A Level Gaze |
|
|
"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual." --G.C. Lichtenberg LinksNew Email Address! levelgaze@gmail.com Blogs NoWarBlog The Lefty Directory The Agonist aintnobaddude alicublog Alas, a Blog Altercation Ambivalent Imbroglio AmericaBlog American Street Amygdala Anger Management Angry Bear Armed Liberal Bad Attitudes Barney Gumble Bartcop Beyond Corporate Billmon Blah3 Body and Soul Booman Tribune Brad DeLong Busy Busy Busy Buzzflash By Neddie Jingo Calculated Risk CalPundit Chase me ladies Chris Nelson Contested Terrrain Cooped Up Conceptual Guerilla corrente Counterspin Crooked Timber Daily Howler Daily Kos Decembrist Demosthenes Driftglass D-Squared Digest Electrolite Eschaton Ethel Ezra Klein Fafblog! Fanatical Apathy Firedoglake First Draft Fistful of Euros get donkey! Globblog The Hamster Here's What's Left Horowitz Watch Housing Bubble Hullabaloo Intl News Istanblog James Wolcott Jesus' General Juan Cole Junius Lean Left Left Coast Breakdown Letter from Gotham Liberal Oasis MacDiva MadKane Mahablog Majikthise Making Light Marginal Revolution Mark Kleiman Matthew Yglesias MaxSpeak Media Whores Online Michael Finley Michael Froomkin MyDD My Left Wing Nathan Newman Off the Kuff Oliver Willis Orcinus Pandagon Pen-Elayne Pfaffenblog PLA The Poor Man R.B. Ham Raed in the Middle Ragout Raw Story ReachM High Cowboy Rittenhouse Review The Road to Surfdom Roger Ailes Rude Pundit Ruminate This Seeing the Forest Seize the Fish Self Made Pundit Sideshow Sirotablog Sisyphus Shrugged Skippy Slacktivist South Knox Bubba Steve Gilliard Talking Points Memo Talk Left The Talking Dog Tapped TBogg Ted Barlow Testify! Thinking It Through Through the Looking Glass TNR Online Tres Producers TRR Two Tears in a Bucket uggabugga Unknown News Vaara Wampum War Liberal Winning Argument Wonkette WTF Is It Now General Interest BBC News The Economist Metafilter RealPolitik Robot Wisdom 
Archives 
|
Monday, June 14, 2004
So Much for Nation Building The Agonist points to a fascinating Overseas Security Advisory Council article, entitled "UK Holds Indirect Talks with Taliban." LAHORE: The UK has started holding indirect talks with the Taliban to seek an "honourable" exit from Afghanistan, MMA [Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal - the six-party alliance that runs Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province] secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who is mediating between the two, told Dawn by phone here on Sunday. If we're looking to bug out of Afghanistan, why are we negotiating with the Taliban? Did we do such a bad job of rebuilding the country and setting up the Karzai government that we have to ask the Taliban's permission to leave? It appears that the Bush administration believes that as soon as we drop the strings, our puppet government will cease to be and Mullah Omar's goons will march in and take over. And we have to make nice with them so they won't make the transition worse than it has to be. If I recall correctly, we killed an awful lot of them en route to driving them from power in the first place. I can't begin to imagine why they'd want to help us when we approach them from such a craven position. If this is true, then, with the exception of the capture of Saddam, the Bush administration is batting a perfect .000 in the War on Terror. I've long thought we were going to let Karzai's government fail. I never imagined we'd have to ask the Taliban's permission to do so. I don't remember having seen anything about it before, but the OSAC appears to be very much legit. 
|