What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?
I might be afraid of ghosts and like dragons and those things, but I’m not afraid of the Taliban.
When we started after Osama bin Laden, we really decided to go after the Taliban. And we seemed to be content to kick the Taliban out of Kandahar. And then we let Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora.
If we’re so cruel to minorities, why do they keep coming here? Why aren’t they sneaking across the Mexican border to make their way to the Taliban?
We don’t want the Taliban to put down roots, or the al Qaeda to put down roots in Afghanistan that can facilitate Afghanistan becoming – once again – a launching pad for international terrorism.
The fact is that Iran doesn’t want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.
Islam tells us every girl and boy should be educated. I don’t know why the Taliban have forgotten it.
The Taliban outlawed wearing polish in the late 1990s, punishing some offenders by amputating a fingertip. Importing polish was banned only in July 2001, which suggests that women were still wearing painted nails within the safety of their homes.
Cults, or related social movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, result in massive military expenses.
In the early 2009, a campaign plan developed by Petraeus and General McChrystal to defeat the Taliban, they required a minimum force of 40,000. President Obama rejected that recommendation and provided 25 percent less. He also decided he would pull the force out in 12 to 15 months.
The book came after the fall of the Taliban, it says something about Afghan family life. Those kind of stories – what happens behind the scenes on a TV screen – are important.
It is very clear that the people in Afghanistan do not want the Taliban back.
In much of the world, there is a sense of an ultra-powerful CIA manipulating everything that happens, such as running the Arab Spring, running the Pakistani Taliban, etc. That is just nonsense.
Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That’s really the measure of success for the United States.
I don’t think you can rely on Iran. I don’t think you can rely on other radicals like the Taliban. They dispatched Al Qaida to bomb New York and Washington. What were they thinking? Were they that stupid? They weren’t stupid. There is an irrationality there, and there is madness in this method.
For years, Hizb-I-Islami fighters have had a reputation for being more educated and worldly than their Taliban counterparts, who are often illiterate farmers.
Negotiating with the Taliban must be done from a position of strength. Negotiating from a position of weakness would be a disaster.
By terrorising the people, the Taliban have sown deep doubts about the government.
President Trump should appoint a special presidential envoy and empower them to wage an unconventional war against Taliban and Daesh forces, to hold the corrupt officials accountable and to negotiate with their Afghan counterparts and the Afghan Taliban that are willing to reconcile with Kabul.
Fighting the Taliban and the various radical organizations on the front lines is like adding a Band-Aid to a cut, it may stop the bleeding but unless you clean it with antiseptic, the germs stay and multiply.
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