Yon’s good writer, but he’s a little full of himself. He’s created a persona for himself, that of the two-fisted, post-partisan warrior-writer who tells it like it is, speaks truth to power, doesn’t flinch from unpalatable bad news, etc., etc.
The Brits already talked to the Taliban. They negotiated a truce, and we had to go in and rescue them.
The Pakistanis are currently talking to the Taliban and losing their country acre by acre.
Keep in mind that the Brits ordered their navy to not detain Somali pirates because that would violate their human rights.
These are people who can’t be trusted to negotiate anything except their own demise, and I say this as a confirmed Anglophile. I love the Brits, which is why I’m so depressed at their collapse.
“The Brits already talked to the Taliban. They negotiated a truce, and we had to go in and rescue them.”
You mean Musa Qala?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Musa_Qala
We had to leave the post because we had too few helicopters to do the heavy lifting and the ones that were flying came under huge amounts of fire hen dropping off supplies. We essentially at the time were doing it by ourselves in the South. So, we extracted our unit from the outpost, using our own para’s. When it came to taking it back we were the dominant force on the ground again, with over 2000 troops taking part. Your screening force to the north, some 600 strong, was a secondary role and kept outside of the town itself.