The Obama Administration’s plan for Afghanistan has long rested on the idea of some sort of negotiated settlement with some portion of the Taliban, bringing them into the fold for the Afghan government as a way to reduce the insurgency’s scope. But progress hasn’t exactly been easy going, with the Taliban abandoning the talks earlier this year after a US soldier massacred civilians, and only grudgingly returning later.
Now it is the US that’s giving up on the talks, saying that they don’t think they are going to be able to negotiate with the Taliban any time soon and don’t see anything on the horizon until after 2014, when many of the NATO member nations will have left. The US has a deal to remain through at least 2024.
“I don’t see it happening in the next couple years,” one official said, adding “it will be a constant battle, and it will be for years.” Instead of peace efforts, the US will instead focus again on military efforts, which haven’t exactly worked well in the last 11 years of occupation either.
Attempts to court the Taliban have run the gamut from unsuccessful to downright embarrassing, in one case an impostor “senior Taliban” leader bilked NATO out of a large amount of money before disappearing without a trace.
Could someone please tell to me again in plain words the actual point of this exercise? Feel free to use as many illustrations and diagrams as needed. I'm just not getting it.
"ASK HILLARY CLINTON"
I am getting on too, but I believe the US policy is an extension of theof policy Lords Auckland and General Elphinstone circa 1839 – 1842. Hilary Clinton was an adviser then I suspect.
Yes but they got their asses broke all 11.000 plus trying to get to Jalalabad from karbul in the dead of winter perhaps the yankees will suffer the same fate.They got away easy retreating from Iraq in the dead of night to think the world`s superpower had to pay and crawl on their a//es out of there.
Oh what absolute BS! More than two years after John Kerry returned from Afghanistan grinning from ear to ear about the peace talks, we still can't agree with the Taliban (our former bosom buddies) that water is wet? How can you tell when a government spokesman is lying? He's moving his lips! Of course, the "Nato" troops must be dying in "combat" "in" Afghanistan. Because soldiers aren't killing themselves daily…and we certainly aren't into any covert actions anywhere else….
The US State apparatchikis and military seem to be delusional when they thought they could talk to the Taliban. All the Talibs have to do is wait and watch while the US continues to stumble and bumble their way into that "Strategic Relationship" that lasts until 2024.
Wherever US/NATO/Israel warmongers invaded sovereign countries, there is and there will always be permanent unwinnable wars and the world has to live with it. But is that not what they actually want ? Is that not the name of the game ? Afghanistan, Iraq, now Syria and the next country to be attacked will be Iran. But in the end there will be a backlash to come, I am sure.