General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'We should have talked to Taliban' says top British officer in Afghanistan
The west should have tried talking to the Taliban a decade ago, after they had just been toppled from power, the top British commander in Afghanistan has told the Guardian, barely a week after the latest attempt to bring the insurgent group to the negotiating table stuttered to a halt.
General Nick Carter, deputy commander of the Nato-led coalition, said Afghan forces would need western military and financial support for several years after western combat troops head home in 2014. And he said the Kabul government may have to accept that for some years it would have only shaky control over some remoter parts of the country.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, he said: "Back in 2002, the Taliban were on the run. I think that at that stage, if we had been very prescient, we might have spotted that a final political solution to what started in 2001, from our perspective, would have involved getting all Afghans to sit at the table and talk about their future,"
Acknowledging that it was "easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight", Carter added: "The problems that we have been encountering over the period since then are essentially political problems, and political problems are only ever solved by people talking to each other."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/28/talks-taliban-british-officer-afghanistan
sibelian
(7,804 posts)Because decades of exactly the same idiotic story being played out over and over again in similar conflicts can be just thrown out of the window if you're feeling EXTRA EXTRA hard done by.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)>>>Acknowledging that it was "easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight", Carter added: "The problems that we have been encountering over the period since then are essentially political problems, and political problems are only ever solved by people talking to each other." >>>>>>
Everyone knew this at the time. IF *I* knew... everyone knew it; or SHOULD have known it.
Anyone who can read wikipedia ... reading level @ grade 9 I read somewhere ( on wiki, probably; tee hee) ..... COULD have known it if they had bothered to learn the rudiments of Afghan history.
A saner course was obvious at the time; but adopting same... one suspects... would have meant foregoing the chance for a lot of people to become millionaires and billionaires.
Peace is too expensive for some people.