subject: The Us And Karzai Are Seeking Peace In Afghanistan [print this page] Gen Stanley McCrystal who is the comander of NATO forces in Afghanistan is optimistic that peace talks can be the result of the troop surge that many of our military ring customers are involved in right now in Afghanistan. The basic plan is to use the troop surge to put enough of a whipping on the Taliban to cause them to think twice about the fight that they are involved in but I don't think that part of the plan has worked very well thus far. The reason that I say this is because of the offensive at Marjah. Marjah has been a failure so the Taliban in essence believe that they are winning the war. The US and Nato have postponed the spring offensive until this fall in order to give them time to review the situation to access what went wrong.
President Karzai has been holding out the proverbial olive branch to the Taliban with incentives to stop the fighting and be repatriated back into the government. He has hosted one peace conference that I know of which seems to have gone very well. There has been enough casualties for all and peace is really not a bad deal. I'm sure that all of our military ring customers serving in Afghanistan don't think that it is a bad deal either. Those who attended the peace conference seemed to think so too but senior level Taliban officials could not attend (for obvious reasons).
Taliban fighters who renounce al-Qaeda will be integrated into Afghan government without any repurcussions. In addition to that their names will be taken off of the UN's blacklist. To sweeten the pot even more the UN has provided a fund to give them money to help them to reassimilate into Afghan society. The US and Karzai are at odds about what to do with senior Taliban leaders who should want to participate in the peace plan. The US doesn't want to give them much incentive to stay in the country, while Karzai wants to give them some voice in the new government. I can certainly see the points that each side has in this one, and I myself don't have an opinion as of yet.
There are also some negative incentives which should show the Taliban that it is futile to continue to fight. One of them was supposed to be the new offensive which the US and NATO are conducting. It won't have the desired effect after the failure in Marjah. It may in fact prolong the process. It was designed to take the heart out of their fighting efforts and to be honest with you I think that it will. The capture of their second in command is certainly a damaging blow and I think things will continue to go downhill for them from here. No matter how we get it the goal is to end the war. It will certainly be better to do so with no more unecessary bloodshed. Military Ring Express
