Obama want to talk to the Taliban

[Rufus T. Firefly]

May I ask how much the Taliban are paying? Do we know who or what is footing the bill for them?

Last figure I heard was $150/month for foot soldiers; as for the source of the financing, it looks like some combo of local drug money and donantions from wealthy Gulf State fanatics. $150/mo seems like a pittance but, as a point of comparison, that's about what a municipal worker or nurse would make in the Philippines -- and the Phils' per captia GDP is over 4x that of Afghanistan ($3400 vs. $800). Or, put another way, they're getting paid the equivalent of 2.25x the per capita GDP of the country; an American getting paid 2.25x our per capita GDP would be making $108k/year.

But, yeah, we could afford that. But the guys joining the Taliban don't just want cash; they want a future and a sense of purpose, and the Taliban are also promising that in a way US government handouts would not; if we could get a functioning economy going, however, we might get somewhere.

The trick is that Afghanistan has never been able to support itself, and has always relied primarily on foreign aid to survive; we're going to have to throw a lot of money at Afghanistan to make it work already (for example, it's military -- it's brightest spot -- isn't even at full capacity yet, and already costs more than the entire gross GDP of the country to maintain). And Afghanistan will take as much money as we can through at it (in the structure of its notoriously weak central government, the president's most important job is to be the ambassador to wealthy nations -- and that's by no means a new development); the trick is to figure out how to offer something other than a handout, and here the Taliban is ahead of us.

On an unrelated note, many of my colleagues are grumbling about the appointment of Gen. Eikenberry as Ambassador to Afghanistan (because he's not a diplomat), but I'm frankly heartened by it; he seems like an extraordinarily competent and realistic leader. Plus, his #2 at the embassy will eb an extremely effective career diplomat who has already served as ambassador to Egypt and to the Philippines (where I served under him). Both their appointments are good news.

[Patroklos]

The Taliban promises of a future ring true? Surely nobody knows the horrendous attrition of Taliban forces more than the the Taliban members themselves?

[snoopy369]

It's called propaganda, Patroklos. They're fairly good at it...
Regardless, they promise a future in general - not necessarily for you personally, but a Future Afghanistan that you are fighting for, and people are willing to give up their lives to help build. "Join the Taliban, help build an Afghanistan for Afghanis, and remove the Evil Western Stain from our land."

That's what we are fighting against, and have to offer something in its stead. "Join the Legitimate Afghani Government, help build an Afghanistan for ... ?? ... and do ... (purpose) ... " We sadly don't seem to be able to do that yet...

[Patroklos]

It's called propaganda, Patroklos. They're fairly good at it...

It works the same way in our military. Thats good for recruiting, not for retention.

I have a hard time believing that people obviously fighting for the highest bidder (as Rufus said) are all about the more lofty notions you speak of

I see your point though. I would imagine, however, that "don't join the side murdering women and children in market/school/mosque suicide bombings" would be a pretty good government line. Go figure

[The diplomat]

I find it amazing that Obama is so committed to talking with enemies like Syria, Iran and the Taliban but he can't find a decent gift for a long time ally like Great Britain when their Prime Minister comes to visit.

[snoopy369]

It works the same way in our military. Thats good for recruiting, not for retention.

I have a hard time believing that people obviously fighting for the highest bidder (as Rufus said) are all about the more lofty notions you speak of

I see your point though. I would imagine, however, that "don't join the side murdering women and children in market/school/mosque suicide bombings" would be a pretty good government line. Go figure

Instead, "join the side that is destroying your culture and turning you into slaves" works much better, right? You know that's what the internal propaganda machine says - and it has to be hard for the rank+file to see otherwise.