BlackFive

When you have an Administration that says things about an active shooting war in which we are engaged things like "talk" and "negotiate" it means only one thing to me...

Appeasement.

And the New Obama administration says they have a "new" plan for Afghanistan.

In fact, even the Muslims think this is a retarded plan...

"Obama's comment resemble a dream more than reality," said Waheed Mozhdah, an analyst who has written a book on the Taliban.

"Where are the so-called moderate Taliban? Who are the moderate Taliban?" asked Mozhdah, who was an official in both the Taliban and the Karzai governments.

So, a guy, who has been inside both regimes says that talking to the Taliban is a retarded idea.  This idea of negotiation seems to me to be like asking your pacifist drug treatment counselor sister to talk to your drug dealing dad and convincing him to change his ways; all without asking the drug cartel to participate in this discussion as well.

Bad analogy?  I don't know.  Having walked the ground in a good number of provinces in that part of the world, I can say that the "moderates" were likely not the ones trying to land mortars inside my firebase or ambush me as I was on patrol.  Talking to the moderates would be both a waste of energy and time, as they are not the ones actually influencing the battle. 

The key, they say, is the removal of the names from the he key leaders list; our "hit list" if you will. 

This is the nugget on this whole situation is this...

"The Taliban are very rigid in their demands. They actually don't want to talk unless there is some guarantee that Western forces will leave," he said.

I would have to say that we are very likely pretty rigid in ours too.  In fact, I would guess we are still going to be conducting operations to "capture or kill" the leaders on that list.

Which I think given the realities on the ground, is the best solution to ending this war in victory.