Posted on 06/14/2011 9:53:10 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
ISLAMABAD: The US has established contacts with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar to negotiate an end to the conflict in Afghanistan, a media report said on Tuesday.
Abdul Haqiq, a former Afghan Taliban spokesman who used the alias Mohammad Hanif, played a key role in helping Washington reach out to Mullah Omar, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted a source as saying.
Haqiq was arrested by US and Afghan intelligence agents in Afghanistan in June 2007. He was one of the high profile Afghan Taliban spokesmen along with Yousuf Ahmadi, appointed after chief spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi was arrested in October 2005 in Pakistan.
Several claims have been made so far by the US about negotiations with the Taliban but Islamabad and Kabul were never taken into confidence over the talks, the report said. The US reportedly offered the Taliban control over southern Afghanistan, leaving the north for other political forces under American influence.
However, this was rejected by the Taliban. "The acceptance of such a proposal could not be possible for the Taliban as it could lead to the disintegration of Afghanistan," said former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Hamid Gul.
The daily quoted a Pakistani diplomat in Kabul as being optimistic about the talks. "The Taliban are aware that it will be difficult to defeat foreign troops in Afghanistan or capture the entire country.
"Similarly, the US is also aware that it cannot defeat the Taliban in the next few years," the unnamed diplomat said. A senior official in Pakistan's foreign office was not as sure of the success of the US-Taliban talks. "Such talks are bound to fail as Washington is trying to achieve its goals without taking (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai into confidence." the official said.
April 12, 2009, 12.44am IST | Opinion
If necessity is the mother of invention then politics is often the father. Barack Obama has invented a phrase that did not exist on January 20, the day he became president. Anxious to win a war through the treasury rather than the Pentagon, he has discovered something called the "moderate Taliban" in Afghanistan. Joe Biden, his vice president, has found the mathematical coordinates of this oxymoron: only 5% of the Taliban are "extremists".
Welcome to Obama's first big mistake.
The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not simply against some bearded men and beardless boys who have been turned into suicide missionaries. The critical conflict is against the ideology of a chauvinistic theocracy that seeks to remould the Muslim world into a regressive region from which it can assault every aspect of modernity, whether that be in political space or the social sphere.
Washington has a single dimension definition of "moderate": anyone who stops an active, immediate war against the US is a "moderate". Let me introduce him to a couple of "moderate Taliban". They are now world famous, having been on every national and international news channel these past few days, stars of a video clip from Swat. Two of them had pinned down a 17-year-old girl called Chand Bibi, while a third, his face shrouded, lashed her with a whip 37 times on suspicion of being seen with a man who was not her father or brother.
Obama should record the screams of Chand Bibi and play them to his daughters as the "moderate" music to which he wants to dance in his Afghan war.
These Taliban are "moderate" by the norms of the Obama Doctrine: they have come to a deal with America through Islamabad. Pakistani troops are not engaged in their medieval haven, nor are American Drones bombing their homes. All that remains, one presumes, is that they are placed on the Pentagon payroll as insurance of their ceasefire.
Perhaps, in their desperate search for moderation, Obama and Islamabad will promote the denial being manipulated into public discourse. The unbearable Swat-lashing video is now described as fake. It would be nice to know the names of the actors who played such a convincing part in the filming of this 'fake'. Chand Bibi has "denied" any such incident. Sure: but was any doctor sent to check the scars?
Such compromise with 'moderation' has also taken place next door, in Afghanistan, under the watchful eye of American ally Hamid Karzai. He has just signed a family law bill which compels Afghan women to take permission from their husbands before going to a doctor, seeking education, or getting a job. The husband has become complete master of the bedroom. Custody of children can only go to fathers or grandfathers; women have no rights. A member of Afghanistan's upper house, Senator Humaira Namati, has called this law "worse than during the Taliban (government). Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam". It makes no difference to the Taliban, of course, that the Quran expressly forbids Muslim men from forcing decisions on their wives "against their will". Karzai's justification is the usual one: politics. He wanted the support of theocrats in the election scheduled for August this year. Under pressure, there is talk of a review but no one is sure what that means.
If it's democracy, it must be "moderate", right?
One can understand a post-Iraq America's reluctance towards wars that seem straight out of Kipling. But we in the region have to live with the political consequences of superpower intervention, and the casual legitimacy that Obama is offering to a destructive ideology will create blowback that spreads far beyond the geography of "Afpak".
