CIA Director William Burns held secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar
Source: Washington Post
CIA Director William J. Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul on Monday with the Talibans de facto leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. President Bidens decision to dispatch his top spy, a veteran of the foreign service and the most decorated diplomat in his Cabinet, comes amid a frantic effort to evacuate people from Kabul international airport in what the president has called one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.
The CIA declined to comment on the Taliban meeting but the discussions likely involved the impending Aug. 31 deadline for the U.S. military to conclude its airlift of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies. The Biden administration is under pressure from some allies to keep U.S. forces in the country beyond the end of the month in order to assist the evacuation of tens of thousands of citizens of the United States and Western countries as well as Afghan allies desperate to escape Taliban rule. Britain, France and other U.S. allies have said more time is needed to evacuate their personnel, but a Taliban spokesman warned that the United States would be crossing a red line if it kept troops beyond the 31st, promising consequences.
For Baradar, playing the role of counterpart to a CIA director comes with a tinge of irony 11 years after the spy agency arrested him in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation that put him in prison for 8 years. The Taliban leader, however, is no stranger to Westerners. After his release from prison in 2018, he served as the Talibans chief negotiator in peace talks with the United States in Qatar that resulted in an agreement with the Trump administration on the withdrawal of U.S. forces. In November 2020, he posed for a photo in front of gold-rimmed chairs with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
A close friend of the Talibans founding supreme leader Muhammad Omar, Baradar is believed to hold significant influence over the Taliban rank-and-file. He fought Soviet forces during their occupation of Afghanistan and was the governor of several provinces in the 1990s when the Taliban last ruled the country. Since the Talibans takeover of the country, he has struck a conciliatory tone, saying the militant group is seeking an Islamic system in which all people of the nation can participate without discrimination and live harmoniously with each other in an atmosphere of brotherhood. But those remarks came amid reports of some girls schools being shuttered and the Taliban seizing property and attacking civilians in some parts of the country.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/burns-afghanistan-baradar-biden/2021/08/24/c96bee5c-04ba-11ec-ba15-9c4f59a60478_story.html
The war hawk foreign correspondents are facing the loss of a job that some have held for 20 years, and they are reacting badly.
True Blue American
(17,986 posts)Jobs. Even Richard Engel was digging for the worst stories he could find!
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)I had seen a GD thread from yesterday on the subject of the coverage and posted this - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=15775587
I think it was a given that the broadcast coverage would be OTT but it has even bled into the print media, most likely because the same applies - foreign correspondents from all types of media outlets (broadcast, print, and nowadays - internet/social media), are now staring the end of a current phase of their livelihoods, right in the face. And it seems that they are betting on (and by their abject reporting, trying to guarantee) being able to squeak out just a few more days, or a few more weeks or a few more months (or years) of reporting, then they will be satisfied.
ENOUGH!
True Blue American
(17,986 posts)And if I had not read your last line would not have realized this!
Thank you for giving up your insight. I am indebted!
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)What this also reminded me of were the sports reporters locally here. For almost a year while all the pro (and other) sports were shut down due to the pandemic, the broadcast and print sports analysts and reporters had nothing to "report" on except maybe talk about highlights of past seasons or speculate on upcoming drafts, etc.
Eventually as the mandates began to ease and some of the sports teams started attempting to play (in "bubbles" ), the reporters were literally chomping at the bit to get back to "doing their jobs".
When I would listen to what were originally Philly's daily, then biweekly, and finally once a week COVID-19 pressers before ending this past May (but then starting up again a couple weeks ago due to Delta) - one of the regular media attendees who reported on sports, had literally spent an entire year acting like a child on a long road trip - "Are we there yet??? Are we THERE yet??? ARE WE THERE YET??!!!???!!!!" regarding when the stadiums and indoor arenas would open up again for games (and their reporting).
And every press session for a year, they got the same answer - "When the "science" dictates, the case rates drop in a sustained fashion, and we see mitigation strategies are working".
Mike Nelson
(9,959 posts)... when they're not talking... well, it's worse.
Mawspam2
(732 posts)[link:https://m.
|gab13by13
(21,360 posts)won't be available for the Taliban, at least a huge chunk of it. I laugh at the right wing MSM which includes all of cable news when it says that the US has no bargaining power with the Taliban. I know this, the US has 1.3 billion dollars of Afghanistan's money in gold. 9 billion more of Afghanistan's money is parked in other countries.
It's easy to bitch about how government operates but it's another story to actually run a government. The US has plenty of bargaining power over the Taliban.
Oh and I used to just watch 2 cable news programs on msnbc, now I don't watch any, the propaganda is too deep. As the Buddhists say, this too will pass.
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)(like they forgot what our relationship with Saddam was before Operation Desert Storm) - that when the Soviets were engaged in what was a proxy/pawn war in Afghanistan, WE were on the opposing side supporting Afghanistan's rebels, including the various mujahideen factions, many of whom eventually joined the Taliban, and others Al Qaeda or ISIL.
gab13by13
(21,360 posts)is there really a difference between all of the factions?
Well one good thing, MF45 abolished ISIL, at least that's what he claims. Which reminds me, it was the Kurds who fought on the ground to take over the ISIL caliphate in a joint venture with our support. MF45 later pulls our troops back in Syria to allow our ally the Kurds, the people who ran ISIL out of its caliphate, to be slaughtered and driven from their homes by Turkey. I truly wish we had a fair and balanced MSM, but we don't.
BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)I know people also call it "tribal", which I suppose is a synonymous word but it's sortof like what happened in Libya.
You have competing "clans"/"tribes" who have their "leaders" and/or "elders" (religious in their case) who oversee groups of people, and they institute trade between each other.
In Europe back in their "Middle ages", they called them "fiefdoms". You had certain individuals/families who controlled a large plot of land ("territory" ) and whoever lived there was expected to be loyal to whoever owned/controlled that area. They weren't "royalty" but had accumulated wealth (by whatever means necessary - including via conflicts over successive generations to obtain more resources), so they could institute some type of "law and order" by "paying for protection of their "territory".
This type of entrenched system of governance eschews any kind of "central" ("national" ) control overseeing these "big fish in their little ponds".
Bayard
(22,100 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)It's a "family" (and extended family) thing.
And the tendency to have a "high turnover" of the top tier people under the head. I remember all the "2nd in commands" that we supposedly "targeted" the past 20 years. A couple sites did org charts of groups like Al Qaeda and basically they had a top guy and the rest of it was decentralized with a pile "2nd in commands" with their own little groups under them.
Lonestarblue
(10,011 posts)Unfortunately, that would also hurt the small farmers who grow poppies for the illegal drug trade. Or if the world would stop using illegal heroin, that would be even betterno hope of that, of course,
gab13by13
(21,360 posts)when I was young and crazy, Afghanistan dark was some good stuff.
malthaussen
(17,204 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,096 posts)hadEnuf
(2,194 posts)That Baradar?
Thanks to Trump we now have to deal with this type of riff-raff.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Never forget that.