Peace in Afghanistan
There, it's done. Nothing to it. Finally, diplomacy has resolved what over a decade of bitter fighting could not accomplish. Peace in their time. British Prime Minister David Cameron had an epiphany. He would call together those executive emissaries whose suspicion of one another is traditional, the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and invite a leading representative of the Taliban, and the magic of good fellowship would ripen and resist conflict.And so it has proven to be. Nothing left to be concerned about now. All that state treasury that various NATO countries lavished on their futile attempt to aid Afghanistan toward peace and security, the lost lives of foreign military personnel, the Afghan civilians, all for naught. Had anyone prior to the intervention of Mr. Cameron bethought themselves of assembling these key figures to work out a satisfactory peace effort, all would have been spared.
Oh - wait - no one representing the Taliban showed up at Chequers after all? The clods; they disdained an invitation to be welcomed at the British prime minister's official country residence? How perfectly uncivil. What?! No one from within the U.S. administration bothered to show up either? What a splendid opportunity to conclude an unfortunate engagement has been overlooked by the Americans!
How devastatingly short-sighted. And look, President Hamid Karzai, President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Cameron have agreed to support the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar. A requirement so that all parties may come to the bargaining table, to bring peace, finally, to long-suffering Afghanistan.
Political analysts have not warmed to the initiative? What do they know! Simply because this meeting represents the third of its kind while the Western allies desperately seek a deal that would excuse their ongoing presence in Afghanistan and aid them in their departure, with honour unbesmirched by the reality of failure.
"There is a growing sense that they can work with this chink of a possibility. We don't underestimate how much there is to do, and we recognize it will be tough, but there was a good atmosphere today", commented a British official, lauding the positive atmosphere at the gathering.
That's great; we hear that the atmosphere in China was utterly abysmal today, the smog thick enough to slice through and stick in a toaster.
Last month the Afghan government reported the loss of 900 soldiers in insurgency attacks in the last year. Oh, and the deaths from the same source, of national police - ten a day. But officials in Kabul feel confident the Taliban are coming around to the concept of talks with the Afghan government. Despite that the Taliban leadership denounce the administration as corrupt and unrepresentative.
The former Taliban government that ruled in Afghanistan was totally representative, by contrast. They represented the interests of al-Qaeda, as well, because of their generous nature in accepting the presence of outsiders, as Afghan bonhomie requires.
Labels: Afghanistan, Britain, Conflict, Corruption, Crisis Politics, Islamism, Pakistan, Peace, Taliban
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, February 05, 2013
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