How to Bargain with the Taliban

[rangerrebew]

How to Bargain with the Taliban
Barnett Rubin
February 19, 2021
 

President Joe Biden will soon have to decide whether to withdraw the remaining 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by May 1, as stipulated by the February 2020 Doha agreement. According to the agreement’s original timeline, the withdrawal was supposed to be completed after the Taliban and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan had negotiated for 14 months over a political road map for the country leading to a ceasefire. But these talks started six months late and are still far from a settlement that could stabilize Afghanistan after U.S. troops leave. Withdrawal without progress toward a political settlement risks further collapse in Afghanistan, while unilaterally extending the troops’ stay would effectively abrogate the Doha agreement, embroiling the United States once again in full-scale war with the Taliban with no plausible plan for victory.

Biden may not be able to escape this dilemma, but he can at least mitigate the risk by recognizing there are more factors in play than just troop withdrawal and a political settlement. When the political negotiations envisioned by the Doha agreement were delayed, measures to remove sanctions on the Taliban and release thousands of Taliban detainees were delayed as well. As a result, an immediate U.S. withdrawal would leave Taliban prisoners in detention and an array of international sanctions against the group. This gives Washington an important source of leverage with the Taliban, who have long made international recognition and legitimacy a priority.

https://warontherocks.com/2021/02/how-to-bargain-with-the-taliban/

[rangerrebew]

The best way would be to put a bullet through their heads.  You can't negotiate with an unreasonable person any better than you can a drunk.

[sneakypete]

The best way would be to put a bullet through their heads.  You can't negotiate with an unreasonable person any better than you can a drunk.

@rangerrebew

The problem is we have people on our side who HAVE no reasoning ability,trying to negotiate with people who refuse to negotiate.

What we SHOULD do is tell them "No more kissy-face. You agree to a reasonable settlement that doesn't leave you retards in charge of the whole region,and we will allow you to live. Otherwise,no more Mr Nice Guy,and most of you are going to die."

[PeteS in CA]

Your negotiators need to be Ma Deuce and GAU-8 Avenger.

[sneakypete]

Your negotiators need to be Ma Deuce and GAU-8 Avenger.

@PeteS in CA

EVERYBODY pays attention when Ma Deuce speaks!

[Fishrrman]

How to "negotiate" with the Taliban:

Tell 'em they have two choices.
This:


Or else... this:

[sneakypete]

NOPE! We don't want to nuke anybody without just cause,like stopping WW-2. There were thousands of "innocents" killed in the nuclear bombing of Japan,but the reality is they were going to die anyhow fighting against us if we invaded. Chances are even more Japanese women and children would have died in that fighting than died due to dropping the bombs.

I personally had a friend (he is dead now) whose parents died in the fire bombing of Tokyo at the end of WW-2. He and his 2 sisters survived,and he was lucky enough to be adopted by a Polish diplomat after WW-2 ended. I think he was about 6 years old when this happened.

He may have been the world's only Japanese Polock. He already spoke Japanese when he was adopted,and then learned to speak Polish when the family that adopted him moved back to Poland. They all immigrated to the US when he was 15 or 16,and he joined the US Army when he was 18. He never really quite got English under control,but if you knew him you could generally understand what he was saying.

Can you imagine being a 100 percent Japanese boy with a name like Bobrowski?

Bo was most likely THE most positive person I have ever met in my life. I loved to call him on the phone when I was feeling down because every damn time he answered the phone,he was all excited about a new adventure he was off on or planning,and his excitement was contagious. He flew to Japan a couple of times each year to give speeches about his war experiences in VN (He was  a US Army Master Sgt in Special Forces when he retired,and the NCOIC of the Scuba Committee in Fla,IIRC). He enjoyed giving the speeches,and it provided him with free trips to Japan to visit his sisters.

Bo died several years ago,a few days before another trip to Japan. He started feeling bad,so he went to a local hospital on a Friday night because he didn't want to fly to Japan and be sick the whole time he was there,and he died there 2 days later. IIRC,it was hepatitis from shrapnel wounds he suffered in VN. Blood wasn't tested much back then,and there was a lot of "bad blood" given in transfusions. Another SF VN friend,Doug Miller,died of the same thing about a year earlier.

I still miss talking to Bo on the phone.