The Taliban Have Learned the Lesson of 2001 … It’s Time to Talk
April 2nd, 2008 by WILLIAM KERN
With the most significant NATO summit in decades about to begin, among other issues, the problem of what to do about Afghanistan is high on the list. Chief among European concerns in this regard is the apparent lack of a strategy beyond killing members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. For France’s Liberation, Bernard Guetta writes of British plans that France should take part in:
“The Taliban have learned from the defeat they suffered in 2001 … They now realize that they will achieve nothing if they persist with their cocktail of jihad and Sharia; they have become less fanatical, more political, and we could in a word, seek a compromise with them.” As far as the Americans are concerned, Guetta writes, “This is where the French reinforcements could play not only a military role, but a political one as well. They could permit the assertion of a Franco-British pole in Afghanistan, which would be so significant that it could encourage George Bush’s successor to endorse this strategy.”
By Bernard Guetta
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
April 1, 2008
France - Liberation - Original Article (France)
Attention! Everything seems to plead - naturally - against sending more French troops to Afghanistan. But the Atlanticism of Nicolas Sarkozy is so compulsive, his foreign policy so confused, this war in particular - so close to being completely lost - that we have no choice but to conclude that to do so is merely an intolerable, dangerous, positive gesture toward George Bush. As it is, this decision is nothing but troubling, but beware! Contrary to the Iraqi adventure, the Afghan intervention was approved by the United Nations. It’s legal. It is, above all, legitimate, since the Taliban not only protected the organizers of the September 11 attacks, but seven years later, their victory would become a tragedy for this country and would complete the destabilization of neighboring Pakistan. Even worse, it would strengthen the networks of Jihadists giving them a territorial sanctuary and more importantly, nourish their myth about the inevitable defeat of the “crusaders” before the rising masses of Islam.
Nicolas Sarkozy is not wrong to consider that we are playing a “key role” in Afghanistan. He is right to say that we cannot accept a “return of the Taliban and al-Qaeda to Kabul.” It is little more than stating the obvious to say that these thousands of additional French soldiers could well make a difference. They might weigh in during a battle that it would be better not to lose. And other U.N. countries are set to increase their troop levels as well - 3500 men from the United-States alone. But military force is not as significant as one might think.It is insufficient if it is doesn’t fit in neatly as part of a political strategy. But the fact is that the arrival of American reinforcements in Iraq did contribute to a reduction in the violence and just as it wasn’t the valor of the Afghan Mujahidin that permitted them to defeat the Red Army, but rather Saudi money, American weapons and ground bases made available to them in Pakistan.
The Taliban have now regained control of the southern half of the country. They achieved this thanks to the mistakes of the Americans, who, instead of pouring in money so desperately needed by the Afghans after twenty years of war, were content to track the men of al-Qaeda, bombing at will and killing so many innocents that they became hated. As has been said by Olivier Roy , one of the leading specialist on the region, the Americans have conducted an “ideological war,” while Afghans have been waiting for roads, schools and hospitals. Thus the Taliban have found support. But is this mess irretrievable?
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the 2008 NATO Summit.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 4:42 am and is filed under Nicolas Sarkozy, Radical Islam, Gordon Brown, Al Qaeda, United Nations, Tyranny, EU, Bush Administration, European Union, Taliban, Pentagon, Newspapers, Political Islam, Muslims, Foreign Politics, War, Afghanistan, Military, Foreign Affairs, Europe, War On Terror, Sunnis, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Terrorism, 9/11, History. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
