Lessons from my talks with the Taliban: Part Two
Part One was Post 194 and Anatol Lieven had a podcast interview a week ago, courtesy of the Australian Lowy Institute:
Quote:
Yesterday the noted expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Anatol Lieven, spoke at the Lowy Institute. In this interview, he shared with me some extraordinary insights into some of the streams of Taliban thinking about the prospects for peace in Afghanistan, including surprising speculations on whether the Taliban would ever tolerate US military bases in a post-conflict settlement.
Podcast link, it is nine minutes long:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...o-Taliban.aspx
Pakistan agrees Taliban release to help Afghan peace process
Positive, calculated gesture by Pakistan?
Quote:
Details emerged after Afghanistan's High Peace Council met military and civilian leaders in Islamabad....seven "mid-ranking" Taliban figures had been released. It is understood that Mullah Nooruddin Toorabi, the former hardline Taliban justice minister who ordered men to grow beards, is among the names agreed for release but not Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, deputy to Mullah Omar.
Why do I use calculated? This helps:
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Toorabi, notorious hardliner during the Taliban regime .....he was said to have mellowed in exile after 2001 and in 2005 met his previous colleagues in Abbottabad and Peshawar to consider making peace with Kabul. He was arrested soon afterwards.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...e-process.html
Slightly different report:http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2...050926816.html
Somehow I doubt release actually means free to travel, just a nicer compound bungalow.
Hope for Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar
Quote:
Pakistan will consider freeing former Afghan Taliban second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, if current releases of lower level members help to advance peace efforts, officials from both countries told Reuters on Thursday
Link:
Another reason for pleading the "general issue"
is that I don't well tolerate people who attempt to twist my words[*] - as in this assertion:
Quote:
So a constitution is a "mere piece of paper"? A Certificate for a million shares of Goggle is "mere paper" as well. President Obama's birth certificate is "mere paper."
Exactly what I said (specific to one and only one document) was:
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The Astan Bonn Constitution is not the problem. It's a mere piece of paper which has no materiality to Astan governance.
Karzai does what Karzai does because he has power to do so enabled by the realities of the situation in Astan - he and his cronies can get away with and profit from corruption to the nth degree. I measure Karzai by his acts which are organic to him; and not by the process initiated in Bonn, Germany (the document itself was later enacted in Astan).
As to the Astan constitutions (plural), I've managed to look at them. In fact, I did a thread on them (+ Astan's diplomatic history, the status of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, etc.), Defending Hamdan (a couple of dozen posts are material to this thread). As to "insurgency", Advanced Search (limited to JMM99) gives 166 hits; as to "civil + war", Advanced Search (limited to JMM99) gives 165 hits.
I'm not going to regurgitate that stuff. One can read it or not as one wishes, making up one's mind or non-mind in the process.
I'm not going to engage in a debate with you. Dayuhan can have that pleasure. You are, without a doubt, very articulate.
Regards
Mike
[*] In fact, I grew to despise and hate lawyers who were inveterate word twisters par excellance. Trials and appeals, where a third party renders the decision, were thus a great satisfaction because they usually gave me payback. But, retiring and getting away from the buzzards was the best of all. :)
Releasing the Taliban: Kabul opens the doors
Quote:
After having little success playing it safe, the Afghan government is gambling on a risky new strategy to convince the Taliban that the road to peace runs through Kabul.
In recent months, scores of Taliban officials and rank-and-file have been freed from prisons in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Now, Afghanistan is upping the ante with the expected release of thousands more within its borders while pushing Islamabad to free some of the Islamist militant group's most dangerous characters.
The prisoner releases are seen as a signal of good faith from the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is wary of peace efforts not led by Kabul but whose overtures for direct talks with the Taliban have been refused.
Link:http://www.rferl.org/content/afghani.../24822610.html
One US analyst, with time on the ground in Helmand, ends with:
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The incentives do exist for them to talk about talking in a way to get concessions and cause friction between the Afghan government and the International Security Assistance Force and within the Afghan government...we cannot create these incentives for them to make a deal while we are leaving.
In the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) that led to a form of peace in Northern Ireland, the status of convicted prisoners was a critical issue and it became clear later an easing of parole leading to early release helped to gain the prisoners support for the GFA.
I fully accept Afghanistan is very different from Northern Ireland, but is such a mass release seemingly without condition wise?