Us And Taliban To Open Direct Peace Talks In Qatar

[naomi24]

A good thing - or not?

[emmie]

it has been put off hasn't it?

[LazyGun]

No. a different set of bilateral talks between the current afghan government and the US has been postponed by the afghans in protest at the US announcement of their intention to talk with the Taleban. The intention to talk with the Taleban still stands, as far as I know....

[emmie]

what will the Afghans get out of this i wonder, more authoritarian rule..

[emmie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22973111

[LazyGun]

I am not surprised Kharzai is not happy with the US intention to enter negotiations with the Taleban, since any such negotiation threatens his own administration.

Such talks are not going to be easy or without setbacks, and people are right to be sceptical of the benefits.

[emmie]

i can't see any benefits for the ordinary Afghan can you, if the Taliban get some degree of control, then what, the women are so covered up, going on the news report yesterday, it's a wonder they can see where they are going, not to mention whether they get any chance of an education, or freedom from the tyranny of arranged marriages.

[LazyGun]

@Em No, I cannot imagine many normal afghans being energised at the prospect of the return of the Taliban, most especially afghan women. Emancipation and the Taliban do not go hand in hand.

About the only positive thing that come out of the talks in the short term is simply a cessation of hostilities, and a reduction in the numbers of people killed.Karzai has reached out to the Taliban before, but they have not wanted to talk to him, seeing his administration as a puppet show for the USA.

[emmie]

they may be right about Kharzai, however the women need to be able to do better than be saddled with more of the same.

[keyplus90]

I said years ago that the time will come when Taliban will become good people again. After all Americans need a safe passage to get their soldiers out of another lost war where so many innocent people have been killed from both sides.

[LazyGun]

Negotiating with the Taliban ( currently on hold following the squabble between Karzai and the USA) does not mean that they are "the good guys again".

They seem quite happy to carry on killing US servicemen even with the announcement of prospective talks.

And the idea that the US need "safe passage" out of Afghanistan is laughable. We are not back in 1842.

It was a war borne out of the need for revenge and righteous anger, that suffered mission creep and had no exit strategy to speak of. Talking now is probably largely a face -saving exercise - a more meaningful settlement could maybe have been negotiated earlier, when exit dates had not been announced etc. Whilst we should not be in the business of setting up puppet states, transplanting a faux western democracy upon a country unused to such a political system, we should make some effort to gain some progressive changes to the culture over there.

I cannot imagine that the bulk of the afghan population, especially the women, are looking forward to the return of the Taliban....

[naomi24]

Keyplus, I remember you saying that the Taliban would one day be seen as 'heroes' - and I've no doubt to those with minds that remain entrenched in the Dark Ages, they are - but 'good people'? When were they ever 'good people'? Allah help Afghanistan - particularly its women!

[Zeuhl]

/When were they ever 'good people'? /

Naomi

The Taliban were not without popular support in Afghanistan when they first took power

Largely because they ousted a number of lawless and corrupt War Lords and promised the rule of law - which they did - albeit an extreme Pushtoon version of Sharia which suited some Afghans but repressed a good deal more

[Zeuhl]

em

In your comments on Germany and WW2, you seem to be confusing Concentration Camps and Extermination Camps - two very different things. Indeed, Concentration Camps were a British innovation during the South African Wars.

The first Extermination Camps were not built until 1942.
Himmler was the man in charge of setting up the programme.

[emmie]

i wasn't confusing the two, i said they built them long before war broke out, 1933 onwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps

[emmie]

did anyone watch the piece on the Afghani woman who was raped. She paid the penalty by being ostracised by her family, community, he got jail time i believe. She had a child from that rape, so was offered a place at a women's refuge, not liking it, don't know why, she left. Due to parental, community pressure she married the rapist. She must be desperately unhappy, he already had a wife and children and now treats her with such disdain, It was unbelievable and upsetting, i suspect that this is not an isolated case, and that The Taliban will impose even stricter regimes on the women folk if they get so much as a foothold in the governance of Afghanistan.

[emmie]

The first Nazi concentration camps were hastily erected in Germany in February 1933 immediately after Hitler became Chancellor and his NSDAP was given control over the police through Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick and Prussian Acting Interior Minister Hermann Göring.[1] Used to hold and torture political opponents and union organizers, the camps held around 45,000 prisoners by 1933 and were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of that year.[2]

Only about 3,000 inmates remained in the camps when in 1934–35 Heinrich Himmler's SS took full control of the police and concentration camps throughout Germany. It was then that Hitler allowed Himmler to start using the camps' facilities and personnel to purge German society of so-called "racially undesirable elements" such as Jews, criminals, homosexuals, and Romani people.[2]

[naomi24]

Zeuhl, //The Taliban were not without popular support in Afghanistan when they first took power //

That didn't make them 'good people' though.

[emmie]

they may have had some support, by misogynists and nutters, the women and children are the ones who pay the price. I can only see more trials and tribulations for the women, their lives are hard enough as it is.

[jomifl]

//the unhappy prospect of life under a theocracy//
I can't believe you wrote that Sandy.

[emmie]

assume he did mean it

taken literally or strictly, theocracy means rule by God or gods and refers primarily to an internal "rule of the heart", especially in its biblical application. The common, generic use of the term, as defined above in terms of rule by a church or analogous religious leadership, would be more accurately described as an ecclesiocracy.