Karzai Wants West to Buy Off Taliban
2010 January 24
by Christina Lamb
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.
Read more at The Sunday Times.
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Stephen: I share your concerns. I don't think that defeating the Taliban is impossible – not at all, actually; they can be beaten, I am sure – but paying them off won't suffice.
Thank you, Michael. I also believe that victory is possible, and supremely desirable. My point is that Karzai sees the handwriting on the wall, and is taking the only path open to him. He knows that Obama will not fight this war.
I think that Mr. Karzai will leave Afghanistan with the last American troops. You're right, paying off the Taliban will not work.
Everybody wants money, none more than those here at home,
Buyouts never achieve much other than prolonging the inevitable; destitution for the populous and the extension of tyranically control.
Karzai's taking the only option left to him. Re-integration is an acknowledgment of the fact that victory is not an option. Indeed, the "leader of the free world" has said that the word victory makes him uncomfortable.
President Karzai is attempting to delay the inevitable with bribes, paid for by the taxpayers of the Western world. Unfortunately, as soon as our forces have left, Mr. Karzai will be gone, too. As Gandalf said to Saruman, in the "Lord of the Rings", there is only one lord of the rings, and he does not share power.
Neither does the Taliban …