LadyEllen
Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline
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Imran Khan (former world class cricketer and now Pakistani politican) was on BBC's This Week programme last night, suggesting that the current NATO strategy in Afghanistan was not working and wouldnt work and proposing a new way.
Our Afghan strategy is of huge concern to Pakistan. We stand accused of making the situation for both countries and their civilian populations much worse, and of provoking more and more resentment of us that is driving ordinary people who would normally have no truck with militancy into taking up arms against us on both sides of the border.
The proposal seemed to be that the Taliban are actually not the bad guys we paint them as. Instead theyre just simple folk who took power in Afghanistan as a reaction against the warlords who previously dominated the country and performed such atrocities as caused ordinary men to take up arms to topple them. It was also noted that on our conquest of the country, we restored these hated warlords as official provincial governors and theyre back to their criminal ways under our auspices.
Allegedly, despite the abuses the Taliban committed - most notably against women, they were and would be far better than the warlords. Apparently they did not start out to impose strict Islamic culture but saw this as a way of restoring order. It was also noted that under the Taliban, opium poppy production which had flourished under the warlords and is flourishing again now under their watch, was virtually wiped out.
The idea seems to be that we should be negotiating with the Taliban with the endgame being to restore them to government in a power sharing arrangement with the more western friendly parties. Mr Khan stated that a NATO troop surge as proposed by others would be directly counter-productive to our aims as they currently stand and even the troops there now are serving no useful purpose for anyone except the militant groups' recruiters.
I have to say, I see this as possibly the only real solution.
But I think there have to be strings attached - for one that womens' rights are guaranteed, and indeed human rights in general, and for two that Osama Bin Laden is handed over for trial along with his key lieutenants; the trial could be held anywhere in the world subject to proper jurisprudence - perhaps the Hague or some special UN Court.
And I also think that for all the money our war is costing, we could likely buy this deal rather comprehensively if no other chips are available to us - even at one tenth the daily cost I think we could keep the Taliban on side.
What do you think?
E
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In a test against the leading brand, 9 out of 10 participants couldnt tell the difference. Dumbasses.
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