LONDON, England (CNN) -- In a groundbreaking meeting, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently hosted talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group, according to a source familiar with the talks.
The current round of talks is anticipated to be a first step in a long process. According to the source close to the talks, it has taken two years of behind-the-scenes meetings to get to this point.
The talks took place between September 24 and 27 and involved 11 Taliban delegates, two Afghan government officials, a representative of former mujahadeen commander and U.S. foe Gulbadin Hekmatyar, and three others.
It was the first such meeting aimed at bringing a negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict and for the first time, all parties were able to discuss their positions and objectives openly and transparently, the source said.
While Mullah Omar was not present at the talks in Mecca, the source said the Taliban leader has made it clear he is no longer allied with al Qaeda -- a position that has never been publicly stated but emerged at the talks.
It confirms what another source with an intimate knowledge of the Taliban and Mullah Omar has told CNN in the past.
During the talks, all parties agreed that the only solution to Afghanistan's conflict is through dialogue, not fighting. The source described the Mecca talks as an ice-breaking meeting where expectations were kept necessarily low. - CNN ***************************** The fools! Talking with the enemy! Don't they now that one just doesn't DO that? Why, the next thing you know, all sorts of people will want peace talks. Peace could break out all over! Then where would we be? First it's peace; then it will be cooperation. Pretty soon, they'll be over here, wanting to marry our daughters! All of them! McCain better explain things to his buddy bush. This peace craze must be nipped in the bud. "Nip it!" as Barney Fife used to say. "Nip it!"
Posts: 17279 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
'In seven stark words, Brigadier Mark Carleton Smith - a man known for bold statements - summed up Britain's military campaign in Afghanistan.
"We're not going to win this war," he said during an interview with a British newspaper, the Sunday Times...
...The insurgency must be reduced to a "manageable" level in order that the Afghan army can take the lead.
And then there's the Taleban.
As with in past insurgencies, Brigadier Carleton-Smith, suggests that some political accommodation will need to be reached with the movement.''Managing' the Afghan insurgency
'When Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as British prime minister in June 2007, British officials concluded that the Taliban was too deep-rooted to be defeated militarily, according to a report in The Guardian last October. The Brown government decided to pursue a strategy of courting 'moderate' Taliban leaders and fighters who were believed to be motivated more by tribal obligation than jihadi ideology.
That idea was in line with U.S. strategy as well. Now, however, both Karzai and the British have moved beyond that to a policy of negotiating directly and officially with the Taliban. For the British it appears to be part of an exit strategy that is not shared by Washington.' Afghan Peace Talks Widen US-UK Rift on War Policy
Pretty soon, they'll be over here, wanting to marry our daughters! All of them!
And then take them back to a Taliban ruled country or province and be treated like property that has little to no value and then killed if they dare look at a man not in her own family while not wearing a Burka. Women don’t deserve rights at all anyways.
Let’s negotiate with them so they can get their own country back. They then can close all the movie theaters, heck close any establishment that has anything to do with entertainment. They can then use the closed down soccer stadium as a court and pass judgment there. Since it is so spacious no need to transport the convicts for punishment, they will hack off a hand or head right there.
Once they get established again and have government in place they can go back to what is really important. Destroying ancient artifacts is a must. Those menacing tall Buddha statues carved into mountains created almost 2,000 years ago should be used as target practice. Wait, they already did that in 2000, my mistake.
No longer will you be allowed to shave, display pictures, fly kites or have young girls attend school. No more music and dancing at weddings either that might be “fun”. If you are caught doing any of these (and many more anti – Taliban things) you will be brought to the soccer stadium, but there isn’t a football contest going on there.
If people still don’t listen they can do a repeat of the 1998 Herat to Mazar-i-Sharif parade they had. Maybe this time after they massacre their fellow Muslims who didn’t agree with their governmental style (men, women, children, they shot anything that moved, about 8,000 people) they will let them bury them right away instead of forcing the survivors at gun point to leave the corpses on the ground for about a week so they can rot and the wild dogs get a good go at them. We all know how Muslims feel about dogs right?
