"Is It Time To Negotiate With The Taliban?"

Suspected Taliban militants attacked a ceremony attended by the Afghan president on Sunday, unleashing automatic weapons fire that sent foreign dignitaries and senior members of the government fleeing for cover.

Three people, including a lawmaker, were killed and eight were wounded. President Hamid Karzai, Cabinet ministers and ambassadors escaped unharmed, the presidential palace said.

Karzai later appeared on television saying several suspects in the attack had been arrested.

He said that "the enemy of Afghanistan" tried to disrupt the ceremony but were thwarted by security forces.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had deployed six militants with suicide vests and guns to target the president. Spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed said three had died.

     After the nearly seven years of American, British and NATO occupation of Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgency is still strong, as evident in today's very public assassination attempt on the US puppet President, Hamid Karzai.

Karzai was escorted from scene, surrounded by bodyguards, in one of four black Landcruisers. A U.S. embassy official said U.S. Ambassador William Wood also escaped unharmed.

Along with lawmaker Fazel Rahman Samkanai, a local Shiite leader and a 10-year-old boy also died in the attack, officials said.

"President Karzai condemns this act and asks for all the people to remain calm," a statement from the presidential palace said.

Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since soon after a U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001, has been targeted by assassins before and is constantly shadowed by a phalanx of bodyguards.

The attack came despite unprecedented tight security for Sunday's celebrations.

      By now the American, British and NATO occupational forces should realize the Taliban cannot be defeated or driven out of Afghanistan and follow the lead of the the Pakistan government and negotiate a peace and power sharing deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan. In my opinion, when the Bush Administration first invaded and occupied Afghanistan, the Taliban should not have been banned but allowed to remain under moderate leadership, which I believe would have ultimately lead to the apprehension Osama Bin Ladin and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader giving sanctuary to Bin Ladin and al-Queda. What is the Taliban and the origin of the Taliban?

The Taliban initially had enormous goodwill from Afghans weary of the corruption, brutality and incessant fighting of Mujahideen warlords. Two contrasting narratives of the beginnings of the Taliban are that the rape and murder of boys and girls from a family traveling to Kandahar or a similar outrage by Mujahideen bandits sparked Mullah Omar and his students to vow to rid Afghanistan of these criminals. The other is that the Pakistan-based truck shipping mafia known as the "Afghanistan Transit Trade" and their allies in the Pakistan government, trained, armed and financed the Taliban to clear the southern road across Afghanistan to the Central Asian Republics of extortionate bandit gangs.

The first major military activity of the Taliban was in October-November 1994 when they marched from Maiwand in southern Afghanistan to capture Kandahar City and the surrounding provinces, losing only a few dozen men. Starting with the capture of a border crossing and a huge ammunition dump from warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a few weeks later they freed "a convoy trying to open a trade route from Pakistan to Central Asia" from another group of warlords attempting to extort money. In the next three months this hitherto "unknown force" took control of twelve of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, with Mujahideen warlords often surrendering to them without a fight and the "heavily armed population" giving up their weapons. By September 1996 they captured Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.

The Taliban's extremely strict and "anti-modern" ideology has been described as an "innovative form of sharia combining Pashtun tribal codes", or Pashtunwali, with radical Deobandi interpretations of Islam favored by members of the Pakistani fundamentalist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) organization and its splinter groups. Also contributing to the admixture was the Wahhabism of their Saudi financial benefactors, and the jihadism and pan-Islamism of sometime comrade-in-arms Osama bin Laden. Their ideology was a departure from the Islamism of the anti-Soviet mujahideen rulers they replaced who tended to be mystical Sufis, traditionalists, or radical Islamicists inspired by the Ikhwan.

Sharia law was interpreted to ban a wide variety of activities hitherto lawful in Afghanistan, see below. Critics complained that most Afghans were non-Pashtuns who followed a different, less strict and less intrusive interpretation of Islam. Despite their similarity to the Wahhabis, the Taliban did not eschew all traditional popular practices. They did not destroy the graves of pirs (holy men) and emphasized dreams as a means of revelation

The Taliban ideology was not static. Before its capture of Kabul members of the Taliban talked about stepping aside once a government of "good Muslims" took power and law and order were restored. The decision making process of the Taliban in Kandahar was modeled on the Pashtun tribal council (jirga), together with what was believed to be the early Islamic model. Discussion was followed by a building of a consensus by the believers.

However, as the Taliban's power grew, decisions were made by Mullah Omar without consulting the jirga, and without Omar's visiting other parts of the country. He visited the capital, Kabul, only twice while in power.Decisions are based on the advice of the Amir-ul Momineen. For us consultation is not necessary. We believe that this is in line with the Sharia. We abide by the Amir's view even if he alone takes this view. There will not be a head of state. Instead there will be an Amir al-Mu'minin. Mullah Omar will be the highest authority and the government will not be able to implement any decision to which he does not agree. General elections are incompatible with Sharia and therefore we reject them

     As I see it, initially the Taliban was a positive group fighting for law and order in Afghanistan that was later corrupted by the Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Ladin. Initially the Taliban had no desire to govern Afghanistan but intended to give back control of the government to "good Muslims" that would preserve law and order in the land. I believe there are still moderate Taliban leaders who could work within a democratic Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai should resign and Afghnaistan should hold new elections allowing moderate Taliban leadership to politically participate. The rules of sound warfare dictate if you cannot defeat your enemy then negotiate with your enemy. Diplomacy many times is mightier than the sword.

tags: taliban  hamid karzai  afghanistan  peace  war  warpeace  us  war on terror  bush  

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