Taliban Peace Talks

Long War: Everyone concerned is furiously preparing for the coming peace talks with the Taliban. The host country, Qatar, has made the sale of pork and alcohol illegal in much of the country. This is an important gesture to the bad guys, making them feel important and welcome. Qatar has also made office space and other accommodations available to the evil ones. Supposedly the Taliban is happy with their new offices.

For the past two months or so the CIA has halted all drone strikes in the Pak tribal lands. This is much more than a small gesture. Because of the cessation of drone strikes, NATO has seen a big uptick in good guy combat deaths and the bad guys have made huge inroads in other ways. The Pak government has been forced to forge mini-peace deals with several of the smaller Talibans to keep from being overrun in the tribal lands.

One is tempted to think the CIA has lost its mind with this grand gesture. How could the peace talks be that important to give away such an advantage to the enemy? It is a good question and I will try to come up with an answer but a few other things are occurring beneath the surface that makes the CIA look less than crazy. For one, CIA surveillance drone flights are way up. Under these watchful eyes the rats are all leaving their holes in the Pak tribal lands, scurrying about to perform their evil deeds. Taliban spokesmen have been quite chatty lately, talking about how wonderful it is to have the freedom of movement that comes from zero drone strikes. No doubt the CIA is recording all this activity, gathering intelligence for the day when drone strikes resume. For another, the ISI and the Pak Army are experiencing the horror of zero CIA drone strikes. My guess is that the big upsurge in goodwill they thought was coming from the Pak public is failing to materialize and their own existence is threatened much more than they anticipated.

And there are other preparations being made for the peace talks. Team Obama is releasing at least five of the most dangerous inmates at Gitmo. We have the name of only one of these bad guys and we know that he is a specialist in sectarian violence, Sunnis killing Shiites. Al Qaeda has recently stepped up its campaign of sectarian violence but the Afghan Taliban has not been happy with this move.

So the peace talks may be designed to split the Taliban away from Al-Qaeda. In fact this is openly stated by the good guys prior to the talks.

But I ask long term readers to recall my blogs from a couple years ago when I was talking about the CIA's campaign to kill participants in the first fumbling attempts at peace talks. It does seem a stretch that today the CIA would perform a 180 and abort its most important mission in the Af/Pak theater (drone strikes) just to facilitate these nebulous peace talks. Now I ask you to imagine what the Taliban will say to America's demands during these talks. American demands will include renouncing terrorism, supporting women's rights, etc... Of course the Taliban will say, "Pound sand." The talks will fail. And then a mighty swarm of drones will darken the sky over the tribal lands and a fusillade of Hellfire missiles will light up the evening sky.