• Karzai Urges West to Buy Off Taliban to Secure Afghanistan
    25 replies, posted
[QUOTE]KABUL — After giving up on winning victory in Afghanistan by military means, the international community is resorting to the centuries-old method of buying its way out. In London this week, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, will launch a British and American-backed plan for "reintegration" of the Taliban and call for international funding to offer jobs and bribes to bring insurgents in from the cold. The conference, which starts on Thursday, will be the first big international gathering on Afghanistan since President Obama announced his military strategy last month, including a surge of 30,000 American troops. The aim was to accompany the surge with a new political strategy and ways for the Afghans to provide their own security by setting up local militias, which could include former Taliban. With intelligence reports warning that Taliban influence is spreading, both aims now appear in jeopardy. Divisions between civilian and military officials have led to a reported suspension of the militia programme, while Karzai’s newly appointed cabinet is regarded by many as even more corrupt than his last. Failure to offer effective government is seen as a critical factor in growing Taliban influence. In Wardak, a province bordering Kabul, the risks of adopting American tactics are clear. Over the past two years, Karzai’s government has gradually lost control of the province to the Taliban. Most local religious leaders are now bankrolled by the insurgents but one, Mullah Azizul Rahman Sediqi, known as "Super Mullah", pledged his full support for a U.S.-sponsored plan to arm militiamen so they could fight back. He has since lived in constant fear of assassination. First the Taliban planted a bomb inside the mullah’s mosque. He removed the crude device and took it to a nearby field to detonate. Days later the Taliban fired mortars at his home, blowing out the windows. Some believe the creation of militia forces in areas where the Afghan police force, army and Nato troops are too thinly spread — or too unpopular to maintain control — could be a critical part of handing over control of security to Afghans.The first government-sponsored local militia in Wardak was set up last March in Jalez district and has doubled in size in the past 10 months to a force of more than 350. Its commander, Mohammed Ali, claims his men, a ragtag bunch of lightly armed villagers aged from 17 to 50, have recaptured most of the villages in the district, pushing the Taliban into the barren mountains that surround it. But despite repeated assurances of improved security, it was not possible to travel to the district last week without an armed escort. "The Taliban still use the mountains to fire grenades at our convoys," Ali explained with a toothless grin as he squatted in one of his mud-hut checkpoints on the road into Jalez. "They lay IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on the route into the district and ambush us." Hopes that Karzai would boost the prospects for security by cleaning up his administration were set back by the announcement of his new cabinet. Ten of his 17 nominees were rejected by parliament this month. "I don’t think it’s a weaker government but it’s not as strong as it could have been," David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said in Washington last week. However, he insisted: "The alternatives to this very, very difficult project in which we’re engaged are worse." Many people were disappointed with a government they regarded as weaker, according to Barmak Pazhwak, Afghan officer for the U.S. Institute of Peace. "It’s more corrupt and more full of local power groups who Karzai did deals with to get elected," he said. Miliband insists the international community can exert leverage by withholding funds from ministries that don’t perform. But the West’s toothlessness was highlighted by Karzai’s failure to take any action against his half-brother, Ahmed Wali, widely regarded as one of the biggest drug lords in southern Afghanistan. In a gloomy prognosis for 2010, Major General Michael Flynn, the most senior allied intelligence officer in Afghanistan, has warned that the Taliban have tightened their grip on the civilian population and believe they have only to keep on blowing up soldiers to achieve victory. Last Monday, the Taliban showed their ability to penetrate the capital with a series of attacks that killed 20 and injured 70, leaving a shopping centre in flames.[/QUOTE] Source: [url]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583769,00.html[/url] If you can't beat 'em, pay 'em.
If it weren't for the Karzai regime I'd say go for it.
I don't think that's a good idea. Giving them money will only cause more deaths, because they will be able to buy better equipment. For each insurgent which is willing to "quit", two will rise, armed with weapons bought with that money.
"hey terrorists! heres a million billion dollars if you promise to stop attacking" "okay!" if only.
They're poor, that's why most of them are fighting. Most aren't religious fanatics, just guys who want money or power. Don't give any to Karzai though, his is the only government I have heard called a [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy"]Kleptocracy[/URL]. He'd fuck everything up.
They've got the Quran shoved too far up their ass to see sense and take the money.
they already have a bunch of cash from these kinds of things never works
Figures that Karzai's favorite solution is to have someone else spend money.
It isn't a smart idea in my opinion. They would just use that money and come back in ten or so years with nuclear weapons or something.
We should plant prayer-detecting lazer beams on Mecca so every time a terrorist prays he gets lazered in the head and he dies.
Religious fanatics cannot be bought out.
You can give them guns... [editline]07:18PM[/editline] One bullet at a time [IMG]http://britishgaijin.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/max_payne3_rumor.jpg[/IMG]
Giving money to terrorists yeh that will certainly work well.
[QUOTE=Virtanen;19842817]Religious fanatics cannot be bought out.[/QUOTE] Well all know the Taliban are pure of heart and soul
Shit, we're already paying for oil and supporting terrorism. We might as well buy them.
Why does everyone blame the West (America in general) for their problems? Saying it is without viable evidence is like me calling Barack Obama a homosexual, even though he has a wife.
I read the Title as Kanye west to buy off taliban :byodood:
[QUOTE=Split3ndz;19840618]They've got the Quran shoved too far up their ass to see sense and take the money.[/QUOTE] How would that fit...?
Yeah, let's all go to a proud group of freedom fighters, intent on never surrendering, who have just kicked the West's ass and let's ask them if they would want us to buy them.
[QUOTE=Gmod_Fan77;19846957]Yeah, let's all go to a proud group of freedom fighters, intent on never surrendering, who have just kicked the West's ass and let's ask them if they would want us to buy them.[/QUOTE] Who have just "kicked the West's ass"? We lost? I thought the war was still continuing
The taliban can carry on fighting for many more years. Western nations can't. If the stalemates continues then yerh we are losing.
[QUOTE=Smart Patrol;19840587]"hey terrorists! heres a million billion dollars if you promise to stop attacking" "okay!" if only.[/QUOTE] thats what happened in iraq. the "surge" was just a show to make the military look competent at peacekeeping
Here's an idea. Let's leave their nation and let them deal with it how they want, instead of occupying their nation and controlling their government.
[QUOTE=Zenpod;19845223]I read the Title as Kanye west to buy off taliban :byodood:[/QUOTE] [img]http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/kanye.jpg[/img] yo Karzai I'm happy for you and I'mma let you finish but [url=http://www.lehmanlaw.com/press-room/china-law-news/china-law-news/article/1/64-of-bribe.html]China has the best foreign bribery of all time[/url]
I'm sorry I'm not sure I read that right. The president's half-brother is one of the biggest drug lords in Afghanistan? Sounds like they took that shit out of the hitman movie.
It is possible to bribe everyone enough to stop fighting....for long enough so the US can pull its troops out claiming 'victory'. Then, once the troops are gone and the payments stop, it's business as usual. Except now the President will say "Well, we did our part, it's up to the Afghans now...". Then, just like us instigating fighting in Afghanistan back in the 80s and having it come back to bite us in the ass about 20 years later, 20 years from now our asses will be bitten once again. But no one in the government NOW gives a shiat about what happens 20 years from now. That's our problem in a nutshell- not planning for the future.
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