Mainstream media (here and here) and some bloggers are looking at a new question: why is US President Obama ignoring the Taliban’s latest offer of a “legal guarantee if the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan”?
For now, I’m staying with the “I’m not buying it” crowd. Why?
Although the Dec. 8 statement on the Voice of Jihad’s English site looked at here suggests an offer has been made:
Washington turns down the constructive proposal of the leadership
of the Mujhideen….
and the Dec. 4 statement covered briefly here mentions this:
The Afghans, particularly the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, has no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantee if the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
what other proof do we see of the offer actually having been made? The suggestion of an offer made (in the equivalent of Taliban editorials – OK’ed by the group, but maybe not as “official” as a statement signed by a boss or under-boss) doesn’t seem to jibe with most recent statements attributed to Taliban officials by name, such as this
one from Mullah Omar, even if we take the most liberal interpretation, say things have to
change before talking.
Also, we know the Taliban grossly inflate ISAF casualty figures (14:1 reported-to-actual in the case of Canadians killed in RC-South – check here for the latest), they don’t appear to stick to ceasefire agreements, and they don’t appear to be following their own code of conduct. What do you believe?
Based on that track record, are the media outlets that are questioning Obama’s “ignoring” of an alleged offer pressing the Taliban to clarify the Taliban position, given the range of information put out by their Info-Machine?
Between all the “official” signed statements, the unsigned but officially endorsed op-ed statements, and statements by people saying they’re Taliban commanders, it reminds me of advertising and teaching: they say only 50 percent of what you put out there sticks, but you never know which 50 percent does stick.
With the Taliban, we know a some percentage of their public information is false or exaggerated, but we don’t know which. Hence, the need to keep reading tea leaves.
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