U.S. Signals Willingness to Negotiate with non-Al-Qaeda Taliban

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01-09-2010

In a speech at Washington’s Brookings Institution on Thursday, Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that his office viewed the process of reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Taliban as “high on our personal priority list”.

He claimed that up to 70 per cent of Taliban fighters held no allegiance to Al Qaeda, or even the Taliban “supreme leadership”, but fight instead for nationalist reasons.

“(Most Taliban) are misled about the nature of our presence … they have sense of injustice or personal grievances. Or they fight because it’s part of the Afghan tradition that you fight outsiders, and they may have the Isaf, Nato, US presence inflate with earlier historical events, some of which are not too far in the past,” said Mr Holbrooke.

Emphasising the importance of separating those who were misled or fought for historical reasons from those committed to the Al Qaeda ideology, Mr Holbrooke said: “It is absolutely imperative that we deal with this issue. If we don’t deal with it, success will elude us.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr Holbrooke met Kai Eide, the senior UN representative in Afghanistan, in Washington on Thursday who strongly advocates reconciliation with the Taliban.

“We had a very good talk … and we discussed this issue … there isn’t any question that our policy has to include an opportunity for those people fighting with the Taliban who are not members of Al Qaeda to rejoin the political process,” said Mr Holbrooke.

read more: http://forum.globalsecurity.org/showthread.php?t=35271



from 01/11/2010 SPIEGEL Interview with General Stanley McChrystal: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-671267,00.html

SPIEGEL: Everybody is currently talking about negotiating with the Taliban. What would an effective reconciliation program look like?

McChrystal: Reconciliation would be higher level talks between the leadership of the insurgent organization and the government of Afghanistan. Re-integration would be individual fighters or groups of fighters, not the entire Taliban, who decide to come back into the government, into the society of Afghanistan under the constitution of Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan is working hard on a policy for this and it's going to come out with that pretty soon. We're prepared to support them because I think we sense in the Taliban ranks there's a tremendous number of fighters and commanders who would like to come back in. We just need to craft the kind of program that supports that.

SPIEGEL: What would be needed for these people to switch sides?

McChrystal: I think they need protection first of all. Protection from the Taliban, protection for their families as well and an opportunity to either go back to the village from which they came and an opportunity to make a living again, to re-enter the workplace in their society. They also need respect. It's important that they are not ashamed as they do this because they are making an honorable decision.

" . . . What defeats terrorism is really two things. It's rule of law and then it's opportunity for people. So if you have governance that allows you to have rule of law, you have an environment in which it is difficult to pursue terrorism. And if you have an opportunity for people in life, which includes education and the chance to have a job, then you take away the biggest cause of terrorism. So really, the way to defeat terrorism is not military strikes, it's going after the basic conditions."

read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-671267,00.html

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