Lets pay Taliban to switch to be our friends. Then they can help us, and crush the Taliban! brilliant idea.and since taliban members are typically the most trustworthy Afghans and, we'll the ones paying them, they will be COMPLETELY loyal to us. Its a foolproof plan that his worked out very well in Afghanistan in the past!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/28/afghanistan.taliban.pay/index.html

10/29/2009 12:11:04 AM

well that's pretty much why we're "winning in Iraq" right now.... the "Sunni awakening" anybody?
Of course it was a great strategy when Bush implemented it with The Surge, right?

10/29/2009 12:22:10 AM

It's not a bad strategy when you realize that a good number of taliban are fighting because they're being paid and feeding their families, not because of any deep-seated ideological convictions. Considering the average income there it would be fairly cost effective.

Do we really need another Afghanistan thread?

[Edited on October 29, 2009 at 12:35 AM. Reason : ,]

10/29/2009 12:34:45 AM

didn't read the article, so i don't really know exactly what we're debating and am not taking any side on that right now, but i will say that things are not 100% black and white. There aren't enough people who are 100% "pure" for us to side with--sometimes you have to deal with grey areas.

10/29/2009 1:20:49 AM

^Yeah, heard on NPR today that there are very few black-and-white situations over there. Gotta find the folks that are sympathetic to us (and interested in money) who are also adequately liked by their own people.



I've read and heard a lot about how poverty plays a huge role in people's willingness to involve themselves with certain groups, but one very early morning, I watched something on CSPAN with this woman talking, and I swear to goodness she talked (and had intensive research) about radical groups being supported in large part by the middle class...like, the discoveries they made were a big deal because they were so counterintuitive (that's the only reason I recall it).

10/29/2009 2:50:16 AM

Why not? We paid them to turn people in under the pretense of looking for Al-qaeda operatives but what mostly ended up happening was they turned in anyone they might of had a grudge against and we were all too willing to label them "enemy combatants" and toss them into Gitmo.

10/29/2009 5:13:49 AM

I bet it's a whole lot cheaper than dropping $100k bombs on them.

10/29/2009 8:20:17 AM

Mambagrl please stop posting.

10/29/2009 8:26:58 AM

There's money laying around?

10/29/2009 8:30:02 AM

yeah


[Edited on October 29, 2009 at 9:54 AM. Reason : .]

10/29/2009 9:54:25 AM