Decisive military victory in Afghanistan is impossible and the Taliban may well be part of a long-term solution for the country, the senior British commander in Afghanistan was quoted as saying Sunday. The Sunday Times newspaper quoted Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith as saying that "we're not going to win this war."
[France's weekly Le Canard Enchaine] said the French cable reported that Cowper-Coles had said Afghanistan might best be "governed by an acceptable dictator" and that the cable quoted him as saying foreign troops were adding to the country's problems by helping shore up a failing government in Kabul.
Cowper-Coles was quoted as saying that "the American strategy is destined to fail" and that the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan was "part of the problem, not the solution." The prospect of a dictatorship "is the only realistic one and we must get public opinion ready to accept it," the report quotes the alleged cable as saying.
The newspaper, a weekly publication known for its investigative stories, published excerpts of the cable, including a passage that quoted the British ambassador as criticizing both U.S. presidential candidates over pledges to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
"It is the American presidential candidates who must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan," an extract of the cable published by the newspaper quoted Cowper-Coles as saying.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=AP&SE...
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...is that they were involved in that part of the world for over 200 years. They developed a bureaucracy (and a history of it) that they look back on as being "successful" (if the generations they were is any measure). I am reading a book, "The Tournament of Shadows", in which they have no apologies for how they dealt with the politics of those times or places.
We, on the other hand, actually believe that everyone (no matter what their "culture") desire only liberty and democracy. It will be interesting to see how we leave this region when we decide to leave.
Maybe that's why the British would accept a dictator for Afghanistan. Their years of colonial rule have taught them that democracy is not for everyone.
By Nic Robertson
CNN Senior International Correspondent
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Taliban leaders are holding Saudi-brokered talks with the Afghan government to end the country's bloody conflict -- and are severing their ties with al Qaeda, sources close to the historic discussions have told CNN.
King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia hosted meetings between the Afghan government and the Taliban, a source says.
King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia hosted meetings between the Afghan government and the Taliban, a source says.
The militia, which has been intensifying its attacks on the U.S.-led coalition that toppled it from power in 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, has been involved four days of talks hosted by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, says the source.
The talks -- the first of their kind aimed at resolving the lengthy conflict in Afghanistan -- mark a significant move by the Saudi leadership to take a direct role in Afghanistan, hosting delegates who have until recently been their enemies.
They also mark a sidestepping of key "war on terror" ally Pakistan, frequently accused of not doing enough to tackle militants sheltering on its territory, which has previously been a conduit for talks between the Saudis and Afghanistan.
According to the source, fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar -- high on the U.S. military's most-wanted list -- was not present, but his representatives were keen to stress the reclusive cleric is no longer allied to al Qaeda.
Details of the Taliban leader's split with al Qaeda have never been made public before, but the new claims confirm what another source with an intimate knowledge of the militia and Mullah Omar has told CNN in the past.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/06/afghan.saudi.talks/?iref...