I’ve been so busy with work and family lately that I missed something important. I should’ve asked why Senator Jawn Kerry went to Afghanistan to meet with Hamid Karzai last month. You have to know what’s coming when Jaaaawn Kerry is anywhere near the President’s 3-month decsion-making process on Afghanistan per the July (urgent) troop request from Obama’s hand-picked General in charge of operations there (link). Ok, the official reason he went was he happened to be traveling in the area and stopped by to help out with the elections.
But since the elections were (inscrutably) part of President Obama’s decision-making process on whether to fulfill the urgent troop request by General McChrystal, this is part of shaping his plan for Afghanistan.
As we’ve known for some time, Jawn Kerry is a surrender monkey of the worst kind. Remember, he met with the enemy in Paris while his brothers-in-arms were still fighting the United States North Vietnamese.
This could explain the post at Memriblog (h/t: Mudville Gazette) where a Saudi newspaper quotes an Afghan source as saying that the US is willing to surrender some territories in Afghanistan to the Taliban in exchange for a halt to missile strikes (link):
Afghan Source: The U.S. Has Offered the Taliban Control in Return for Quiet
An Afghan source in Kabul reports that U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry is holding secret talks with Taliban elements headed by the movement’s foreign minister, Ahmad Mutawakil, at a secret location in Kabul. According to the source, the U.S. has offered the Taliban control of the Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces in return for a halt to the Taliban missile attacks on U.S. bases.
Source: Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), November 22, 2009
(Note that Ambassador Eikenberry was who Kerry stayed with on his trip one month ago) This dovetails with the apparent shift by the administration in referring to the Taliban and Al Qaeda members on different terms. I don’t think, when you have Taliban fighters attacking your bases, that you can distinguish between the two. Also, the Taliban government offered Pashtunwali (link) sanctuary to the Al Qaeda after 9/11, so how will you maintain the hunt for Al Qaeda and not offend their sensibilities?
If you remember reading Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, the Pashtunwali code was what allowed US Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell to be cared for in a village and have the villagers not give him up to the Taliban, who even knocked at the door. Their code of hospitality means once you accept someone as your guest, you pretty much accept his baggage like enemies as well.
It seems as though the administration will be attempting to thread a nearly impossible needle, and you’ve gotta think the analysis on this by Threatswatch.org is keen (link):
Kunar province borders the Khyber Pass region where the majority of US and NATO supplies pass enroute from Pakistan. And the remaining four provinces constitute fully the southern 25% of Afghanistan’s territory.
This, if true, is a disturbing development.
I have tried to come up with scenarios of why someone would lie about it in a leak. What would be to gain? Who would gain, and what would they gain? Without sleeping on it, the options for such appear narrow at best.
What does seem logical is that an Afghan privy to the negotiations could have become (rightly) spooked that they might just pull it off, and leaked word in hopes that it might so anger American public opinion that the entire endeavor might be scrapped. That’s the most logical explanation for motivation I see at the moment.
It would also fit in consistently with Ambassador Eikenberry’s leaked cables recently railing against a ‘surge’ in forces in Afghanistan. He wouldn’t voice such without thinking he has his hands on something else. Could this be it? The surrender of 25% of Afghan territory in exchange for some form of ceasefire?
One would hope not. But if so, this demonstrated type of ‘effort’ in Afghanistan would prove to be the strongest indication that it may be time to advocate the full pullout of American forces from Afghanistan.
It’s difficult to fathom why we would do any of this, but it sounds like we’re giving up. And whether he was on the ballot or not, when the American people elected Barack Obama, we got John Kerry.