In his post below, John Rosenthal pointed to Europe as the source of much of the push for (most probably futile) negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, much of the news coverage of the issue following the Afghanistan Senate’s recent vote in favor of negotiations pointed toward internal Afghan origins for the apparent movement toward negotiations. In a story in the Sunday New York Times, for example, Carlotta Gall and David Sanger suggested that there is an upsurge in anger among the Afghanistan public after a number of incidents in which U.S. and NATO air strikes caused civilian deaths. [...]
A vote by the Afghan Senate last week calling on the Afghan government to enter into negotiations with the Taliban has created a considerable amount of buzz. In fact, the idea is not new. It was first publicly floated by the chairman of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), Kurt Beck, following a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on April 1. At the time, the reaction of the Afghan government to Beck’s proposal was hardly enthusiastic. “The hard core among the Islamists, like Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his [since killed] military chief Mullah Dadullah, do not want [...]
MIAMI — It took the government a while, about three-and-a-half years, but the much the much-hyped trial of alleged terrorist wannabe Jose Padilla is finally under way in Miami’s district court. Padilla, who prosecutors assert was an aspiring al-Qaida fighter looking to wage global jihad against the U.S. and its allies, looked sharp in his suit and tie Monday as federal lawyers volleyed numerous accusations in their opening remarks that the suspect supported and colluded with terror groups like al-Qaida. His duds, though far from designer, were in sharp contrast to the prison-issue orange jumpsuit, handcuffs and leg irons Padilla [...]
