Afghan's new interior minister: Yes, I’ll make peace with Taliban

[JCMach1]

Source: The National

One could be forgiven for thinking the man required to end the Taliban insurgency, take on corruption and defeat the drug traffickers would be a moustachioed hard man with a bandolier of bullets slung over his shoulder.

But the newly appointed Afghan interior minister, Haneef Atmar, is a slim and elegant man, fluent in four languages, who rarely raises his voice.

This week Mr Atmar, who is well regarded by the West as a capable technocrat with a clean record on corruption, emerged as a key figure in the London conference on Afghanistan... Mr Atmar, 41, said the government was willing to make peace with Mullah Omar, the one-eyed fugitive leader of the Taliban who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan, but it will be up to the grand council to decide.

“If the Afghan people are ready to forgive people like Mullah Omar, and obviously it is their choice, then we as a government will have to accept that fact.”

He was dismissive of reports that the Taliban have already rejected reconciliation through statements published on the internet...

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100130/WEEKENDER/701299829

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Afghan interior minister is off-script... the thought of playing footsy with the Taliban and Mullah Omar makes me want to :puke:

And in related news: New shades of black highlight the Burqa's comeback during Kabul fashion week!


Remind me again why we are still fighting there?!?

[Prometheus Bound]

1. Great. Recommended

[Turbineguy]

2. Having enough money

to retire to the French Riviera allows one a certain, larger perspective on life.

[Prometheus Bound]

3. Re your question: 'why we are still fighting there?!'

I think the current justification is that we gotta kill them over there before they kill us over here.

Or something.

[JoeyT]

5. I think it was

because if we don't fight them there they'll follow us home.

And because they attacked us on 9/11. Or someone that looked kind of like them did, anyway.

[Robb]

4. I love it. Karzai's a piece of work.

There are parallel processes here, the U.S.'s overtures to the Taliban, and Karzai's peoples'.

Atmar is a Karzai appointee from waaaaay back. Mullah Omar will never meet with him, and Atmar knows it. More attempts on Karzai's part to retain his relevancy.

[showpan]

6. Translation....

We hired a new broker, someone who is willing to make a deal with them. Obama's policy of paying off the Taliban and hire the warlords to protect our corporate interests, is the reason why we will see more such articles in the future. Soon, the Taliban will be our "friends" again...wtf

[dipsydoodle]

7. Burqa's comeback..................

That's exactly what happened in Basra as soon as the UK forces left and the women broadly speaking have also gone back to staying at home. Apparently it was inevitable due to the unlikely success of trying to socially engineer a culture.

[Flaneur]

9. The burqa never left in Afghanistan.

I was there in 2005, the height of Western success there, and it was extremely rare to see women in anything other than burqas, even in cosmopolitan Kabul.

On the other hand, I once watched burqa-clad women buying sexy lingerie at a market in Jalalabad. Who knows what's going on underneath those robes?

[dipsydoodle]

10. I don't think

its exactly what goes under the burka - its more likely what they're expected to wear around the house assuming anything at all. I was told that in London twenty or so years ago in reference to some living here then.

[dipsydoodle]

8. Don't suppose he mentioned

which Taliban - there are numerous groups which is one of the problems.