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This is just another ploy to rip off the U.S. for more money, sure lets pay the lower level guy to lay down his arms yep that will work, who the heck is in charge and comes up with these ideas, we lost over 4000 men so far and now we want to pay someone to give up his gun, like he doesn't have another one hidden, hopefully some of these so called experts will be in a building which gets blown up the Taliban.
It never ceases to mystify me how Ms. Rubin can so loyally repeat blatant lies she must know to be false. The simple fact is that there are no links between the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda. General McChrystal has confirmed this reality when he stated that there is no "large Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan" on 9/11 of this year, National Security Advisor General Jim Jones has admitted that there are less than 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan, and the New York Times has exposed the antagonistic divisions between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the former representing a purely Pashtun nationalist movement that has no interest in a cooperating with Al Qaeda. These are the facts on the ground that Ms. Rubin, intelligent as she is, cannot help but be aware of. Therefore, the Afghan Taliban is not waging a highly successful insurgency against the Western occupation forces and their Afghan clients in Kabul because "they hate our freedoms" and they want to help Al Qaeda kill us, but rather the diverse assortment of Pashtun peasants who compose the Taliban are simply infuriated by the sheer corruption and outright larceny on which the Western-sustained Afghan narco-state is founded. The Taliban currently control over 9 provinces through shadow governments because the Kabul regime of Hamid Karzai, which would crumble in a matter of seconds without the backing of Western bayonets, is so inept and inherently corrupt that its very rule constitutes a racket by the handful of warlords against the Afghan people.
I believe that with the U.S supporting this government even though all the passed Afghan plans for turning the Taliban failed would really, help everyone in the long run. The previous plans failed because they lacked both strategy leadership, and because there was a tremendous amount of corruption in the government. But with the support from the U.S government there will be leadership and strategy, and the U.S will gain another ally with some benefits.
Finally, some good news from overseas. It seems like the Taliban are finally willing to cooperate, and are taking the initiative in making peace. However, I am still concerned with the al-Qaeda, and that there has been no progress made there. I understand that we are close to a huge step in the right direction, but let's not count our chickens before they hatch Trudy. Let's keep a watchful eye on the al-Qaeda, and see how they react to the peace and emergance of a cooperative Taliban group headed by Karzai.
The idea of having the US cooperate and even support Taliban members or former members. However, at this point in the conflict, I'm starting to feel that almost any idea is worth a shot as the present strategy has not worked and is costing huge price in American and allied finances and lives. I find the idea of giving power and support to people who don't even try to make commitments to peace and equality very frightening, but maybe this strategy would be a good one if more could be done to insure that after switching sides the ex members would be prevented from terrorizing citizens and forcing Sheria law and other extremist Islamic practices on the people.
I feel this is great news as it lessens parallels between Al-Queda and the Taliban. However, the fact that Taliban support for Al-Queda hinders the oppurtunity for change I feel our course of action should be attacking said support, although we are already engaged in such an attack, right? Furthermore, I feel this strategy would be fool-proof if it incorporated the idea that the Taliban will actually cooperate. We do not know what the outcome of trying to get the Taliban to be civil will be, leaving a sense of ambiguity as to what we should do next. In conclusion, I feel the plan could use some retouching on the basis of incentives, perhaps, for those who are willing to be constitutional and civil (in the Taliban).
I feel that what trudy is saying if legit is a good step for the united states and is good for us to help the afghan government incorporate the taliban into sociepaty if they agree to follow the rules. My one concern with this is that she says that past efforts were a failure. I agree that in order for this to work the taliban must break off ties with al Queda like it is said here. I feel that this hope for the taliban to just agree is a stretch and is very unlikely to happen. I think this has a liberal bias to it hoping that they are just going to lay down their arms and comply with the united states and afghan government. how can people believe this is going to be different than any other attempt to have the taliban stop their violence when the same type of corruption continues to take place starting with Karzai.
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