Payback is a bitch!
And Erkel, the Ice-Cream Boy will not support our troops with what they need to win.
Posted on 11/03/2009 2:30:47 PM PST by Steelfish
Hamid Karzai Reaches Out To 'Taliban Brothers' In Afghanistan
Hamid Karzai offered an olive branch to his "Taliban brothers" in a victory speech a day after he was declared president.
Ben Farmer in Kabul 03 Nov 2009
He promised an inclusive government and said he would "eradicate the stain of corruption" as his foreign backers pressured him to clean up his regime.
In a televised speech he said: "We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land".
Mr Karzai's previous calls for talks with Mullah Mohammad Omar, former head of the Taliban regime, have so far been snubbed.
Negotiations with moderate elements, said to be motivated by local disputes and money rather than ideology, have also failed to bring significant defections.
During his election campaign he pledged to talk to the Taliban in his first hundred days of office.
Nearly 110,000 Nato-led troops are now fighting the worsening insurgency, with Barack Obama currently deciding whether to send up to 40,000 reinforcements.
So far this year, 87 British troops have died in southern Afghanistan as they pushed into Taliban strongholds and attempted to secure territory so Afghans could vote.
Mr Karzai made his remarks as the Taliban issued a statement ridiculing him as a foreign "puppet".
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
i think we were back to square one when obama took office...time to bring our troops home. We need them on the border.
Attempt to split the Taliban and Al-Qaeda?
Dunno. AQ & the Taliban are sort of split already, but they’re also fused at the same time.
The “neo-Taliban” is the pro-AQ faction that has adopted AQ’s global outlook and use of technology for recruiting. The “old Taliban,” which is more like the original post-mujahidin government, is more concerned with local Islamist Pashtun government rather than going global, and shuns modern technology. Except for their weapons.
Maybe this is just a political move to try to get the Taliban to quit ridiculing & targeting him, or to create a split. I really hope our efforts in Afghanistan have not brought about a president who is genuinely interested in negotiating with the Taliban. (An Afghan president, that is. Our president is already for that...)
Sounds like a plan. It looks like he and Pakistan do not see the Taliban as the threat to the world as we do.
All the more reason to GTFO...
Taliban will see this as a sign of weakness, and they would be correct. Karzai has no army to do anything outside of Kabul city limits, and a good chunk of Afghanistan is already under Taliban’s control.
Payback is a bitch!
And Erkel, the Ice-Cream Boy will not support our troops with what they need to win.
He is too clever by half! They will kill him.
If the Mayor of Kabul ever takes a road trip he will find out that his Pakhtun brothers have already done that, most never left.
Karzai is not out of touch, he is deliberately crafting a centralized bureaucracy that has no democratic interest other than collecting taxes nation-wide.
He calls his residence a "palace". Any other democracies that do that?
There is nothing a weakling like Karzai can do about corruption. 60% of Afghanistan is causing 100% of the damage and fighting and poppy growing and opium/heroin sales. They are his tribe, they believe in extreme localism and anarchy and hate occupiers.
It is time to partition the Pakhtun areas and create a Swiss canton type republic.
This is what happens when you send John Kerry over to strong-arm world leaders.
Agreed. He is just positioning himself to be a strong warlord in the Kabul region after our withdrawal. Let the Taliban have their areas, let me have mine. Let me make money off opium and deals with Russia, let you guys wage jihad. It’s a win-win for them and a huge loss for us...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.