Time to Talk to the Taliban

[Jeffersons Ghost]

SPECULATION is growing both inside and outside Afghanistan that the government in Kabul is about to open reconciliation talks with the Taliban. Indeed, Taliban leaders, however hesitantly, are beginning to look at alternatives to fighting. They no doubt realize that a military victory is as remote and as hard to define for them as it appears to be for President Hamid Karzai and his NATO allies.

This is unsurprising. Time, rather than resources or appetite for fighting, is beginning to run out for the Taliban. Until recently, they have argued that they will continue to fight until all foreign troops leave the country. Their other conditions are that certain Taliban prisoners must be freed from detention and that the United Nations Security Council should remove the names of Taliban members from its Qaeda-Taliban sanctions list.

But as it becomes increasingly clear that there will be only a limited drawdown of United States troops starting next July, and that the current intense air campaign and other attacks on Taliban leaders are likely to continue, waiting until the foreigners leave is no longer such an attractive option.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/opinion/19barrett.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

There are so many different insurgent factions in Afghanistan that a truce with the Taliban won't end the fighting.

[gratuitous]

1. Uh huh

Yeah, it's the Taliban that's running out of time and options. The Taliban doesn't need to win a military victory. In fact, going up against the American wehrmacht, they can't possibly achieve a military victory. But their bases are everywhere, their supply lines are as long as a trip to the next village. Meanwhile the American--I mean NATO--forces have a supply line thousands of miles long, with established bases where everyone can see them and know where they are. All that costs an incredible amount of money. When a Taliban fighter needs a little R&R, he just walks home or repairs to the nearest network of caves. When an allied soldier needs a break, he sits around with his comrades, thousands of miles from home, in a foreign country without any of the conveniences or amenities he's used to.

Who's running out of time, again?

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Want to neutralize the Taliban and end the war?

Offer them 1 billion dollars to stop fighting us, and add 10 million for each Al Queda they turn over, with a bonus of 50 million for Bin Laden. In return, we go home.

It would be a hell of a lot cheaper than what we're doing now, and would show tangible results.

[Romulox]

3. Yeah. We'll sit down and negotiate the Taliban into forming a civil society.

:rofl:

[Vincardog]

4. Is the NY TIMES trying to tell us that a military solution is possible? Or that we will never leave?