An unusual international conference was due to open in London this morning. Its aim: to raise a $500mn fund to buy off the Taliban gunmen fighting the British army in southern Afghanistan, as part of Britain’s exit strategy from that country.

According to the report in the London ’Times,’ the intention of the many international delegations taking part in the conference is to raise money for President Hamid Karzai to pay Taliban leaders to reintegrate their followers into mainstream Afghani life: the money would supposedly be used to pay for projects and infrastructure that would allow the young men currently fighting among the Taliban ranks to find jobs as guards and in agriculture, instead of fighting the government.

Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was quoted as saying that "the overwhelming majority of these people are not ideological supporters of Mullah Omar and al-Qa’eda .... Based on interviews with prisoners, returnees, experts, there must be at least 70 per cent of these people who are not fighting for anything to do with these causes."

But can this strategy work, or is the belief that the majority of Taliban fighters are only
there because they have nothing else to do and no alternative source of income just self-delusion?

The ’Times’ quoted the Taliban’s own website as rejecting the move, saying that they were not fighting for "money, property and position; but for Islam and to end the foreign military presence."
Hypothetically, they could be holding out for better terms and conditions than the $500mn currently being considered. But even if this were the case, could Karzai actually deliver on the plan? His regime is a byword for corruption, even after all the billions of dollars in aid funds and the tremendous involvement of international bodies, foreign governments and armies in trying to rebuild the country. It’s no accident that one of the two authors of the book ’Failed States,’ a trenchant analysis of how even generous foreign aid can rebound in countries like Afghanistan to produce even more corruption, is the country’s former finance minister, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, who unfortunately failed ignominiously in the recent presidential election, not least because of the corruption he has tried so hard to fight. And although there have been all sorts of initiatives to raise profitable cash crops in Afghanistan to replace the opium poppies that satisfy most of the West’s heroin habit, the fact remains that a great deal of the Taliban’s income comes from smuggling drugs across the totally porous border into Pakistan.

On the contrary, it would probably be wiser to take the Taliban at their word and to rethink this initiative before any money is committed by the donor states gathered in London. With the poor controls offered by Karzai’s government, it is almost certain that at least some of the money will end up paying for more weapons, training and infrastructure for Taliban operations. And if this is part of the British exit strategy, so that there are no more British troops left in Helmand province to fight the insurgents and prevent their expansion, both within the Afghani body politic and perhaps outside as well, then the history books of 50 years from now will most probably be analysing how the free world was stupid enough to pay for Taliban’s eventual takeover of Afghanistan, after so much blood was spilled to free the country of them.

Just Dave wrote:I think its a crazy idea to think that they can pay them to stop fighting, in a way that's encouraging them and funding them!

Even so, do we have 500m dollars at the moment?! I think if they were to spend that much money on equipment, weapons and air support (AC-130's etc.) surely that would be a lot more effective!

I really dont see there as being a non-violent way of 'beating' the Taliban.

Kilkrazy wrote:Ford has got 500M dollars. Goldman-Sachs has got 500M dollars.

If we gave 500M dollars to the Taleban they might spend it on their own infrastructure improvements without the Karzai government taking alf of it in bribes.

Necros wrote:Can we pay them to stop fighting, but make every one of em somehow be shot in the balls when they come in to collect their paychecks?

Orkeosaurus wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Ford has got 500M dollars. Goldman-Sachs has got 500M dollars.

If we gave 500M dollars to the Taleban they might spend it on their own infrastructure improvements without the Karzai government taking alf of it in bribes.

What if instead of giving them the money, we gave them some of our banking institutions? That would show those executives.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Seriously though, might this 500 million dollars be better spent in some sort of infrastructure improvement that would allow the Taliban hired guns a chance at better employment?

The OP wrote:the money would supposedly be used to pay for projects and infrastructure that would allow the young men currently fighting among the Taliban ranks to find jobs as guards and in agriculture

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I think the taliban fighters should be identified and shot as enemy combatants in glorious firefights involving B-52s dropping copious loads of bombs on them and their donkey cavalry.

Australia is signing up for this ridiculous idea...

Corvus wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I think the taliban fighters should be identified and shot as enemy combatants in glorious firefights involving B-52s dropping copious loads of bombs on them and their donkey cavalry.

Australia is signing up for this ridiculous idea...

Dakka's resident US Air Force member seconds this notion.

mattyrm wrote:Thats what always happens mate, do you think the IRA would have ever came to the table if they were happily cracking on?

The Taliban are put into a tier system, top tier Taliban can never be rehabilitated, people who are brainwashed since birth, they need killing or capturing.

However lower tiers are known as "Ten dollar Taliban" and many of them are only fighting because they need to eat. It is these people that we will be attempting to reach. They dont know anything about the politics, they are just illiterate young men with a need for money.

I know for a fact that many will be tempted back into the fold, primarily because we are investing alot of effort into winning the hearts and minds of the people and basically throwing money at the problem. The Soviets never tried this, and i know from walking around with the CIMIC team and speaking with many of the people, that a good 80-90% of the locals are generally supportive of the coalition.

But thats war, when you have people that are given an opinion since birth, such as hardline IRA types or top tier Taliban, you can never wipe them all out. You just have to kick their asses for a few years and then do your best to bring them to the table. It takes years, but it works. The British armies operations against the IRA did take a huge toll on them, and there is no way they would sit and a table and thrash a power sharing deal out if they thought they could win their aims through force.

The downside is, its all going to gak again it seems, so we may end up going back over there again... and no doubt we may get some sort of "peace" process in Ganners in the near future, but we aint going anywhere for a LOOONG time yet.

Orlanth wrote:Your credit card can buy off fringe members, and even get the secular leaders, for everything else theres bombs.