Inside the Secret Taliban Talks to End America’s Longest War

[TomSea]

TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS
Inside the Secret Taliban Talks to End America’s Longest War
The Taliban are open to the idea of keeping U.S. troops on Afghan soil, a retired Army colonel and ex-U.S. ambassador learned during months of quiet diplomacy.
Spencer Ackerman
08.02.18 8:00 AM ET

If the United States’ longest foreign war actually draws to a negotiated close, a significant amount of credit will go to a former U.S. Army colonel and a former senior U.S. diplomat.

In November, Chris Kolenda and Robin Raphel boarded a plane to Doha, Qatar, for a conversation with Taliban representatives. It was the beginning of a quiet channel, never authorized by U.S. officials—who neither paid them nor asked them to carry any messages—that proved to be instrumental in convincing the Trump administration, and particularly senior Pentagon and U.S. military officials, that there was a real chance to broker an end to the war.

Kolenda, an Afghanistan veteran himself, had been here before. He had been part of an ultimately fruitless attempt during the Obama administration to talk with the Taliban. But this time, talking with the Taliban in Doha, “I was struck by what I detected was a much higher level of seriousness about bringing the conflict to a close than I saw in 2011,” Kolenda told The Daily Beast.
“They said that if an inclusive government... wants [U.S.] forces to be in the country... the Taliban said they would be OK with that.”
— Chris Kolenda

Article continues at: https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-secret-taliban-talks-to-end-americas-longest-war?ref=scroll

Interesting though more reading than one might want.

[WarmPotato]

Very good topic

[TomSea]

This is actually, one of the best articles I have read and posted here.

The subject is quite intriguing in that, we went to Afghanistan because the Taliban essentially harbored Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. Now, perhaps, we are making a deal with them. Heck, it would be 15 more years of war... and we will likely, from the article, have troops remaining there for the foreseeable future. It's not winning the war but it's not losing it either. Sort of the point of the article.