Afghanistan: President Karzai's spokesman said Wednesday that Afghanistan has suspended Bilateral Security Agreement talks with the US and that Afghanistan will not pursue peace talks with the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations.
The spokesman explained President Karzai took the action because of a contradiction between what the US says and does.
Comment: The Afghan government judges it has been betrayed by the US in agreeing to talks with the Islamic Emirate. Afghanistan said no such entity exists. It was told the Doha office was only for negotiations.
Qatar said the Taliban betrayed their promise to open only a political office of the Taliban. Qatari authorities were persuaded to force the Taliban to take down their flag and their Islamic Emirate plaque. The US said the Afghan government had been kept fully informed.
The Taliban statement yesterday did not mention participation in talks by the Karzai government, which it does not recognize. The Karzai administration suspects the US agreed to talks without the participation of the Karzai government. Statements by unidentified officials yesterday said precisely that, but added that they hoped that the Karzai government eventually could join the talks once they got underway.
Another unidentified US official was quoted today saying that the purpose of the talks with the Taliban is to “disentangle nationalist jihadist forces” from “al Qaida's transnational jihadist agenda.” ??? That statement is clearly misguided or misquoted because it seems to imply it would be okay to kill US forces so long as the nationalist jihadist forces did the killing.
The talks had been billed as an effort to reduce the fighting. They seem muddled and poorly managed. An inaugural session set for 20 June has been canceled.
And the killing of US soldiers continued today at Bagram Airfield where four more US soldiers died in an attack claimed by the Taliban. The prospective talks have no impact on the security situation. The Taliban said their purpose in talking was to achieve peace and reconciliation in an Islamic system. They might bolt
Phi Beta Iota: When the US commander in Kabul is not busy killing contractors by forcing them to ride in GUARDIAN ANGEL, an idiot's answer to a capital city under indigenous control, he plays host to a US inter-agency delegation that is out of its mind — clueless about where they are or why they are there. These people are so useless they might as well be back in Washington. The US created Karzai — the most corrupt and well-placed of all the warlords of Afghanistan, with a brother beloved by Wall Street for the cash liquidity that his opium harvests converted into heroin in Pakistan produce — and the US has no idea that Pakistan is the key to their exist, not the Taliban and certainly not Karzai. Mutlinational talks, including Russia and China and India as honored observers with voice, and a working interaction with Turkey and Iran, is the way to go. Karzai needs to be told that if he interferes he will be left to hang. The really bad news is that as long as the USA continues to field the third string, Karzai is the most competent answer available for the near-term, and the USA should plan to lose as many people in 2014 as they have in the past four years. As in football, the Taliban will “leave no doubt” as to who is in charge of Afghanistan.
