Us And Taliban To Open Direct Peace Talks In Qatar

[naomi24]

A good thing - or not?

[naomi24]

Sorry, forgot the link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22957819

[emmie]

should have done this ages ago, not sure it will help the ordinary Afghans seeing they are the ones who will have to live alongside them if a peace deal is brokered. Worse is no one knows what the Taliban want, if it's to bring their ways to all people in Afghanistan that is the worse possible scenario.

[emmie]

4 American soldiers have been killed today, perhaps yesterday, shouldn't the politicians be sorting this out, instead of sitting on the fence, no more deaths of soldiers or Afghanis

[emmie]

killed after the news about the peace talks

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22963576

[Twenty20]

After all those years fighting them, what a waste of lives. I hope Tony Blair feels proud for what he did.

[emmie]

more complicated than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29

[sandyRoe]

I wonder how long it will be before President Karzai and his looted millions are on a flight to comfortable exile in the West and the Taliban are in the corridors of power in Kabul?
The ending of violence can only be a good thing but the Afghani people face the unhappy prospect of life under a theocracy.

[mikey4444]

Yet another attempt to blame Blair for everything ! Lets keep doing this and we can all feel better, rather than actually do anything constructive.

[emmie]

he was in part responsible, and Bush, and the others who kept on sending our troops. If the Taliban take over as many fear then Afghanistan will be as badly off as before.

[emmie]

he was PM at the time, and made those decisions -

[ladybirder]

I nearly spat my cornflakes out at that remark. Blair doesn't get blamed for everything else there would be nothing to blame Cameron for.

[douglas9401]

It's been nothing more than a grotesque job creation exercise coupled with a great moneyspinner.
Nothing has changed an nothing ever will.
America seems to treat life as a bad soap opera where they cut from one scene to another with no thought for continuity or the future.
All the choreographed flag folding and rifle spinning in the world won't make it any different.

[Svejk]

To be fair, it was an Al Qaeda training camp under the Taliban.
Goodness knows what might happen to 'collaborators' if the Talibs take over. I can't imagine we'd go back in.

[LazyGun]

An inevitable thing. It was never an issue that could be won with a military campaign. It would be nice if, once in a while, politicians took on board the lessons of history.

The cost has been enormous - in lost lives; afghan civilians, US and UK servicemen, insurgents- to say nothing of the resource cost to the taxpayer. The mission was ill-defined and suffered from mission creep - initially to combat al-quaeda training grounds, it rapidly expanded to the installation of a government. Another mission with an extremely poorly designed exit strategy.

You can never win a military victory against a determined insurrection. It is just a pity they did not recognise this sooner and start talks.

[ludwig]

// the talks are on condition that the Taliban renounce violence, break ties with al-Qaeda and respect the Afghan constitution - including the rights of women and minorities. //

I can't see any of that happening, whether they say it will or not.

[Octavius]

After 12 years of war its a good thing - about time, but how likely is it that the Taliban peace talkers can take any NATO peace agreement to the Taliban tribal warlords and apease their bloodthirst. There will be splitters all over the place.

[sandyRoe]

As the West has announced a time scale for going why should the Taliban talk? They just have to wait.

[Gromit]

I like to dig this link out of the archive every now and then. From 1997:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm

Just because they are talking doesn't mean anything useful will be achieved.

[jake-the-peg]

There was a reason to go into Afghanistan in the first place which was to

a/ Attempt to aprehend those responsible for 9/11
b/ Stop Al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a safe haven to operate from.


Now there's a fair argument that we should have persued other courses of action but after 9/11 the mood wasn't condusive to aional debate - people wanted blood

Somewhere along the line the fight changed and it all got bogged down into fighting a bunch of tribal warlords - big mistake!

We should have pulled out either when that became apparant or at least after the debarcle of the elections

If you don't have clear support from a large majority of the population then you're an occupying force - after those elections we're an occupying force!




As for these talks - what a joke!

We've already declared that we're all pulling out in 2 years time - what on Earth do the Taliban have to gain from talks.

There will be a brief and bloody civil war when we all pull out and they'll be running the place again.

Meanwhile Al Qaeda are firmly entrenched in Noth Africa, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa

[emmie]

what people wanted blood, many in UK did not agree with intervention and still don't, include me in that. You make these sweeping statements thinking all were ready with pitchforks, tar and feather, the truth at least for the people of Britain was somewhat different.