‘Tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.
– The Bard, Hamlet- I:1
Afghanistan President Karzai has announced he is in “unofficial” peace negotiations with the Taliban; despite the fact that the United States is actively engaged in a war with the Taliban.
Karzai told CNN’s “Larry King Live” in an interview to be broadcast Monday that “unofficial” peace discussions with Taliban representatives are continuing.
“We have been talking to the Taliban as countryman to countryman,” said Karzai. “Not as a regular official contact with the Taliban with a fixed address, but rather unofficial personal contacts have been going on for quite some time.”
On Sunday, the Afghan government named former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as chief of a new peace council tasked with talking to insurgent groups.
At first we feel like claiming moral outrage, but what choice does Karzai have for his own survival and some semblance of survival for his fragile government?
Shakespeare used Hamlet II:2, to describe the dilemma Karzai faces with the premature withdrawal of the American War Machine.
Though this be madness, yet there be method in’t.
Withdrawing before attaining victory is retreat; especially, in the Middle East and Karzai with all his corruptness and inept efforts at statesmanship, only mirrors those same attributes of our Commander in Chief; although, Karzai’s decisions are not based on losing the support of his party, nay! he must base his decisions with the clarity and cunning of a desperate rat cornered by the cat. Karzai’s lease on life is tenuous at best and he is playing his hand as well as possible; meanwhile, the Taliban plays him as a fool, while they prepare to make their eventual takeover as effortless as possible: for time is literally on the side of the Taliban, they know that Obama’s reelection platform prescribes a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, why force the issue, 2012 is just around the corner.
The Bard once again desribes that sickly feeling in your gut. Hamlet III:1
Thus conscience makes cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickled o’er with the pale cast of thought.
How ironic that Karzai decides to publicly announce his peace negotiations while being interviewed by the man (Larry King) who has described the Taliban and Alqaeda forces as Freedom Fighters.
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OK, they helped the terrorists attack the US, so reducing them to ruble (I know, not an easy task here) is fine, but the “nation building” concept is crap. We need to learn that once you reduce the enemy to ruble you leave them that way and remind them that next time it will be worse if they ____ with the US again. No more blood and treasure wasted on “freeing” people around the world while we deteriorate into a police state overrun by foreighners.
In the interest of full disclosure, my son is a vet of Iraq and scheduled to go to Afghanistan in the spring. The whole region isn’t worth one hair on his head in my opinion, and ditto for every father’s son who goes there. These people are perfectly happy living in a filthy, corrupt society, leave them to it, and nuke them the next time they attack us.
Al, you have some excellent points that will hopefully be discussed at length in this thread.
A sailing ship in gale force winds with a good crew and an experienced Captain can take advantage of the strong winds, but without an experienced captain and a concerted effort the ship flounders in heavy seas and surviving becomes more of an issue than smooth fast sailing.
Your son and a million like him are among the greatest America has ever produced and as long as I am lucid and pecking at this keyboard, I will remind the world of that fact over and over; however, wasting the efforts of these young patriots without a definitive plan of action and direction is criminal and yet, basing “Strategy” on a leader’s standing in the polls is worse than criminal. “I can’t lose the whole Democrat Party”, Barack Hussein Obama contributes to the most witless, inane, and self-centered mumblings from a world leader in all of history.
Supporting a government that is preoccupied with the heroin trade complicates the problem: yet we are overburdened with semi-legal corruption with our own government, a fact that will hopefully be dealt with in a few weeks, now that more of us are committed to cleaning out the rats’ nest.
The idea of a culture that is steeped in corruption and the only reason that people ascribe to be involved is to take advantage of the corruption is well documented in Mexico and most of the countries to the South of us.
In the rush to document a fair election, we neglected to find statesmen and politicians to run the country; however that is not so hard to believe after our last national election.
Yes Al, we can have the best crew in history, but without leadership we flounder and will be lucky not to crash on the rocks.
Tell your son, we at FA are proud of him and his crew.
Obama has shown his true colors when it comes to accommodation of Islam, radical over moderate.
Who besides me remembers how the Bush Administration protected Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury in Bangladesh?
Mr. Choudhury is a strong voice in support of moderate Islam, as opposed to radical, militarized, world-wide-caliphate style Islam.
According to Mr. Choudhury, while Bush was president, “a political officer of U.S. Embassy was closely maintaining contact with me. But, since Mr. Obama became president, all such communications suddenly stopped.”
Mr. Choudhury recently said, “We shall continue to fight our good battle against radical Islam. And, one day, we shall win.”
But he will have to do it without the help of this president.
In December, 2009, his home was attacked. It was only possible because Obama had removed the security and attendant American trial observers that his predecessor put in place to protect him.
What happened to him?
Shoaib was blindfolded and tortured for ten days as his interrogators attempted to beat a confession out of him that he was spying for Israel.
He was then imprisoned in solitary confinement for seventeen days, without medical treatment. Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International remained silent.
His old 2003 charges of blasphemy (that carries a death sentence in this Islamic nation) still stands and has now been re-activated as no protectors are around anymore.
The American observers were what kept Shoaib and his family safe when he was at home. Obama has not only put Shoaib’s life in great danger, he has signaled to Bangladesh’s ubiquitous paramilitary forces that he is looking the other way.
You might want to keep up on the fight our other elected representatives are doing in trying to get Mr. Chaoudhury the protection he absolutely needs right now.
Karzai sees the writing on the wall and is just being pragmatic. He’s cutting a deal with the Taliban now in order to save his ass when we pull out. The real shame is that we didn’t make the initial strike on the Taliban, one that they could never recover from. Nation building, especially in the muslim world is pure folly.
