Despite reports of something of a deal, the Taliban has issued a statement denying that a three-day meeting between US and Taliban officials in Qatar had ended with any specific agreement, let alone a deadline for ending the Afghan War.
Last week’s three-day talks had been reported by diplomats to have gone well, and it was hinted that April 2019 was to be the end of the Afghan War. The Afghan government wasn’t involved with these talks, which makes it odd that such a deal could even have been made.
The deadline might’ve made sense in the context of other reports out of the US, including the US planning to demand that the Afghan government cancel their elections, which would be taking place at about the same time.
But there wasn’t much indication that a deal was imminent before that report, and the Taliban has long insisted that a US pullout was a condition for serious talks. This suggests any negotiated deal is probably more than a single three-day meeting away.
The Taliban are patriots, regardless of what anyone thinks of them.
And no more extreme in their beliefs than our staunch ally, the Saudis.
Or us in our penchant for violence and conquest…
The Afghan government wasn’t involved with these talks, which makes it odd that such a deal could even have been made.
The “Afghan government” isn’t involved in much of anything, so it’s no loss. The US is stuck with the Afghan tar-baby, both killing Taliban and talking to Taliban. Killing people you’re negotiating with hasn’t worked before and it won’t work now. You’re basically stuck with a hundred thousand deadly people who have but one life to give for their country.
But hey, it’s good business for Lockheed Martin’s bomb factory.
Just listened on the radio to some of the history of the secret talks that ended the Vietnam war (from the American perspective) South Vietnam was not involved in those talks either