Taliban

[walrus]

So I know there isn’t a lot of Americans here but the rest of you have opinions of course. What do you think of making a deal with the Taliban? It’s a very weird thought for me but I try to step back and remove the personal stuff. Of course I’d love to see this war end but as far as know the Taliban will negotiate with us but will not do so with the sitting Afghan government. With that in mind what do you do? Make Afghanistan a confederacy giving the Taliban their own portion? Would they stick do that or are they still intent on spreading “pure” Islam wanting everything to go back to the 1200’s? So I don’t know. We aren’t going to get rid of them without a massive bombing campaign and you can’t do that these days. I’d say it’s a catch 22

[Master]

You have not totally beaten them, don't think you ever will, best to make a deal with them and keep them in check that way.

[Mark TKO]

Couldn't imagine TVs being banned. Don't know what I would do with my time.

[TitoFan]

How does the U.S. intend to confirm that the Taliban is holding up its end of the deal? I see a lot of potential issues here, and it always boils down to the same thing..... verification. Hopefully it'll all work out though.

[walrus]

How does the U.S. intend to confirm that the Taliban is holding up its end of the deal? I see a lot of potential issues here, and it always boils down to the same thing..... verification. Hopefully it'll all work out though.

Definitely. How can you trust them? As far as we couldn’t beat them, we certainly could if we went balls to the wall carpet bombing etc. I’m not saying we should do that, I’d be against it, just saying

[walrus]

[X]

Of course we'd can't trust them. Of course they won't keep to any deal that is made. Of course they won't stop being our implacable enemies. Of course they won't stop plotting against us.

But after a decade+ of war, we could not defeat them ..... so we are essentially suing for "peace" just to get the hell out of their country

[Kirkland Laing]

They're going to wait until we fuck off and then take over Afghanistan again. There's nothing we can do about it. It's the height of arrogance to think we're going to have any effect on a country like that.

[greynotsoold]

They're going to wait until we fuck off and then take over Afghanistan again. There's nothing we can do about it. It's the height of arrogance to think we're going to have any effect on a country like that.

That is exactly right.

[Spicoli]

Welp, shat. Seems to have fallen apart as fast as it was glued together which is very unfortunate. But they cannot be trusted and we knew this. The shoot down they claimed last month didn't even make news really. Reminds of the George Aiken line 'just declare victory and leave' . Of course that's not realistic either so yeh, we're knee deep still and it sucks.

[TitoFan]

Ok so everyone agrees they can't be trusted. Why even entertain the idea of negotiating with them, then? IMO, it just emboldens them and gives them an inflated sense of legitimacy that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It's not like there's dozens of other countries even giving a shit what the Taliban does. I'm tempted to draw a parallel with another troublemaking group/country rattling cages and demanding a seat at the grownups table. But I won't

Seriously, getting to the point where you're sitting down making deals with the U.S. seems to be the rite of passage and chest-thumping milestone EVERY rogue band of misfits should aspire to. The U.S. should take a page out of the handbook of world leaders at the G20, was it?.... when Ivanka tried to horn her way into a conversation between world leaders.

[Kirkland Laing]

The Taliban are the closest thing Afghanistan has to a legitimate government. There are other factions there but they're mainly etnic minorities and not as powerful as the Taliban. The government are a bunch of US puppets. The US is spending more than the entire GDP of Afghanistan to pay for the army and security forces that keep them in power. Once they pull out, even if they keep funding all that it'll fall apart about as quickly as the South Vietnam government did.



Going back to the arrogance we showed in turning up there and expecting them to become a liberal democracy. The Taliban and even all the competing groups there are all either entirely made up of or dominated by religious conservatives. Imagine some Muslim superpower invading America and telling American religious conservatives that they'd have to accept Sharia law. How well would that work exactly?

[Gandalf]

The easiest deal would have been to provide proof that Bin Laden was responsible for 9-11. Why could that never be a possibility? How much debt accumulated since?

The world is run by mad men.

[El Kabong]

The easiest deal would have been to provide proof that Bin Laden was responsible for 9-11. Why could that never be a possibility? How much debt accumulated since?

The world is run by mad men.

There would have been a lot less conspiracies about Bin Laden and 9-11 in general had the mujihadeen never been funded or supported in Afghanistan or in Bosnia or anywhere else.

[Gandalf]

The easiest deal would have been to provide proof that Bin Laden was responsible for 9-11. Why could that never be a possibility? How much debt accumulated since?

The world is run by mad men.

There would have been a lot less conspiracies about Bin Laden and 9-11 in general had the mujihadeen never been funded or supported in Afghanistan or in Bosnia or anywhere else.

Yep. Dirty money and behavior everywhere. Even as recent as ISIS of course.