So now we sit back and let Karzai negotiate with the enemy that we have been fighting for eight years, presumably without input from us. How thoughtful of Obama to prioritize our mission with his popularity polls, rather than the mission.
Sun Tzu wrote 2400 years ago that it is possible to win the war and lose the peace or lose the war and win the peace: Obama just is trying to save his ass in the next presidential election and the devil take the war.
This is a monumental crime, that is bing perpetrated against our young patriots, forget our deep breathing Liberals with their attacks of the “vapors” at the thought of war, we are asking these young patriots to risk life and limb for Obama’s political agenda and so that Karzai and his family will have a percentage of the poppy trade that will come back to America and cause more crime and misery.
Is Karzai talking to the Taliban or the Pashtun tribes which make up about 50% of the Afghan population and the majority of northern Pakistan? The Taliban come from mostly the Pashtun tribes. I believe NATO failed to come up with a fitting government that would have better helped the people of Afghanistan and allowed the area to become more secure quicker. Instead Karzai and the people in the area have to make due with this horrible choice that NATO made.
The quickest and best solution was to split up Afghanistan. The Pashtun tribes should have been split off from the rest of Afghanistan. Then the various tribes that remained should have been allowed to form a city state based on the Ancient Greek model. Now Afghanistan is a bunch of tribes that don’t like each other, and are still fighting each other, with the biggest tribe and the the creator of the Taliban set to run Afganistan when NATO leaves.
I think we are all looking at different parts of the same elephant.
There is so-called ”moderate” Islam and there is so-called ”radical” Islam.
My example was of one Bangadeshi man who represents moderate Islam and therefore required 100% of the time protection from the radical Islamists in the Bangladeshi government and society.
Your examples also point to the fact that all seemingly moderate Muslim groups in Afghanistan also need 100% of the time protection from the radical Muslims in their own midst.
Can Islam be peaceable at this rate?
Ever?
When all of the peaceable Muslims are in constant danger of being murdered in their homes, in their schools, on their streets, at their markets and even in their Mosques, how can we EVER protect them well enough?
We cannot do it.
Even the most peaceable Muslims in the West must publish under assumed names!
IF the force of truth as taught from their own holy books leads individual Muslims to the acts we see in so-called ”radical” Islam, how can those truths be overturned?
If it is apostasy to even presume to call into question a radical Muslim teacher’s sermon, how can a more peaceable teaching ever take hold for the vast majority in Islam?
It cannot.
Some time ago we and Israel had begun to practice the strategy of cutting off the head of the most radical factions of militant, radical Islam.
But we seem to have stopped doing this.
I was actually surprised to hear that Obama had put a hit out on American-born radical imam, Anwar al-Awlaki.
He needs to do more of this.
And we really shouldn’t have to fight hand-to-hand as equals against these primitives.
Bomb them from afar!
Go after their headquarters.
If a few human shields get caught in the crosshairs it was their own choice to be next to a radical leader.
Howdy! Some of you have some clues as to how this evolved. I reckon that I need to gather some Unclassified pieces of the puzzle for you all and throw my 25 cents worth in here a little later today. The Stans are a bit more complex than a poker game for table stakes and requires a little more analysis than the nuggets of information posted here.
Balancing the mix requires some history, geopolitics and more US Politics as well as NATO Politics, the worthless UN that was kicked out early on and left willingly because it became “dangerous” to be there… that is why I was sent, that is why National Prestige early on “birthed” Operation Enduring Freedom, why I put off retirement and was sent to knock on the door in Kandahar with an element of the US Armed Forces that arrived in the dark of night by parachute to get the Taliban the hell out of there. (Airborne Rangers!)
Stay tuned to FA for my estimate, predictions and many thanks to Skookum for this very timely posting on this matter. Recalled from Retirement twice so far and for no other reason than connecting a few dots for the sake of America’s Second Greatest Generation that are there and them alone. I owe the Temporary resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue basically jack shit. My Oath is to the Constitution, My Brothers and Sisters in Arms and to those of you that sleep safe at home: “because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm”
Skookum et al…the Rancher post was dead on and although I could add a few pieces, I won’t.
Take Care All!
OT, we will be breathlessly awaiting in suspenders for your insight and unique perspective on this queer development that has us more than a little perplexed and bewildered.
If the US and its Allies fought WW ll like we are fighting in the Middle East we would still be a standstill.
@ Skookum…
Karzai holds a pair of deuces in his hand, Obama holds a pair of Jokers and the Taliban just drew to three tens and holds a pair of OBL cards.
The war goes on while Obama and Karzai belly up to the bar…
@ Buffalobob …We need a Patriot as President to fight this war…
**Paging Theodore Roosevelt…**
We are stuck with Skippy Obama…
Yup..we have stuck on stupid as CiC.
Is it me or is this war devolving into the largest military training exercise ever undertaken?
Someone, please tell me I am wrong and why!
I heard that talking with TALIBANS before, quite a while ago,
and it was demanded by THE president KARSEI and other, so it tell me that they have been exchange talk
since a couple of years, undercover, and now MR KARZEI publicly come in AMERICA
to tell that he is okay with the TALIBAN, which is our ENNEMY,; IS in IT weerd?
or is it me?, that he is not arrested or else as a traitor, while the militarys spill their blood on those f.king EIDS since the war started, I say HE IS, along with whom support him from other countrys
than his own, even some that have their own military spilling blood
Ms Bees, it is weerd! weerd indeed. Are we to assume he might already have a Peace plan in place while we are still fighting a war for his country? Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.