Should the US Negotiate with the Taliban?

[vortexring 0]

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C'mon Marg, your regurgitation of official policy is unbecoming.

Apologies on the delay in responding; I missed this one.

No worries - but thanks all the same.

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Suspect it was the American Thanksgiving holiday & my being >10,000 ft up Colorado mountains.

Boo!

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(And I'm still waiting on some pics from other peaks you promised some while ago. )

Lordy - I figured you'd forgotten about that! Ok, when I get back I'll e-mail you them. They're not of the best quality though - a few out of focus squished bugs don't exactly help.

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Mostly out of curiousity, what official policy am I supposed to be representing?

I think it was basically a slightly flippant tongue-in-your-cheek type comment.

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I've been called everything from Neo-Con to communist - the former IRL & the latter here.

Charming!

Still, I've been called a few names myself. 'Rat Bastard' is still my favourite; courtesy of Andy8o9!

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[nerdgirl 0]

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According to an interview (albeit a somewhat dated one) with Mullah Wakil (one of Omar's aides), "The Sharia does not allow politics or political parties. That is why we give no salaries to officials or soldiers, just food, clothes, shoes and weapons. We want to live a life like the Prophet lived 1400 years ago and jihad is our right. We want to recreate the time of the Prophet and we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted for the past 14 years."

I think you’ve highlighted an important challenge: how does one differentiate the Mullah Omar-esque Taliban (unrepentant) from the wider Pashtun population that is tacitly supporting (out of fear, necessity, ignorance, stupidity, malice, etc)? And from the affiliate groups, e.g., the Soviet-era warlord (& criminal) types like Hekmatyar Gulbuddin & Jallaludin Haqqani?

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The coalition wants a stable (read: democratic) government that will be willing to help us enforce our anti-terrorism policy in the region and, of course, to stop fighting and bring troops home.

Would you clarify this statement a little? Democracies are inherently instable *compared* to autocracies: democracies have changes in governments. I think I know what you meant (particular in context of next paragraph) but wanted to be sure I wasn’t reading it incorrectly. US policy has been to advocate for democratic institutions (for lots of reasons) not usually because they’re more stable. We also want a stable democracies for the lots of reasons (like stability correlates with less fighting, increased economic growth, etc).

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So it sounds like a negotiator would have his or her work cut out for themselves. We might be able to work out a stable government (if not a democratic one) if they would give up their Pashtun superiority complex, but whatever one concession they offer would be in exchange for us leaving. I guess this would achieve two of our three goals, but not the one that drew us into fighting over there to begin with. If they really have such pervasive control over the country, why would they give us that final concession on our way out?

Good points & good questions.

What would entice that wider portion of the population that tacitly or explicitly supports the unrepentant Taliban leadership (Mullah Omar, etc) to stop supporting them?

And what’s the goal of the US/coalition mission? The tools/tactics/strategies to apprehend/catch individuals, e.g., Usama bin Laden, are different from the tools/tactics/strategies to execute stability and reconstruction operations.

As abhorrent as I find the Taliban and their supporters [to put it most diplomatically], my priorities are the near- & long-term strategic interests of the US. Pursuing purely kinetic methods [or nuclear methods] are not going to provide solutions in either time frame nor is abandoning the state.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[champu 1]

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Would you clarify this statement a little? Democracies are inherently instable *compared* to autocracies: democracies have changes in governments. I think I know what you meant (particular in context of next paragraph) but wanted to be sure I wasn’t reading it incorrectly. US policy has been to advocate for democratic institutions (for lots of reasons) not usually because they’re more stable. We also want a stable democracies for the lots of reasons (like stability correlates with less fighting, increased economic growth, etc).

What I was getting at between the paragraphs was that ideally we'd like to see a democracy that the people of Afghanistan can get behind, but that in all honesty we'd probably settle for something less ideal as long as whatever it was, it was !Taliban. Whether or not settling in such a way would be smart, I don't know.

