The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
So now we find out that these secret negotiations with the Taliban were in fact talks with someone pretending to represent the Taliban?
But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.
“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”
Think that one through. Think about all the ways this story makes you want to crawl under your bed and never come out--every last dimension of it, from the words "talks with the Taliban" to the word "secret" to the words "a lot of money" to the words--which I'm adding-- "We are so out of our depth and so incompetent that only God can protect us, so get down on your knees and pray."
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Nov '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
"Exactly How Stupid are We?"
For me, the wake-up call was the suicide attack at the CIA base in Afghanistan on December 30, 2009. Seven CIA officers, including the chief of the base, were killed and six others badly wounded, effectively wiping out the team.
The attacker (a Jordanian double-agent) was waved through security, even though everyone (including visiting diplomats) was supposed to be searched. He was driven inside a major base (thereby risking the exposure of his identity as a useful informant). Then, unbelievably (in a country haunted by suicide bombers), everyone clustered around him, like giddy schoolgirls eager to hear the latest hot gossip. This was a clear violation of military procedure and intelligence protocol, not to mention plain good sense. Sadly, the Jordanian was, in fact, a triple-agent working for al-Qaeda and he was wearing a bomb belt.
BOOM
From start to finish, our people displayed nothing but gross incompetence, criminal negligence and outright amateurishness.
So, the answer to your question is: pretty damn stupid.
Edited on Nov 23, 2010 at 5:09amAug '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
This beyond pathetic. Does anyone else get the feeling we're living under a tyranny of ineptitude? It must be deliberate. Even incompetent people get things right once in a while!
May '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
when the Chinese see this, they must be thinking "They can't possibly be that stupid. They must be trying to trick us in some way."
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
The whole world thinks that.
May '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
And this from the guys with Intelligence in their name.
Nov '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
Last year I was in Jordan, and I attended church in a Christian congregation in Amman. After the service there was coffee and I found myself, along with a couple others from our group, talking to an older gentleman. He said "Why are you here?" We said, of course, to spread the love of God. "To whom?" "To the Jordanians, to the poor, to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ." "Are you here to convert Muslims?" "Well, maybe, if they want to be converted I guess." "You are wasting your time, they cannot be converted." We asked him to explain. He pulled some obscure verse out of the Bible that basically said God has cursed them with a lie, blinded them to the truth. He said he believed Islam was that great lie. Now my point, as in how does this tie in to the subject: I don't agree with the old guy completely. But I do believe the Islam is the great lie. How else do explain the left's infatuation with it? I mean, they hate organized, fundamentalist religion. Yet Islam is the worlds most organized, fundamentalist religion.
May '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
The stupidity begins with the initial presumption that we can actually have productive "talks" with a loose-knit organization like the Taliban. If you can't even identify its members, then pretty much anyone can credibly claim to speak for the group. Not only are you at risk of being pranked, you may actually get an "agreement" that means absolutely nothing (which may be what the administration is really looking for, come to think of it).
Sep '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
What do we expect from a Commander-In-Chief that places more emphasis on playing golf and basketball than on national security matters and whose main goal is to be liked by the rest of the world? Out of our depth and imcompetent? Yes, starting with the man-child at the top.
Also, speaking of praying, how long did it take the Obamas to begin going to (Christian) church, how many times have they been since, and compare this with how many times they attended the Rev. J. Wright's service, even on an attendance per time unit basis...
Jul '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
Only 714 days to the next election. If the world makes it that far.
Aug '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
I believe you're right, and it explains a lot. It's otherwise inconceivable that the Left would exempt Islam from scorn. There's also a passage in the New Testament, Acts, that backs this up.
Oct '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
The American People elected Barrack Obama President. I think that explains how stupid.
Jun '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
I really, really hate comments that call other people stupid. Democracy is no guarantor of perfection, and, yes, the difference between victory and defeat is more often than not a close run thing, but when you begin to consider complex decisions you also begin to appreciated how easily things can go awry. Voters, our fellow citizens, are not made stupid by the mere fact that they are not us.
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
Pretty damn stupid! But I can't get my outrage to overpower the overwhelming feeling of hilarity I get from this. This is one of the greatest con jobs in world history. And we're the mark. Quoth this guy:
Aug '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
I dunno, this could be a blessing in disguise, if you regard the talks as a Bad Idea in the first place. Sort of like robbing a bank, getting caught, and then discovering that the bank wasn't real, and the cops were from Candid Camera.
Aug '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
Let's face the truth: We were asleep at the wheel and not attending to critically important business until Barack Hussein Obama came dropped out of the sky. A McCain administration would have wrought the same destruction on the Republic, but at a a slower speed.
Now we're awakening to the real nature of our enemy, at home and abroad.
May '10
Re: The Secret Taliban Talks: Exactly How Stupid are We?
Obama is no military or intelligence genius, but I hate to tell you, gang, if anyone goofed this up, it was Gen Petraeus and Karzai, not Obama. And this stuff happens- the other side is working hard as much as they can to infiltrate, and there is no way to get anywhere if you don't take some chances.
Why are they talking to the "Taliban"? Well, which Taliban? QS? Or one of the smaller provincial wings?
This is not as easy as it sounds to us sitting here- there are good reasons to try to turn some local Taliban administrators, as we did tribal leaders in the Anbar Awakening. For many, if not most, the allegiance is less tot he Taliban organization than it is a desire to have government institutions that are effective and not for sale to the highest bidder. We simply don't know enough of the backstory here to judge how smart or dumb this move was.
David Kilcullen, who advised Petraeus and Sec'y. Rice, is a bit of an arrogant elite CFR-type State Dept. "always-talk, never shoot" guy, but his descriptions of the Afghanistan issues are pretty enlightening.