This Man Is Revered Among the Taliban. Can He End the Afghan War?

Can Mr. Baradar be persuaded to also take up the concerns of the women of Afghanistan, and perhaps bring them to the table? It will not be right if a return of peace to Afghanistan means a return to war against Afghan women.

We’ve seen this movie before. We will spend a lot of time negotiating a rational peace treaty. Then we leave, and the Taliban do whatever they want. Americans just absolutely hate admitting that a lot of lives and money were wasted. Politicians will proudly prattle that we won the peace. Meanwhile, westernized afghans will be murdered, and independent women will be raped and killed. Education will be destroyed, and Afghanistan will return to the fifth century. Let’s face it. America has lost every war since World War II. Nothing but chaos, destruction and death follow our withdrawals. I wish we would learn...but we won’t.

Have the Taliban promised to abide by any agreement they reach by "crossing their hearts"?; by "pinky swear"? Have the negotiators checked that the Taliban are not crossing their fingers behind their backs? Has the US learned nothing about negotiating with religious despots who will say anything to advance their position. Fool me once - shame on you, fool me twice - shame on me.

A clear case of ISI outmaneuvering the CIA, to top CIA interference with "their" proxy terrorists, just as they outplayed the CIA by tricking US into eliminating Baitullah Mehsud, the CIA's proxy terrorist leader of Pakistani Taliban.

I have always thought that if we had stayed in Afghanistan after we invaded in 2001 and settled the country we would not be talking now about Afghanistan. But George W Bush, as President, decided to remove our special OP forces who had cornered Bin Laden in one of the mountain ranges and get them ready to invade Iraq. The rest is an unjustified, painful, costly history we are still living with when it comes to that part of the world.

These developments sound very hopeful. So far the Taliban are being enticed by carrots - withdrawal of American troops, release of their prisoners, etc. But there must be a stick too. Hardened fighters like Taliban will even expect it and think little of America if the deal is all carrots and no sticks. Taliban are obviously getting funding to continue this war, most likely from Saudis, unofficially if not officially. That source has to be cut off and if a flow of arms is detected, then there should be repercussions for the Taliban. Involving the neighboring countries in the final stages would also be helpful as they too have a lot to gain if Afghanistan remains peaceful. The only country which is a question mark is Pakistan. Perhaps China can be encouraged to exert their influence to assure Pakistan's compliance in this deal. Unfortunately US is fighting with China at the same time over intellectual property theft and trade imbalance, so cooperation between the rival superpowers will be hard to achieve.

As we struggle to end the longest war in American history, we are already looking for new wars to start. When will we ever learn? The world needs a paradigm shift in human thought if we are to extract ourselves from the never-ending cycle of war, and this sea change in behavior can't come soon enough. In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a linguistic "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity. See RevolutionOfReason.com

What a brilliant analysis. I hope all sides will listen!

We should get out of Afghanistan. There are at least a half-dozen other places from which terrorists could launch attacks against the west such as Somalia, Pakistan, Libya - you name it and we don't occupy those countries. We killed Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar is also dead. We broke the back of the generation of Taliban that harbored OBL and it is time to withdraw. It would be good to settle the score with al-Zawahiri, but he's most likely hiding safely in Pakistan so staying in Afghanistan will not help bring him to justice.

Afghanistan and Pakistan will pursue peace for a price. Keep the dollars flowing and yes you can have peace. On their terms. They have been bilking the west for decades now and just come up with new innovative ways to do so. Call it peace for sale.

It’s taken the American tax payer 60 years to get vocal about not wanting to pay for foreign wars. So now that we’re here watch Bolton start a war in Venezuela. As always we will leave a bloody mess behind in Afghanistan. Just making the world safe for democracy - remember that old line.

Hunderts of billions of dollars in American aid to Pakistan went to the Pakistani Army who supported the Taliban who killed American soldiers in Afghanistan. And none of the American Administrations has ever realized that it was that fatal Pakistani Connection that fuelled the war in Afghanistan till now ? And that the war could have ended a long time ago if only one logically thinking Administration had pulled the plug on Pakistan ?

