This concept is not new; earlier, there were discussions about allowing the Taliban to open a "political" office in Turkey.
Only the Taliban would benefit from the opportunity to gain legitimacy, and to transform itself into Hizballah-like "political party" that also happens to function as a state-within-a-state with its own armed forces. Indeed, the office to open in Qatar is reportedly to bear the name of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," signaling that it does not recognize the current government in Kabul.
They will benefit the most from the ability to buy time through going through the motions of dialogue, while business as usual continues on the battlefield.
"U.S. backs move to let Taliban open headquarters in Qatar in the hope of ending war in Afghanistan," from the Daily Mail, September 12:
Talks to end the 10-year war in Afghanistan could be on the horizon after the U.S. backed a plan to let the Taliban open political headquarters in the Middle East.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is likely to open a base in Qatar before Christmas, The Times said.
We'll get it for Christmas? Coal in the stocking sounds pretty good right about now.
It is hoped this will help facilitate peace talks which could lead to a truce with the Taliban.
The hudna is never intended to last.
A senior member of the Taliban - Tayyab Agha - has been talking on and off with western diplomats for the past year but it is hoped this move will accelerate the process.
Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is understood to be backing the negotiations.
They must be sure they have the right guy this time.
When the HQ is opened in the Qatari capital Doha, it will be the first time the Islamist group has been treated like a political party since it fell from power in 2001.
The Times said the Taliban wants to make sure its members are free from harassment and arrest whilst based in the city.
This, from the group that was filmed beating women in the street when it was in power.
The Gulf state is believed to have agreed to let the group have a base after Washington decided that it should be located away from the influence of Pakistan.
One diplomat told the Times: 'It will be an address where they have a political office.'
He said it would not be an embassy or consulate but 'like a residence where they can be treated like a political party'....
Extremely handy for Al Jazeera. Just pop around to the studio for an interview, or to hand over videos of beheadings. Most convenient...
"U.S. backs move to let Taliban open headquarters in Qatar in the hope of ending war in Afghanistan"
So that's what they've been looking for all along? Just an office in Qatar? Why didn't they say??! It could have saved a trillion dollars and all those lives. So it's nothing to do with Islamic doctrine all along. Spencer, I want my money back for all those books of yours I've bought, you've ripped me off! I've been done!
What? Who is making these decisions? Just when I think, "this is so dumb, nothing can top it" then along comes something that proves me wrong. Is not the Taliban a terrorist organization? Who's next? Maybe we shouldn't have shot Osama, we could have made him ambassador to Pakistan, he certainly lived there long enough to meet any residency requirements.
Prepare yourselves for a round of Paris peace talks.
Essentially conceding that the war in Afghanistan is lost; sending the message that war with America is nothing more than a strategic waiting game; that we do not have the power nor the will to actually eradicate and dismantle any organization committed to our destruction; that we care little about dictatorship or civilian progress in the face of a retrograde government but will only spew those idealistic notions until we feel the time is ripe to formally recognize our enemies as equals.
Add to that the Libyan message that anyone who cooperates with the United States in the methods of weapons control or nuclear disarmament is always fair game - to be deposed at our whim.
Add to that the Syrian and Iranian message that if you are sufficiently armed and organized we will not even bother.
Add to that the Sudanese message that, unless you sit on a mountain of oil, and happen to be Muslim, we don't care.
Add to that the Palestinian lesson that if you are sufficiently stubborn and violent we will petition for your recognition and isolate our allies in the process.
Add to that the Egyptian message that we are willing to tacitly support the empowerment of any Islamist faction that woos us with false chants of democracy.
Add to that the Pakistani lesson that no matter how much your betray our interests and sell us out we will still bend over backwards to please and support you.
Add to that the Saudi message that so long as you are a major trading partner in our oil exchange you can slaughter dissenters at will both in your own and other adjacent states.
Add to that the Iraqi message that we have no concept of what results when you mix Islam with tribalism and will spend billions of dollars propping up a fictitious to be disposed when we withdraw.
And, the cherry on top, that we see it as our national duty to protect Islam from defamation, to capitulate each and every time we are confronted, and to demand of our citizens a respect for a supremacist ideology in the prospective shadow of de facto criminality.
Did I miss anything?
This doesn't surprise me at all since we have an liberal/progressive government in the United States which is susceptible to Islamic Taqiyya.
I thought it wasn't kosher to mention Christmas in a propaganda piece about Islam. Have the rules changed?
"U.S. backs move to let Taliban open headquarters in Qatar..."
Bad idea.
"Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar..."
And just why is this guy even alive still to be able to discussing anything?
Yes, this a political propaganda exercise by the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani using his propaganda machine of Al Jazeera, to increase Islamic power in Asia, whether via Islamic jihad Taliban or otherwise.
