by Richard Kane   

Peace may be a Hand Shake Away

Mullah Baradar a top al Qaeda commander was arrest in Pakistan. Cheney wants him tortured, but I think that if he was wined and dined as a visiting diplomat the war would be over. Some things are different in Afganistan than they were in Iraq and Vietnam. US solders don’t get killed when they are off duty enjoying Kabul’s night life. Religious possession, funerals and shopping bazaars don’t get suicide-bombed. That’s because Taliban leader Mullah Omar has what he calls a strict code of ethics, which Mullah Baradar was very involved with helping to create. Quite a few al Qaeda members in the past committed suicide or tried to rather than be arrested. Present day Taliban leaders surrounding Mullah Omar aren’t involved in such tactics.

It hasn’t been noted lately that the UN frequently tries to organize peace talks. The UN asked that the Taliban be taken off the terror list because risking arrest while talking to UN officials is what the UN thought was slowing their negotiation efforts. The US only took four retired Taliban leaders off the Terror list. At least two have been busy trying to arrange negotiations since their release. They and some with the UN indicate that Mullah Baradar was also involved in negotiation feelers. Anyway he doesn’t have to worry about getting arrested during negotiants any more since he is already under arrest.

Several places such as the NY Times reported that Pakistan was upset that the US was negotiating with secondary Taliban leaders and fighters trying to talk them into changing sides without Pakistani participation. Over the years, Afghan President Karzai made several attempts to negotiate with the Taliban, often against US advice. Recently, he made a very public attempt to get the King of Saudi Arabia to broker negotiations, but the king refused to get involved unless Omar first renounced al Qaeda. One of the peace negotiators believes that Mullah Baradar was trying to arrange negotiations with Saudi Arabia when he was arrested, and Pakistan didn’t like it because it left them out of the loop. But I wonder why he would be trying to arrange negotiations after the Saudi’s strong “no” unless Mullah Baradar was going to denounce al Qaeda himself, in exchange for Saudi brokered negotiations. If you google, “the Green Room” Pakistan, you will get speculation that Pakistan arrested him yet not Mullah Omar, because Pakistan didn’t want Saudi peace talks leaving them out of the loop. Also google, We've Caught the Taliban Chief! Can We Go Home Now?

Before Obama speech calling for 30,000 more troops, there was a moderate peace movement that was faxing, emailing and calling Obama to go along with Vice-President Biden’s call to hunker down in secure areas of Afghanistan as a step toward peace or a low-keyed war. However in 1964 thru 1966 there was a “Negotiate Now” peace movement with letters to the editor and to the President and signs, “negotiate now” at antiwar events. Google, negotiate now, Vietnam, for the details, or check my blogs,
RichardKanePA.blogspot.com
RamblingsFromtheHornetsNest.blogspot.com

Progressive are stuck on how to lobby Obama. If we lobby him by condemning him the way right-wing groups do, we end up tripping him up out of doing some of what we want. And the more we condemn Cheney the more publicity we give his ideas. Perhaps we should demonstrate at the British and Canadian Embassy to insist that they will get out of Afghanistan if Baradar is tortured, or even if he is not negotiated with.