The Taliban were founded to end the war... with a specific ethnic group on top, and sharia law in place. Even if Baradar speaks to the Taliban, he will never change their primary objective into something that would be consistent with women's status as persons, and the rights of the Tajiks and Hazaras. "The Afghan people are now hopeful for the first time in decades that the 40-year-long war may just possibly be coming to an end." No offense to Mr. Rashid, but he is a Pakistani national and does not speak for Afghans, in particular the women of Afghanistan. While many of them are not thinking beyond the next meal, many are willing to die to go to school, vote, and live lives of meaning. I hope we will get to hear from them as well.

Let's try to keep the record straight. The Soviets were asked by the legitimate Afghan government to come to the aid of that communist government which was under attack by terrorists led by Osama Bin Laden and funded and supplied by the Americans.

It looks like this time the Taliban is serious about the peace process with the Afghan government and the US. Note that the peace talks were held in Doha and not in Islamabad It may be because the Taliban had refused to meet Khalilzad in Islamabad. For a long time the US has tried and put pressure on Pakistan to use its influence over the Taliban to bring them to the negotiating table but that did not go anywhere. It looks like the Taliban has excluded Pakistan from the peace process to succeed.

The money we have given Afghanistan [and Pakistan and Israel] over the last ten years- we could have rebuilt our nation twice. New roads, dams, bridges, hospitals, airports .. money to expand our education and health care system... But no.. we hand over the cash and receive dead American soldiers in return. What a disgusting shame!

"Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing Over and Over Again and Expecting Different Results". Who has said that? Albert Einstein? Narcotics Anonymous? Max Nordau? George Bernard Shaw? George A. Kelly? Rita Mae Brown? John Larroquette? Jessie Potter? Werner Erhard?

Current: Mr. Baradar’s release and his subsequent elevation as the chief negotiator have raised hopes that Pakistan’s attitude to the peace process and its military’s antipathy to the Taliban leaders seeking peace has clearly changed. Corrected: .....antipathy to the Taliban leaders seeking peace have changed. 1) singular plural error: have / has 2) lexical error: hope and clearly cannot go together like this

I thought we got Bin Laden already?

Anyone who trusts the Taliban to keep their word is naive or ignorant. They are brutal murdering tyrants incapable of change. Beware.

Afghanistan is an insidious country run by one of the most corrupt governments in the world under the leadership of President Ashraf Ghani. The U.S. Justice Dept., in it's SIGAR report in November of last year, described Afghanistan's once lauded Attorney General as dishonest, corrupt and deficient The Taliban is the world's leading producer of opium for heroin. The Helmand Province is nicknamed the "Opium Capital of the World'. Estimates of revenues generated by the Taliban last year in opium production were $1 billion - a record. Narco-terrorists - the Taliban of Afghanistan. Truce, peace, et al is a complete travesty. We spent over $2 trillion dollars in the wasteland, and lost thousands of lives...for who...for what...for a corrupt regime and a terrorist organization that's stronger than ever? I hold our Defense Dept. and Pentagon accountable for the costly 17 year endeavor - they know no peace - they know no diplomacy - they only know war. Finally, we may be done with the waste of a war. There will only be an illusory peace - we need to leave Afghanistan completely - no troops, no advisors and no monetary funding -nothing. Mr. Rashid, who cares whether Mr. Baradar, the drug lord, can bring peace to the war torn country. We in the U.S. don't really care. Let the corrupt government deal with the Taliban terrorists; they don't need our help.

The real problem is across the border in Pakistan.

The game-changer here has to be Pakistan. Thankfully, the Pakistani military and the ISI appear to have finally realized the ruinous consequences of keeping the Taliban insurgency alive in Afghanistan. Imran Khan's overtures towards India are also note-worthy and raise hopes. Pakistan's duplicity as ally in 'war of terror' and in the entire Afghan fiasco was long known. Hopefully, their coming around now with the release of Mr. Baradar would be the beginning of the end of this never-ending conflict.

Pakistan kept the most effective and respected Taliban peace negotiator in prison for 8 1/2 years? What does that tell us about Pakistan’s commitment to lasting peace in Afghanistan?

The Trump surrender to the Taliban is a disgrace.

