How do we climb out of the morass that Afghanistan has become? Hell if I know, but for those foolish enough to advocate negotiating with the Taleban, Christian Bleuer’s new post at CTLabs is required reading. Money quote:
The Taliban leadership, if one can speak of a single entity (which one really can’t these days), does not feel the need to negotiate honestly with Shia ‘heretics’, former communist ‘atheists’ and ‘hypocrite’ mujahideen. I think it is safe to put foreign ‘infidels’ and Afghan government ‘puppets’ in that same category. And, most definitely, the Pakistani government has a horrible record of guaranteeing anything in regards to the Taliban.
Traveling in the U.S. earlier this month I was struck by how far under the radar these issues have fallen. It’s almost as if the two wars didn’t exist. Neither one of the two presidential candidates has a plan for Afghanistan, and neither has shown a comprehensive understanding for the challenges at hand. In fact, so far have we come from the days when Bush’s War on Terror topped the headlines that not even rudimentary knowledge of the conflict is required. The GOP vice-presidential candidate thinks Gen. McClellan has risen from his grave to assume command in Afghanistan, while the top of the ticket, himself a former soldier, mistakes CENTCOM commander for the Chairman of the JCS. But so what, who wants to nitpick, right? Yeah, well — just imagine the ruckus if one of them had gotten Hank Paulson’s job title wrong.
