U.S. officials say Pakistani spy agency released Afghan Taliban insurgents

[karan.1970]

Ohh please its an Indian News paper, Now don't you even trust them, the very thing is that India wants to play a role in Afgh & it is been outclassed by ISI not to do so in a manner that they are noe rethinking the whole afghan policy, I can give you at least 50 articles which are saying that India has lost its 'control' in Afgh so now to save its assets, billions of Dollars it has to talk to the damn 'Taliban' & that too to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami party, ooops I thought these are the same people who Indians say are pets dogs of ISI ehh?
am i wrong about it?



Moderate Taliban is term been recently used by some Indian analysts for Mr. Mullah Bradar, just to malign the gains made by ISI, funny times for Pak & hard times for Indians they are still in a shock over arrests, you were some how not able to get the Joke

I have already point out the number of Taliban Leaders that have been liquidated with the help of Pakistan, here it is again, just click

-Afghan Taliban Leaders

there is no point for Pak to support Taliban now,India wanted to activate the Iran-India-Russia alliance in Afgh to protect the Indian interest but Indians have failed miserably in it, Now interests of Taliban & India are now converging that is why they are sending signals to India

-Taliban says it can 'reconcile' with India
-No Direct Conflict With India, Can Reconcile: Taliban

India despite its so called moral won't miss any Chance to reduce the Pakistani Influence in Afgh & she wants her role in Afgh which she is not getting at this time

-Stranded in Afghanistan

& this is height of desperation

-India may talk to ISI, Taliban


Explained many times, Indians want their say in Afghanistan but Americans are in no position to give a damn to what India says, The matter of fact is that India is on back foot at this time, On one hand Indians say they don't know about Good & Bad Taliban & where as on other hand they are talking about Policy shift consistently plus the recent recent confusion in Indian minds is only pointing at the fact that they might go to any extent to have a say in new Afghan Setup(the news of approaching Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an example)

anyways i m done for now

w/o going point on point, the simple summary is following..

There may be media analysts in India who back the idea of talking to moderate taliban. Heck there are folks in India who think Taliban is a good idea and US should get the hell out of the region.. But then there would always be differing opinions in a country of 1.2 billion. The crux is that India has not till date officially backed the idea of good Taliban.

The question is not if India is on a backfoot in Afg or USA is not keeping India's interest in mind.. The question is if India is backing the line of good Taliban, and till now I have not seem any govt statements doing that.

About Indian media, I will believe them, but then would you going forward or is your trust on Indian media restricted to articles that go your way

 

[ajpirzada]

Couple of things.. At the time of 9/11, OBL was already a fugitive of Interpol. UN had already put sanctions on Afghanistan for harboring a terrorist (OBL) associated with Al Queda via United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267. So what other proof were they looking for.. It was just a smokescreen..

And the offer from Taliban for a neutral trial came after the hostilities broke out and USA bombed Afghanistan..By then it was too late..

interesting. you want the world to maintain a status quo against a country and then expect cooperation as well.

and how long did it take US to attack after 9/11? was there really enough time for hostilities to break out?

 

[ajpirzada]

And the alternative could have been what happened in Afghanistan.. I personally dont think Musharraf was wrong.. Even a small probability of the alternative would have been unacceptable to a sane leader.. Unlike Taliban...

not at all. its not this simple. there is always room for diplomatic manoeuvring. instead musharraf agree to all demands over the phone without even consulting his corp commanders many of whom were against such move. turkey denied the use of its airbases when US had to attack iraq. now i agree that attacking iraq was different than afghanistan but the point is that you can always bargain to make sure u r on a safer side.


Afghanistan was already a sanctioned country for harboring terrorists via a UN resolution. In this case Taliban were being more arrogant banking on the fact that US wont attack. They miscalculated (or didnt care) and Afghanistan paid the price...

well no. they did not miscalculate. they knew they will be attacked and they knew they are not capable of fighting them on front. hence they retreated and attacked later.

