Negotiating with the Taliban is fantasy

Wight Tory

It reeks of Obamaism, it worked for Barack in setting a dynamic approach to new ideas, so it will work for me....

Oh dear Gordon, you really don't get it do you. This is a grasping "I'll save the world part 2 moment, the mans an idiot.

Daniel Korski

David,
The problem with the "don't negotiate" is that it assumes a monolithic enemy - that we either fight or talk to. But that is probably not an accurate analysis. The heterodox insurgency has some structural elements, ie the "traditional" Taliban around Mullah Omar and run from Quetta, the Haqqani dad-and-son network, HiB and then many other local groups some of which are coopted by the more organised groups, others just fighting for their area, crime etc. Each one will need to be engaged with a combination coercive and concilliatory measures - like all insurgencies have been from the Malay campaign to Algeria. The "negotiate or not" line is too simple

David Blackburn

Daniel,

I agree. The Taliban is not a monolith - the negotiate or not analysis is inadequate.

My point is that, at the moment, Nato's position is not strong enough to offer the non-ideologue elements of the Taliban anything other than bribes in return for them laying down their arms and not providing a haven to terrorists - I think we should bribe them by the way, that's how Afghanistan always seems to have worked.

But, the idea that they will cede control to a central Afghan power, which might be run by a different ethnic group and is seen as a Nato puppet, is fanciful - they are, afterall, fighting us precisely to avert that.

On a seperate note, I'd be very intrigued to know how diplomats in Kabul intend to drive a wedge between the ideologue Taliban and the feudal localists.

aethelred unread

Am I the only one who sees echoes of the Danegeld?

The negotiation discussion is, like the rest of our Afghan policy, confused. Why negotiate? What for? Who with? And for what end?

porkbelly

NATO is faced with a stark choice: either significantly up the ante with a large increase in troops and defeat the Taliban militarily (and risk a Vietnam-like domestic political disaster if the Taliban hold their own) or tacitly admit defeat and negotiate the partitioning of Afghanistan into fiefdoms ruled by warlords and (in the south) various combinations of Taliban and tribal leaders. The nominal Afghan government will control Kabul and perhaps a bit of the surrounding area. Given NATO's increasingly apparent lack of resources and spine the latter option seems all but inevitable.

Irene

Pathetic, this is just a cynical photo op, Brown got there this weekend before Cameron was due to visit.

He should really have gone to Kennedy's funeral but I don't suppose he fancied being an also ran there.

Brown is acting as if he is in charge and leading the war in Afghanistan - when really it's Obama and the USA.

David Ossitt

He does not get it; you can not negotiate with the Taliban because like all of their faith they believe it is right and proper to lie to the infidel if it will achieve their aims.

Quite simply; just like Gordon Brown they can not be trusted.

strapworld

Mr. Blackburn. The Taliban is a Hydra, You may attempt to negotiate but it would take till hell froze over to get them all to agree.

In the meantime they will continue to kill or maim as many Western troops as possible- as they know they are creating the situation where the people want to pull out!

Brown, and it appears his advisers, are no strategists. Brown is only interested in how the politics run for him first and the Labour Party secondly.

The interests of the Country and the troops are not in the equation.

I am convinced that we will be having an Autumn General Election and it will be announced at the Labour Party Conference, thus denying Cameron the platform of his Conference to make policy announcements.

New Government by November ?

Jeremy

"...only 3 of Helmand’s 13 electoral districts opened their polling stations."

The Afghan election struck me as being little more than a PR exercise designed to persuade sceptical western audiences that "significant progress" towards democratisation and the establishment of western norms was being made in Afghanistan. But the fact that only 150 voters turned up at the polling stations in an area where thousands could have done so, made the exercise look a tad empty.

TrevorsDen

The visit is a photo op - with Brown just regurgitating what Milliband and Obama have already said. (Brown had no response to the question of soldiers paying tax whilst out of the country)

The difference is he dresses it up with hints of troops coming home whereas the US General in charge is asking for 20,000 more.

