An Are-They-Or-Aren't-They? Update. I would say, "Only his hairdresser knows for sure," but the hairdresser has been blown up.
"Afghanistan: Taliban leader rejects prospect of truce," by Syed Saleem Shahzad for AKI, November 25 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):
Kandahar, 25 Nov. (AKI) - While the western media raised hopes of a reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghan government when Saudi Arabia sponsored talks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the man named as one of the main negotiators, Mullah Mohammad Hasan Rahmani, denied any involvement.The Saudi government owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat even quoted the Afghan Minister of Information, Sheikh Mohammed Tashkiri, who said a second round of negotiations took place in Dubai between a delegation from Kabul and one from the Taliban movement.
According to Tashkiri, "on both occasions representatives of Mullah Omar participated in the meetings, the most authoritative among them was Mullah Mohammad Hasan Rahmani".
However, in an interview with AKI, Mullah Hasan Rahmani, a close advisor of Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, rejected the claims saying they were a figment of the imagination of the Kabul administration led by President Hamid Karzai. [...]
“Today the Taliban is successful and the Americans and the NATO forces are in a state of defeat," Mullah Rahmani said.
"The enemy wants to engage the Taliban and deviate their minds. Sometimes they offer talks, sometimes they offer other fake issues. The Taliban never ever asked for talks, neither do we want these talks to be held.
"Neither the Saudi Arabian initiative [in Mecca] nor the Saudi Arabian proposal [regarding Mullah Omar] is acceptable,” Mullah Hasan Rahmani said.
Hasan Rahmani completely denied that any Taliban representatives attended King Abdullah’s dinner in September or any other talks with the Kabul government.
“In the last days of Ramadan, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, was invited for dinner, but later the media projected that talks had begun with the Taliban under Saudi mediation," he said.
"That was to weaken the Taliban and their jihad. The fact is that the Taliban were not part of such talks, nor are they ready to be so.”...
Straight from the horse's mouth. At least this clown isn't fooling himself or others as to who he hates and wants to kill. Let the Coalition descend a hundred times upon him and his ilk.
“Today the Taliban is successful and the Americans and the NATO forces are in a state of defeat," Mullah Rahmani said.
The claim of victory is standard, but a little pre-mature...The Taliban are losing a lot of key players. Keep that up and soon they will be a 3rd string team...
However, in an interview with AKI, Mullah Hasan Rahmani, a close advisor of Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, rejected the claims saying they were a figment of the imagination of the Kabul administration led by President Hamid Karzai. [...]
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Yesterday some idiot came on CNN (sorry, I didn't catch who it was) saying that Obama may have run against "the war", but now the only concern was the economy. We're just about to hand things over entirely to the able Iraqis, and, in Afghanistan, we're working things out with the Taliban!
Yes, that pesky "war on terror" is old news. Now we just need to concern ourselves with multi-trillion dollar bailouts. Disturbing stuff, sure, but not as disturbing as the idea that a fairly large number of fanatics want us dead.
So--are there negotiations, and is the Taliban lying? Is it a figment, with the Karzai government lying to the West, just to keep the aid flowing? Is it wishful thinking, either on the part of the weak Karzai government, or on the part of the ever-hopeful West?
On a certain level, I doubt it even matters. Some negotiations can proceed in secret, with all parties publicly denying their existence, and still work. I doubt that is the case here.
more:
“Today the Taliban is successful and the Americans and the NATO forces are in a state of defeat," Mullah Rahmani said.
...........
"That was to weaken the Taliban and their jihad. The fact is that the Taliban were not part of such talks, nor are they ready to be so.”...
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Well, if they do believe their resurgence will be successful--and their is certainly evidence for this--then they have no reason to negotiate. They will only see it as a weakening of their "Islamic purity".
After all, the Taliban was not just an oppressive regime--they actually saw themselves as having established the purest form of Shari'ah anywhere on earth. Of course, what they created was a hell on earth--backward, repressive, ignorant, misgynistic, and almost insanely violent. But it was *an Islamic hell*. Much as we'd like to think otherwise, not all Afghans would be sorry to see their return.
Much as we'd like to think otherwise, not all Afghans would be sorry to see their return.
-posted above
And those on the other side will not fight their fellow Muslims. That is why it's time to be up and out of there. No guilt trips allowed. Karzai has had quite enough time on his training wheels. It's time to take our hands off the bike handle.
What were the Northern Alliance? Ten or twenty percent of all Afghans? The other eighty percent deserve the Taliban.
“Today the Taliban is successful and the Americans and the NATO forces are in a state of defeat," Mullah Rahmani said. "The enemy wants to engage the Taliban and deviate their minds."
Rahmani assumes that Infidels talk for the same reasons as Muslims. If they want to talk, it must be because they're weak. No one ever talks to achieve real compromise and peace, because in the Muslim mind there is only the victor and the vanquished, as Hugh puts it.
On the same token, if the Taliban are engaging in talks, Rahmani doesn't want to admit it, because he thinks that would make the Taliban look weak. He wouldn't mind lying about the talks because war is deceit. He thinks lying is a good thing if it makes Infidels and their Muslim collaborators think that the Taliban is stronger than it really is.
Bomb 'em. If they then stammer 'Parlay!', bomb them harder :)
"Only his hairdresser knows for sure," but the hairdresser has been blown up."
LOL, Robert!
Just more obfuscation.
MQ9 Reapers are now on 24/7 patrol in the skies over the Taliban burrows in Pakistan. Soon there will be swarms of lethal BigDogs hunting them on the ground. That's what happens when you poke a stick in the eye of the sleeping giant. There is no turning back now. It may take a decade. It may take 50 years. It may take 100 years. The hunt will go on until those who perpetrated 9/11 and those who succeed them are utterly exterminated. It's the American way of war in the 21st century.
Perhaps preconditions WILL be met before Obama meets with our enemies....it just won't be our enemies meeting them.
Who knows, maybe our new "house negro" president (al-Zawahiri's term) may decide to take exception to this profoundly insulting and despicable term and teach these b***ards some respect. I know many posters here favor withdrawing and letting these people devour each other, but I, for one, would not mind at all seeing Obama get his dander up and take these people on. It would be especially effective if revenge for 1400 years of slavery were part of the justification.