Sure, let’s negotiate with these obviously reasonable people. Now that they say they are no longer allied with al Qaeda they must be a peachy keen group to run a country nowadays.
The Taliban has no place at a negotiation table
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Funny, I thought we invaded Afghanistan because that was where bin Laden (the guy who attacked us) was hiding. I guess I got confused by all the press conferences and news reports.
Posts: 17279 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
We only invaded Afghanistan after we tried negotiating with the Taliban. We gave them the option of turning over bin Laden and keeping their little “heaven on earth” of a country intact.
They refused and we invaded, please pay attention DG these little “details” that are often left out are quite important in world politics.
If the Taliban gave up bin Laden they could have kept their country.
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
If the Taliban gave up bin Laden they could have kept their country.
If they had given him up, would you have been content to let them continue with all their human rights abuses? Would you have any outsider invade to prevent them?
If the Taliban gave up bin Laden they could have kept their country.
So if they had given up Bin Laden, all those human rights abuses listed in your other post would have been allowed to continue?
Actually, it's not so much a question now of the ethics of negotiation with the Taliban, it seems, but of the practicalities. As during the Soviet invasion, the Taliban control the roads and the countryside, and the central government is weak, corrupt and not respected. The practicalities of the situation are forcing the need to talk.
Bush blew it - he didn't prioritise action in Afghanistan, starting his half-baked 'reshaping the Middle East' plan instead. If he hadn't diverted material and attention, we might still have arrived at this point in Aghanistan, but, on the other hand, things might just have gone better.
(I'm reading a book by Robert Fisk at the moment. He points out that most of the Taliban had grown up in refugee camps during the Soviet occupation. What they visited on Afghanistan - a return to primitive fundamentalisms in both religion and lifestyle in general - was actually all they had ever known themselves.)
NNN, yes the world would have continued to turn a blind eye to Afghanistan if the Taliban turned over bin Laden. We did since they took power, much like we do in many other parts of the world.
I completely agree that the president screwed up by extending this war beyond Afghanistan (and its immediate borders)
I never any supported any sort of offensive military action outside Afghanistan and the president screwed up royally by not fully committing to that war and then going into Iraq. We should have finished the job and left Iraq alone to let them do what they wanted to their own.
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
So what you are now saying is that all that bad stuff you said in your first post wouldn't matter if they had given us bin Laden.
Why as there been no emphasis on getting bin Laden the last several years? Why has the Commander-in-Cheese said that bin Laden wasn't "important"? Or do I have it all wrong? Are the troops sent to Iraq just the second team, the one to be used when the game is already won (or lost)? It seems to be obvious that we either want bin Laden or we don't, and if we really want the guy behind 9/11, then we really ought to make our best effort to get him. But we're not. Our best effort has (unfortunately) been in Iraq, and our best effort hasn't dislodged a rag-tag army of part-time volunteers. It is true that we bought enough off to appear to have won, as long as one doesn't factor in that over half of the enemy went on vacation until we leave (or until they decided to start back up).
Neither operation is a success, and it won't be until years after we leave (which presents a great argument for just packing it in today, right now, pronto) until one will start to recover from the damage we brought on them. Afghanistan won't be a success until we get bin Laden, and there is no indication that we are any closer than we were on 9/12/01. In both operations, thousands of our best have died, scores of thousands of innocent civilians have died, and all we really have to show for it is a mounting bill approaching $1 Trillion. Heck of a job, wouldn't you say?
(We also ave a few dozen retired generals thinking "I told you guys this would happen" and thousands, even millions, of guys like me wishing we'd been wrong. But we weren't. It's been the fiasco we said it would be, if not worse.)
Posts: 17279 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
NNN, one more thing. The president is ultimately responsible but the Congress (voted for it) and American people also supported invading Iraq. (We have already had the discussion about the particulars and reasons, I don’t feel like rehashing that now)
I was on the side of Senator Obama on that one; I was very vocal about it even. I wanted no part of invading Iraq.
