Biden the Mathematician: 5% "incorrigible" Taliban + 25% on the fence = 70% "moderate"

Moreover, 1+1=2!

According to the vice president -- and don't ask where he came up with these precise numbers -- only 5% of the Taliban is "incorrigible" (i.e., are determined jihadis); 25% are on the fence, sort of; the other 70% are in it for the money (i.e., they are not serious about this whole Islam, jihad, and sharia jazz, but are "frustrated," "impoverished, "disaffected," etc., and so let's buy them off.)

Thus, according to the vice president of the U.S., 70% of the Taliban -- those guys responsible for spraying girls with acid, blowing up shrines, daily murdering infidels and apostates, fighting and dying in the name of sharia law -- are "moderate"; they only act that way because they're poor. So why not reach out to them? If only we give them lots of money, perhaps they'll go away -- only, of course, to regroup with better weapons, and come back to fight another day. But Biden and Obama will be out of office by then, so what do they care? Besides, Fareed Zakaria said so.

"70% Taliban fighting for money in Afghanistan: Biden," from The News, March 10:

BRUSSELS: Vice President Joe Biden said at least 70 percent of Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan are mercenaries who could be persuaded to lay down their arms, stepping up U.S. calls for outreach to “moderate” elements of the insurgency.

Biden said the same tactics used in Anbar province in Iraq, where radical Sunni Muslims were co-opted by American financial support, could work in Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s strategy for winning the war raging since 2001.

“Five percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated,” Biden told a press conference at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels today. “Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, of the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. Roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money.”

Insurgent activity in Afghanistan rose last year to the highest level since the U.S. ousted the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks, and coordinated suicide bombings last month shook the capital, Kabul.

“We are not now winning the war, but the war is far from lost,” Biden said.

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