Taliban moving towards peace talks with US over war in Afghanistan
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/wo...-war.html?_r=0

Will be intersting to see what this means in practical terms. But it may be a first small step.

I don't think anything good will come from that. I'm convinced that in the end the Taliban will rise to power again once Nato is out of Afghanistan.
I've been wrong before but that is what I think will happen.

^
You're not alone with that opinion... definitely not.

Talkin' better than shootin'

It's been a long slow realisation that the Taliban aren't going to vanish off the face of the Earth, however much that appeals to me. Nobody likes it but it's better than what we've got right now.

Schroeder I hope and pray you are wrong, but it's predictable.

Was about time that they give peace to the World. The lambs will lie beside the Wolves , and everybody barbaric and brutal and blind will become a better human being all by itself. Its so easy to explain. Magic always is.

+1

It'll be just like when we left Iraq.

All the collaborators that haven't already been killed will be killed and it'll be no different than before.

And Afghanistan is just better off without those butchers.

Another humiliating climbdown.:down:
I wonder if the taliban will force many more climbdowns before the troops pull out next year.

From what I read about this, only the Taliban and the new government of Afghanistan will be talking things over. The US and it's allies are not invited, except to get out of Dodge by the end of next year.

Probably another ploy by the Taliban to sneak back into power without risking any more of their resources. If they gain another foothold and shut down the poppy production again, we'll be right back over there doing this all over.

The Taliban is a major cultural force, we'll have to continue to deal with them. I don't care about them as a force, if the people don't like them, let them deal with them, it's when they protect and deal with terrorist. Regardless of what they do, I bet we'll remain in the area to some degree.
Regardless, it'll remain a corrupt nation.

Is ambassador James Dobbins leading the Afghan or the Taliban delegation at the talks then ?

???????
Their increasing level of attacks over the past 18 months and stalling of the talks process until America dropped the precondition on Al-qaida seems to have escaped your notice.

I doubt they are trying to sneak back into power. They will simply take power the way they did last time. By force and without care as to what the rest of the world thinks.

Whether the talks are a ruse or otherwise is yet to be seen. Will the promise to give up ties to international terrorist organisations and secretly fund/support them, or will they simply talk until they are in a position to wrest power back?

All I can say is that I'm glad we (Australia) will be out of there soon. I don't believe we should have gotten involved there at all and will be glad when we are out.

12 years later and we're back to exactly where we started.

GO AMERICA! WOO!

Taliban?!

Peace?!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...cute.....

I find it funny that they talk about this now. Back in 2004 and 2005 many US commanders in Afghanistan wanted to talk with the Taliban back then and come to some sort of deal and at the time it would have been possible to talk but I guess the US government wanted to spend 10 more years and achieve nothing long term.Go figure.

Here is an article from 2011 though some US commanders have wanted to talk to the Taliban for nearly ten years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-at-night.html

Eh...I guess we're becoming too much of an annoyance to the Taliban.

We don't actually do anything anymore... Yeah we kill them here and there but I'd like to know what we're actually doing over there right now.

We killed bin Laden. Boom. That's it. That's why we went there if I'm properly understanding it.

We don't have to reconstruct the entire world in Democracy even though that seems to be what we're good at.

We're having tons of problems with our own Democracy. What makes the Government think that these Middle Eastern Countries will actually listen to the "Western Hypocrites" who "can't even control their own government."

We deal with Saudi Arabia, Taliban not much worse.

It is the other way round actually this war has cost us billions upon billions not to mention how many Americans have been killed or permanently injured.The whole thing has cost us much more and really for nothing as Bin Laden was in Pakistan and had likely been there since 2002.

We should have closed up shop in 2003 or 2004 when it was obvious that Bin Laden was no longer there.And the war in Iraq sure did not help as things where actually calming down in 2003/04 in Afghanistan then things picked up again and there is no doubt the crap happening in Iraq caused it.For example prior to 2006 the Taliban rarely used IEDs that they learned directly from how effective it was in Iraq.

It costs them less than $100.00 to make an IED it costs us several million dollars in material and manpower to deal with one IED.One of those MRAP vehicles cost anywhere from 1.5-4 million dollars.Then all the fuel all the cost in manpower.

@Armistead sometimes it is better to deal with someone you dislike than have to fight them.I would say that the Taliban is a lot worse than Saudi Arabia at least SA has a government that does a pretty good job maintaining strict control and they hate Iran.The Taliban I think have figured out that if they leave us be we will leave them be that could be worked out.Afghans spend as much time fighting each other as they do outsiders if not more so.

We use a 3 million dollar bomb to blow up a 10$ tent. The logic behind this stuff....

But for the Taliban to want peace talks?

If they truly want peace, they want this to end as much as we do. :hmmm: You would think.

I think Iraq should've been better dealt with in 1991 instead of now. If we had gotten Saddam out of there in '91 I think things would have gone differently in 2002-05.