Taliban Wanted List to Be Drawn (more troops for Iraq?)

[maddezmom]

KABUL, Afghanistan - The United States could cut its forces in Afghanistan (news - web sites) next summer if Taliban militants accept an amnesty to be drawn up by President Hamid Karzai and neighboring Pakistan, the senior U.S. commander here said Sunday.



Any reduction in the 18,000-strong mainly American combat force in Afghanistan would relieve the U.S. military, stretched thin by the much larger deployment in Iraq (news - web sites). Still, the force is unlikely to shrink before parliamentary elections slated for April.


"By next summer we'll have a much better sense if the security threat is diminished as a result of, say, a significant reconciliation with large numbers of Taliban," Lt. Gen. David Barno told The Associated Press in an interview.


"That will change the security dynamics tremendously," he said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20041205/ap_on_re_mi_ea/afghan_us_general

[yltlatl]

1. So what do the Taliban get?

It's not like they're under serious pressure from the US military. Plus they already have plenty of power in the countryside since most of the warlords are former Mullah Omar associates.

[NNN0LHI]

10. Umm. I think they get to win? Peace with honer and all that. Tut, tut n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. The dynamics will

be that the Taliban make deals with the oil companies. (They have learned what happens if they don't) They will be allowed free reign to take over the country again. Good bye, human rights.

My only question is how Bush will spin this to his followers. Or will the media simply ignore Afghanistan-out of sight, out of mind?

[lynx rufus]

4. Afghanawhat? That was last year's war.

Iran. Iran is this year's war. And maybe Syria.
We cannot touch the Taliban and they know it.
There is a quid quo pro here of some kind. Wonder what it is?

[papau]

8. If oil is happy, US Media is happy - notice how the Sundan is not

getting fixed

And our media is quiet as to why

or if they say anything it is that China will not allow Security Council stong action-

but they never mention why - that it is Chinese oil interests (who deal with the brown skin Arab Sudan folks who are killing the black Sudan folks - but with the Arab folks in charge - as in charge of oil deals - China is not interested in stopping anything)

[llmart]

9. I'd stake my life that........

51% of the public doesn't even know we're still fighting a war in Afghanistan. Their attention span is about as long as the US media allows it to be.

On to the next story.

[bemildred]

3. What happened to "We will hunt them down and kill them"?

How does that crow taste, Dave?
The question is, at this point, why would they want to do business with you?

[lynx rufus]

5. That is a great question

What will we give the Taliban in return?
Air support? A bigger cut of the opium trade?
Weapons? Eliminate some war lords? US Dollars? Blueprints, security info, and access to the Sears Tower? What...

[sam sarrha]

7. it has always been cheaper to buy them off...

[DS1]

6. We can still fight a major war against N. Korea, says Rummy

:eyes:

[Bouncy Ball]

11. I'm so damn confused by bush foreign policy.

The Taliban is NOT gone, from what I understand warlords have been slowly, quietly gaining back power in the last year, bush et al have been bluthering and blathering about hunting down and killing the Taliban (well that was a while back, before Iraq, after Iraq he rarely bothered to mention Afghanistan) and NOW it's reconciliation??????

:crazy: