USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

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Stardate 20011130.0637 (On Screen): As we all know, one of the longstanding claims by those opposing the war was that it should be settled by negotiations. After all, if we just talk to the Taliban they'll give up bin Laden and stop harboring al Qaeda. Others pointed out that the US had been attempting that for years and it had been a failure, which is why the US government abandoned that after the 9/11 bombings. But the plea for negotiations continued, and we still hear it for other places (e.g. Iraq).

There are many, many things which can be solved with negotiations, but it's a mistake to assume that everything can be. Sometimes one side will not negotiate in good faith because they're deluded, or corrupt, or insane. It now is emerging that the Taliban leadership may have been all three. This is a report from a now-defected senior member of the Taliban who describes how bin Laden quite literally bought and paid for the Taliban. In a very real sense he owned them, and it was he who was the power behind the throne. The idea of him giving himself up is obviously ludicrous, and by September the Taliban were simply a front for al Qaeda.

I don't take everything this guy says as being the absolute truth (he's got a vested interest in making himself look good so that he doesn't get put on trial and shot, for obvious reasons) but this aspect of it rings true and corroborates other reports which have filtered out, and what they all suggest was that negotiating with the Taliban would have been a waste of time. Why is this important? Because we may again, in the immediate future, face other places where negotiations are equally futile. Iraq may be one but that's not clear yet. Negotiations have to be tried, but we've been trying that for ten years with little effect. On the other hand, for that ten years our negotiating hand was weak, and now it isn't. So it's too soon to give up on negotiations there.

Another place where negotiations may not work is Somalia, only in this case the reason is that there may not be anyone to negotiate with. There is no central authority there; Somalia is anarchy. There is a government but it's not in control, and to an even greater extent than Afghanistan the place is run by a lot of local strong-men. So sitting down and talking it over with the government of Somalia may do no good. It's possible some of the warlords would deal, but it's likely some would not. It's complicated.

Negotiations are a tool, and a very good tool at that. But no single tool solves all problems. (discuss)