"Al-Jazeera"
[extract]:
"Al-Jazeera is an Arabic TV news network owned by the Amir of Qatar Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who himself is the head of state and an absolute Monarch.
"The network was founded in 1996 and soon employed many of the Arabic Branch of the BBC. Al-Jazeera gained an immense popularity among the Arabs in the Middle East. Almost every house in the region is tuned to Al-Jazeera and about 50 millions are watching Al-Jazeera every day.
"Since Qatar is located between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the frontline between the Sunni countries, led by Saudi Arabia, and Shiite Iran - Qatar and its Amir elaborated their ambiguous two-faced foreign policy to new hights. On one hand Qatar hosts the biggest USA base in the Middle East and its capital Doha is a center for international transactions. On the other hand Qatar is coordinated with Iran in regional politics."
http://www.globaljihad.net/view_page.asp?id=2019
U.S. backs plan to let Taliban plunk its hindquarters headquarters in Qatar
This concept is not new; earlier, there were discussions about allowing the Taliban to open a "political" office in Turkey.
...........................
This not only gives the Taliban—which created the most horrifying Shari'ah state of modern times—legitimacy, it also allows it to spread its influence of baleful fundamentalist Islam to places like Qatar and Turkey that have had at least a few hedges against full-blown, naked Islam.
More:
Only the Taliban would benefit from the opportunity to gain legitimacy, and to transform itself into Hizballah-like "political party" that also happens to function as a state-within-a-state with its own armed forces. Indeed, the office to open in Qatar is reportedly to bear the name of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," signaling that it does not recognize the current government in Kabul.
...........................
It signals that it does not recognize the semi-democratic-on-paper government of Karzai—it also announces the fully Islamic nature of their proposed regime—and why not? When the Taliban were last in power, they imposed the Burqa and were stoning women to death in Kabul's soccer stadium.
More:
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is likely to open a base in Qatar before Christmas, The Times said.
We'll get it for Christmas? Coal in the stocking sounds pretty good right about now.
...........................
Indeed it does. Just think back on some of the other Christmas gifts Islam has proposed to give us, such as bombing the tree-lighting ceremonies at Portland, Oregon's Pioneer Square, and blowing an airplane out of the skies over Detroit on Christmas day itself.
Happy Holidays, Infidels!
More:
When the HQ is opened in the Qatari capital Doha, it will be the first time the Islamist group has been treated like a political party since it fell from power in 2001.
...........................
Actually, the United States *never* recognized the sanguinary Taliban "government". That we are doing so *now*—ten years after we toppled them—is madness itself.
More:
The Times said the Taliban wants to make sure its members are free from harassment and arrest whilst based in the city.
This, from the group that was filmed beating women in the street when it was in power.
...........................
Also, the group that castrated, eviscerated, and mutilated its predecessor, before dragging his corpse through the streets and displaying it in Kabul's main square.
As for harassment, the majority-Pashtun Taliban ran a campaign targeting rival Hazara tribesmen for oppression, harassment, and murder the entire time they were in power.
More:
One diplomat told the Times: 'It will be an address where they have a political office.'
He said it would not be an embassy or consulate but 'like a residence where they can be treated like a political party'....
...........................
And what have these savage barbarians done to warrant their being treated like "a political party"? We are enabling the legitimization of rabid savagery. More fools us.
And the US of A will pay the bills, while these barbaric headchoppers live in grandeur, including first class travel, 5 star hotels and halal room service.
Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
In Qatar the Taliban will be closer to much of its funding and it will be much easier to transfer the money back home by courier.
Have the U.S. construct the building in Qatar, sow it with explosives, let the Taliban move in, and then blow them all to Hell.
That's what they would do, so we must respect our enemy enough to respond in kind.
ISLAM DELENDE EST.
You forgot that Americans were crazy enough to elect a moron named Obama while fighting a war with a guy named Osama.
That's a signal of a fugue state so demented that it would be breath-taking in a relatively sane society.
That this president is also an avowed Muslim-apologist and a spineless, self-serving incompetent- who is furthering the detruction of America by other means- is only a poisonous icing on the Islamic arsenic cake being served to the West in the guise of multicultural exchange/asylum seeking/immigration/guest workers and post-colonial/European white guilt reparations.
Other than that sickening detail, tragically accurate.
..although of course the conspiracy theorists would claim that the building hadn't really been demolished by explosives but by impact of an aircraft.
When I consider all of the fine American men and women who died fighting the Taliban, I can tell you that it is my opinion that ANYONE in the American government who supports such an idea is a TRAITOR.
The Taliban shows its gratitude to us here:
"Islamic jihadists firing rockets at US embassy in Kabul"
The Taliban are firing rockets at our embassy in Kabul.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/09/islamic-jihadists-firing-rockets-at-us-embassy-in-kabul.html