Taliban reject renewed Karzai call for peace

[Adsos Letter]

Source: Reuters

KABUL (Reuters) –

Afghanistan's Taliban on Sunday rejected President Hamid Karzai's latest call for peace, despite pressure from a NATO offensive and the capture of its number 2. Karzai renewed his appeal in parliament on Saturday for the Taliban to accept his peace proposal.

At a conference on Afghanistan in London in January, donor nations backed his plans for peace talks with those militants who renounce violence and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to persuade fighters to lay down weapons.

The Taliban have repeatedly turned down Karzai's peace proposals, saying foreign troops should leave Afghanistan first, but some tentative "talks about talks" have taken place.

"Karzai is a puppet he cannot represent a nation or a government," said Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf, commenting on Karzai's call for the Taliban to work for peace and reconstruction.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100221/ts_nm/us_afghanistan_taliban

[saigon68]

1. "Karzai is a puppet he cannot represent a nation or a government,"

said Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf, commenting on Karzai's call for the Taliban to work for peace and reconstruction.

Their quote



My Picture

[truth2power]

2. Yep. On reading the headline on the home page, I thought

"Well, yeah.. Karzi is the same-as the US. Why would the Taliban listen to anything he has to say?"

Puppet. Per your Charlie McCarthy pic. Ummm....I wonder how many of the younger folks, here, know who that is? Just curious.

[saigon68]

8. Not Many I'll bet

Since the advent of computers and photo shop. A Ventriloquist is like a buggy whip maker.

Paul Winchell was a master and a very neat guy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Winchell





Winchell developed over 30 patents in his lifetime. He invented an artificial heart with the assistance of Dr. Henry Heimlich (the inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver) and held the first patent for such a device. The University of Utah developed a similar apparatus around the same time, but when they tried to patent it, Winchell's heart was cited as prior art. The university requested that Winchell donate the heart to the University of Utah, which he did. There is some debate as to how much of Winchell's design Dr. Robert Jarvik used in creating his artificial heart. Dr. Heimlich states, "I saw the heart, I saw the patent and I saw the letters. The basic principle used in Winchell's heart and Jarvik's heart is exactly the same."<7> Dr. Jarvik denies that any of Winchell's design elements were incorporated into the device he fabricated for humans — the Jarvik-7 — http://www.jarvikheart.com/basic.asp?id=72 which was successfully implanted into Barney Clark in 1982.<8><9>

Winchell established more medical patents while working on projects for the Leukemia Society and the American Red Cross. Some of the other devices he invented and patented include a disposable razor, a blood plasma defroster, a flameless cigarette lighter, an "invisible" garter belt, a fountain pen with a retractable tip and battery-heated gloves. <10>

He also had No LOVE FOR FIXED NEWS


In 1986, Winchell sued Metromedia (which by then was about to be purchased by Fox Television Stations as the foundation for the new Fox Network) over syndication rights to 288 surviving videotapes of the show. Metromedia responded by destroying the tapes. Subsequently, a jury awarded Winchell $17.8 million.<5>

[Robb]

3. They know talking to Karzai is a waste of time.

Karzai's relevance is on the wane, and he knows it. Obama has circumvented Karzai's authority at every opportunity. Karzai injecting himself into the existing talks with the Taliban was a desperate move no one familiar with the situation bought for a second.

Discussions between the West and Taliban representatives will continue without Karzai. The sooner he flees the country and starts his memoirs, the better.

[elias49]

4. who'll be left to 'negotiate' for the Taliban?

The Democrats in the White House, like the Republicans before them, earn political capital by killing and/or torturing the 'enemy'. Not by negotiating. With high-level Taliban officials dead, dying or on the table, negotiation devolves to edict.
Mullah Baradar - the #2 man in the Taliban hierarchy - was reportedly one who favored beginning negotiations. Of course how do you negotiate when the thumb-screws are being tightened?

[Robb]

5. Who told you Baradar favored negotiations?

That's the funniest thing I've read today.

