Forget the fact that Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and apparently comfortably ensconced in northwestern Pakistan still plotting to attack the US, despite Bush’s pledge once upon a time to to bring him back dead or alive. Forget the fact that the Taliban, the fundamentalist religious extremists who tried to take Afghanistan back to the Middle Ages, imposed its own draconian version of Sharia law in which public executions were held in a soccer stadium, and sheltered Bin Laden while he organized the terrorist plots of 9/11, is back with a vengeance in Afghanistan. Forget everything you’ve ever known about the deep hatred among both Al Qaeda and the Taliban for America.
George Bush has. Right now he’s allegedly engaging in secret peace talks with the Taliban if this report by Asia Times is correct.
KARACHI – The few weeks between the visits to Pakistan of Richard Boucher, the US assistant secretary of state who left last week, and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who arrives on September 10, could prove crucial in determining the fate of Afghanistan.
This is the timeline for secret three-party talks to establish teega (a Pashtu word for a peace deal that resolves a conflict) between the Western coalition forces in Afghanistan (with Pakistan), the Afghan government, and the anti-coalition insurgents of Afghanistan. The first round of talks has already begun in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, Asia Times Online has learned.
The outcome of the talks will to a large extent decide the agenda of Negroponte’s visit and the course of the US-led “war on terror” in the region.
The talks are based on previous Pakistan-inspired efforts to secure peace deals between the insurgents and the Western coalition in specific areas in Afghanistan with the longer-term goal of incorporating the Taliban into the political process both in Kabul and in provincial governments.
And why would Bush do this? Why would an American President, the man who can never refer 9/11 often enough, the Commander in Chief in our “War on Terror,” agree to negotiate with known terrorists, violent religious extremists who hate our guts and who supported assisted and went to war to protect the people who killed 3000 Americans? Our sworn enemeies in other words.
Well, it has to do with oil and gas, of course:
(cont.)
Coalition efforts in Afghanistan include substantial development and reconstruction projects, but these have been hampered by the insurgency. A key project is a regional oil and gas pipeline project worth US$10 billion that will run from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan, the TAP, and possibly on to India, on which work is to be started in the near future.
A US company, International Oil Co (IOC), recently won the contract from Pakistan to construct the 2,200-kilometer pipeline over the next three years. In a statement, IOC said matters relating to security in Afghanistan and insurance guarantees had been finalized. The preferred route is the southern one, via Herat and restive Kandahar province.
Clearly, peace deals with the Taliban would help ensure the viability of such projects.
I would be sick to my stomach over this, but I’ve lost the capacity to be shocked. Bush is willing to talk peace with the Taliban in order to get security for an American company to build an oil and gas pipeline. That about says it all for the Bush administration’s priorities in its self declared War on Terror. I’d like to see how the right wing media megaphone and blogs will spin this. Provided they ever mention it at all, of course. See no evil, hear no evil …
Bus and oil. Oil and Bush. Why we fight, ladies and gentlemen. Why our men and women in the armed forces get wounded and die each day. Why Iraq has been turned into a wasteland. Why we are now talking with the enemies who attacked us on 9/11. So it goes in Bush’s American Empire.
the taliban didn’t actually attack us on 9/11. they just gave al qaeda safe haven. back in 2001 and 2002, i got increasingly frustrated with people who conflated the taliban with al qaeda itself. i think you’re doing that here.
bin laden had a lot of influence on the taliban’s leader, but the two groups didn’t always see eye-to-eye. there is a natural tension between the pashtun taliban and the arab-dominated al qaeda. the tension could and should be exploited. as it is, former members of the taliban have already been incorporated into the karzai government. i actually wish they did more to mainstream the taliban. it’s really the only strategy that will cut off places where al qaeda can find a safe haven.
They went to war with the US in order to protect Osama. I don’t think I’m inflating their relative guilt for 9/11. They knew they were sheltering a group that had attacked the United States in the past (first world trade center attack in 93, African embassies, USSS Cole) and likely would again. They either knew or had reason to know that Osama was planning the 9/11 terror attacks.
I’m sorry, but I cut them no slack on this point. Besides being a ruthless, tyrannical regime that terrorized its citizens they actively helped the organization which was dedicated to spreading their vision of Islam around the Middle East.
yes, they did go to war with the u.s. sheltering al qaeda. and they lost. the question is what to do with them now.
it’s not “cutting them slack” to be in favor of negotiating with them to see if they can lay down their arms, stop sheltering al qaeda, and become part of the afghan government.
i certainly have no sympathy for the group, i agree they were ruthless and tyranical, i’d also add genocidal given the way they treated the hazara. they were perhaps the worst regime on the planet during the time they ruled. but the taliban were a product of decades of civil war. a lot of people joined more because they hoped it would bring stabilty to the country than anything else. there’s really no reason not to talk to them.
