Two Approaches To War On Terror: Pakistan Kills 1500 Taliban In 3 Weeks, U.N. Takes 5 Taliban Off Sanctions List

At the same time that Pakistan has decided enough is enough and have spent the last six months absolutely decimating the Taliban inside the NW quadrant of the country, the United Nations Security Council has decided to REWARD the Taliban in Afghanistan by removing five of the top brass from a sanctions list. The U.N. action is so bullshit that even the Russians were against it but of course, the Obama administration, after witnessing the most deadly month ever for U.S. troops in the Afghan War, think it's a real peachy idea.

From the report from the (gag me with a spoon) NYTimes:

The United Nations Security Council removed five members of the Taliban from its sanctions list on Friday, in a nod toward the kind of reconciliation considered crucial for Afghanistan’s future stability.

Among the five taken off the list Friday were Abdul Satar Paktin, a former deputy health minister; Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and a former deputy minister of mines; and Abdul Hakim Mujahed Awrang, a former unofficial representative to the United Nations. The two dead men removed were Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, the former governor of Bamian Province, and Abdul Samad Khaksar, the former deputy interior minister.

Russia has been the most reluctant to accept removing any of the Taliban from the list, worried that their resurgence could help fuel militant Islam in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and across the Caucasus. They contend even the assets of the dead might be put toward that end, diplomats said.

As is to be expected, the NYTimes writer also thinks this is a grand idea but the fact of the matter is that this whole idea of reaching out to the Taliban will backfire on the U.S., NATO and the Afghan government just like it did with the Pakistanis when they tried this week-kneed approach to this mongrel group of jihadi terrorists.

It's like no one involved in the War in Afghanistan even paid attention to what happened in Pakistan the past fucking two years! The Pakistani government and military must have tried over dozen peace agreements with the Taliban and countless reconciliations with Taliban leaders, only to see the Taliban disregard all agreements and kill - well, it finally got so bad that the Pakistani military went to the government and said, "enough is enough." And since then, the Pakistanis have been pounding the Taliban with airstrikes, artillery, attack helicopter operations and organized troop operations and the result? Well, Pakistan has killed thousands of Taliban and Taliban attacks and killings in Pakistan are WAY DOWN.

All this really takes in Afghanistan is a U.S. President who will meet with Karzai and say this..."you have no future with the Taliban here, so we intend to eliminate them from the landscape, no matter what you say. So sit the fuck down, shut your trap and listen to the sounds of war as the minions of Hell you want to appease bite the dust."

That's really all it would take.

U.N. Removes 5 Taliban From Its Sanctions List


UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council removed five members of the Taliban from its sanctions list on Friday, in a nod toward the kind of reconciliation considered crucial for Afghanistan’s future stability.

The five were hardly viewed as much of a threat: Three of them have already made peace with the Kabul government, and two of them are dead.

But they were among a list of 20 names that the government of President Hamid Karzai submitted several years ago to the Security Council committee responsible for maintaining the blacklist, diplomats said. Five others were removed in January, eight have been rejected for removal and two remain under review, they said.

Though many experts doubt it is possible, reconciliation with the Taliban is being widely discussed as the only way of resolving the Afghan war. President Karzai has spoken recently about removing all the Taliban members from the sanctions list, currently about 135 of them, but he has not formally submitted any further requests, diplomats said.

Among the five taken off the list Friday were Abdul Satar Paktin, a former deputy health minister; Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and a former deputy minister of mines; and Abdul Hakim Mujahed Awrang, a former unofficial representative to the United Nations. The two dead men removed were Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, the former governor of Bamian Province, and Abdul Samad Khaksar, the former deputy interior minister.

Russia has been the most reluctant to accept removing any of the Taliban from the list, worried that their resurgence could help fuel militant Islam in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and across the Caucasus. They contend even the assets of the dead might be put toward that end, diplomats said.

In Kabul, where he has been a channel to the Taliban for several years, Mr. Zaeef called the blacklist one of the major obstacles blocking peace talks. He joked, though, when asked about being taken off the list, saying, “Are you sure my name was removed?”

Mr. Zaeef, who spent more than four years in prison, including the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, wrote a memoir published earlier this year, “My Life with the Taliban.” He said that taking the names off the list constituted a good first step.

“It will build trust between both sides, but on one condition,” he said in a brief interview. “This process should continue and does not stop right here. They should remove the names of more and more people from this list — one or two or five names are not enough.”

Those listed are subject to a travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo, although in Afghanistan the list is often interpreted as some kind of hit list for assassination. The conditions for being removed are renouncing violence, renouncing all ties to Al Qaeda and accepting the Afghan Constitution.

The sanctions committee has spent months reviewing the full list of about 500 names or organizations linked to either Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and is scheduled to release the full results on Monday, with fewer than 10 percent of the names likely to come off the combined list, diplomats said.