Wars in Afghanistan and potential peace runs through the Pakistani military and their spy agency the ISI. When Pakistan is convinced that they will get something for peace, peace in Afghanistan will work.

This is encouraging. Enough families have lost a dad/husband/son/mom/daughter/wife. Shows what terrible "allies" Pakistan has been for all of these years. But they have nukes, so we have to sort of ignore their crappiness. Hope the democrats don't try to veto it just go "get Trump" and stop him from ending a war. I get stability here is in US strategic interests, but if the people and potential leaders of Afghanistan won't take up the baton after this many years then they need to be left to their own choices. Such reconcilable views between the sharia only militants and those who just want to live...

Pakistan remains the enemy of peace in the region. They have their own agenda and don't care how many people die.

It is rather wishful thinking for women to think that the US negotiators will be bothered about what happens to women’s rights and their deplorable plight in Afghanistan after Taliban are once again handed over Afghanistan . Specially with such a great lover of women’s rights and honor in the WH.

All of this sounds good but expecting a leopard to change his spots is a perilous idea. Above all, we need to make it clear to the Taliban that, apart from a promise to keep international terrorists from using their territory as a sanctuary, they cannot again impose their Salafist views upon their own populace- and especially their women. If we were to withdraw our troops from that country we could always return with sufficient force to once again drive them from power should they misbehave. The U.S. needs to give up its habit of nation-building in the Middle East and South Asia, but not at the cost of forcing millions of women to live entirely without the most fundamental of human rights.

We know Afghanistan will remain tribal in social, cultural, military contexts. As noted we know assassinations based upon, have prevented peace in past. We know U.S. military bases throughout the region and Africa will remain, complete with drone surveillance, drone warfare, missile strikes "when necessary", such as those operated under bush-cheney-rumsfeld-obama JSOC and CIA covert operations-assassinations-so covert, Americans have never been informed extent regarding. "Dirty Wars" in video or text is perhaps best way americans have to access information. In end, as Col. Powell told bush-cheney, "You break it-you bought it"...certainly U.S. administrations have brought upon U.S., world, unalterable history this move intends avoid. But it is the American people who pay the bill...in all forms.

The only thing that matters for US administrations, since Bush's, has been to prevent Pakistani generals with Taliban sympathies to toy around with the nuclear arsenal. Then, there is the chronic corruption and incompetence of Afghan presidents and their cabinets that have drained their nation's wealth and potential and have destroyed any hope of taking the country out of poverty and economic despair. So, having a "moderate" Taliban leader such as Mr. Baradar who's willing to get to the negotiation table is not that bad an option. Of course the lasting question is: is Afghanistan now of geostrategic interest for the Americans, or will Pakistan remain the regional key player (read: buffer against China) and thereby continue its support to extremist organizations?

Since 9/11/01 a mere 0.75% of Americans have volunteered to wear the military uniform of any American armed force. They have been ground to emotional, mental and physical dust by repeated deployments in ethnic sectarian civil wars that have no military solution. While the rest of us pretend to be brave honorable and patriotic by rising to sing the national anthem and saluting the flag at sporting events. What is going on in Afghanistan is an ethnic sectarian civil war centered on the ethnic Pashtun. While a plurality of Afghans are Pashtun a majority of Pashtun live in Northwest Pakistan and the Pashtun are only 15% of Pakistanis. You make peace with your enemies. The Taliban did not attack America on 9/11/01. The Taliban is no threat to the American homeland.

the military industrial complex is a jobs program and an economic stimulus program 1. keep the military as a jobs program: employ people to do useful things 2. keep the military as an economic stimulus program: make the contractors produce things we need -- bridges, roads, schools, healthcare clinics and hospitals -- and end the useless wars

Keeping the Saudis out of the region would make prospects for sustainable peace much better. They are said to fund 24,000 maddrassas in Pakistan that promote a puritanical, anti-Shia and anti-Western version of Islam that has much to do with the so-called "Taliban hard liners" and Pakistan IS double dealing in recent decades. Our "alliance" with Saudi Arabia, so joyfully celebrated by Trump and Kushner in their first foreign trip, is really hard to understand, from the attacks of 9/11 by 18 Saudis to the aggressive Saudi promotion of the Iraq Invasion to the Yemen disaster. In total, the Saudis are said to have "invested" $100 billion in their mosques and maddrassas worldwide, moving moderate Islam in a more radical direction. If we really wanted to reduce terrorism in the world, re-examining our relationship with and arms sales to Saudi Arabia would be a good place to start.

how many million dollars in cash is he being given? are we simply declaring victory and leaving? what were our objectives? have we met them? which ones? some. any, all?

