Taliban Calling it quits?

[moderateamericain]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39529232/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia?GT1=43001

Looks like the taliban has had enough.

discuss

[M.Dancer]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39529232/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia?GT1=43001

Looks like the taliban has had enough.

discuss

The combination of bullets and ballots would, given enough of both, overwhelm them.

[Topaz]

The Taliban has said in the past that they would talk peace after the foreign governments left. I don't know what has changed but perhaps Canada leaving next July, may have some hope for both the Afghanis and the Talibans.

[ToadBrother]

The Taliban has said in the past that they would talk peace after the foreign governments left. I don't know what has changed but perhaps Canada leaving next July, may have some hope for both the Afghanis and the Talibans.

Well, if NATO walks away, we can be sure that the Taliban will have peace, by doing what they did last time.

The Taliban are not nice people, my friend.

[bloodyminded]

Well, if NATO walks away, we can be sure that the Taliban will have peace, by doing what they did last time.

The Taliban are not nice people, my friend.

They are among the most viciously arch-conservative political leaderships in the contemporary era, to my knowledge.

I will concede that the "Taliban" actually comprises a fairly large grouping, not all of whom are as bad as the other; but this isn't entirely comforting, is it?

I suppose that if everyone does exactly what they're told, the violent retributions would be kept to a minimum.

[eyeball]

Well, if NATO walks away, we can be sure that the Taliban will have peace, by doing what they did last time.

We can also be fairly certain that pressure to reform Afghan society will one day arise within it like it did in so many other midaevil cultures, including ours. I predict this pressure will eventually coalesce around woman asserting their rights and I bet this would happen a lot sooner if we stopped interfering in Afghanistan. I think there is a lot of truth to the idea that outside interference usually empowers the leadership of isolated ostracised societies and that as bad as these often are, the people they oppress will paradoxically choose them over what are putatively more benign outsiders. Their own salvation must come from within themselves. I admit it's hard to watch the process from outside but them's the breaks. The path to enlightenment is painful, there doesn't seem to be any other way around it.

The Taliban are not nice people, my friend.

True, and a lot of the people we often consider our friends don't seem much nicer.

[ToadBrother]

We can also be fairly certain that pressure to reform Afghan society will one day arise within it like it did in so many other midaevil cultures, including ours. I predict this pressure will eventually coalesce around woman asserting their rights and I bet this would happen a lot sooner if we stopped interfering in Afghanistan. I think there is a lot of truth to the idea that outside interference usually empowers the leadership of isolated ostracised societies and that as bad as these often are, the people they oppress will paradoxically choose them over what are putatively more benign outsiders. Their own salvation must come from within themselves. I admit it's hard to watch the process from outside but them's the breaks. The path to enlightenment is painful, there doesn't seem to be any other way around it.

Well, I'm glad your happy to consign the women of Afghanistan to centuries more of this treatment, with the vague promise "Hey day, those vicious murdering bastards won't be cutting of your noses if you look at a man".

True, and a lot of the people we often consider our friends don't seem much nicer.

Whatever

[bloodyminded]

Well, I'm glad your happy to consign the women of Afghanistan to centuries more of this treatment, with the vague promise "Hey day, those vicious murdering bastards won't be cutting of your noses if you look at a man".

But eyeball's thesis was that our interference is not likely to produce improvements. Agree or not (and the thesis is not without some supporting evidence elsewhere), eyeball is doing nothing more than "consigning" them to what could be the case anyway...and without the accompanying parade of civilian deaths at our hands.

In other words, you've misconstrued the intent of his post.

[moderateamericain]

But eyeball's thesis was that our interference is not likely to produce improvements. Agree or not (and the thesis is not without some supporting evidence elsewhere), eyeball is doing nothing more than "consigning" them to what could be the case anyway...and without the accompanying parade of civilian deaths at our hands.

In other words, you've misconstrued the intent of his post.

Would you say that Interference in Iraq has improved or lowered the quality of life there at this current time?

[bloodyminded]

Would you say that Interference in Iraq has improved or lowered the quality of life there at this current time?

It's done both. In some ways things are improved; in some ways they're catastrophically worse. At the moment, the worse seems more momentous than the improvements, what with the rise of extremist religiosity, the fleeing of the professional classes, and a refugee problem of such massive proportions that it beggars the imagination.

Edited October 6, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Moonlight Graham]

The the OP article:

"This is something that has to be Afghan-led. It has to be done by Afghans. This is not something we do with the Taliban," [Robert] Gibbs said, according to USA Today.

LOL bullcrap!

Speaking on msnbc's Morning Joe program, Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's nationals security advisor from 1977 to 1981, said the Taliban talks make sense, given how many lives would be lost in the effort to secure a complete military victory in Afghanistan.

"We didn't go to war to drive the Taliban out. We went to war to get rid of al-Qaida," he said. "We have driven out al-Qaida more or less."

"If we can now be sure the Taliban doesn't give them a new shelter and especially if it's not in charge of the government, but only at most partially in the government, then I think we have accomplished our objective," he added.

Totally agree 100%. Obama hire this man!...he can use more Carter comparisons.