Actually Karzai has always been open to negotiating with the Taliban and the Taliban would be willing to negotiate but only on condition of foreign troop withdrawal. So if the troops withdraw this would likely result in a government of many factions with the Taliban getting important cabinet posts as Karzai had already promised. The Taliban would probably prefer that to a continuing civil war with Russia and the US supporting the former Northern Alliance group etc.
Cheers, ken hanly
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
--- On Thu, 10/8/09, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Medea Benjamin learns to love Obama's war
> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Thursday, October 8, 2009, 11:29 PM
> <http://original.antiwar.com/scott/2009/10/07/is-medea-benjamin-confused/>
>
> "’We would leave with the same parameters of an exit
> strategy but we might perhaps be more flexible about a
> timeline,’ says [Code Pink's Medea] Benjamin. ‘That’s
> where we have opened ourselves, being here, to some other
> possibilities. We have been feeling a sense of fear of the
> people of the return of the Taliban. So many people are
> saying that, ‘If the U.S. troops left the country, would
> collapse. We’d go into civil war.’ A palpable sense of
> fear that is making us start to reconsider that.’"
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>