They're not bribes, see, because they don't call them bribes. Dhimmitude from NATO: "NATO Chief: No Plan to 'Bribe' Taliban," from AP, February 4 (thanks to all who sent this in):
ISTANBUL (AP) -- NATO does not intend to bribe Taliban guerrillas to defect to the Afghan government side as a way to end the war, alliance Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday, dismissing concerns over the latest plan to end the country's growing insurgency....On Wednesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Saudi Arabia, hoping the kingdom would help persuade Taliban militants to take part in a negotiated settlement to the war. Saudi Arabia has a unique relationship with the Taliban since it was one of the few countries to recognize its regime in Afghanistan before it was ousted in 2001.
Yeah, that's gonna work. Anyway, here are the Bribes-By-Another-Name:
In a post on the alliance's Web site ahead of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Istanbul to open Thursday evening, Fogh Rasmussen said a new $140 million trust fund would offer insurgents an alternative to remaining with the Taliban.
But no, these aren't bribes! Fogh Rasmussen explains why not:
''Much attention is on the new reconciliation and reintegration effort initiated by the Afghan government. Questions were raised if we are bribing the Taliban just to get peace,'' he said. ''I understand why this is a sensitive issue for many.''He said many rank-and-file insurgents were not fighting against the government and international troops for religious and ideological reasons.
''They fight for the Taliban for small amounts of money to simply make a living or for other grievances,'' he said. ''What is on offer to them is the chance of a new life.''...
Oh, well, then, they're not bribes!
Critics have noted that plans to persuade the Taliban to switch sides have existed for years, but these have generally been ineffective, attracting only the lowest-level fighters with no guarantees they wouldn't return to the insurgency.And despite those incentives, the insurgency has expanded steadily. In 2004, NATO estimated that fewer than 400 Taliban were left in Afghanistan. By last year, that figure had grown to about 25,000, with the latest estimates in early 2010 raising that number to nearly 30,000....
They are just Social Welfare Programs. Social Justice for the separate but equal.
Bribes are just too strong a term to use under these special circumstances. We prefer a more flowery-nuanced form of verbiage. Something the Masses won't choke over you see.
Jiziya...
Never heard of anything as stupid as this in my life.
A repeat from a few days ago...
Dane-geld, by Rudyard Kipling
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:
"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
I couldn't agree more. This is absolutely the craziest mess I have read so far. Stupid, stupid, yuck mouth stupid. Damn! Why are we paying them anything? Our country is so damn deep in debt until we can't see straight. Is there some money out there that we don't know about? What is going on???
Much attention is on the new reconciliation and reintegration effort initiated by the Afghan government. Questions were raised if we are bribing the Taliban just to get peace...
Fogh ain't foggy, he has clarity on this, and increasingly rare thing in NATO of late.
*** al-Tabari 6:95 ***
These payments are bribes, they're Jizya. And the Moslems have every right to collect such taxes. Just ask Allah and Mohammed if you doubt this.
*** 9:29 ***
So no complaining, please stop with the whining. Just shut up and pay your dues, Infidels.
Isn't there a policy against ransom payments, and any compliance with terrorist's demands? How can civilized world engage in negotiations (which suggest compromise) with militant organization which preaches murder, maiming, and acid attacks on women who's perceived sin was an attempt to educate themselves? These are people who's entire livelihood is based on production and sale of the most addictive and degenerative substance known to mankind (opium).
They're openly poisoning western world, maiming little girls, blowing up schools, and we're supposed to show them respect and negotiate terms of our surrender???
Our politicians must be smoking and shooting all that afgani stuff it seems....
Is nothing to be learnt from history?
The British said "You can't buy and Afghan. You can only rent him".
Geert Wilders in in court and we give money to our Muslim enemies.
We in the West should start compiling dossiers on the fifth column in our midst. These are not the Muslims, they are the politicians, judiciary, police, military.
The time will come when the stand has to be made and these people must be identified at that time.
Eastview wrote, quoting Kipling:
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
......................
Brilliant poem. I've read quite a bit of Kipling, but had never run across this work.
The United States learned this lesson early—and with the same lot, too. We paid ransom and tribute to the Muslim Barbary pirates to leave our shipping alone in the late 18th and early 19th centuries—but the demands for Jizya kept rising, and they kept attacking our ships.
President Jefferson soon realized that at that rate, payments to the Muslims of North Africa would soon outstrip our *entire GDP*. So we said "no more", raised a navy, and sent in the Marines.
Other Western nations, such as France and Great Britain—richer than America and more able to pay huge rates of ransom—took years to follow our lead, and finally end piracy on the Barbary coast.
I said we learned this lesson early—and so we did. But then, we became as wealthy and complacent as France and Great Britain, and then we became wealthier yet—and then we *forgot that lesson*.
And here we are now. And that doesn't even address the tropes of nation-building, and all-pervasive 'post-colonial' guilt, and the sense that—somehow—the Taliban is poor because we are rich.
In many ways, we are now paying the Dane-geld, and more.