Expecting the Afghan Army to be competent to take charge in any period of less than 4 years minimum is fantasy.

The photo (in the Telegraph print edition I think) with the look on the faces of the soldiers behind Brown sums it all up I suggest.

J Wright

Why is Sarah Brown i while brown is in Afghanistan???Ever since Obama won his primary brown has been sucking up to < Barack> using him to boost the brown image.Has hebeen told to ---- off now it is obvious that he is sucking up to Gadaffi instead. After all he thought Ted K important enough to get a knighthood. Surely blacklisting in America would spell finis for brown.AT LAST

Austin Barry

How is it a photo op? An old fat man in a lounge suit and tie among the lean young lions he is sending to their deaths. He resembles nothing more than a pasty-faced undertaker measuring the corpse.

TomTom

It worked in Basra and the British were routed. Brown should be careful =- there is only so much humiliation the British Army can take....

cuffleyburgers

I have been reading Hopkirk's The Great Game and it strikes me the situation is not very very different now from in the 19th century, when we famously bungled the first Afghan war leading to the slaughter of Gandamack, and had slightly more success int he second when we had a much more focussed objective and crucially, we didn't leave an occupation force, and didn't try to sit a puppet in the throne.

It is clear to me that the idea of turning Afghanistan into a modern pluralistic state is absurd.

It will be foolish to stay there for more than another year.

For their own sake, the afghans must be left to look after themselves.

I have no doubt that 90% of the fighting is simply young men led by local warlords wanting to get the foreign occupation force out (as they always have done), and that is what the analysts mean when they say the resistance is fragmented.

Afghanistan is a feudal state, and is not going to change soon, and certainly not in the timescales that are compatible with western occupation.

It must be made clear however that certain behaviours will not be tolerated. This means it must be clear that any sucking up to genuine terrorists will lead to punitive action. Drug exports will be interdicted (although of course in reality, the only way to end the so-called war on drugs is by action at home, ie decriminalisation, regulation and taxation, but that's another story). Assistance will be available to build roads, railways, schools, dams and to convert farmers to more socially acceptable crops. This aid would be released where evidence is available that certain localities are well run (even if undemocratic, provided a warlord is not indulging in rampant corruption and warring with his neighbours, and is instead seeking so far is we can tell genuinely to be seeking the betterment of his area, he should be encouraged.

Finally the western powers must be garantors of the overall security of the state given Iran to one side, Russia to the other afghanistan is as strategically delicate as ever.

Talk of parallels with Northern Ireland is as risible as it is dangerous.

G Brown or Microband is the last person who should be entrusted with planning our exit strategy as they have no historical perspective, no credibility and lack the moral courage to take any action other than headline grabbing initiatives.

Personally I despair of the west ever developing a decent exit strategy because it can only be achieved by negotiation between the powers. At least when it was just us and Russia, sometimes we got it right, sometimes wrong but at least over time a workable solution was found. With the UN, the EU etc there seems to be no chance.

And who suffers? Our boys obviously and the AFghan people, both of them deserve better.

strapworld

J Wright. May I suggest you either get a new keyboard, or you type slower!

The reason Brown himself did not attend the funeral of that man who hated England, was because of the Libyan scandal.

He was probably told by Obama not to attend as he would have had to refuse to shake his hand! and the American press would have given our highly respected man of courage a really tough time.

So being the man of decision, that he isn't, and the man of courage, that he isn't, he sent his wife! and he toodled off for an apple and a chat about footie with the boys in Afghanistan.

Now that is why Brown is no leader. He could not even attend a funeral of a man he had given an honourary knighthood to and had praised him from the rooftop in his vainglorious speech in Washington! never mind NEVER attending the repatriation or funeral of any of our brave soldier's murdered in Afghanistan!

This is not a leader, not a man of courage. He is a bully and a little man. Soon to be removed by the British people and never again given, one should pray, a position of authority in public life.

