This report confirms what Karzai said yesterday while he was also channeling Woodsy Owl and accusing NATO of not giving a hoot.
In recent months, Secretary of State Clinton and others have expressed hope that parts of the Taliban who are open to "dialogue" might be split off from their more outwardly "extreme" brethren. But as always, "war is deceit," and the Taliban can be expected to exploit the opportunity to gain legitimacy, perhaps even emerging at some point as a Hizballah-like "political party" that also happens to function as a state-within-a-state with its own armed forces. (The move toward Taliban "political" offices in Turkey are another step in that direction.) In the short term, they will also use the pretense of dialogue to buy time for their military operations.
"Robert Gates confirms US-Taliban talks in Afghanistan," from BBC News, June 19:
Outgoing US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has confirmed that the US is holding "outreach" talks with members of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mr Gates said talks were "preliminary" but that a political solution was the way "most of these wars end".
It is the first time the US has acknowledged such contact and comes a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said peace talks had started.
The US is due to start withdrawing its 97,000 troops from Afghanistan in July.
It aims to gradually hand over all security operations to Afghan security forces by 2014.
"There's been outreach on the part of a number of countries, including the United States," Mr Gates told CNN., without naming other countries involved.
"I would say that these contacts are very preliminary.
"My own view is that real reconciliation talks are not likely to be able to make any substantive headway until at least this winter."
'Time to engage'
Mr Gates, who will leave office at the end of the month, said the first step had been to ensure the contacts were genuine and influential Taliban members.
"We don't want to end up having a conversation at some point with somebody who is basically a freelancer."
Mr Karzai said on Saturday that peace talks involving Afghan officials, the US and other "foreign militaries" were taking place and were "going well"....
Poor infidels have been trying to rid the world of Islam for 1400 years and can't even beat the Taliban. So embarrassing.
I am disgusted but not surprised, I'm sure this comes straight from the anointed one, therefore no surprise. There are traitors everywhere.
Only under the treacherous Caliph Hussein Oabama, this is possible - forcing the world, especially the Western world to bow like SLAVES to savage Islam and Islamic Nazis like the Talebans! The evil Hussein, the suspected agent and Trojan horse of the Muslim Brotherhood needs to be defeated in 2012. How can Hussein let the Taleban Nazis partly rule Afghanistan legitimately - after all the savage barbarism that they have committed? Imagine the horror to women/girls and non-Muslims - these Talebans are not even native Afghans but originate from Pakistan!
Ridding the world of Islam is rather like ridding the world of cancer, including easily conquerable cancers, though ones that still come back with a vengeance. It's damn difficult to rid oneself, one's society, the world at large, of a great negative. Such is the way of life.
Outreach? With Islam nothing will work except FORCE. No outreach, no concessions, no appeasement, no negociations.
Fight and Deserve Victory!
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/06/deserve-victory.html
"The US is due to start withdrawing its 97,000 troops from Afghanistan in July."
Hopefully they will also stop sending money...They should also ban Muslim Immigration...It doesnt't take a rocket scientist to see that in 1400 years Islam has failed to produce one single peaceful, prosperous country...
"Poor infidels have been trying to rid the world of Islam for 1400 years and can't even beat the Taliban. So embarrassing."
Hey! your are right!..that is embarrassing...it is time to get rid of those asinine rules of engagement and shuck those chains of political correctness. It is time to turn things around.
So, where does this leave us....
10 years of fighting and losing hundreds of American lives - and in the end we'll leave Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban, Pakistani terrorists, Pakistani army and a new Al Qaeda leadership.
Not that different from where we were in that part of the world in August 2001 - only hundreds of our boys are now dead, billions spent and a Pakistani army that has been taught once again, that "terrorism really does pay".
Poor strategy leads to poor results and we've demonstrated that again, at the cost of the lives of our men and detrimental impact on our economy.
a porkie screws the gullible obama.
The US militery was in a high level talks with an important taliban leader. Well, after giving him untold amount of money they eventually found out he was just some low level worker in porkiestan's city of peshwar. believe me the real taliban would not talk with the usa,. why should they? they are winning and they see the desperation in obama.
So much for that old saw about how we don't negotiate with terrorists. At least we won't have to listen to that bilge anymore.
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We haven't trried hard, and we can make a start by throwing hate-filled parasites like yourself out of the West. Back to Pakistan you go, mentally-deficient sub-ape.
If we had banned Muslim immigration 50 or 60 years ago, the likes of the bloodsucking Islamic Empire wouldn't here in the West and leeching off us.
"Mr Gates said talks were "preliminary" but that a political solution was the way "most of these wars end"".
What "political solution" is Gates refering to? And since when have most of these wars ended?
Sometimes I wonder if Washington D.C. knows anything about Islam? Seems to me like the Taliban, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, the PLO and Hamas have stayed three steps ahead of the free world on nearly every issue. I'm sure Secretary of State Clinton means well. But then so did Ex-President Carter 4 decades ago.
Washington really should do some reading and fact finding with regard to Islam, before it makes another blunder. How many more must die before the United States wakes-up to the truth?
Hello.... Islam doesn't want peace they want a globle "jihad"... They have said so a thousand times... I have never heard the word peace from any Islamic leader.... What part of jihad doesn't Washington D. C. understand?
"Hopefully they will also stop sending money...They should also ban Muslim Immigration"
I'm with you. We have no vital interest in Afghanistan, so we should not be sending troops or money. More Muslims should not be permitted to immigrate to the United States, or any other country wishing to maintain its indigenous culture and government.
Muslims should be free to immigrate to other Muslim countries, since they are brothers.
Oh, don´t be so sure, ape-man!
From my viewpoint, us nasty infidels are just getting started.
Again, I say to you, bring it and we will detsroy you!
We may withdraw from our theaters of war, but keep pushing us, and we will, actually, turn your Islamic Hellhole into a nice, glassy parking lot, dipshit...
¨detsroy¨ should be ¨destroy¨.