Is There Really Any Other Option?

According to today’s New York Times article:

Eight years to the day after the start of the war in Afghanistan, the White House and Congress were agonizing on Wednesday about what to do next in that isolated, mountainous country that has been called “the graveyard of empires.”

It was previously reported that the Afghanistan crisis has caused a rift between the uniformed military and President Obama’s civilian national security team, with the military adviosors advocating for an increase in troops to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban with the civilians calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces and a narrowly defined counterterrorism effort in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan against al Qaeda, which entails leaving the Taliban be. The administration has denied that the President is considering the latter and the he himself told Congressional leaders that he would not substantially reduce U.S. forces or shift the mission to just hunting for al Qaeda. Nevertheless, the New York Times now reports that the President's national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban do not pose a direct threat to the U.S.

We can take the administration’s denial at face value, but as I had blogged about in March the administration had been considering negotiating with the Taliban. Also, the latest report contradicts the denial. Regardless, notion of negotiating with the Taliban or letting them be was absurd then as it is now. The Taliban is a genocidal regime that terrorized ethnic minorities and women and is still waging a war on its own people. They provided a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and will continue to be an ally if allowed to remain.

You cannot make peace with the Devil. For the sake of the people in the region—especially women—and around the world, the only option is the eradication of al Qaeda and their sinister allies, the Taliban.