Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Speaking To The Unspeakable

Charlotte Front and Center: Obama: Smooth Talking the Taliban?: "No one can say Obama doesn't take bold action or America wouldn't even be considering talking to the 'Taliban'. The thought of engaging these thugs is enough to make the bravest cringe in reaction. This past weekend Obama told 'The New York Times' America might outreach to moderate elements of the Taliban. What really is an element? Where is there a moderate group of Taliban? Obama bases this thought process on the fact that we were able to communicate with Sunni enemies in western Iraq with great success-but let's thank the U.S. Marines for this, and their outreach was first backed up by military might..."

Not the sort of bold action I'm interested in. Just as all the negotiated truces in the Gaza have given Hamas and others a chance to rearm, redeploy, and recruit, so will this action. The Taliban want only one thing -- the end of US. Negotiation is just another tactic.

2 comments:

billy pilgrim said...

i think he should end the domestic war on drugs and go after the taliban economic lifeline of poppies.

Bob Harrison said...

I could not agree more with that position. The so-called War on Drugs is a money waster of monumental proportion-- every attempt ever at legislating morality has failed. Drugs ought to be legal and taxed mightily (kinda like tobacco except let the states sell them and make the profit); budgets would get balanced; part of the profits from their sale should be used to fund drug treatment programs to the point that if we needed a treatment facility on every street corner in every city, then we could provide them, and that would help alleviate the drug problem, which is a medical/mental health issue, not a morality/sin issue.

Going after the poppy crop could then be accomplish by purchasing some of it legally while gradually weaning the farmers into a more legitimate crop. Either way the profit for the entire drug food chain would not end up entirely in the hands of deliberate killers.