U.S. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Ulrich, right, and troops depart from a key leader engagement at the provincial governor's compound in Farah City in Afghanistan's Farah province, Sept. 27, 2012. Ulrich, a civil affairs commander, is assigned to Provincial Reconstruction Team Farah. U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Benjamin Addison
Without Taliban Talks, The U.S. Will Lose In Afghanistan -- Spencer Ackerman, Danger Room
The U.S. appears to have given up on a political settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan. If so, time to rip off the Band-Aid: The U.S. will lose the longest war it’s ever fought.
Without a settlement with the Taliban, there is no hope of ending an insurgency that withstood the U.S. troop surge of 2010-2012. The U.S. will either have to rely on an Afghan security force that has killed more than 50 U.S. and NATO troops this year alone, or end up prolonging its costly commitment to Afghanistan.
According to The New York Times, U.S. officials have given up on their on-again, off-again talks with the Taliban, and are punting negotiations over to the Afghans after the major U.S. drawdown in 2014. It’s entirely possible that’s a negotiating tactic to compel the Taliban to come to terms. But if the U.S. isn’t bluffing, writes the Times, “one of the cornerstones of [its] strategy to end the war” has crumbled.
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My Comment: What's my take on Spencer Ackerman's analysis .... Sami Yousafzai sums up what I feel .... Afghanistan: negotiating didn’t work—besides, we’re leaving.