Talking to the Taliban/ANA Update/Beyond Uppestdate: Karzai clanger

Not as simple as many Canadian opposition politicians and pundits (really disgusting example here) seem to believe. A good piece of real reporting in the Globe and Mail:

If the West reaches out, will the Taliban talk?
Like previous failed attempts to negotiate, it remains unclear who from the Taliban is at the table, and whether they have their leader's blessing

(Another aspect of Globe "reporting" here, here and here.)

And another side to the matter:

Wooing Taliban could backfire, envoy warns

Canada's top envoy in Afghanistan warns wooing the Taliban could backfire on coalition forces if peaceful Afghans feel put out.

William Crosbie, Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, told reporters yesterday the gesture is pointless if others perceive the Taliban as being favoured...

Plus a bigger picture:

...
Peace talks watch

A Taliban spokesman denied on Saturday that any leaders of the militant movement had met with outgoing U.N. envoy in Afghanistan Kai Eide to discuss potential peace negotiations, as reported last week (AFP, FP). Afghan President Hamid Karzai will reportedly set up a traditional tribal meeting, or jirga, within the next six weeks, though it is unclear whether any militants will attend (Times of London).

And the New York Times takes a look at how Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan are structured (NYT, NYT-graphic). Pashtuns make up approximately 38 percent of Afghanistan's population [Uppestdate: Joshua Foust shreds the Times' piece at Registan.net] ...

Predate: Norman spectated:

THE COLUMN I’M GLAD I DIDN’T WRITE

Peace for sale in Afghanistan? | Greg Weston | Ottawa Sun

Until recently, anyone who suggested even talking to the Taliban as a possible step towards peace was branded a terrorist sympathizer by the Conservatives.

NDP leader Jack Layton, for instance, has been the target of Conservative derision for years, nicknamed “Taliban Jack” for his ardent position the war would never be won by fighting alone, and would ultimately involve negotiations with the enemy.

Memo to Greg: His ardent position has been that the war could be won by talk alone

Meanwhile, Paul Wells of Maclean's magazine misses that key point. More reaction to Mr Wells here.

Update: From BruceR. at Flit:

...

We always need to be seen, if only to satisfy ourselves, to be holding out the olive branch of peace. But really, given that the Taliban demands have not changed, and that their Dubai meetings with the UN and the Saudis appear to have achieved exactly squat, it would be fairly straightforward to assume that there has been no change to the conditions that made reconciliation unthinkable three years ago. The bad guys still think they can win this thing outright.

Ahmed Rashid has a different view. He says there's a window for negotiation because the Taliban's at high tide now, because they must know they can never take the cities. With respect to Rashid, I think that's mistaken: if I were an insurgent, I would only conclude that the waiting game can't work in the end when I saw capable, competent local security forces. If the cities will probably fall when the West leaves, why not wait?

It doesn't matter how good we Westerners are, because everyone knows we're going to leave sooner or later. The only thing I can see that brings the insurgency to the negotiating table for good is an Afghan army (possibly one supported by foreign advisors and airpower) that can demonstrably knock them for six if they try to repeat the early 1990s again. Is that achievable? That's the question this space has been trying to answer for the last nine months.

As for the ANA:

U.S. makes small strides in getting Afghan army fighting fit, but hurdles remain
...
The Americans are also trying to build a diverse Afghan army that reflects the country's ethnic makeup, and they have had some success in that endeavor.

The Afghan army is about 43 percent Pashtun, 32 percent Tajik, 12 percent Hazara and 10 percent Uzbek, with the rest made up of smaller ethnic groups, according to the U.S. military and an independent analysis by the International Crisis Group. That's roughly the same as the ethnic makeup of the population, although population numbers are at best estimates, because no census has been conducted here in decades.

The main problem, officials said, is geographic, not ethnic. The Pashtuns joining the army generally do not come from the heavily Pashtun areas of the south, such as Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where the Taliban insurgency is most concentrated.

Also, the senior officer corps is still weighted toward Tajiks, many of them former commanders of the Northern Alliance militia that battled the Taliban in the late 1990s...

...A small group of young Afghan recruits interviewed together at the training camp said they felt more allegiance to the country and the army than to their ethnic group, and they blamed ethnic divisions for much of the country's strife over the previous three decades.

"The last time, every tribe just fought for itself, and that's why Afghanistan got destroyed," said Mohamed Sadiq, 21, a recruit from Wardak province. "I want the young generation to just fight the enemies of Afghanistan, and not just for the tribe."..

Upperdate:Terry Glavin takes another shot in a lengthy piece:

Wrong Exit in Afghanistan
Latest promise of peace talks is a cruel hoax to Afghan rights and civil society groups.

Another post that just grew.

Beyond uppestdate: Afghan President Karzai, in a generally well-spoken interview with Spiegel Online about negotiating possibilities, drops a real clanger if anyone notices it (think Kaiser and Führer) in an effort to, er, curry favour with the Germans:

...
Karzai: Germany has a very particular place in Afghanistan. All other countries are called "foreigners." But you are called "Germans." That has to do with our history and the behavior of Germans in Afghanistan. Germany has stuck with Afghanistan through difficult times -- through thick and thin, as they say -- for almost a century...

In the mid-70s I often lunched at a very good German restaurant in Kabul, Jägerschnitzel excellent.