America Willing to Negotiate with the Taliban?
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Hold the cheers! We’ve been down this road before. Nothing came of it, nor will anything now.
Washington doesn’t negotiate. It demands. Agreements with other nations and groups are meaningless, usually breached, sometimes straightaway like the Iran nuclear deal, violated by Washington under Obama and Trump.
Last August, Tillerson claimed Washington’s “new strategy breaks from previous approaches that set artificial, calendar-based deadlines,” adding:
“We are making clear to the Taliban that they will not win on the battlefield.”
“The Taliban has a path to peace and political legitimacy through a negotiated political settlement to end the war. We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions.”
After 16 years of US naked aggression, the Taliban aren’t fooled by its phony outreach.
It would likely decline talks with Washington unless it ceased combat operations and agreed unconditionally to pull all its forces out of the country – a nonstarter for all US administrations.
At the time, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid dismissed comments from Washington, calling on its regime to withdraw all its troops.
“The main driver of war in Afghanistan is foreign occupation,” he stressed.
On Monday, Tillerson showed up unannounced in the country, arriving in a military transport plane at the Pentagon’s illegal Bagram airbase.
He’ll meet with US-installed Afghan officials in a windowless bunker for protection. Hated Americans risk being attacked. Coming to Kabul is dangerous.
Tillerson didn’t risk a visit to America’s heavily fortified embassy in the city. Taliban fighters wanting US troops out of the country can show up anywhere.
Tillerson downplayed the deplorable state of things. US aggression and occupation bear full responsibility.
He disgracefully lied, claiming “Afghanistan has come quite a distance already in terms of creating a much more vibrant population, a much more vibrant government, education system, a larger economy.”
“So there are opportunities to strengthen the foundations of a prosperous Afghanistan society” – never under illegal US occupation.
Tillerson unambiguously said America intends to stay, what I called permanent occupation in earlier articles, using the country for oil and gas pipelines, part of encircling Russia and China with US military bases, and plundering vast Afghan mineral riches – likely worth trillions of dollars.
Afghanistan is also the world’s largest opium producer. Heroin and other illicit drugs produce hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues – a US government-supported bonanza for corrupt regime officials, the CIA, organized crime and Western financial institutions, heavily involved in money laundering.
Pre-9/11, Afghanistan under Taliban rule eradicated 94% of opium production, according to UN estimates. America’s presence in the country revived it.
Tillerson claimed “there are…moderate voices among the Taliban…“There’s a place for them in the government if they are ready to come, renouncing terrorism, renouncing violence, and being committed to a stable prosperous Afghanistan.”
US state terrorism is the scourge all Afghans face, devastated by years of naked aggression. Taliban forces are fighting to rid their country of America’s presence.
They’ll likely continue for as long as it takes. Throughout its history, Afghanistan was a graveyard of empires, defeating would-be conquerors, foiling their ambitions, America’s lost war the latest example, perhaps continuing for another 16 years – a lost cause no matter how long it goes on.
Tillerson said the Taliban will never win militarily against America. Their strategy likely aims to outlast their enemy, wearing it down, hoping one day they’ll give up a lost cause and leave, a goal worth fighting for.
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