Not really.. Apart from money, US has had surprisingly low casualties in this war.. Its Obama whose screwed up policies aimed at justification of his Nobel Peace prize that is putting US on the back foot.. Come 2012, I see a big change in the way this war is going..

low civilian causality figure in this age of technology is not surprising at all. its the cost plus a superpower failing to take control of the situation for last many years which matters. as far as obama is concerned, i very much agree with his policy. you cant simply carry on fighting with invisible enemy. its a fact that taliban are a part of afghanistan society. and they need to be brought into the political system by doing some give and take. a guarantee from taliban to not support al qaeda will be a gud starting point. then taking stock of your position on ground, you can try to bargain on human right issues as well.

 

[karan.1970]

interesting. you want the world to maintain a status quo against a country and then expect cooperation as well.

and how long did it take US to attack after 9/11? was there really enough time for hostilities to break out?

The cooperation was being saught for many months before 9/11 but to no avail. 9/11 actually became the proverbial straw.. And it took another month for the US to lauch the attack on Afghanistan..

 

[ajpirzada]

The cooperation was being saught for many months before 9/11 but to no avail. 9/11 actually became the proverbial straw.. And it took another month for the US to lauch the attack on Afghanistan..

well im also referring to before 9/11
world never accepted taliban as a regime. therefore expecting any cooperation from them was once again illogical.

 

[karan.1970]

not at all. its not this simple. there is always room for diplomatic manoeuvring. instead musharraf agree to all demands over the phone without even consulting his corp commanders many of whom were against such move. turkey denied the use of its airbases when US had to attack iraq. now i agree that attacking iraq was different than afghanistan but the point is that you can always bargain to make sure u r on a safer side.

Turkey and Pakistan had a very different equation with USA at the time. Pakistan was an already sanctioned country. And there was really nothing that would stop US from carrying out its threat if it felt that Pakistan was siding with Taliban...

well no. they did not miscalculate. they knew they will be attacked and they knew they are not capable of fighting them on front. hence they retreated and attacked later.

If they didnt miscalculate, then they really didnt care about what would happen to Afghan civilians. And thats exactly the point we started this discussion on.. Taliban were the main party responsible for all the tragedy in Afghanistan...

low civilian causality figure in this age of technology is not surprising at all. its the cost plus a superpower failing to take control of the situation for last many years which matters. as far as obama is concerned, i very much agree with his policy. you cant simply carry on fighting with invisible enemy. its a fact that taliban are a part of afghanistan society. and they need to be brought into the political system by doing some give and take. a guarantee from taliban to not support al qaeda will be a gud starting point. then taking stock of your position on ground, you can try to bargain on human right issues as well.

I dont disagree with the approach of getting them into the mainstream, however the execution of his policy seems to be the stand of a pacifist..He is actually seeking an exit by sweeping the issues under the carpet because he doesnt have the stomach to finish the war Bush started..

 

[karan.1970]

well im also referring to before 9/11
world never accepted taliban as a regime. therefore expecting any cooperation from them was once again illogical.

Accepted or not, they were in charge of the country. And Pakistan was one of the countries that recognized them..

 

[ajpirzada]

Turkey and Pakistan had a very different equation with USA at the time. Pakistan was an already sanctioned country. And there was really nothing that would stop US from carrying out its threat if it felt that Pakistan was siding with Taliban...

sanctions or no sanctions, attacking a country which is recognised by world community is not as simple. gettin such an approval from UN was almost impossible. this brings us back to negotiation table which was left empty by mr. musharraf.


If they didnt miscalculate, then they really didnt care about what would happen to Afghan civilians. And thats exactly the point we started this discussion on.. Taliban were the main party responsible for all the tragedy in Afghanistan...

well u have only twisted the argument to support ur claim. i can twist this argument in my favour by simply saying that if they had not retreated, more afghans would have gotten killed. now doesnt this make taliban look much nicer?


I dont disagree with the approach of getting them into the mainstream, however the execution of his policy seems to be the stand of a pacifist..He is actually seeking an exit by sweeping the issues under the carpet because he doesnt have the stomach to finish the war Bush started..

yes his execution is very much debatable. but to discuss this we will also need to look at the limitations of only few possible options he is left with.

 

[ajpirzada]

Accepted or not, they were in charge of the country. And Pakistan was one of the countries that recognized them..

now u r just bulldozing the blame on them.
and why pakistan recognised them is a very different debate.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

w/o going point on point, the simple summary is following..

