- Oct 9, 1999
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Taliban and Afghanistan restart secret talks in Qatar
This gives me some small sliver of hope:
The only true "solution" for Afghanistan is one brokered between Afghanis. We are the Christian outsiders, the last in a long line of other countries (Britain, the USSR) who have tried to impose our will on Afghanistan and failed.
And, make no mistake about it, we have failed, at the cost of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives and casualties, and untold number of Afghani dead.
To me, the situation mirrors the obscene quagmire of Vietnam, wherein we are left holding the bag of propping up a corrupt, minority, quisling regime that cares more about the money we provide than the overall welfare of their country. We have done so because we have seen the culture of the arguably more popular, and while brutal, also arguably less corrupt opposition (VC, Taliban) as inimical to our values (communism, fundamentalist Islam).
We need to disengage and (hopefully) let the Afghanis on all sides decide the future of their tribal riven "country."
And, yeah, there will be winners and . . . losers. Women and more progressive and Western leaning folks will dead nuts be losers in the short run. But, if there's one thing we should have learned by now, it is that we can't unilaterally impose our social and political culture on another "country's" culture . . . and that when we try to by force of arms, everyone loses.
This gives me some small sliver of hope:
No Pakistani official took part in either the October or September meetings, according to a member of the Taliban’s leadership council, the Quetta Shura. He said Islamabad has lost much of its traditional influence over a movement it has been associated with since it rose to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s.
The only true "solution" for Afghanistan is one brokered between Afghanis. We are the Christian outsiders, the last in a long line of other countries (Britain, the USSR) who have tried to impose our will on Afghanistan and failed.
And, make no mistake about it, we have failed, at the cost of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives and casualties, and untold number of Afghani dead.
To me, the situation mirrors the obscene quagmire of Vietnam, wherein we are left holding the bag of propping up a corrupt, minority, quisling regime that cares more about the money we provide than the overall welfare of their country. We have done so because we have seen the culture of the arguably more popular, and while brutal, also arguably less corrupt opposition (VC, Taliban) as inimical to our values (communism, fundamentalist Islam).
We need to disengage and (hopefully) let the Afghanis on all sides decide the future of their tribal riven "country."
And, yeah, there will be winners and . . . losers. Women and more progressive and Western leaning folks will dead nuts be losers in the short run. But, if there's one thing we should have learned by now, it is that we can't unilaterally impose our social and political culture on another "country's" culture . . . and that when we try to by force of arms, everyone loses.