Flight Suit Gives Up; Decides to Negotiate with Taliban

[kpete]

Flight Suit Gives Up; Decides to Negotiate with Taliban
by Brandon Friedman
Sun Dec 30, 2007 at 11:58:06 PM PST

Having blown the whole "War on Terror" years ago, the supposedly-strong-on-national-security Bush administration has now thrown up its hands and decided to give up on seriously prosecuting the war in Afghanistan. Rather than address the immediate and very real threat posed by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Commander Guy has chosen instead to focus America’s limited military assets on internal gangland warfare in Iraq and on a vague and very distant threat from the nutjob in Iran.

On Thursday, Flight Suit’s top guy in Afghanistan, Ambassador William Wood, delivered the
message of surrender to America:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071227/ap_on_re_as/afghan_us

The United States supports reconciliation talks with Taliban fighters who have no ties to al-Qaida and accept Afghanistan's constitution, the U.S. ambassador said Thursday.

William Wood said the U.S. is in favor of a "serious reconciliation program with those elements of the Taliban who are prepared to accept the constitution and the authority of the elected government" of President Hamid Karzai.

Let me be clear about one thing: ALL elements of the Taliban sympathize with and support al Qaeda. That’s their whole purpose. They are both Sunni extremist groups that share the same goal of enforcing medieval Islamic law on whomever they can.

[tekisui]

1. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

They can do no right.

[mediaman007]

5. They finally figured out that they share the values of the Taliban!

[EFerrari]

2. Over the weekend, British papers said, "Gordon Brown negotiating

with Taliban". Well, it isn't Brown, it's Bush. George Bush is negotiating with terrorists.

Now some smart candidate has to DO something with that.

[Yuugal]

3. paging sen Biden

I'd love to hear him rip into this. Go get em Joe!

[Marrah_G]

4. This infuriates me

As a woman it breaks my heart to see these monsters given anything other then a life sentence for the murder, rape, torture and enslavement of the Afghani women.

[Solly Mack]

6. Bush once said victory won't look like what victory used to look like

I'll look up the exact quote...just a sec

"Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved"

He said that during a speech about Iraq but it shows how ah - fluid, shall we say - the definition of victory can be to someone who intends to (re)define (and claim) victory to fit their needs.

[paparush]

7. Taliban to Bush - "Bring it On!!"

[lonestarnot]

8. The Unzipper Freak strikes again!

[lpbk2713]

9. Smoke and mirrors 101 ..... Sounds like Rove is still calling the shots.

They just want to focus their strategery on an effort that might have a remote possibility of success just to make themselves look less like losers. The RNC told BushCo that whoever gets the GOP nomination will need something positive going on and lowering their expectations is the best BushCo could come up with. These clowns are pathetically predictable.

[madokie]

10. I like that, flight suit. so fitting

and an empty one at that. why so many have/had to die for this worm is beyond me

[underpants]

11. Not a surprise the insurgents won and have settled down Iraq

I actually read the AP article about how US deaths in 2007 were at an all time high and in the article it states (what WE already knew) that the violence is down because the alSadr militia called a ceasefire and that the Shiites have cleaned house of alQaeda.

This is no great surprise seeing how they have screwed up everyhing else.

[mpendragon]

12. business partners

If I recall correctly, the US gave the Taliban money to grease the wheels on getting an oil pipeline from the -istans to the Arabian sea. They were the same fundamentalist nuts back then but they were in power and had things to offer us.

The Taliban has a fairly large amount of popular support in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that's enough to prevent the Karzai government from being able to do much. This is the last logical step in fighting the Taliban:

Destroy - fail
Marginalize - fail
Negotiate

The real problem is that in the next (and possibly last) fairish election in Afghanistan the Taliban will likely be pretty much back in power. This is bad but energy dependence makes for strange bedfellows.

[Swamp Rat]

13. Mission Unaccomplished: Bushler concedes to the Taliban then goes on vacation... again.

What, me worry?

[lonestarnot]

14. kick