There may be media analysts in India who back the idea of talking to moderate taliban. Heck there are folks in India who think Taliban is a good idea and US should get the hell out of the region.. But then there would always be differing opinions in a country of 1.2 billion. The crux is that India has not till date officially backed the idea of good Taliban.

there can be difference of Opinion but maligining the gains made by ISI & calling Mullah Bradar a 'moderate Taliban' & saying that Quettta Shura wanted to shoot the trash out of it thats why Quetta Sura deliberately revealed the location of Mullah Bradar is something else

The question is not if India is on a backfoot in Afg or USA is not keeping India's interest in mind.. The question is if India is backing the line of good Taliban, and till now I have not seem any govt statements doing that.

there are consistent reports of Indians talking about 'policy change', why would they talk about it without any reason & moreover the Indian Option was to activate the India-Iran-Russia Nexus but Americans are in no mood to tolerate Iranians & Russkis, now the only convergence of interest is between India & Taliban thts why Taliban is sending signals to India & India is talking about approaching, the one & only, Gullbadin Hekmatyar, Interesting isn't it?

About Indian media, I will believe them, but then would you going forward or is your trust on Indian media restricted to articles that go your way

i posted them only because Indians do trust their Media, I can post all related articles form a neutral source next time, if you want & anything other than ToI is acceptable to me

 

[karan.1970]

now u r just bulldozing the blame on them.
and why pakistan recognised them is a very different debate.

not at all.. they had the almost whole country under their thumb at that time..

About pakistan recognizing them, I make the point only to show that Taliban had enough control in Afg that atleast 2 nations recognized them as a legitimate govt in Afg..

No intention to debate the reasons for recognition....

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

No attributable sources..No statements from named govt officials..

Are there any attributable sources from named government officials in the Washington Post article?

Are there even any named Afghan Taliban leaders allegedly released in the WaPo article?

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The cooperation was being saught for many months before 9/11 but to no avail. 9/11 actually became the proverbial straw.. And it took another month for the US to lauch the attack on Afghanistan..

What was the cooperation being sought and why were the Taliban offers of either trying OBL and Co. in Afghanistan or a mutually acceptable third nation not acceptable and evidence of a willingness to cooperate on the part of the Taliban regime?

 

[karan.1970]

sanctions or no sanctions, attacking a country which is recognised by world community is not as simple. gettin such an approval from UN was almost impossible. this brings us back to negotiation table which was left empty by mr. musharraf.

Its a bit of a hindsight 20/20.. I was in the US when 9/11 happened (8 blocks from the ground zero) .. At that time the sentiments were so strong that the GoA could have done anything and probably thats what Musharraf was thinking when he agreed. And the sanctions did get lifted.. didnt they..???

well u have only twisted the argument to support ur claim. i can twist this argument in my favour by simply saying that if they had not retreated, more afghans would have gotten killed. now doesnt this make taliban look much nicer?

For retreating yes... But they are the ones who led Afghanistan into that war to begin with.. So you can argue that they redeamed them self a teeny weeny bit by retreating, but not for leading the country into a disaster...

yes his execution is very much debatable. but to discuss this we will also need to look at the limitations of only few possible options he is left with.

I am reminded of a dialog from the Al Pacino"The scent of a woman".

Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew
what the right path was. Without exception, I knew, but I never took it.

You know why ?

It was too damn hard.

Thats the Obama story...


I think both of us have pretty strong views on this..How about we leave it at this...??

 

[karan.1970]

there can be difference of Opinion but maligining the gains made by ISI & calling Mullah Bradar a 'moderate Taliban' & saying that Quettta Shura wanted to shoot the trash out of it thats why Quetta Sura deliberately revealed the location of Mullah Bradar is something else



there is a consistent reports of Indians talking about 'policy change', why would they talk about it without any reason & moreover the Indian Option was to activate the India-Iran-Russia Nexus but Americans are in no mood to tolerate Iranians & Russkis, now the only convergence of interest is between India & Taliban thts why Taliban is sending signals to India & India is talking about approaching, the one & only, Gullbadin Hekmatyar, Interesting isn't it?



i posted them only because Indians do trust their Media, I can post all related articles form a neutral source next time, if you want & anything other than ToI is acceptable to me

But again.. Its all speculation till a change in the formal stand is seen.. Which is still not there.. I agree that thru irs machinations ISI and Pakistan has got the GoI a bit off balance at this time, but as I love saying..

Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost...