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Posted on 02/04/2013 7:55:42 AM PST by SeekAndFind
When President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced Jan. 11 that a negotiating office for the Taliban was about to open in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, optimism soared within the administration that peace talks would soon be back on track.
But January’s optimism has become February’s reality check: There is still no agreement to open the office, and Karzai, back in Kabul after his Washington visit, says there will be no deal until Qatar meets his conditions in writing.
As the Obama administration nears a decision on the pace of U.S. combat troop withdrawals from Afghanistan between now and the end of 2014, jump-starting reconciliation has become a key element of its exit strategy.
Without some kind of political initiative underway as its forces leave, the administration fears that the United States will again be accused of abandoning the region, just as it was at the end of the Soviet Union’s Afghan occupation in the early 1990s. If another civil war breaks out, as many fear, Afghanistan’s neighbors will again feel the need to choose sides.
In addition, U.S. hopes of positioning a post-withdrawal counterterrorism force in Afghanistan to continue the fight against remnants of al-Qaeda could be compromised.
More immediately, negotiations are critical to hopes for a prisoner exchange with the Taliban that could bring a homecoming for Sgt. Bowe R. Bergdahl, the only U.S. service member known to be a Taliban captive.
The challenges, some of which lie within the administration, are formidable. Those who won first-term internal debates over an agreement on peace talks worry that the military, long opposed to negotiations, will dig in its heels as new members of the president’s national security team are brought up to speed.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Because this time it will be different. [/s]
When one talks to a t*rd, what sort of translation device is used?
There are only a few organizations in the world with a lower reputation than our congress and White House...and the Taliban pieces of excrement are indeed one of those few.
May they drown in pig s**t and be buried in it.
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bttt
Reality check:
No peace with any muslim, anytime, anywhere.
Trilateral peace talks in Britain to send clear message to the Taliban
Al Arabiya News ^ | Monday, 04 February 2013 | By AFP London
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2985095/posts
We’ve indicated that we’re leaving by 2014. Why the F would they want to negotiate anything?
Observe the facial expressions in this pic.
If ever they reveal one side as winning, and the other as losing, this is it...
Who’s winning?
Justifying taxpayer-funded junkets to the office we built the taliban in Qatar?
[Political representatives of the. . .Taliban leadership headed by Mohammad Omar. . . have moved among various luxury hotels. . .and met with emissaries from Germany, Norway, Japan and elsewhere.]
Sure beats living in a cave.
(insert facepalm here).
Lock on stupidity.
“The Taliban is not per se our enemy.”
- Joe Biden
Pay no attention to the fact that they funded and supported the 9-11 hijackers who murdered 3,000 American civilians or the fact that the Taliban celebrated that event. Obama and Biden like the Taliban, so we are going to negotiate with them.
Heh, like making friends with an adder. Ain’t gonna happen, very optimistic here.
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