Do you really want the Taliban back in Kabul? I don’t. The only reason we are talking to them at all is so this IOC company can cash in it’s $10 billion dollar contract.
former members of the taliban are already back in kabul. hell, karzai himself was an early taliban supporter. why not get more to lay down their arms and accept the current government.
and yes, maybe an oil pipeline motivating this. but so what? regardless of the motive, if it brings peace to afghanistan it is worth it.
First I hear of that. My recollection is that the US attacked Afghanistan, not the other way around. You are beginning to sound like an apologist for American empire. Maybe the Taliban were concerned that Osama wouldn’t get a fair trial in the US? Can you blame them? (Which is not to imply that the Taliban is any less evil than our present government.)
Also, you forgot to mention that the Taliban are a creation of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, through their arming of Afghani Islamic fundamentalists to make difficulties for the Soviets. The Taliban are a classic case of blowback.
i doubt if the taliban were concerned whether bin laden would get a fair trial. i think their decision not to turn him over had more to do with a pashtun ethic of protecting any guest who has sought your protection, as well as the genuine closeness between taliban leader mullah omar and osama bin laden.
and the taliban really aren’t a “creation” of jimmy carter or reagan. they are the product of the soviet invasion and the civil war that followed, but the group didn’t exist at all before the 1990s. it started, believe it or not, as a grassroots movement against a rape by a warlord outside kandahar and soon developed into a powerful movement of pashtuns looking for stability. if the taliban is a product of any external force it is the pakistani ISI, but even then they were drawing upon a group that was initially indiginous to the scarred society of war-torn afghanistan.
The Taliban couldn’t afford to turn bin Laden over because without the Al Qaeda fighters the Northern Alliance would cut them to pieces.
The difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda is a distinction without a difference.
The war doesn’t seem to have been such a great idea, but we were most certainly attacked by a group hosted by the then government of Afghanistan.
The difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda is a distinction without a difference
unfortunately, exploiting differences among different groups has fallen out of favor in bush’s with-us-or-against-us world. it used to be called common sense–and so the u.s. had contacts with tito’s yugoslavia to try to peel them off from the soviet orbit, etc.
there are real differences between the taliban and al qaeda. there always has been a lot of hostility between afghans and foreign fighters. dismissing those fault lines is a bad strategic decision. just like ruling out talking with them to see if it can help stop the taliban from coming back.
With respect to the concern with a fair trial issue, I was being partly ironic. But your response about protecting guests supports my general point, which was that the US gave the Taliban an ultimatum they had to refuse, in its standard thuggish fashion. Thus, it is utterly wrong-headed to speak of the Taliban “going to war” with the US.
The Soviet invasion was provoked by US destabilization of the then secular government, using Pakistani intelligence services as a proxy. The Soviets would not have invaded Afghanistan if the US had not interfered in it. Or do you wish to deny that?
the soviets would have invaded afghanistan if they thought it was leaving its orbit of influence. whether afghanistan would have done that on its own without washington’s encouragement we’ll never know.
the soviets were afraid of an afghanistan that wasn’t under its influence because of the afghan’s large population of uzbeks, tajiks and (to a lesser extent) turkomen, the same ethnic groups who were dominant in the soft central asian underbelly of the u.s.s.r.
curious- isn’t everyone? Who owns IOC? Gee I wonder!
Also- how many of the 300 million in this once great country still believe that the US adventure in the middle east is the result of anything other than OIL?
How many believe that torture in not part of this country’ method for extracting info?
How many believe that kidnapping is not a part of this countys’ method for extracting info?
So, why would anyone still have a single doubt that our once great country is now considered as the preeminent pariah of the civilised world?
can I have my civil liberties back now?
The Iranians have been in talks with India and Pakistan for years to route a natural gas pipeline from Iran to India, via Pakistan. The Bush administration has naturally opposed it and wants the Afghan route to go ahead, instead. Except that they’ve had problems securing the area, as we’re all well aware.
Just recently, Musharraf said Pakistan was green for dealing with Iran, but the Iranians have just fired their oil minister, so things are very much up in the air on the Iran-Pakistan-India front.