American Samizdat

Tuesday, May 13, 2003. *
Afghanistan Roundup
Last week, there had been a few reports in Pakistani papers that Karzai was planning a secret meeting with members of the ousted Taliban to offer them positions in the foundering Afghani government. I didn't know how to gauge these stories, but the meme is snowballing. Muhammad Khurshid of paknews.com points out that, as with many other major moves by Karzai, extending a hand to moderate Taliban is a U.S. machination:
The United States has also realised that these people have no importance in the political landscape of Afghanistan and this is the reason that it has given a go ahead signal to Afghan transitional president Hamid Karzai to establish contacts with Taliban leaders to persuade them to give up armed struggle against the US forces.
A prime target for Karzai is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the fundamentalists we supported in the Afghani-Soviet conflict.

This has left many Afghanis in a tizzy, most notably our oh-so-recent allies, the Northern Alliance, who helped us "kick out" the Taliban a long, long time ago in 2002. This report from the Swiss press indicates that many Afghani citizens aren't too happy with Karzai's plan either.

Perhaps the move is intended to internally divide the Taliban, some factions of which are, by their own account, being funded by the Russians.

But, hey, don't worry about a thing. The Pentagon says everything's all right. Everything's all right. Everything's all right.
posted by Anonymous at 1:22 AM
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