I think he should apply for a job as a librarian in his home town.

Perhaps Coffe House should run a Bank Holiday blog on what job Brown should apply for!!
It could be fun.

J Wright

My contribution at 9.11 last night should have started,-Why is Sarah Brown in Boston at the Kennedy funeral while brown is in Afghanistan.Yet another case of MacCavity not being there.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Negotiations seem about as successful with the Taliban as the disastrous military assaults, which seem to be like a pinprick on the hide of a rhino. Perhaps Lord Alan Sugar, who despite his newly acquired peerage still seems roughly hewn, unshaved and not exactly a civilised English gent, could be sent out to deal with the troublesome North-West Frontier. The results can only be positive. At the best, he will alarm the Taliban when he yells, "You're fired"! and at the worst, we will be rid of yet another bully.

Frank P

Another great post about Sandow Birk's "American Koran" with quirky illustrations, a potted history of the second half of the 20th C and a reprise of Billy Joel's "We didn't Start the Fire".

Courtesy Gerard Vanderleun.

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/art_within_america/an_american_koran.php

Don't miss it.

logdon

"Anne Wotana Kaye
August 31st, 2009 11:14am"

If, because of intimidation, out of hundreds of thousands, only 150 voted in Helmand, how long would a Jew last?

You're fired doesn't have quite the same resonance as allahu akhbar when they're sawing your head off.

David Ossitt

Anne Wotana Kaye.

Anne; the plonker Sugar, is a Jew, there is only one thing that the Taliban hate more than Russians, Americans, and the British and that is those of the Jewish faith.

George Laird

Dear All

Does Gordon Brown have bibbles to give the Taliban?

This is yet another piece of the puzzle that points to the fact the war is lost.

They can wait the west out.

As for Brown's 200 extra troops, 200 troops are to be sent home.

Farce.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Anne Wotana Kaye

Logdon and David Ossitt,
Good day and I suggest you chill out a little on this Bank Holiday. Sugar's religion was of no consequence to me when I wrote a rather silly answer to a serious situation. I'm Jewish, and know from first hand experience what it can be like if caught in the cross fire of fanatics. However, I wll continue to mock the mockable, whatever their religion, race, sex, age or colour. I am truly unbiased in that I destest all plonkers and holier-than-thou bores. At least we agree on one thing, David, Sugar is a PLONKER!

logdon

"Anne Wotana Kaye
August 31st, 2009 6:11pm
Logdon and David Ossitt,
Good day and I suggest you chill out a little "

Anne,

As soon as I hear the patronising term, 'chill out', especially from an un-teen, which I assume you are, I switch off.

Otherwise I take your point.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Dear Logdon,

I am never intentionally patronising. So as I was, unusually for me, trying to be polite, I will revert to my usual abrasive self, and simply say, "Don't be so up yourself!" On second thoughts, that's no good either, because I am most definitely an un-teen. On the way to being an octagenerian. Unless of course the Thought Police march me away. I will now drop the whole silly subject. Good night and sweet dreams!

David Ossitt

Anne Wotana Kaye.

"At least we agree on one thing, David, Sugar is a PLONKER!"

I am sure that we would agree on most things Anne.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Desr David,

I think we would agree on many things. The trouble is that I have a sense of the absurd. When I wrote my original posting, I visualised a scene rather like "allo, allo", where not only the truly evil are ridiculous, but those opposing them too. To me, despite their vile evil, the Taliban are ridiculous. Their stupid hats, their lunatic philosophy, the way they treat women. Also, I find Lord Sugar ridiculous, with his hubris, his desire to be a pop star, a real Wannabee. Put them together, and one has a "Dad's Army" comedy. Colonel Mannering, puffed up and full of wind going to battle with a broomstick. Sorry to anybody I have offended, but my sense of humour has kept me going in situations where a wiser person would have given up.

Archie

Cuffleyburgers: does "sucking up to genuine terrorists will lead to punitive action" apply to this government and one Tony Blair?