[elias49]

6. Ooh. My bad. It was a Dutch journalist, among others.

Where've you been Robb?

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/mullah-baradar-friend-or-foe

You can also reference the Newsweek article - 'America's New Nightmare' (sic) that you were so kind as to direct me to some days ago.
If you want me to cut and paste relevant sentences, I can. But you're read it.I shouldn't have to do that.

Can you give me a 2 paragraph summary of your opinion of what should be done in Afghanistan? I'm not being sarcastic. I just don't understand where you're coming from.
You think Karzai sucks (agree)
You clearly are not enamoured of the Taliban (agree)
I assume the Northern Alliance sucks (if there's anything left of the Northern Alliance.(not sure)

Where do we go from here?

BTW
If what I wrote is the funniest thing you've read today either you don't read much or you have a strange sense of humor.

[Robb]

7. Yeah, I read Dam's piece too when it came out.

And the Newsweek bit. I just don't see a lot of "there" there on Baradar supposed behind-the-scenes work to negotiate with the West. To be fair, Afghanistan's like that. But the bulk of information doesn't support it, and I don't see where he would've found much upside to negotiations. He had too much to lose in a stable country.

My response was overly dismissive and glib, I apologize as it was unwarranted. You're of course more than free to take Dam's take on it at face value.

I'm actually working out my notions on the "way forward" as it were in Afghanistan. Like so much in this part of the world it's defined by what we absolutely must not do. Quite a number of things changed there recently, or more saliently changed nearby - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, China.

You've got a divided Taliban operating in two distinct spheres, and Baradar was starting to lose control of the warlords he had -- witness the Chinese engineers kidnapped and still held in the Ghormach district. Talk about biting off the hand that's building roads for you to ambush travelers on. You probably know about China's huge money dump in the south to mine much-needed copper. But up north in Ghormach it's less clear what they're doing, other than building roads that don't go anywhere important.

You've got a trilateral security agreement being formed between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, deliberately not including the West but including (drum roll) Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and China. And that's with Afghanistan's "legitimate" government.

You've got Turkmenistan telling the West to pound sand, actually completing a pipe to China and operating it. None of this vaporware stuff everyone's talking about maybe someday getting going in Afghanistan to feed Turkmen gas to Europe. Because of this you've got China backing Iran in absurd ways, politically, because their economic plans need Iran to make their energy plans work.

Viewed as another proxy war for the energy of the region, "we" already lost in December. But that's just the geopolitics. The local scene is even more screwed up.

So what should be done in Afghanistan? If I could wave a magic wand, I'd send all our troops home tomorrow. Not because it's the right thing for Afghanistan, but just that there's no percentage in it for us any more. But that's frankly not fair to Afghanistan.

Look back to the end of the Soviet days and you can't help but get to the conclusion we "broke it" when we pulled out and let the Taliban take the kind of power they did. But it didn't "matter" until Turkmenistan came on line. Midway through the fourth quarter Turkmenistan took the ball and went home. Meanwhile we've got troops there and again are a hair's breadth from leaving a transitional government weaker than when we found it, again. So the only "moral" thing to do it to rout the Taliban as much as we can, prop up a non-theocratic government until it's able to cash China's checks and start an economy we can recognize, and pray we get some crumbs in the meantime from the 'Stans in the neighborhood, energy-wise.

Not much of an answer, is it? This is Afghanistan.

[elias49]

9. Actually, it's not much of an answer, BUT...

Thanks. Really. It shows that you know what you're talking about. Better than I do, I confess. I'm more ideological.
Approaching 60 years old, I cut my eye-teeth on the Reagan years, and I've been distrustful of American (M.I complex )motives and performance ever since. Sometimes (no: often) it sickens me what this country does in the name of 'democracy', and 'freedom'.
Sadly, I'll be long gone before enlightenment happens in this world.
I wonder of there's any hope for my kids.

[Robb]

10. There's always hope for our kids.

It's part of the deal. :hi: