The Taliban on General McChrystal and negotiations

This was inevitable. The Taliban have used General Stanley McChrystal’s statements on his desire for negotiations in their propaganda. Here is an except from the Taliban’s English-language Voice of Jihad website:

The top commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Mc Crystal, in an interview with The Financial Times, has said: “We fought along war in Afghanistan. Now there is need for peace and for efforts to establish peace. ”

His remarks come amidst reports that it is impossible for his invading forces and other coalition troops in Afghanistan to turn the Jihadic resistance. In fact, the Americans tried every mean and tool to wipe out the Jihadic resistance but the graph of the resistance of the Afghans has been ascending and opposition to the presence of the invaders intensifying.

The legitimate Jihadic resistance of the Afghans not only faced the enemy with defeat in the military field but they have faced them with a psychological defeat as well. All their decisions and planning indicate a clue of their psychological disease.

You can read the rest at the Voice of Jihad; the Taliban basically say that the offer for their leaders to live abroad is preposterous and that their fighters can’t be bought off, as proposed by the Afghan government and the international community at the London conference. The Taliban reiterate that they will continue to wage jihad and demand that all foreign forces withdraw from the country.

While we might dismiss the Taliban’s statement as mere propaganda, it is very effective to their targeted audience: the Taliban commanders and fighters in the field. McChrystal’s words will be viewed as a sign of weakness, and will reinforce the Taliban leadership’s longstanding charge that NATO and the US have been weakened and are seeking the exit. McChrystal’s statement will be a disincentive for Taliban fighters and low-level commanders who might have considered defecting to do so. This is why you offer the olive branch only after you grind down an enemy force, and not before.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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