U.S., Taliban close to deal as fighting intensifies

I wonder if peace is truly ever possible in this country.

I wonder how I would feel if I lost a relative in this fighting just from the last 50 years back. It will never end. Sharia wins again.

Afghanistan. Leave it to the Afghans. Theyll never change.

Afghanistan. Leave it to the Afghans. Theyll never change.

The problem with that is virtually all Afghans are Muslim, and the different Muslim factions hate each other, just like in Iraq, Syria....

That headline by itself is stunning.

I just don't trust the Talibans. Women will fear for their lives again once the international troops have left.

It is not just trust or good or bad... the thing I still do not understand is why must the Taliban make a deal with the US?

US is but a third party (a very powerful third party at that), but the problem is in Afghanistan among the Afghans... The problem is their problem and the deal must be between them with US monitoring and not US paying for or agreeing to any of the terms and conditions other than to verify the fair and mutually beneficial terms and conditions between those that are now in conflict.

Why is this article making US signing the deal? The US's only vested interest is in keeping peace and settling the conflict in that region.

The US has poured $billions into Afghanistan and doesn't want to walk away with effectively NOTHING accomplished except killing lots of people.

Until religion isn't something people feel the need to kill and fight about, Afghanistan will not have peace.

Also, until nearly all Afghanis can read (38% literacy now), they will not be able to read for themselves about their religion and will be stuck trusting old-men who lie.

Why else would the old men keep destroying schools?

Because they are afraid of educated people.

Well i’m glad to hear that peace could very well be around the corner. And yes, they will definitely be some violent conflicts at the US leads, and yes, the Taliban is very oppressive towards women and other groups.

But let me ask some you guys here who have been very pessimistic about this deal. What’s the alternative? For the US to be in Afghanistan forever, pouring countless of billions of dollars and killing who knows how many more people, just to keep up an illusion that things will ever change, which many of you said that it won’t? That would only lead to more misery, more suffering, and more false hopes on all sides.

There is no perfect solution here, just better solutions than others. And I’m finally glad that the US and the Taliban are finally really starting to realize that.

Isn't Taliban a terrorist group and responsible for 9/11? Why is the country being given back to them?

However it was not clear whether the Taliban would agree to talk directly with the Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani, which they consider an illegitimate foreign-imposed regime.

This is the major problem. So long as the Taliban refuses to accept the Ghani government, there will never be peace between the Taliban and the Afghans. I doubt whether the Afghan people will accept a Taliban government either.

Taliban officials have said they would only agree to talk to Afghan officials in a private capacity, not as representatives of the state, and they remain opposed to presidential elections scheduled for Sept. 28.

Any agreement from that "private meeting" will probably not be binding then. And why would the Taliban officials opposed to the Sept 28 election?

Obviously to the Talibans, the only path for peace is on Taliban terms only and the entire government under Taliban regime and people accepting without question the .

What's the solution? Systematic genocide of the Talibans and other extremist Muslim factions? Get rid of the radical factions and the problem goes away? Of course that's been tried before and it didn't work.

Perhaps a divided Afghanistan with one part of the country under Taliban regime, the other under Ghani government and a DMZ border between them and a ceasefire agreement.......like Korea?

Doubt there will ever be peace in that region. The conflicts of interest are too deep. Conflicts rooted in religious philosophical differences are the worst and most difficult to resolve.

So long as the Taliban refuses to accept the Ghani government, there will never be peace between the Taliban and the Afghans.

The Taliban ARE Afghans! But you just made clear what others seem to be refusing to admit they think....that Afghanistan does not belong to the Afghan people. But it does, and that includes the Taliban! Its their country too!

@BobCat

Why is the country being given back to them?

It's more case of negotiating when, what they will assume full control of. No one has the power to give anything in Afghanistan. The different clans have traditionally maintain control their territiroy through bloodshed, and they've won more territories through bloodshed, nothing will change this.

The Russian tried, gave up. The western world tried, now giving up. You just can't help people to live peacefully when all they want is to be able live to flex their military prowess and conquer territories.

Like China, or Japan, what it takes is one powerful warlord to keep all the other warlords in check, for hundreds of years, before culture can be changed. Western democracies just doesn't have hundreds of years, even to just help that one powerful warlord.

The Taliban ARE Afghans! But you just made clear what others seem to be refusing to admit they think....that Afghanistan does not belong to the Afghan people. But it does, and that includes the Taliban! Its their country too!

Is is there country, but they don't have the majority and are inflicting their will through violence against what the rest of the country desires.

It is their country just like the USA is the country of the radical left tree huggers, anti-vaxxers, radical right and anti-gay, anti-black, anti-abortion people are. The middle is suppose to moderate the crazies. In theory. That should work for the Afghans too, but the Taliban are threatening violence for elections. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/afghanistan-election-taliban-violence-stop-vote-190822071510390.html

Again, the Taliban are showing that educated people choosing the way they wish to be governed scares their wacky interpretation of the Quran.

I've written a few solutions here, but JT moderators "moderate, call it off topic, and delete" the posts. Would be nice if 1 reason was provided that was actually correct.