to negotiate with Pakistan, Pakistan would have to admit to supporting the Taliban. Which will never happen.

Which is why I concluded the remark was more of a "Fuck you, Pakistan" than an actual plan.

You're right. It was a fuck you. Karzai is no friend of Pakistan. Thats why they wanna move in when the Americans leave.

Yeah, as far as I can tell I could have renamed this topic "Afghanistan is (more) fucked" and it still would have been accurate.

I honestly don't understand why Pakistan supported/supports (depending on who you believe) these militant groups. Pakistan is attacked as much if not more than anyone else.

Is it to provide a new bogeyman to rally the country against? Or did/does the ISI just not give a fuck about the civilian casualties?

Is having Afghanistan to fall back to really that fucking important?

edited 30th Sep '11 8:43:09 PM by deathjavu

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8794677/Musharraf-Why-Haqqani-terrorist-group-can-help-Pakistan.html

Funny you should ask. I give you a horse's mouth to answer....in the form of Pakistan's former military dictator.

edited 30th Sep '11 10:17:37 PM by FFShinra

Well, whoever did those attacks got pretty much exactly what they wanted. They probably would have if the attacks had failed anyway.

Good going, Karzai.

Here's another good analysis of the situation, from the BBC. Essentially Pakistan's government and especially its intelligence agency, the ISI, want to support old militant allies and tribes in Afghanistan to increase their influence there and counter the influence their hated enemy India has. Especially the latter - the Pakistani government appears to believe India is its biggest enemy and really hates the US' apparent favouritism of that country over theirs. The ISI has a long history of estabishing ties with militants and is quite happy to retain them, as long as those particular groups are not the ones blowing up parts of Pakistan. Hell, even that's not a deal breaker, if the final parts of the linked article are anything to go by:

So the Pakistani government is going "Why doesn't America LIKE us" when they are harbouring terrorists in their border regions and attacking American led troops?

Is the government completly and utterly batshit?

I mean, is it any wonder that India is liked a lot LOT more than you, you crazy person near India!

edited 1st Oct '11 1:31:18 AM by JosefBugman

I'd say they were just deeply cynical rather than crazy. The Pakistani government may publically denounce the US' favouritism towards India but I'm sure they know that's the price they pay for supporting militants that sometimes attack American soldiers. They appear to be willing to continue to pay that price.

It's as if Europe wrote all its international policies based on a potential invasion from the USSR.

Heads up guys, that threat doesn't exist. I'm pretty sure India would be more than happy to ignore its troublemaking little brother.

Pray tell, does the US plan on dropping our alliance with them soon? Isure hope so...

Thats what happens when all the guys in charge of the military are veterans of 1971 and have overwhelming power compared to the civilian leadership which honestly is more sane in this regard because they don't really see India as an enemy anymore.

Not quite yet. While we've managed to reduce our dependency on their supply lines from a whopping 80-90 percent, a little under 50 percent still goes through it.

Also, last time we cut relations with them, things didn't turn out so well.

edited 1st Oct '11 7:12:49 AM by FFShinra

^^ Given the rising anti-Pakistani sentiment in the wake of the Bin Laden raid here, such a severance is outright inevitable, probably not too long after the next Presidential election if it doesn't come sooner.

edited 1st Oct '11 7:12:04 AM by MajorTom

Ugh. Worst. Policy. Decision. EVER. Picking Pakistan over India... stupid, stupid, stupid...

In hindsight yes.

Thats what happens when one country willingly acts as your whore and the other wants nothing to do with the Cold War at all.

Y'know if you couple Musharraf's statement with Karzai's request, I'm not so sure its a fuck you anymore on Kabul's part when Pakistan is outright admitting ties...

Given that Hamid Karzai is making overtures to Pakistan, why would the US see it as a good idea to abandon their alliance with the same country?

Also (and edging offtopic), I think the US doing so could become a catastrophe. It would save America a fair amount of cash but it would greatly strengthen the militant's power over not just Pakistan's borders but the whole country. A whole bunch of militant training camps could spring up, disguised/dual purposing as schools and madrassas and the US won't have intelligence on the ground to know what buildings to bomb and which ones not to. And if Pakistan fails (or fails further) the safety of its nuclear weapons stockpile becomes a very scary issue.

EDIT: Found an even better and more recent BBC article about Pakistan, the ISI and its relation to Afghanistan. One thing it notes is that Afghanistan's stability (and the US being able to withdraw from the area) relies on Pakistan's own stability.

edited 1st Oct '11 8:04:55 AM by betaalpha

Thats why I say it won't end well for us (again) if we abandon them to their fate. Either of them.

Anyway, Karzai has something to be happy about. A Haqqani senior commander was just seized today.

Former president, so the guy has no official position in the government or military. Hence, it means nothing when he admits ties...except verifying our intelligence in another non-official way.

He was in charge until relatively recently is why I brought him up. That and he's running for the office again and has been making friends with certain US presidential candidates...

News for the thread: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/02/plot-to-kill-rabbani-hatched-in-pakistan.html

Basically Kabul is accusing Pakistan for being the ones to assassinate the head of the peace council, whose death has made Karzai abandon talks.