Commentary: Afghan peace solution
UPI, Oct. 25, 2010
By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE, UPI Editor at Large
WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- America's 17 intelligence agencies have spent more than half a trillion dollars -- more than $500,000,000,000 -- since 9/11, most of it on the global war on terror, and the Obama administration still believes that if Taliban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund were to return to power in Kabul, al-Qaida would be back too -- "in a heartbeat." And this despite much evidence to the contrary.
Recent weeks have produced a number of reports about "negotiations" between some Taliban elements and the Kabul government as well as with U.S. and NATO intermediaries. There were contacts but no negotiations and none of the Taliban participants was authorized to speak on behalf of the reclusive and secretive, Mullah Omar, in hiding since the U.S. invasion collapsed his regime in October 2001.
Judging from Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke's appearance on Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" program this past Sunday, there is still little knowledge of what has been in the public domain since June 14, 2001.
UPI consultant Ammar Turabi, a Pakistani-born American, and this reporter, sat cross-legged on the carpeted mud floor of Omar's Spartan adobe house on the west end of Kandahar and listened to the reclusive war leader's list of complaints about Osama bin Laden.
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