The democracy push also appears to be the current strategy for wooing the tacit supporters you mention in a sort of "if you build it they will vote" kind of way. Unfortunately, seeding a government only provides a destination for the woo-ees, and does little to erode Taliban influence. What really needs to be done imho is to...

1) Establish a pervasive communication plan with the people of Afghanistan to make clear our intentions
2) Focus on reconstruction efforts and disruption of the Taliban communication plan
3) See #1.

We can only hope such a strategy would actually help the people, convince them to stop supporting the Taliban, and encourage them to participate in a new government.

Getting back to the original question concerning negotiation, my last post was simply meant to be critical of stepping up to a table in the near term. Between now and then (if there is a then) I think we both agree the way to earn more chips is not more shooting and more bombing.

[BIGUN 1,488]

Afghan President Welcomes Obama Taliban Talks Offer
By VOA News
08 March 2009

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has welcomed the openness of his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama to reaching out to moderate elements of the Taliban insurgency. In an interview published in "The New York Times" newspaper Sunday, Mr. Obama says reconciliation could emerge as an important initiative, as the U.S. reviews its strategy in Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai said Sunday that his government has long supported dialogue with moderate Taliban members. Mr. Obama said Afghanistan is a less governed region with a history of fierce independence among tribes -- making outreach much more of a challenge.

The U.S. president recently approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan to battle the country's growing insurgency. In other news, NATO says a roadside bomb killed one of its soldiers and wounded at least two more in eastern Afghanistan Sunday.

Also, officials say another roadside bomb in Ghazni province killed three at least three Afghan police and wounded three others. Also, in a statement Sunday the U.S. military says a joint U.S. and Afghan patrol killed two policemen who opened fire on them in northeastern Afghanistan on Friday.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-08-voa3.cfm

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[nerdgirl 0]

So what’s *your* opinion on President Obama taking up GEN Petreaus’ suggestion? And why?


Excerpts from Sunday NY Times interview/article cited in the VOA piece “Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of Taliban”:

“‘If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq,’ Mr. Obama said.

“At the same time, he acknowledged that outreach may not yield the same success. ‘The situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex,’ he said. ‘You have a less governed region, a history of fierce independence among tribes. Those tribes are multiple and sometimes operate at cross purposes, and so figuring all that out is going to be much more of a challenge.’ [dang … sounds a lot like what I’ve been writing, which frankly doesn’t strike me as extraordinary prescience but cognizance of history, military strategy, and a lil’ bit of cultural knowledge.]

“For American military planners, reaching out to some members of the Taliban is fraught with complexities. For one thing, officials would have to figure out which Taliban members might be within the reach of a reconciliation campaign, no easy task in a lawless country with feuding groups of insurgents.” [aka knowledge of the Human Terrain – nerdgirl]

Via satellite from FOB Salerno in Khost province, Afghanistan Briefing from Friday: “COL John Johnson, Commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, speaks via satellite with reporters at the Pentagon, providing an operational update.”

He emphasizes the need for successful US/NATO strategic communications (7:40 & again at 25:20) in the reality of effective strategic communications by the insurgents w/r/t Afghan population.

Sites 20% increase in insurgent activity over last year and 30% increase in insurgent attacks over the last few months (the latter he largely attributes to a mild winter.) (~17 min)

Notes 1:115 ratio of Security Forces to population (5000 MNF, 10000 Afghan NA, 9000 police forces, 5000 border police) (18:29)

Summary articles from Defenselink.mil: “ U.S. Commander Decries ‘Barbaric’ Enemy Actions in Afghanistan” and “ Securing Afghanistan-Pakistan Border is High Priority, Officer Says”


And from today’s BBC: “NATO 'struggling in Afghan south'” quoting GEN David McKiernan. The politics of that interview may resonate more fully in the UK.


