The Wings of a Dove

"Everything's connected," Rebus insisted.
In a world where a few powerful men
determined the fate of nations,
"it wasn't so much the underworld
you had to fear as the overworld."
--Exit Music, Ian Rankin

I'm trying to go around the minefield these days
and not blunder into them.
But I do think you have to talk to enemies
--Gen. David Petraeus, on Afghanistan and the Taliban

The conventional view serves to protect one
from the painful job of thinking
--John Kenneth Galbraith

____________

Aside from feathering his bed for future promotion to chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff in an Obama administration, one must ask what Gen. Petraeus means when he says we must "talk to [our] enemies"? What would the U.S. say to the Taliban?

If the reason for the war was to destroy Taliban support for al Qaeda, that mission has been accomplished. The Taliban has received the message that support for al Qaeda is no longer a good thing, as Ms. Stewart would say. This was accomplished without discussion, so what's to say?

Whatever the U.S. would talk about would reveals the lie at the heart of COIN policy. That lie is that the U.S. wanted to free the Iraqi people from dictatorship when, in fact, the U.S. wants to externally impose its value system upon another country. The Taliban remains a threat to the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai, but the Taliban is not a threat to the U.S., per se.

The weakness of COIN lies in its presumptions. You cannot impose internal security upon any country from an external footing, especially is they do not want your presence. The U.S. goals are not the goals of Afghanistan. Maybe Petraeus realizes that, contrary to FM 3-24, the U.S. and NATO cannot kill every Taliban opposing the occupation.

Ostensibly our efforts are aimed at shoring up and institutionalizing the Afghan government. However, if one believes the false premise that the Afghan government has sovereignty, then the U.S. should NOT negotiate with the Taliban. Such negotiations should be within the purview of the Afghan government, as it is their war and their country.

The official U.S. line is that Taliban is a terror organization that supported terror organizations like al Qaeda. We then invaded helter-skelter following 9-11 to destroy and deny safe haven to these nasty people. Then the U.S. establishes a token government supposedly the counterpoint to terrorism. At least, that is what FOX news tells me. The problem for the U.S. is, we do not know what victory smells like in Afghanistan.

Are Afghanistan and Iraq to function as U.S. possessions, falling under our protective umbrella? Does this mean we will soon be sending them tinned cling peaches in heavy syrup from the USDA, and will they soon be battling obesity as a result of our largesse, like the Samoans? Is it o.k. to negotiate in Afghanistan but not in Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba?

There is a further legalistic problem: The Taliban has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, therefore, the U.S. may not negotiate with them. The U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists, period. So what is a newly sympathetic General, or even presidential contender, to do?

Here is a novel idea: why not negotiate before you start shooting? We reckon General Petraeus now wants to negotiate because there are no more stars to squeeze out of this war.