Posted on 04/21/2006 5:32:59 PM PDT by jmc1969
Violence will persist in Afghanistan unless the U.S.-led coalition starts to negotiate with the toppled Taliban regime and other armed groups, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan told The Associated Press.
The warning from Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, came this week as fighting continued in the Afghan countryside. A U.S. soldier was killed Friday in a gunbattle and suspected Taliban militants killed six Afghan policemen, afterward burning four of their bodies.
In recent months, Afghanistan has seen a surge in bombings and shootings targeting coalition troops and Afghan forces, particularly in southern Taliban strongholds near the Pakistan border. The violence has grown even though many former Taliban fighters have been welcomed by the government under an amnesty program.
Zaeef's call was rejected Friday by U.S. and Afghan authorities, who said military action was the only way to bring to justice the militants with blood on their hands.
"I think the problem (of violence) is increasing and people have to decide whether they will solve it through use of power or negotiation," Zaeef told The Associated Press on Thursday at his heavily guarded house on the outskirts of the capital, Kabul. "Afghanistan needs reconciliation but I don't think the Americans want to negotiate."
"We know the Taliban and (Gulbuddin) Hekmatyar (the renegade former premier now wanted by the United States) can do something (against the coalition) and create further problems," Zaeef said. "Afghanistan is not like Germany and Japan."
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
I suggest we negotiate by placing notes on the munitions we send in. When they get the message, there will be peace.
We negotiate from 30,000 feet at about 3 times the speed of sound Haji.
There are problems with that when it comes to that area of the world.
1. We aren't allowed to bring the big guns and troops on mass into Pakistan where the real problem is.
2. The US has 17,000 men in a country the size of Germany, but Afghanistan has massive mountains unlike Germany and we had millions of troops in Germany after the war.
Basically, a low level insurgent war is going to go on for years no matter what we do.
He's right about that. In 1945 Germany and Japan hadn't been infected with the pollutant which is islam.
I do support negotiations however. I say we beging negotiations with 2,000 lb JDAMS, cluster munitions, thermobaric bombs, and SPECTRE gunship sweeps of taliban controlled areas. After a week of bombing, we 'negotiate' that every single Al Queda and Taliban member left alive is to assemble at a designated point.
If they refuse we 'begin negotiations' again.
L
The more I think about this, the more I'm inclined to think we should be like the Romans; you don't adapt to our rules and our system, or we will CRUSH you. The damned media in this country is treasonous at best. If we don't change that, we are DOOMED, plain and simple.
Total war like Michael Scheuer would like to see would work. But, it isn't going to happen unless we as a nation get some major balls. We can't even target Zawhiri in Pakistan with a hellfire without the media going into a tizzy.
So we should negotiate with terrorists and cut the balls off of the Government in Afghanistan?
OK. You hajis put down your weapons, or I'll draw a cartoon of mohammad!
There are three ways of dealing with your enemy. You either utterly destory them or you get a sizable portion of them to go over to your size, or both.
I see few signs that the US has the will to use total war in Afghanistan and Pakistan to do what needs to be done.
It is exactly what we are doing in Iraq. Negotiating with the "enemy" that only cares about money and their material benifit and splitting them off from the hard core Saddamists and al-Qaeda.
If we were willing to practice total war we wouldn't have to negotiate with anyone.
Unfortunately the only thing that will bring America to the point where we're willing to engage in total war will be an attack that makes 9/11 look like childs play.
I would like to believe that the rest of the world would join us in the event of 10s or hundreds of thousands of American civilian deaths but I'm not counting on them.
Unfortunately the only thing that will bring America to the point where we're willing to engage in total war will be an attack that makes 9/11 look like childs play.
These two statements are so true.
We will continue to fight the nice war until 600,000 thousand or more are killed instantly and a 1,000,000 or more die due to the after effects.
Low estimates but you have to start some where.
And the world will not come to our defense!
I like your plan.
I know what you mean. We're in an interesting situation with all the terrorist sympathizers around.
Enemies - and Muslims most of all - only ask to negotiate when their backs are against the wall. A Muslim offer of negotiation is their last step before total defeat.
Sounds like the most likely scenario here
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