Astute comments, im-ever-ho w/r/t why *how* and by *what means* (tactics driven by strategy) is important w/r/t “talking with the Taliban” from Guardian UK:

“‘…the aim must be to ‘protect the population’, not just win land.” [And not just to “kill the terrorists,” who we struggle to differentiate from the Afghan population ... sometimes because the Taliban-to-Afghan population spectrum is narrow ... ]

“The real problem currently is that the Taliban has been able to appropriate the role of defenders of the culture, religion and political interests of the Pashtun rural conservative constituency in the south and east of the country. The gaping hole in the western strategy in Afghanistan is the lack of a political vehicle that would allow this constituency to feel their interests were represented in Kabul, and thus that they could enter the political process and stop supporting the fighters. In Vietnam and Algeria military battles were won, but the fundamental lack of legitimacy at the heart of the political setup undermined all other efforts. Obama did not talk about this particular very thorny problem.”

Legitimacy … we’re back to strategic communications & SSTR, eh?
(Is it like a tango we do ... or maybe more like a Shakespearian tragedy? Hamlet V ii.)

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[BIGUN 1,488]

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Is it like a tango we do ... or maybe more like a Shakespearian tragedy? Hamlet V ii.

Now, I'm cracking up because by the end; I'm thinking, "Didn't we just have a discussion on this?

But here again, my opinion aligns somewhat with yours (or a quote you posted), "...from the point of view of the Taliban, there is no "crisis" in Afghanistan to be resolved. The only action needed is for the rest of the international community to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and to deal with them as such. Clearly they are the de facto rulers and they would like recognition of their legitimacy. It is the responsibility of the international community to help Afghanistan peacefully rebuild under the Taliban."

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[nerdgirl 0]

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Is it like a tango we do ... or maybe more like a Shakespearian tragedy? Hamlet V ii.

Now, I'm cracking up because by the end; I'm thinking, "Didn't we just have a discussion on this?

But here again, my opinion aligns somewhat with yours (or a quote you posted), "...from the point of view of the Taliban, there is no "crisis" in Afghanistan to be resolved. The only action needed is for the rest of the international community to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and to deal with them as such. Clearly they are the de facto rulers and they would like recognition of their legitimacy. It is the responsibility of the international community to help Afghanistan peacefully rebuild under the Taliban."

If you have concluded that reflects my opinion then I have failed miserably in communication. [confused]-

The source of the excerpted text is neither my own words nor something that I explicitly quoted. (I may have cited/linked to the primary text.)

The quote is from a summary of a The Taliban and Afghanistan: Implications for Regional Security and Options for International Action, which was a conference held in 1998 (yes 11 years ago) by the USIP. The USIP summary notes (1) that it is not taken as a given & (2) provides much more context than the excerpt above, which is consonant with what I have written repeatedly that the situation in Afghanistan is complicated.

The Taliban
Laili Helms

“Decades of foreign intervention have devastated Afghanistan, laying waste to more than 75 percent of the country. From 1978 until 1996, foreign intervention sharpened internal ethnic and ideological differences, tearing the country apart. During this time, Russia, Iran, the United States, and other countries ignored ethnically motivated massacres, rapes, and human rights abuses. Downplaying persistent and credible reports from nongovernmental organizations of human rights abuses by the Taliban, Helms attributed the recent international focus on the social conditions in Afghanistan to a singular cause: economic interests, and especially access to the potentially vast energy resources in the Caspian Basin region.

“Helms painted a sympathetic portrait of life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Afghans of all ethnicities welcome the Taliban as heroes who have restored peace to Afghanistan. Most of the country is now peaceful and disarmed, trade routes to Central Asia are beginning to prosper, the value of the currency has increased, and agriculture has improved. The Taliban are also effectively governing Afghanistan. They have secured all borders except a small portion of the border with Tajikistan, and control all major points of entry.

“Helms claimed that the Taliban's government is accountable to the people and is representative of all ethnic groups. The majority of the government's cabinet members are from ethnic minorities, for example. The Taliban have restored Afghan culture, Afghan-style self-rule is implemented in the provinces, and the civil administration and justice system is based on Islamic and Afghan traditions.

“Regarding terrorism, Helms asserts that it was the former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan. The Taliban inherited this problem, and would be happy to cooperate with bin Laden's extradition if the U.S. government or other interested parties could show evidence of his terrorist activities.