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
A slight correction - Congress voted to allow bush to use his judgment with regard to Iraq. It's not even clear that Congress has the Constitutional power to delegate declaring war.
Posts: 17279 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Originally posted by DorianGreyed: So what you are now saying is that all that bad stuff you said in your first post wouldn't matter if they had given us bin Laden.
Why as there been no emphasis on getting bin Laden the last several years? Why has the Commander-in-Cheese said that bin Laden wasn't "important"?
Pretty much it would not matter DG, it wouldn’t matter to most Americans. It would matter to some, but if we got what we demanded Afghanistan would probably still be an over the top Islamic regime. There would be some protests around the world much like Darfur, but nothing would really get done about it unless they bothered outside countries.
There is emphasis on getting bin Laden, a lot of emphasis. We don’t hear about it much because it is usually done by secret military and clandestine operations. Problem now is that simply flooding the country with armed forces won’t work since it is believed that bin Laden is not in Afghanistan anymore.
We had bin Laden back in 2001. He was within 2,000 yards of a Delta Force squad and they (Delta Force squad) had a plan to kill him in place, even a backup plan. Both those plans were “nixed” from above. I can only assume the order to stand down came from the president directly because that was (yet) another of his big mistakes. His location was verified by radio communications by bin Laden and confirmed visually by cooperating tribes.
The plan was to drop land mines covering the narrow pass through the Tora Bora mountain area that bin Laden and his followers had to follow to get in or out. That was nixed, as was plan B to bomb the area completely and use several of the largest conventional bombs we have (BLU-82) along with an assortment of missiles and ground penetrating bombs. The plan would have knocked a few hundred feet off of those mountain tops.
Problem was that “someone” figured that it would be better if bin Laden was captured or killed by native Muslims so they left it up to them. Whoever made that decision apparently did know the customs of the local tribes. I don’t expect everyone to know, but the decision makers certainly should. (Muslim tribal “armies” don’t fight at night, they go home most of the time)
Bin Laden simply slipped through the pass after dark and learned not to use a transmission device again. Our golden opportunity was lost.
Why the president now says that bin Laden is "not important" I think is beacuse he screwd up and blew his chance and now knows he most likely will never "get" him.
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Originally posted by DorianGreyed: A slight correction - Congress voted to allow bush to use his judgment with regard to Iraq. It's not even clear that Congress has the Constitutional power to delegate declaring war.
You are correct DG, Congress did not declare war, but gave the president authorization to use force. A technicality at best. THey all knew what they were getting into but thought (like the president) that it would be over quick....
dummies
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I know what the Constitution says, Hippo; I've probably read it a few thousand times. What isn't clear is if Congress can delegate that authority. The Constitution neither says it can or it cannot.
Posts: 17279 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
When the Constitution was signed, the rule was that a country was not at war unless war had been formally declared. That explains the words 'declare war' in section 8 [above] Did anyone formally declare war on Iraq this time? Who and when? A simple invasion is not, in itself, a war.Did the President, therefore, require the 'power' or consent of Congress to take military action? Apparently not.
There are examples of non-wars being popularly called wars.The Falklands War was not a war and the British government was very careful to call it 'a conflict'.The Korean War was not a war, either.
Originally posted by FredPuli: If they had given him up, would you have been content to let them continue with all their human rights abuses? Would you have any outsider invade to prevent them?
In a word Fred “yes”. I would have felt the same way about the Taliban as I did Saddam Hussein. Bad people doing bad things to their own people and not bothering anyone outside of their own borders is none of my business.
I don’t mean to be completely cold hearted about it but that is what I think
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Originally posted by FredPuli: There are examples of non-wars being popularly called wars.The Falklands War was not a war and the British government was very careful to call it 'a conflict'.The Korean War was not a war, either.
Technicalities, when organized armies big or small square off against each other and lots of people die I call it a war.
Posts: 3664 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
