Germany: defense minister considers dialog with “moderate” Taliban

He is not the first to propose this (1, 2), he won’t be the last:

In an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Guttenberg proposed opening up channels for dialog with certain Taliban groups, but warned of the pitfalls of such a strategy.

Describing his definition of ‘moderate’ Taliban, Guttenberg said “there were differences between the groups in Afghanistan, with some, which radically oppose anything western and whose goal it is to fight our culture, and those which are simply immersed in their own, local culture.” (NOTE: Yep, but for example in Pakistan, people who were not Talibans but who had an ultra-traditional view of Islam, are now turning to help the Talibans).

The defense minister said that he believed “cutting off every form of communication was no longer valid on the whole, although there must be criteria.”

via German defense minister considers dialog with Taliban | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 20.12.2009.

German blog Weblog Sicherheitspolitik writes (Babelfish translation):

Meaningful negotiations are not to be expected at this time, since the insurgent consider them as a sign that they will win anyway. The announcement of the US president to begin retreat in  2011 might have further reduced possible readiness for negotiations before this background. Also the kind of the German discussion over the tanker incident is suitable for waking with the insurgent doubt about whether  Germany poses a threat for them, something which would be necessary for a change of behavior as motivator.The lastingness of possible negotiation’s results besides this agreement will need effectiveness and visibility, but this won’t happen probably as it would give little reason for the insurgent ones to keep these agreements. The Pakistani example shows that agreements with Islamic militants, who are not based on clarified power balances are unstable.

The openly spoken desire for negotiations carries in addition a reduction of potential readiness of the other side to continue the negotiations further since such expressions in the present situation are understood as indications of weakness. Taliban speaker Qari Yusuf Ahmadi evaluated US president’s negotiation offers as a sign of exhaustion on the part of the USA.  Taliban leader Mullah Omar explained already with earlier Karzai’s negotiation offers, that Afghan Government’s readiness to negotiate  is a proof of their weakness.

Zapatero had the troops back from Iraq to (as he said) exclude Spain from AQ’s attacks. 5 years later we have 3 volunteers kidnapped by AQIM which will probably ask to free some Salafist imprisoned “brothers”, condemned on terrorism charges in Spain. After March 11th bombings, AQ left a message saying “we love death more than you love life“:

The West is so terrified of being charged with its old sins of racism, imperialism and colonialism that it makes oppression an automatic prism on the non-Western world, a politeness. But Islamic extremists don’t hate the West because they are oppressed by it. They hate it precisely because the end of oppression and colonialism — not their continuance — forced the Muslim world to compete with the West. Less oppression, not more, opened this world to the sense of defeat that turned into extremism.”

That extremism is, of course, absolutely consubstantial to the violence this people consider as justified, even to their own. Because 85% of the AQ’s total number of victims are.. Muslims.