“Efforts to isolate what should be considered the legitimate government of Afghanistan have been deleterious for the country, Helms argued. The Taliban want national unity based on the rule of law and civil society. They are not a fundamentalist group, and they are not anti-Western or anti-American. They do not represent a threat to their neighbors. The Taliban want an enduring peace, national security, and respect for Afghan beliefs and traditions.

“From the point of view of the Taliban, there is no "crisis" in Afghanistan to be resolved. The only action needed is for the rest of the international community to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and to deal with them as such. Clearly they are the de facto rulers, and they would like recognition of their legitimacy. It is the responsibility of the international community to help Afghanistan peacefully rebuild under the Taliban, Helms contended.

“Several panel members and audience members disputed Helms' portrayal of Afghanistan under the Taliban. Some cited press accounts, published reports, or personal experiences to depict a situation in which aid agencies have difficulty gaining access to vulnerable populations, girls are denied schooling, and ethnic minorities have in some instances been massacred . For the most part, women are not allowed to work, and are denied access to health care despite international pressure to force the Taliban to reverse themselves on the issue.

“Helms responded that the Taliban are ready to work with donor countries to open universities for women, that conditions in the countryside are much safer than before the Taliban were in power, and that the reports of massacres are allegations that will be found untrue when the United Nations completes its investigations.”

Clearly, we are either dancing to different music or reading a different folio, as my reference was to the larger context of need for security and stabilization to enable transition and reconstruction (SSTR) and effective strategic communications.

The quoted section alone, as I read it, suggests a binary ‘light switch’ approach to national security/foreign policy (i.e., there are only two binary possible approaches): (1) an apologist, appeasement of the Taliban (remember they hate me more than you on a chromosomal basis) or (2) a full-out Fulda Gap style conventional assault (not completely dissimilar to what the Soviets attempted for 10 years). Neither is in the strategic interests of the US in my opinion.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[BIGUN 1,488]

I obviously owe you an apology, I went back and I had cited that paragraph to you in an subsequent discussion and embarrassingly recycled it above in a manner of haste.

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Clearly, we are either dancing to different music or reading a different folio, as my reference was to the larger context of need for security and stabilization to enable transition and reconstruction (SSTR) and effective strategic communications.

The quoted section alone, as I read it, suggests a binary ‘light switch’ approach to national security/foreign policy (i.e., there are only two binary possible approaches): (1) an apologist, appeasement of the Taliban (remember they hate me more than you on a chromosomal basis) or (2) a full-out Fulda Gap style conventional assault (not completely dissimilar to what the Soviets attempted for 10 years). Neither is in the strategic interests of the US in my opinion.

Agree. There is a third approach, but we've discussed that and concur.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[nerdgirl 0]

No worries. I've got a another Ralph Peters article and a TX Hammes piece ... more fodder for discussion.
/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[nerdgirl 0]

Bumped and quoted for Ion01, who cited the idea of negotiating with the Taliban as “This is just one of the many signs of where thinks are actually going. YES WE CAN.....destroy the great country the united states used to be.”


(From my original post)

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During an October [2008] talk at the [conservative] Heritage Foundation GEN Petraeus, Commander CENTCOM, suggested that the US should consider engaging in discussions with the Taliban. [Full video available to listen/watch yourself; the discussion w/r/t negotiating with former Iraqi insurgents and current Taliban insurgents is toward the end, ~an hour into his talk]

GEN Petraeus said, “I do think you have to talk to enemies” ***. He emphasize that it was necessary to have specific goals and strategies a priori for discussion and highlighted the importance of doing one’s homework and understanding the “the decisive element – human terrain” a priori [read: anthropological, social, cultural, historical] to understand the motivations and strategic culture. Throughout, GEN Petraeus emphasized that reaching out to insurgent groups, including some “with our blood on their hands,” as he did advocated for Iraq through application of counter-insurgency strategy and operations. More from UK’s International Herald Tribune: “Petraeus sees possible value in talking to Taliban, and from NPR: “Gen. Petraeus Supports Talks With Taliban.”

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying