It seems to me that dealing with the Taliban at local level in Afghanistan is better than dealing with shopkeepers from Pakistan. Thanks are due to M16 for this farce. Yes that would be the same MI6 who bought the CIA claptrap about WMD's in Iraq and helped Tony B£air to spin it to the whole UK and the wider world.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
ReplyDeleteFor all you do to get the facts out there.
I'd like to blogroll you if possible.
S
Suzan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your remarks. I would be honoured to appear in your blogroll.
The general belief is that Petraeus suffered a black eye, as he was using pseudo-talks with Taliban officials to present a "dual track" strategy. The Pentagon has used these informal meetings to claim its military offensive is in fact driving the Taliban to negotiate, and many analysts have remarked that Petraeus is the big loser.
ReplyDeleteWith reports that the Taliban "impostor's" demands were modest and should have easily been spotted as a fraud, perhaps Petraeus new this and allowed the talks to continue anyway. Maybe the scam worked then, as 2011 no longer means anything. He's never sincerely pursued negotiations with the Taliban anyway, and the impostor may have been used to buy a few months before December.
After that Petraeus probably doesn't care, except for the propaganda backlash.
I hadn't seen this about Petraeus, James but it has the ring of credibility. MI6, who are a bit of a joke anyway, will try to shift the blame to anyone they can. The resepective spin routines will be interesting to watch.
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