Afghan Peace Payoffs Fail To Lure Combatants -- CBS News
Not even the power of the purse seems to be strong enough to take down the Taliban.
While the U.S. government acknowledged during the weekend that it has begun preliminary peace talks with the group it's been targeting since 2001, The New York Times reported Monday that not many Taliban fighters have taken a flier on financial incentives to spur them to switch sides.
The Times printed a page-one narrative focusing on one 28-year-old fighter who's one of the 1,700 to enroll in "the government's biggest and best financed peace program." (The Times estimates the total number of insurgents in Afghanistan at between 20,000 and 40,000.)
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My Comment: Right after I posted my 10:00AM post this morning on why the Afghan peace talks will probably fail .... CBS posts this story. This CBS report should not be a surprised .... but it also indicates to me that many in the Taliban now probably believe that they can outlast the coalition and eventually march to Kabul in victory .... that any talks with the Afghan government/US/NATO is just a waste of time.
And you know what .... they are probably right.