US, Taliban to start talks on ending Afghan war

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Yahoo News:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban and the U.S. said Tuesday they will hold talks on finding a political solution to ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan, as the international coalition formally handed over control of the country's security to the Afghan army and police.

The Taliban met a key U.S. demand by pledging not to use Afghanistan as a base to threaten other countries, although the Americans said they must also denounce al-Qaida.

But President Barack Obama cautioned that the process won't be quick or easy. He described the opening of a Taliban political office in the Gulf nation of Qatar as an "important first step toward reconciliation" between the Islamic militants and the government of Afghanistan, and predicted there will be bumps along the way.

Obama, who was attending the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland, praised Afghan President Hamid Karzai for taking a courageous step by sending representatives to discuss peace with the Taliban.

"It's good news. We're very pleased with what has taken place," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Washington. British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose country has the second-largest contingent of troops in Afghanistan after the U.S., called opening the office "the right thing to do."

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Peace at any price?

[Valin]

@WestVirginiaRebel

 

Taliban Divided On Making Peace
June 17, 2013:

The government continues to criticize Pakistan for meddling in Afghan affairs and supporting the Afghan Taliban. Most Afghans resent the fact that Pakistan created the Taliban (recruiting and arming Afghan religious school students in Pakistani refugee camps) in the early 1990s and sending them in to end the civil war and become a new government that would be heavily influenced by Pakistan. The Taliban failed to end the civil war (which was still going on in September 2001) and misruled the parts of the country they did control. The Taliban are also hated for their decades of cooperation with drug gangs. Unofficial taxes on the heroin and opium trade have always provided most of the Taliban income but have also created over a million addicts while only benefiting (economically) a small segment of the population. While most Afghans are religiously conservative, they also dislike Taliban efforts that force them to follow a particularly strict form of Islam that has never been common in most of Afghanistan. Moreover, Taliban observance of their own rules is inconsistent, with a growing number of young Taliban gunmen using drugs, abusing women, and looting. To Afghans this simply confirms suspicions that the Taliban are just another bunch of bandits. Such gangs have been the scourge of Afghanistan for thousands of years and the Taliban are increasingly perceived as bandits who are also religious hypocrites.

Within the Taliban there is growing dissention over the drug connection and the increasing unpopularity of the Taliban among Afghans. This has reached the point where many villages and tribes form militias (an expensive and time-consuming effort that is usually only done in emergencies) to keep the Taliban out of their valleys. For a long time the Taliban was at least tolerated, but over the last decade the Taliban have become harsher in how their gunmen demand aid from rural Afghans. These demands are backed up by violence, starting with a tongue lashing and escalating to beatings, kidnappings, and murder. Villagers are also angry at the growing tendency of Taliban to force families to marry daughters to young Taliban. Marriages are normally arranged by negotiations between families. These Taliban marriages often end up with the husband either getting killed or divorcing his wife so he can enter into a more permanent union in his own village. This leaves the widow/divorcee to be cared for by her family, who will not be able to marry her off again.

Some Taliban leaders have done the math and realized that with so many Afghans hating them, the Taliban will never be able to take control of the country and the best they can hope for is some kind of peace deal.....(Snip)