Benazir Bhutto and the ISI did not create the Taliban in the winter of 1994 for war against America. Its purpose was to defeat fractious Afghan warlords, and establish a totalitarian regime that would equate Afghanistan's strategic interests to Pakistan's. The ISI conceived an "Afpak" long before the idea reached the outer rim of Washington's thinking. Pakistan worked assiduously to widen the Taliban's legitimacy and would have drawn America into the fold through the oil-pipeline siren song if Osama bin Laden had not blown every plan apart. In some essentials, things have not changed. Pakistan's interests still lie in a pro-Islamabad Taliban regime in Kabul. The "moderation" theory is a ploy to provide war-weary America with an exit point. India's anxieties will be offered a smile in public and a shrug in private.
History is uncomfortable with neat closures. Neither the Taliban nor Pakistan are what they were in 1994: the former is much stronger, the latter substantially weaker. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban this time could be a curtain raiser to the siege of Islamabad.
There is nothing called a moderate lash, or backlash, President Obama.
Does Dead know this?
This is what happens when you don’t have the simple brains to declare war on islam, no matter the cost(talking to you Bush). Everyone wants to give Reagan props for getting back the hostages. He showed a fatal weakness. The inability to send unmistakable punishment to Iran, even with the return of the hostages. The West has a inability to fight back effectively unless it’s very life is at stake. This is the weakness of our interpretation of Christianity, imho.
The weakness arises due to the fatal mistake of recognising Islam as a religion, IMO.
Let’s start with a gift! How about a new smart phone?
I think that’s part of it but I really feel that modern Christianity, especially the Protestant part, won’t fight a obvious fight until a knife is at it’s throat. I don’t think that was what Christ would want, but that’s all I see from any denomination.
One of the last things Christ said to his disciples, before his Crucifiction, was to ask how many swords they had. He was told two (see my name). I’ve never had anyone explain satisfactorily what he meant by that. I’m not vain enough to say I know. But if I could surmise it would be that you have to follow my word but you also have to use your brains to defend yourself so you can worship me. I really think he was giving us the ok to defend our religion in this one simple saying.
What if Nazi, or Communist, called themselves a ‘religion’ (which they are in a way) would we not be ‘allowed’ to fight them?
Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Ditto.
Indeed it is, and a dangerous one at that.
The US has established contacts with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar to negotiate an end to the conflict in Afghanistan, . .
Weren't we trying to kill Omar before? Didn't we have him in our sites once, a green light, and we called it off? Why are we even negotiating with him? Something every day. . .
And so, Obozo plots our surrender!!
If this had been WW2, this administration would have negotiated a "peaceful" end and withdrawal with Hitler, and let "moderate" nazis control europe......
I wish I was embellishing, but considering the absolute hatred and disdain that Obama showed regarding Winston Churchill (packing his bust up and mailing it back to England, insultingly), I think I am on the mark.
Contact? Does Barack Hussein Obama need Mullah Muhammad Omar to lead prayers this Friday in the Oval Office?
What a traitorous idiot.
I wonder if OThuga is going to
offer to . . . uhhhh . . . service . . . him in the Lincoln bedroom as a bonus?
Absolutely correct. When every citizen of America understands that islam is a 7th century socio-political system of tyrannical control of the individual and society with religious trappings as a 'cover,' then we will work to aggressively eradicate this evil from the face of the earth.
To put it mildly, islam is not a healthy way of life. I wonder what the incidence and prevalence of psychosomatic illness is amongst members of islam? Must be horrible to not have any freedom at all, no choices, no original thoughts, your life and movements totally controlled. All that frustration, aggravation and disappointment has to be denied and repressed. . . I bet the body 'pays for it.'
On one level, I really feel sorry for the individual people, especially the women, caught in the web of islam. .
Are we at war with islam or not? Are we at war with communism or not? Are we at war with tyranny, foreign and domestic, or not? Are we going to take our country back? First things first. .
The only thing we can be sure of is
ISLAM IS AT WAR WITH US !
Very interesting. All out War with islam, if not now, when? When they get nukes? And btw, Iran is online to have them within 2 months. Is Bibi going to hit them? We're not going to do anything? I hope he goes for it. Godspeed.
We have to starve the islamic beast by first getting totally energy independent. Hurry up Sarah!
My high school team was called The Crusaders! I guess it's in my blood.
They would cut our throats in a heartbeat and we want to talk. . . What ever happened to, "You never, never, ever negotiate with terrorists."?
We’re fighting them like the Crusaders, so far. In other words, incompetently. We can’t just outright attack them because of their numbers and their relationships with Russia and China. It’s a new proxy war. The USA against the commie proxies.
We had the momentum after 9-11 and blew it. And this isn’t hindisght either. I knew that day this was the West against islam. Our leaders were just to globalized to care for their own citizens. Not a bush fan in any way. Nor his friends. They’re not going to like the after-life much.
I've been saying this since 9/12/2001. Islam is a theocracy, and not a mere religion. It cannot be allowed in America.
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