Negotiating with the Taliban

[icenine]

Originally Posted by whell

BS. This is completely different. Iran is a nation. The Taliban is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement that we have now legitimized.

you are crazy joke


you think they care about a concept such as legitimization?

[icenine]

Originally Posted by whell

North Vietnam is was a nation that we were at war with...sort of No comparison.

Actually North Vietnam is Vietnam. They won the war remember?
And now they sort of need us to counter Chinese influence.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Iran is the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism and the Contras were not a nation. And yes, the Taliban were the leaders of a nation when we went to war with them. In fact, that was the reason we went to war with them (their nation, Afghanistan, was a safe haven for OBL).

Aging does sometimes cause a short term memory problem.

[icenine]

Leave the geo-political discussion to such intellectual and General Schedule heavyweights such as Finnbow and myself Whelly.

Just run along to your false debt crisis...hey I think Tom Coburn is on MSNBC look!

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by whell

North Vietnam is was a nation that we were at war with...sort of No comparison.

Communists in Vietnam who kill people or Radical Islamists In Afghanistan who kill people;

What's the difference?

Dave

[BlueStreak]

We negotiated with Soviet Communists too. Didn't we invite Khrushchev to Disneyland?

[Ike Bana]

Whenever there's a mention about our war with the evil N. Vietnamese commies, I'm pretty much obliged to note the following:

1944-1947: Ho Chi Minh Reaches out to US; US Diplomats Note He Has No Direct Ties to Soviet Union
Edit event

Ho Chi Minh is leading the Vietminh—a popular movement of Catholics, Buddhists, small businessmen, communists and farmers—in their fight for Vietnam’s independence from the French. He makes a dozen appeals to US President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee for help, insisting he is not a communist and suggesting that Indochina could be a “fertile field for American capital and enterprise.” He even mentions the possibility of allowing a US base in Camranh Bay. Likewise, US diplomats in Vietnam in their communications to Washington note that he has no direct ties to the Soviet Union and that he is a “symbol of nationalism and the struggle for freedom to the overwhelming majority of the population.” Major Archimedes L. A. Patti of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) later writes that Ho “pleaded not for military or economic aid,… but for understanding, for moral support, for a voice in the forum of western democracies. But the United States would not read his mail because, as I was informed, the DRV Government was not recognized by the United States and it would be ‘improper’ for the president or anyone in authority to acknowledge such correspondence.” Instead, the US will help the French—even offering them two atomic bombs. Ho Chi Minh is eventually forced in 1950 to look to the USSR and China for support. [Herring, 1986, pp. 10; Pilger,1986, pp. 188]

The man asked this country for help and got buttfucked. As with most of our other braindead geopolitical decision making since the end of WWII...this country ends up with the nightmare it created.

[Rajoo]

This is either to create a new controversy with a lose interpretation of the facts (Benghazi anyone?), or yet another basis for justification of an impeachment.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2014/06/07/5-high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-for-which-obama-deserves-to-be-impeached-n1848801"]http://townhall.com/columnists/johnh...ached-n1848801[/URL]

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Iran is the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism and the Contras were not a nation. And yes, the Taliban were the leaders of a nation when we went to war with them. In fact, that was the reason we went to war with them (their nation, Afghanistan, was a safe haven for OBL).

Weren't elements of the Taliban part of the Mujahidin that we armed under Reagan to fight the Soviets?

Suggested reading for Whell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

[donquixote99]

In a perfect world (from the American nationalistic point-of-view) we would never have to negotiate with anyone. We would just express our wishes and all others would rush to obey. Alas, we in fact do not enjoy that level of cooperation from foreigners.

So, in this imperfect world, we must make hard choices. In this case, we could negotiate with the Taliban, thus according them some level of legitimacy, but getting our soldier returned. Or we could withhold that increment of legitimacy, dealing either a slight or a great blow to their cause (who can say?), but leaving our soldier to his fate.

Why do I have the feeling that whichever course the President had followed, Whell would be on here claiming it was blatantly the wrong thing to do?