Since before the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan hasn't had a great track record of cooperation among various political and tribal groups. And foreign powers - from the British in The Great Game to the Soviets in 1979 to the US "covertly" in the 1970s, and the US again since 2003 - have not really had Afghan interests in mind with their various occupations and military actions. Those same foreign powers, primarily the US since the 1992 Peshawar Accords, have not had the skill or patience to ensure that any agreements are followed, enforced, finessed. And I have little doubt that this agreement will be any different. Although we have had the will to engage in military operations for close to twenty years (excluding the support of the Mujahideen in the 1980s), I will put money on the likelihood that the same will will apply to carrying out these new accords. And, as noted, this is quite apart from the long-standing conflicts among the Afghans themselves.

This is indeed a slim sliver of hope! The first time since Ahmed Shah Mesud, the lion of Panjshir, who was himself assassinated. Let us hope that the Pakistani ISI and the hard line Taliban play ball and this results into some form of peace without soon devolving into the hard line Wahabi form of government that was espoused by the original Taliban of Mullah Mohamed Omar.

We entered Afghanistan under Reagan and Bush to keep the USSR out. Back then it was to secure oil pipelines in the region. It was never about the Afghan people. We didn't send a liberation army in. We sent the CIA to promote a holy war, bringing in freedom fighters who we would fund, organize, arm and unleash. The freedom fighters -- Islamists like Osama bin Laden -- were a good idea at the time, until they turned on us. That happened in 2001. In response to 9/11, we entered Afghanistan again, this time in full force to clean up that freedom fighting culture we cultivated. Now it's 18 years later and we'll be pulling out of Afghanistan because the monster we created is too powerful to kill. It is the right choice to stop wasting blood and treasure there and to let that monster die of natural causes. But make no mistake that what we have wasted so much on was created by the neoCons in the GOP, the same group of guys who continue to run Trump's foreign policy.

Abdul Ghani Baradar can make a significant difference at the peace talks. He has the reputation and respect of all Afghan society sectors including the important religious leaders. Having spent 8 years in a Pakastani prison has conveyed to his people that he paid a significant price for his country. I think a coalition government might work. Let's hope so.

Baradar can make a significant difference at the peace talks. He has the reputation and respect of all Afghan society sectors including the important religious leaders. Having spent 8 years in a Pakastani prison has conveyed to his people that he paid a significant price for his country. I think a coalition government might work. Let's hope so.

Unfortunately, assassination is a long used tool to foil the ambition of such a man as Mr.Baradar. I hope this does not occur but for a peace to last in this case it takes much more than just the reputation and influence of one man. Religion and Politics is so fused by the Taliban thatI fear for the future of Afghanistan regardlessof these negotiations.

The only way to end the war in Afghanistan is to educate the next generation. The present generations attitudes can't be changed. Get into their schooling system and introduce them to the internet so they have choices. I presume their schooling system brainwashes them a bit like how religious cults operate amongst their cult members. Maybe do a fly over and drop solar powered notebooks with instructions on how to use the technology. Drop them over towns and secondary schools.

Ending these pointless, fruitless, and extraordinarily expensive wars are, save for climate action, the most important thing we need to do in America today. The opportunity cost of spending $4 trillion on war, and the scope of damages and pain caused by the wars will reverberate throughout the coming generations and the sooner we extradite ourselves from them, the better.

Good development. Hope the peace prevails. Afghans haven't known peace for almost 40 years. It is heart breaking to read the news of bomb blast killing many innocent Afghans frequently. Hopefully mullah Baradar will negotiate with open mind for a peaceful Afghanistan.