Approaching the Normalcy of Returning Afghanistan to Taliban Rule
"We hear the sound of blasts. The people [of Puli Khumri] are so worried."
"The Taliban are in residential areas fighting with Afghan security forces. We need reinforcements to arrive as soon as possible, otherwise the situation will go from bad to worse."
Safdar Mohsini, chief, Baghlan provincial council
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| File photo shows the site of a previous attack on the Afghan provincial capital of Puli Khumri in May |
"[The Taliban is taking] calculative steps."
"The Taliban is trying to play their own brand of peace diplomacy, which means they are holding a rock in their left hand and shaking hands on the right."
"They don't want to hold off all their power in the country and call for a ceasefire yet while the talks are ongoing."
"Peace is the only option right now on the table. There is no winner or loser in this war. If fight continues in Afghanistan, all sides will lose. If peace happens, it is a win-win situation."
Intizar Khadim, political analyst, Kabul
"[The talks between the two sides were a] success."
"At 2pm today [Sunday], we will be talking with a small group of US officials on technical issues of the deal."
Suhail Shaheen, Taliban political spokesman, Doha, Qatar
"[The US and the Taliban are] at the threshold of an agreement."
"[The approaching agreement with the Taliban] will reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together to negotiate an honourable and sustainable peace and a unified, sovereign Afghanistan that does not threaten the United States, its allies, or any other country."
"[I raised the Kunduz attack in talks with the Taliban in Doha informing its representatives] violence like this must stop."
Zalmay Khalilzad, US envoy heading negotiations with the Taliban
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| Afghan security forces take position during a battle with the Taliban in Kunduz province, Afghanistan, on September 1, 2019. Photo by Reuters |
The talks between Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad and negotiators representing the Taliban position are beyond cynical. Self-serving for both the U.S. and the Taliban.
As for the government of Afghanistan, as for the people of Afghanistan it will be back to the pre-U.S.-NATO invasion to rout the guests of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, when the country groaned under the Islamist fundamentalist tyranny of the Taliban. The Taliban that thirsts to regain its totalitarian power to plant its heavy foot on human rights and continue to give haven to al-Qaeda, while eventually making accommodation for the Islamic State terrorists to feel comfortable in Afghanistan.
The Taliban has refused to include the Aghan government in talks because to do so would be futile; they will not even be permitted to share power as a figurehead to satisfy Western democracies looking in from the outside. The Taliban retake of Afghanistan will be total. The first demand is that the 20,000 U.S. troops must leave Afghanistan. And the United States military and its government will be more than happy to shake the dust of Afghanistan from their departing boots.
The sincerity of the Taliban during the negotiations for 'peace' overtures, hammering out a deal in Doha between the U.S. and the Taliban represents a chess game by one player prepared and eager to throw the game into the Taliban court to relieve itself of the burden of policing a country where Islam devours itself in an orgy of violent atrocities viewing the defenceless as sacrificial martyrs to jihad against their own. The vicious attacks on the major city of Kunduz, the additional killing, sends a message that nothing will subdue the zeal of the Taliban to squash all hope of normalcy and democracy.
As it is the Taliban, even with U.S. and NATO troops, the sacrifices of allied forces' lives, the expenditure on infrastructure and training of Afghan police and military, the building of schools only to be destroyed by the Taliban, the medical clinics and hospitals, the civic buildings, all will be destroyed becoming yet another footnote in the long tragic history of Afghanistan. Kabul may be the capital but there are no areas secure enough anywhere in this misbegotten country where the Taliban may not attack.
Afghan security forces exulted that they had pushed the Taliban into the outskirts of the city of Kunduz only for reality to intrude with the suicide bombing that killed another ten Afghans -- delivering a message that will never become stale. The timing just so, once the defence and interior ministers of the Afghan government visited Kunduz, declaring that the magnificent Afghan fighting forces had succeeded in repelling the attackers. The attackers set to become government.
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| In this Friday, Aug. 30, 2019 photo, Independent Afghan artists paints tulips on blast walls in Kabul, Afghanistan, For almost a year, Afghanistan's more than 30 million people have been in the awkward position of waiting as a United States envoy and the Taliban negotiate their country's fate behind closed doors. (AP Photo/Nishanuddin Khan) |
Labels: Afghanistan, Negotiations, Peace, Taliban, United States
posted by Pieface @ Monday, September 02, 2019
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